I’ve been thinking, it’s all the fried crap you’ve been eating.
Now. Show me how you can ruin a pasta dish and do it in style.
When a witch tells you your diet isn’t up to scratch, man, you’d better listen. I listened. At least I think I was listening, but at some point I blinked and found myself mentally wandering down Norton Street for a short black and a couple of almond biscotti, taking in the fumes. Sorry about that.
Leichhardt has changed a lot in the last ten years, making lies of NSW Tourism’s hyper-Italian boasts: not to put too fine a point on it, but the famous street, the beacon of 80s Sydney multiculturalism’s gotten a lot more multicultural. There are at least two Brazilian churrasco places, for instance, if what you’re after is more meat than any human can possibly stand. You have to pass one to get into the developer’s heaven Italian Forum—that’s an illustration of the Columbian Exchange for you.
There’s the Lebanese place with fluoro decor, looking for all the world as if Scarface had been set in Beirut. Berkelouw’s and the Palace Cinema, the Scylla and Charybdis through which the inner west’s few remaining philistines navigate with care, cater for Leichhardt’s white-bearded, pashmina-shawled bourgeoisie. (Two and a half stars, David). Most brazenly of all there’s the Japanese place, which is so Japanese they put Patagonian Toothfish right there on the menu, as if to say: “What do you want? We’re a Japanese restaurant. Keep your mouth shut or we’ll serve you up some bluefin tuna wrapped in whalemeat, poached in dolphin tears”.1
Since this is a cooking blog, though, I didn’t cheapen out and just order myself up a Bar Italia lunch, as much as I like to do that. I’ve told elsewhere part of my own history with Bar Italia. The place is an institution. Frankly, they do the simple things well, hot coffee, brown toast, as the song goes. If you were a jetlagged traveller in Sydney and you needed a familiar meal cheap, that’s where you’d go first. If you were seventeen and awkward and broke and you wanted a decent place to take your boy or girl on your first date, you couldn’t do better. If there are five of you in a lowered Gemini with a boot full of enormous speakers and you want somewhere to eat before you drive out to Brighton Le Sands, well! You’ve come to the right place.
I like their Amatriciana, but I like mine better. Take tomatoes, passata, an onion, a chilli, garlic, and lots of oil. Penne make a nice pasta to pour it on. Then take the main ingredient, which contrary to popular opinion is not bacon.
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| Pancetta |
Chop them all up thickly, fry the onions and garlic, then add the rest. How’re my aggregate sodium and fat intakes now?
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| Amatriciana with basil, because inauthentic is how I roll. |
Serve up with a salad, accompany with a light $13 cask merlot, and finish off with that tub of Bar Italia passionfruit gelato you’ve got to take away earlier on in the afternoon. You’re only mortal.
1 The sashimi’s good though.
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Fyodor · 28 April 2011, 14:08 · #
Bravo. Worth the wait, but you didn’t specify the pasta. Also: cask merlot? WTFF?
I suggest coppa for your next “Meats of the World”.
Lefty E · 28 April 2011, 14:42 · #
Yum.
Where do you stand on Bresaola? Its like proscuitto – except that its beef. I have it on pizza.
Merlot is a sure route to the darkside. They go that right.
Liam · 28 April 2011, 15:26 · #
Sure I did, Capitonis Maximus. ‘Twas a penne.
I have to say I’ve got space [left] in my heart for almost all of the meats section of the delicatessen, even the Australian natives.
Everything except biltong, which is cursed by God.
Careful, Izquierdista. You’ll summon Him.
Fyodor · 28 April 2011, 16:41 · #
“Sure I did, Capitonis Maximus. ‘Twas a penne.”
Sorry guv – right you are.
“You’ll summon Him.”
I see a guest post in your future.
Casey · 28 April 2011, 19:50 · #
Ooooh, well done Liam. Though you did not mention one single good restaurant in Leichhardt, but never mind. We are talking, rovinati, here. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Mythos or whatever the frack it’s called. You know, where the hen’s nights girls wear little veils on their heads and all dance on the bar like that scene from that movie. What was that movie? Leanne Rhymes sang the song from that movie. Coyote something.
Speaking of rovinare, have you ever sent some clueless friend up to the barista at Bar Italia and suggested that they order the double soy latte cause it’s sooooo goood?
If you haven’t just do it, just for fun.
Further, more rovina. That little boy and girl dress shop that stays open till 1 am in the morning next to Bar Italia, it’s a bordello. I am so convinced but no one believes me. None of my compagni will come in with me to check it out, they have no sense of adventure. Just check the clothes carefully, the child’s batman suit is from 1979. The crap in that shopfront has not changed since my first holy communion and there are never any shoppers in there. Specially at 1 am. Now call me paranoid for wondering why a children’s clothes shop is open after midnight, but I’m sticking with my theory.
Furtherer, there is this small eatery – let’s call it ???, with a very busily mincing waiter, let’s call him ???, who threatens to turn on occasion just for my benefit, that is, when he’s not screaming at me “Just wait your turn, biatch” every time I ask for a glass of water, that does the best cheap pasta and good steak for that matter in Leichhardt imo. When I ask ??? why he works himself so hard at ??? he says he has to get his coke money somehow, darling. If you work out who this is, and where this is, do NOT tell him I said that, as he will know exactly who I am and probably try to choke me to death next time he sees me skipping in for a meal.
Back to rovina. This cooking blog is great. Complimenti. Why it’s like the Picture of Dorian Grey of cooking. And you remain forever young, no matter how much fat you put up on this blog.
I have to go read that comment from Bono now. okay bye.
Liam · 29 April 2011, 10:30 · #
[slaps head] I can’t believe I missed it. Spiritual home of the bride’s mother ordering one more tray of Sambuca shots before everyone does the Zorba dance.
You’re wrong about the Bambini Emporium, by the way. It’s bang in the middle of the three NSW LGAs who most tightly police their sex-on-premises regulations. You want to run a knock shop in Leichhardt, it has to have blacked out windows, bars and remote cameras like an East German town hall and a gigantic neon sign. You know, discreet.
Still… maybe it’s a cash-laundering front for drugs, a parked asset for a dangerous cult, or a funnel for arms to the world’s urban guerrillas?
Adam · 2 May 2011, 13:57 · #
I’ll tell you where is good in Leichhardt for lunch — Bar Sport, down the Parramatta Rd end. Crap name but geez they do good coffee and what seems to me to be quite authentic panini.
The regular crowd of old Italian men can’t be wrong.
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