Winter! Spring! 2025 !

First thing – I’m sorry. I haven’t written to you in months. I have been, indeed, a very busy Bee. Sorry to the anti-immigration protestors, but yes, I have in fact, taken everyone’s job! I worked three of them in these months, alongside full time uni – and a research project. But it’s been good to me. What a pleasure. I’m back here now. Happy 2026!  Here are the good places I’ve been eating (and stellar dishes!), alongside some commentary by my friends. 

Grandfather’s by Bee and Marina (Crispy Skin Pigeon + Sticky Date Pudding)

Preface by Marina: We had almost given up on our perfect outing – No bookings available for Saturday September 27th. With a Dior skirt and a dream, I bravely swung open the heavy glass doors of Angel Place’s newest spectacle: Grandfather’s. Kitten heels wobbling on the plush red carpet, I managed to secure a table for 5 at 6pm. I felt like Gucci mane in 2006. 

Back to Bee: 2025 was the year where we all got more Chinese. 

Sydney’s hottest – and for a reason. It seems the Clam Bar team, responsible for Neptune’s Grotto, Pelligrino’s and Bistro 916 (R.I.P) popped out once more – this time with Grandfathers in the former Long Chim space. I hate Sydney’s demented streak of hegemonic hospitality groups but this crowd knows how to get it right. Glowing red – like a burn, a fever, a fading Christmas light – the space is sexy, sleazy and packed. There’s white baubles of light, spherical and angelic (like the street name – Angel Place) and an old-world cassette blue glow from the live fish tanks. 

Time feels a little slower here, with the liminality of a movie set. Usually this sort of interior – c-shaped swirly couches, suave waiters that sling their arms on the seat rests – is reserved for bars in Mayfair or Paris or Hong Kong. It gets me giddy because I can’t believe Sydney has a place like this.

Chinese cuisine, typically, is known to Australians as a cheap-thrill – a succulent, democratic, round-the-clock warm-box usual. However, to me, what I admire most about Chinese cuisine – specifically from Sichuan, Canton, Guangdong – is its opulence. The excess, the drama – the lazy Susan table, the sky-high prices for luxury seafood (still squirming in the tank), the flame, the numbing chilli. I have an affinity for the frivolous, and frivolous Grandfather’s was.

The highlight (of a fucking whopping massive meal) was the crispy skin pigeon with black vinegar & five spice salt. Schizophrenics will tell you they are spies but I will tell you they are a main worth buying. Take a bite and you’ll hear a crackle, – a sort of meek crunch through the bird’s honeyed skin, like a fire just starting. Of course, the meat is tender and juicy and all the bones are mini and kind of scary. But it’s so good. Go sparingly with the salt (served on the side) and hold onto it for the other dishes.

Hey woah Marina again: Part of me was preparing myself to be disappointed by another mediocre dessert from an otherwise great Sydney restaurant; but Grandfather’s did not come to playyyyyy. Sydney dessert scene? More like desert scene. Haha. Instead of seasonal gelato and some Asian twist on tiramisu, Grandfather’s offers sticky date pudding – theirs done with steamed sticky rice in lotus leaf peppered with date caramel and topped with vanilla ice cream. To be honest, I do not remember much of the dessert because it was gone as soon as it hit the table. Steaming hot, caramelly sticky rice cooled with creamy vanilla ice cream… what else is there to say!!!! As if our night couldn’t get any better, Dom masterfully captured the blur of our eager spoons digging into the bamboo steamer on her digicam. Best dinner ever.

Late Night Table by Kenton

I walked into Late Night Table mad as hell to be honest. Everything was wet, my feet hurt, and now we were being told it was a half-hour wait for a table. But remembering the same Instagram ad sent maybe a dozen times into our groupchat, half an hour was nothing compared to the promise of fresh raw seafood, hearty warm soup, and fucked fruit-topped drink concoctions only Koreans could come up with. A quest through half of North Strathfield to find the elusive mart made the time go by. It also probably helped that the wait was actually 10 minutes. Maybe I was being dramatic (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) . 

Sat at a round table with warm, dim lights, we wasted no time in ordering what Instagram promised us: the insane fruit highballs; creamy prawn pasta served in the most ridiculous bread bowl; bubbling spicy fish cake hotpot, odeng skewers begging to be grabbed; and of course, the sashimi hand roll platter with ikura, uni, and scallop (!!!)……..and cockle bibimbap? Who ordered that? 

Surprisingly, a hit. Call me a stereotype, but having a rice dish nicely wrapped up our not-so-little catch up feast, like how Chinese restaurants serve fried rice as the last course, in the event you’re somehow still hungry. Were we all stuffed? Yes, but tiny spoonfuls of cockles dressed with mayo and specks of seaweed on rice filled the scarce silence between crude conversations, obnoxious laughs and digicam photos, so sooooo well. Salty (in the ocean way),  tangy and easy to eat – for me, the cockle bibimbap was a fitting  accompaniment to a drink and a simple hangout. 

Cairo Takeaway by Tan

Although they’ve had their praises sung many times from the past years, with their recent legal troubles I think they deserve an encore. 

BB and I take the long walk down the other side of Newtown (Enmore Road), bump into an old friend and light a cigarette waiting for a seat at this community fixture. Egypt’s culinary embassy is packed tonight, the stream of bodies – plenty of whom were helmet-clad with foil lined bags – dip themselves in and out of the liquor of sumac and smoke. I get flashbacks from the sound of the UberEats chime. 

Cairo’s vibe is honest. You watch the staff glide around each other’s backs, ladles plop thick dips onto plates with confidence, bread ripped by hand. That honesty is in the food; the meat plate is a serving size I’d give myself at home, a fat heap of bread, even fatter heaps of lamb kofta and chicken, and a cute splatter of pickle (oooh those were so juicy) and salad. This is a grade-A meal – a perfect pairing for confessions and debriefs and leaving your mouth agape, grass-green with falafel.

And the fries are so fucking good with their spice mix I didn’t even care my mouth was cut up. 

De Glorious by Bee

Bee’s dish of the year. Read all about it here. 

Puja Goat Curry by Marina (sorry not a restaurant) 

Since October 2024, my heart longed for the goat curry served to me on a white plastic plate at my very first Durga Puja. A year later, in a new saree with a new friend, I was reunited with my love; this time hunched over on a metal seat in the primary school parking lot. My favourite dish of all time is not one from a trending asian-fusion Merivale venue in Wynyard, but cooked in giant pots stirred by Bengali uncles wearing birkenstocks. My Japanese palate cannot even identify the mystical potion of spices in this goat curry; all I know is it makes my heart sing and my cheeks flush with glee. Wrist deep in curry and basmati rice, I’ve never felt more beautiful. 

Before I knew it, I had torn apart my chunk of slow cooked goat and licked my plate clean. Maybe it is the rarity (scarcity? Happens only once a year?) of Puja that makes it so delicious, or maybe the Bangladeshi people are just incredible cooks. Regardless, I will see you in 2026, my beloved goat curry. 

Getbawi by Bee and Marina (Abalone Porridge) 

After months of dragging Dom along to every corner of Sydney, we finally ventured over the bridge to her home turf – Eastwood. As soon as we saw the faded DIY underwater murals and askew IU posters lining the walls of Getbawi, we knew we were in good hands. Also, the chef was Nepalese – so again – good hands. 

Our order was gluttonous, as any Korean seafood order should be.

Hidden among plates of glistening sashimi and the simmering pot of spicy seafood jjampong, a humble chun-glazed bowl of abalone porridge would end up being our favourite dish of the night. Perhaps it was the underdog-ness of it; the fact that an easy sick-at-home dish outshined the raw seafood?

Served with nothing but a drizzle of sesame oil and a modest mound of thin-cut seaweed, the porridge tasted like it was wealthy and had lots of wisdom. Actual pieces of abalone were meagre, but it was fun to dig for. You must have thought all five of us were digging in a pot of honey the way we all were in that bowl like Winnie the Pooh. 

Alberto’s Lounge by Dominique (Anchovy Crostino) 

As winter faded into spring, Marina, Bee, and I merrily trotted to Dipti Khera’s beautiful lecture about Indian scrolls hosted by The Power Institute. Leaving with our brains fed but our stomachs grumbling, we were too geeked – immediately nestled in one of the notoriously intimate corners of Alberto’s Lounge (the disgraced Swillhouse group lives on, it seems). 

The first of many dishes ordered on our first ever girls’ night was the anchovy crostino served with mozzarella and bottarga. A little habit I have developed, wherever I dine, is to save a small bite of my favourite starter for my future self so that I can end the meal on a guaranteed high note.

Now, I’ve always been apprehensive about anchovies but the moment I tasted the brininess of the anchovy with the mildness of mozzarella, the crispy baguette and the shaved bottarga – AND the lemon zest altogether; I felt like Remi in that scene where he was tasting colours and sparkles. Needless to say, I ended the delicious meal at Alberto’s with the (now slightly soggy) corner of the crostino and have been annoyingly vocal about my craving for it ever since. 

Honourable mentions by Bee: 

• Ichigo Cream Soda (November Special) at Bistro Kai. This was the best mocktail I ever had? It literally tasted like a strawberries and cream chupa chup. 
• Soft egg yolk, charcuterie jam and parmesan custard at Continental Bistro. If I were ordering alone, this little egg-cup served bite would have just remained a 2 second gaze. But thankfully, I was dining with my friend who’s an artist – so he has an affinity to imagine potential. In its small, egg shell confines – the layers of custard, jammy yolk and jammier parts of charcuterie bits and bobs was wildly savoury. GET IT!!! 

Thank you for reading everyone, I missed you! Stay Busy! Xx