Cantina Bar & Grill

245 Oxford Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Ph: 02 9357 3033

Our good friend Clayton held his birthday dinner here on a warm balmy night in October. With about 10 guests (small & intimate) we had the $50 per person set menu, which was so much food (even for me the vegetarian) so i can't imagine how stuffed everyone else was feeling.

I have never been to a Spanish restaurant that isn't loud and packed with diners, and a few rowdy tables making the place almost impossible to hear anyone from the otherside of the table talking. This adds to the ambience of the restaurant, and its hard not to have a good time :)

Food came out fairly quickly, lots of tapas dishes, starting with salads and dips, then vegetables, then meat, meat & more meat (so much meat!)

baby spinach salad

w/ roast pumpkin, goats cheese, pine nuts

& grilled peppers

I particularly liked the goats cheese as it was extremely creamy with a strong tang on the tongue. The baby spinach leaves were fresh and un-bruised, a lovely fresh salad with a generous sprinkling of pine nuts on top.

chickpea salad

w/ cucumber, grilled peppers, spanish onion,

mint & manchego cheese

The chickpea salad was VERY healthy, and packed a punch with the added onions and mint. I wasnt sure of what what sprinkled on top, but came home & checked the menu- these cheese was light and not too strong on the palate.

Manchego cheese is the most important and well known sheeps milk cheese in Spain. It is aged for 3 months or longer, semi-firm texture, and ranges from being mild to sharp depending on the time it is aged for.

dip plate

w/ white bean, chickpea, beetroot, pumpkin,

eggplant & grilled olive sourdough

With four types of dip in the bowl, i couldn't help but have sometimes 2 or even 3 dip flavours on my piece of bread. My favourite would have to be the beetroot.

panfried haloumi

w/ chargrilled marinated red pepper & lemon

This one piece was definitely not enough for me or anyone else, we all only got one to two pieces each (depending on how quick we were to grab!). The chewy texture and saltiness, and having been panfried, this little yellow piece of cheese is so enticing!

pan fried field mushrooms

w/ garlic, parsley & jerez

The mushrooms were firm and flavour was soaked right to the middle. The pieces were large and at this stage i was starting to feel full already.

dusted calamari

w/ chilli & lime mayo

chilli tiger prawns

cooked in chilli, tomato, garlic & parsley

patatas bravas

potato cubes w/ onion

chilli & tomato sauce

I've had better patatas bravas (@ El Bulli) and here, they just didn't make me feel the same way. Firstly there weas not enough sauce, and secondly, the potatoes were flavorless.

grilled spanish chorizo

w/romesco sauce

lamb & pork baked meatball

w/ garlic, paprika & tomato

paella w/

calamari, clams, prawns,

mussels, green peas & roasted peppers

The paella came out last (not the first time i've seen it come out last) and by this point everyone was really full, and only really picking the mussels out and trying the rice.

With paying $50 per person, i'd say everyone but me got their money's worth, as half of it was all meaty things. El Bulli still stands as my favourite spanish restaurant, but for Richard to have tried all the meat dishes i think he liked this restaurant very much.

El Bulli

501 Elizabeth Street

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Ph: 9319 5199

This is just one of the many restaurants in Surry Hills that i want to try. I've been to Jazushi, El Bulli, & i want to try monkey magic (review done by Adam enticed me)

I had organised a girl's dinner @ El Bulli. What started out to be 11 girls, turned into 8, then 5, then 7, then back to 5, then down to 4, then a 'should we postpone it?' & 'i'm kind of broke anyways' to a me going 'no! lets do this i've been organizing this for over a month!'

'But it would be more intimate with the four of us, & we can get to know each other better' Says Ann, and so we agreed to meet after work at Surry hills :)

After telling Ann to meet me at the wrong place (i'm hopeless when it comes to directions in the city), we ended up meeting at the restaurant. Was greeted by Mark (the guy who had been taking me bookings, and many changed in numbers of bookings!!)

The restaurant was very narrow, we were taken straight to the back where we had quite a large table for the four of us (partly because  i told them there were 5 of us, JUST INCASE some one was able to make it). The place was full of pretty waitresses, who asked us straight away if we wanted drinks, and proceeded in telling us about the 'white sangria' they were serving specially tonight. We agreed on a jug of strawberry & lime sangria, this came out immediately and without even noticing - the waitress had poured drinks into our glasses already!

Warm staff, candle-lit tables, & a darkly lit interior gave an authentic feel to the restaurant, although the back room that we were in had 3 other large 6+ groups, so it did get abit noisy as the night progressed. In the middle of the restaurant, the cooridor between the back room and the front, had single tables for two - this immediately made me think of Rick, and that we could come here together next time just the two of us :)

The sangria - was so refreshing & Sweet! I will NEVER drink red sangria again this was just beautiful i loved it. The jug looked so pretty with its mint leaves, & generous pieces of strawberries :]

Shirley & Anita

Ann & Me (don't you just love the background?)

After alot of ooh-ing & aah-ing at the menu, grumbling tummys & sangria drinking we decided on ordering the potatoes el bulli, olive oil & tomato bruscetta, mussel stew, garlic tomato prawns & one serving of paella.

The potatoes - were to DIE for they were unbelievably full of flavour, i think they were deep fried, then smothered in this tangy, creamy sauce, topped with coriander - i am definately coming back for this dish, and there was another one on the tapas meanu - i'll take that one too!! All the girls LOVED this dish the most.

We wanted some dipping bread so ordered this tomato olive oil bruscetta. We also had some complimentary bread with aoli sauce, which we asked for some more (gotta love aoli sauce with ANYTHING). This bread though was DRENCHED in olive oil, it pretty much dripped as soon as we bit into them, not a good thing if you're wearing make up. Shirley gave up her piece so i ended up having it (anyway, olive oil, is GOOD oil!!)

Mussel stew, the mussels were so soft, tender, not chewy, & came with a yummy semi-thick soup for us to dip our breads into (and to slurp noisily hehe)

I was amazed at the ease of chewing these, i'm so used to the chewy type ones you get at other places. "thats because they were cooked for a while in the soup" says SHirley. This girl knows her seafood :)

Anita was raving on about this prawn dish (she had previously had garlic prawns somewhere, and fell in love). These prawns, totally came from the freezer, they weren't very meaty, but the sauce half made up for the lack of fresh. Again, another good bread dipping dish.

This paella for one was shared between the three girls (was chicken laced through it, i could not have any). After picking out all the mussels, crab & lemon pieces onto another plate, the girls dug into the rice. Shirls is a big fan of paella i know it from just watching her devour a few servings haha. This was about $28, so i'd say good value for money. I've had paella for $85 (serves 4-5 people), @ Captain Torres close to Chinatown, Near the 3 wise monkeys, now THAT paella was delicious (i want to go back, and do a food review!!)

All in all, i had a great time with the girls, the food & service was nice, the sangria was superb (by the way, we ordered a 2nd jug half way through our meals, the peachy sangria, which was nicer because it was sweeter). I would definitely come back here with Rick and have those yummy chat potatoes again.

Bankstown Sports Club - La Piazza

8 Greenfield Parade
Bankstown NSW 2200
tel. 02 9722 9888
fax. 02 9793 9355

Bankstown sports club is the place to meet for us westies. It beats mounties, cabravale diggers and cabramatta leagues hands down. We tried the pizza and pasta on the other side the last time, so we decided to try out the Spanish Tapas on the far end this time.

We ordered a mixed plate of seafood, a dozen mornay oysters, a big bowl of chips, salad, bbq baby octopus, stuffed button mushrooms, deep fried fish cakes, gnocchi in a creamy white sauce & mussells.


The waitress asked if we wanted parmesan cheese on the gnocchi, Betty and I both answered yes straight away. We then realised the rest of the table didn't like parmesan. How bad is that? When in Rome.... haha. We all dug into random tidbits here and there but barely touched the salad. Probably because the rest of the food was so appealing and so much better than a plain old salad.


I think the mixed plate of seafood for seven people was definately not enough to have it evenly divided between all of us so we all had to sacrifice ourselves and have little bits only. Apart from that it was a pretty decent plate with balmain bug, bbq octopus and beer battered fish. It's what you can expect from a club but with a bit more flavour.


A dozen mornay oysters is definatly not enough for seven people. I reckon I could finish the whole platter on my own! The cheese on the outer layer was nice and stretchy, much like the cheese you get on the top of the lasagne from pizza hut. Inside was a creamy, creamy cheese with a yummy oyster underneath.


Surprisingly, the chips here are completely different to any chips i've ever had. There are little crumbs on the outside, I'm not entirely sure what they are, but they add so much extra flavour to the chips! You could easily eat these chips without any added salt or sauce.


The bbq baby octopus were my favourite for tonight's dinner. They were barbequeued perfectly with the little tentacles curled up into slightly crunchy little pieces. The sauce added an extra savoury taste to the octopus completing what I think is an awesome plate of baby octopus.



The button mushrooms were stuffed. I don't know what with but I do know they were stuffed. It was a little bland but the butter it was drenched in made up for the blandness. Next to the mushrooms we had the deep fried fish cakes. They were pretty average when compared to the thai fish cakes we've had in Newtown, although they are a pretty good attempt.


Thinking about the gnocchi makes my mouth water. They were light, fluffy and swimming in a creamy, creamy sauce. I loved this the most out of the whole selection of food we had tonight! The parmesan cheese made it even better, but our friends would insist otherwise... *death stare* =P

LAstly, the mussels were cooked in a slightly spicy tomato based sauce. They were cooked quite well without being too rubbery. The chilli in the tomato based sauce made it a very good dish. I especially liked having more sauce than mussel in my mouth at the same time. Awesomeness.


Overall I'd say that the Bankstown sports club is a great value for money place to come to eat at. The food is good for the price and the service is fairly quick depending on the amount of people in the club at the same time. I'd come back with friends any time! (since I'm a member, I might as well use my card haha!)