Bowery Lane

Birthday celebrations with some of the extended family are the best! Exploring new places in Sydney, and when you have more people, that means you can order more as well, hehe. Bowery Lane is ' inspired by industrial-era New York, plating upscale Modern Australian cuisine.'

entrance

cute plants

bar

dinner

The restaurant filled up very quickly from 6.30 to 7.30pm. Food came out relatively quick. We opted to share a few dishes. Service was attentive initially but towards the night when it got quite busy even on a Wednesday night, it was hard to catch their attention.

Slow cooked lamb shoulder, ancient grains, chermoula, mustard cream

This was the crowd favourite, and I highly recommend. Lamb was tender and falling off the bone, with a decent portion for the price. It was accompanied with some texture from the grains and chickpeas. You could really taste the lamb flavour rather than a salty sauce. The sauce was a bit lemony, and helped to keep the flavour of the lamb more distinct.

Crisp pork belly, cider baked apple, quince paste, upland cress-$59

The menu didn't say crackling pork although we were hoping for it, so the skin was super tough to cut into considering it's still meant to be crisp. The portion was also smaller for the price you pay. Pork was average, cooked well and not too salty either. Loved how they gave you a whole apple which was super soft. Would have liked more sauce and and the quince paste (which kind of tasted like apple). 

Spring bean spinach risotto, lemon creme fraiche-$26

Another favourite from the table. Super creamy risotto without the richness compared to other risottos since they used fresh greens, and creme fraiche.

hand picked spanner crab: roasted fish bone dressing, macadamia, coastal plants-$23

The crab was nicely seasoned with quite a unique sauce-slightly sweet and acidic. Could also taste the sweetness from the crab itself. Loved how it came with bread to mop up some of the sauce.

New York Cheeseburger, angus beef, house made ketchup, fries-$23

The burger was below par for the price you pay. It reminded me of Maccas but more refined. At least the meat was pink inside. The bread was a bit too toasted, so parts of it was actually hard. Fries were also pretty average, and didn't have much potato inside even for french fries....

They also charge $25 for cakege for the table, which is quite expensive for a restraurant (excluding fine dining as they either don't let you bring a cake for charge $5pp....). I guess it's the memories which count, which makes up for the cakeage. (These photos were uploaded before my phone died...) They did give 2 sparkler candles which were fun, since if you didn't blow them out completely, the spark would reignite the wick and make a flame again. Half of us continuously ate throughout the day so wasn't really hungry when dinner came. I think these dishes plus a rich cake which I brought were just enough to make everyone full. If we were all starving and didn't have dessert, would probably needed to order 2 more dishes.

The Butcher's Block

This is the 'it' cafe for locals in this area, and I was finally in the area to try this cafe out,

We arrived at around 12pm, and got a seat out at the back without waiting. We came out at around 1.30ish, and there were heaps of people waiting, but mainly families waiting for the big tables since it was school holidays.

Entrance looks small...

It's actually a narrow but long cafe and quite a lot of seating. The tables aren't too squished together. They actually grow some chillies, some veges and fruits around their garden wall.

menu (the menu online doesn't have prices...)

drinks

large capp: $4

Marsala chai (spicy): $6

We expected the food to be expensive here, since this is in the north after all. It's similar toWild Pear Cafe in Dural where the prices are at least $20 and average $25, whereas in the city you can get a decent dish for around $15. Surprisingly the drinks are quite cheap in comparison t6o the food (and relative to other cafes haha). You can get a smoothie for $6.50 and it looks quite big and they have at least 4 flavours. I decided to get the chai this time since I saw the person next to me ordered it, and it looked quite cute. It comes out on a wooden board, the milk is already added into the tea, and there's around 2 cups from it. First cup I didn't let it soak in the spices for longer, second cup I poured definitely was more flavourful. Loved all the spices here. They also put a dash of honey into your cup beforehand.

No coffee art here for this capp, and the coffee was more on the weak side and not as much froth. It was quite hot as well and may be slightly burnt (I prefer my coffee not too hot, more of the drinking temp hot). Hot water here cost $2, the most expensive by far. In The Rocks, almost all restaurants/cafe charge $1 for hot water, so $2 is pretty ridiculous. Pretty sure they want you to just spend that extra $1.50 for a regular coffee...

foood

The Butcher's Burger: beef brisket, wagyu beef mince, jack cheese, onion rings, smokey bbq sauce, fries-$20

the meat!

Almost every table ordered the burger (or the quinoa salmon salad), so it looked like it's a must try, and so glad we ordered it. The meat had so much flavour. Liked how they use different cuts of beef here. The cheese used reminded me of American burgers...Onion rings sounded cool in a burger, but they weren't that special. Probably would have like a little bit of salad to lighten the burger. The fries weren't that great and there wasn't any sauce/aioli (ended up dipping it in the leftover pasta sauce and it was delish). The chips were kind of flat and slightly hollow. Our batch was more on the borwn side compared to other people which were golden brown.

Crab, lobster and prawn pasta: capellini pasta, fresh herbs, saffron, cream-$29

Probably one of the best pasta's I've had, and for a cafe, this is definitely good quality. It did take a little longer to come out, but I guess it's expected. The night before someone was cooking lobster on Masterchef, and then I had a lobster craving especially since I haven't had lobster in ages. Was going to get the lobster tail and in hindsight glad I didn't since it was quite a small bread roll and lobster tail. Pretty sure they use the rest of the lobster for this dish, as there were heaps of generous pieces of juicy lobster scattered throughout. There was actually less crab and prawn...so yes, well worth your money. Pasta was cooked al dente (: Seems expensive for cafe food, but in restaurants, a pasta is normally over $25+. Saffron the most expensive spice in the world, and loved how it added a sweetness to the sauce. 

The pasta was definitely a lot more worth compared to the $33 crispy skin smoked salmon. Yes, crispy skin is hard to perfect, but looking over at the table next to us, the salmon was tiny, smaller than Devon Cafe's Breakfast with the Sakuma's and more expensive as well. The salmon was only accompanied with salad and nothing else.

So if you're ever in this area up north, make it your lunch location (: