The Gelato was good…

I is for Italian Street Kitchen

On Saturday a small group of us went to Italian Street Kitchen for lunch. This is the first time I think I have said this, but I am not in a hurry to go back there.

Don’t get me wrong about this, it’s not a bad place, just not that good. Some of the food was good, most of it was just…ok. The coffee, the pasta and a lot of the stuff was ok. Just a bit bland, for my liking. I am not saying all dishes must contain chili, I am saying if you call yourself Italian Street Kitchen, at least have food that lives up to your decor.

I liked the look of the place, it was kind of rustic and kind of trendy at the same time. The menu was on a little folded bit of paper. The walls and ceiling made me think it was trying for a more homely look. I liked that you could see the chefs cooking. I liked the staff. To the eye the place is very nice.

Even Bad would be good

I have eaten at bad places before, I like bad food. I like food sometimes where I think the chef gave up and thought, “doesn’t matter it’s just fried meat and fried potatoes who cares”. I also like food where you not 100% certain what it is you’re eating, no matter how many times you read the menu, and you’re not even sure that the chef new what the dish on the menu was. I sometimes like venues where the staff barely want to serve you, and do it out of the thought that a real place would fire them (I have only been in this situation twice, I think, and both times the staff in question were the kids of the owners and the owners were the cooks). I like the look of places where you feel like you just walked into some dystopian sci fi movie and any minute now someone is going to scream that the lasagne is people or something along those lines.

This place looked nice though. It looked trendy(?), not sure if that’s the right word here, I think they were going for hip. The staff seemed vibrant. The menu is on a massive board behind the counter, as well as the folded ones at the tables I mentioned earlier. The place was packed. Not completely full but full enough that early on I felt we were lucky to get a table.

I looked around and saw a lot of people eating pizza. They looked good but I didn’t get pizza. I looked at the board and saw pork belly, with roast potatoes and rosemary. That was what I got, I also got fried gnocchi with truffle filling. To drink, I got a long black.

The coffee was ok. Not burnt, not great. Ok.

The fried gnocchi came out. The filling of the gnocchi was good, I really liked the filling, the gnocchi though was bland. On it’s own I would have eaten it, but I would also have been thinking that I could probably get this at a grocery store.

The more I think about the more I realised how many people were eating pizza there. Maybe we should have just done that, and maybe this review wouldn’t be about a place that’s ok, but instead would be about a place that had great pizza. I didn’t get the pizza though. So here we are. Bland city, sort of.

One of my friends got the anchovies as an entree, these were really good. These were possibly some of the best anchovies I have ever eaten. They don’t make up for the pasta though.

The pork belly came out, with the side of roast potatoes. The pork belly was actually pretty good. It was the right level of salty and pretty succulent. The crackling was crunchy. Not the best I have had, GK Take Away I already miss you, but pretty good. It disappeared quickly. The potatoes were not crunchy, but looked to me like they should have been, they were cooked well, but there wasn’t much rosemary on them. I was told the beef was good too. The pasta dishes were all a bit bland though.

The nutella calzone with hazelnut ice cream was actually pretty good. Now that I think about it, between that and seeing how many people got the pizza instead of anything else, maybe the place is fantastic at pizza. Anyone know? I’ll have to find out.

The Gelato was good…

My favourite bit of Italian Street Kitchen was around the corner from the place. There is a gelato place called “Quench”. I got coffee gelato and cookie dough gelato. It was pretty good. Coffee is my control flavour when it comes to anything, if it’s available. I love coffee, especially espresso, and I am willing to admit that not everything coffee flavoured is great, but this was really good. I would happily become a repeat customer to Quench. Next time I am going to try the dark chocolate.

I want to mix it with chili.

Shush, you all knew it was coming.

Good night all.