RAILS RESTAURANT - Hornsby

What a surprise Rails was! As a long-term local, I have known this location through quite a few of its re-incarnations. Rails looked good, promised to be good, but as just another new local, didn't motivate me to visit until now (probably a year into its trade?).

Firstly, I wasn't expecting more than mediocre, even being a very optimistic person as a rule. Parking isn't the best, but after leaving the dark murky locale, peeking in to the well lit corner windows as I found the door, I was really excited. The space is modern, but not up itself. There is a great ceiling feature, a purple barrel light shade with radiating features making it quite a focal point of the room. Timber window frames, lots of windows (always good), timber floor, seats and plain but smart white placesettings.

As I waited for my group to arrive, the staff were attentive and switched on, and nice with it. At this stage, it should also be known that the chef Matthew De Luca was formerly at "The Watermark" in Balmoral..a place I had always meant to get to, but never quite did. How glad I am that Matthew has set up shop in my locality.

The menu promised much. Again, I was expecting an overpromise..I was nicely surprised. As we were a group of ex school friends, being female, it was more about the conversation than anything else in the universe at that point..so straight to mains so I missed the opportunity for duck pancakes...always a favourite. But..I'm sure I will return soon.

I had a sensational Ocean Trout Fillet with a capsicum, spinach, potato and zucchini lasagne, poached asparagus, sea scallops and salse verde. It was $28 but was well worth it. (see photo above).

Another outstanding option was the Veal Osso Bucco pie with spinach, green beans, sugar snap peas served with truffle potato mash and dutch carrots for $26. Beautifully presented and delicious to-boot!

Other mains were the twice cooked Pork belly, and Lemon Thyme Roast Duck Breasts, but as I have had both PB and Duck in the last fortnight, I thought I'd pick the Fish option. Others at our table enjoyed the Morrocan Crusted WA Lamb, and the Grain Fed Rib Eye..with suitably yummy and complex accompaniements. There was also a North Qld King Prawn Risotto on offer, but the fish came calling and I had to comply.

Again, due to the talkfest that ensued, dessert was not on the menu tonight, but check out the website http://www.railsrestaurant.com.au/ to see what we COULD have had.

A great feature of this restaurant is that there is a reasonable kids menu, and on Tuesday nights after 6pm, kids eat free with each main meal purchased. Really, its a hidden gem in our locale and should be supported at all costs! So, if you have any special occasions coming up, you should at least give RAILS a try. Please make sure you book.

On a final note, the staff really were easy going and never made us feel we were a bother..even though they had to almost put the lights out to make us leave! Hapi Eating!

El Phoenician, Parramatta

Happy Anniversary Weh-weh!!

To celebrate in style I thought we’d try something out of the ordinary, for our palate anyway.

It was quite an experience just trying to book and get to this place. I found El-Phoenician through a restaurant guide website and tried to book through the site only to be told that the restaurant is not registered with them. Good for El-Phoenician as they’re getting free advertising and ratings but bad for me cos I couldn’t book online :(

Secondly I was trying to get to their onsite car park and nearly drove into the Parramatta river – they should really fence that part of the road off. Anyway we made it unscathed and really hungry....

I would describe this place as very Melbourne-esque with the restaurant sitting on the bustling Church Street, outdoor street dinning with heated lamps, trendy dark wood trimmings and wine bottles shelved in back lit wall cavities for decor, a very nice looking establishment.

Lebanese Food, it’s recommended in the menu to order a variety of dishes to share amongst the table. I found it quite amusing that the menu divided the mains as Vegetarian, Seafood, Meat & Poultry...and Lamb. Last time I checked Lamb was in the meat category lol. Meat & Poultry Platter for two (it included Lamb) sounded fulfilling to our now ravenous stomachs :)

The meal started off with Homous, Tabouli, Kabeess (A plate of olives, pickled cucumbers, turnips, radish and whole chillies) served with Lebanese bread and deep fried oregano bread.

At first taste of the Homous and the Tabouli we found out that our local kebab shop is not doing these dishes any justice. The tastes of these two dishes were sensational. You could taste that it was freshly made with fresh ingredients. I may be ranting and raving over a dip made of chickpeas, smoked paprika, tahini and lemon juice but my tastebuds could taste every ingredient separately, and when your brain combines all those taste sensations together it was totally enjoyable. I’m also a huge Tabouli fan and this would have to be the best one I have tasted. Weh-weh and I had to keep checking each other’s teeth for any runaway parsley leaves lol. On paper this entree doesn’t sound like much, but it took us just under an hour to nibble through these dishes which already started filling us up. Oh and lesson learned...just because the whole chillies are pickled doesn’t mean they’re not hot!!! Don’t eat them whole like I did – Water water!!

Then the main course came, crispy fried potato chunks with coriander dressing, mixed leaf salad, spicy lamb and parsley sausages and large skewers of meaty goodness on a bed of toasted Lebanese bread. The skewers were huge, about the length of my forearm. There was lamb marinated in red wine and vinegar, spiced lamb mince, and chicken marinated in spices and tomato puree.

Wow, again I couldn’t believe the taste sensations. All the meats were cooked to perfection, very tender and just screaming of flavour. The combination of spices and lemon juice blend really well with the flavour of the meat. There must be an OH&S policy with the skewers as every time I finished one, a waiter swooped on it taking it straight to the kitchen making sure to hold it pointy side down.

Just when we stuffed ourselves and were ready to roll out, the lights were dimmed, the front doors were closed, the booming Arabian music was turned up and out came 3 belly dancers chanting and prancing past each table. There is certainly an art to belly dancing it’s not just about shaking your belly around -they could do some extraordinary things using their ab-muscles. Three fabulous dances were performed in the centre of the dining area then they ran around each table trying to coax guests to dance with them. The girls tried their hardest to convince me to get up and wobble my belly around. But after such a fulfilling meal my belly wasn’t going to wobble at all. Lol!!

A truly different enjoyable experience that I would definitely do again – maybe next time I might be prepared for a belly wobble - Ahlalalalal!! he he :P

Oh and apologies for the poor quality pics my camera battery was dying so the flash was doing funny things.

Till next time...we eat!!

Shanks