Top 10 dishes of 2008
It's been a helluva year for eating in Sydney. Myffy Rigby picks 10 of the best for 2008
1. Sweet corn soup at Etch
The latest offering from Justin North, this restaurant has been 2008's dark horse – opening just at the end of the year with stunning food for low prices. If there's one thing you eat here, make it the incredibly floral sweet corn and blue swimmer crab soup enriched with sherry cream– a marvel from first spoonful till last. It's as if a crab ate a garden of hothouse flowers then took a bath in sherry-enriched cream.
2. 'Nduja piadina at La Piadina
Brothers Damiano and Fausto Zizioli are the only people to be doing piadina (a type of filled flat bread common in northern Italy) Sydney. Our favourite is the 'nduja – a kind of soft spicy sausage, a bit like pate (say it like en-doya). Thin, slightly scorched flat bread is made from dough that's rolled out super thin, spread on a hotplate then filled, folded and sliced. Summer in Bondi never looked so yum.
3. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung
Eating these pockets of lava-hot deliciousness can be perilous. Pop the whole thing in your mouth and you'll burn the skin off your cheeks; bite it the wrong way and you'll cover the table in hot pork stock. The trick is to take a delicate bite from the top, then drink the soup out of the dumpling.
4. Dulce de leche éclair at Adriano Zumbo
Any restaurant in town could serve one of these desserts and be proud of what they're putting on the plate. Layers of fine pastry hold a gooey custard and dulce de leche cream centre, topped with South American caramel.
5. Wild boar bruschettina at the Beresford
At the Beresford, Danny Russo lays ribbons of pure white lard, very thinly streaked with meat, over bits of mini-toast. Pair it with a tankard of beer and you're laughing.
6. Chicken and cashew mansaf at Almustafa
If you want something you won't find in every restaurant this side of Marrickville, you want to order the chicken mansaf. Roast chook is torn into strips on pilaf with chopped and toasted pine nuts and cashews scattered over the top and served with garlic yoghurt and chilli sauce. It is, indeed, the business.
7. SUSHIan roulette at Wagaya
Six pieces of salmon sushi are arranged like the barrel of a gun and one of them is jam-packed with wasabi. From the outside, each of the pieces is lightly painted in the massively hot paste, so there's no way of telling which is the eye-waterer.
8. The Lucio at Lucio Pizzeria
The Lucio is the pizzeria's crowning glory, and its answer to the much-loathed (by pizza chefs) 'half 'n' half'. You really need to see it to believe it, but it's half a Margherita (tomato, mozzarella, baby basil) and half a calzone (just like a pizza only folded), filled with fluffy ricotta and strips of ham. Oh, mama!
9. Choripan at Bodega Café
This Argentinean café operates as a bar by night, but during the day you'll find the Abrahanowiczs working behind the bar serving choripan - that's a soft white roll filled with chorizo sausage and chimichurri. And it's only a tenner.
10. Three Colours Bloody Mary at Bentley Bar
Okay, okay, it's actually Three Colours Gazpacho, but order vodka (Grey Goose is perfect for this) on the side and you have an instant flight of exciting Bloody Marys – almond, celery and tomato.
