Buon Ricordo

It’s Mothers’ Day today. I took mum out to dinner last night at Buon Ricordo, an Italian restaurant in Paddington. I just have to say that parking around the area is damn near impossible to find (at least on a Saturday night).

Buon Ricordo is a well regarded 2-hatted Italian restaurant run for almost 20 years by Armando Percuoco, a character who at one stage in the night came upstairs and announced, “Making food is like making love to a woman! You have to take it nice and slow… but unlike women, you’re always guaranteed a result with food!” We ate a la carte, although they do have a degustation menu which doesn’t appear on their printed menu so I assume you have to ask waitstaff for it. It’s safe to say that it’s among the best Italian restaurants in Sydney, out of the hundreds there are. Their signature dish is the fettuccine al tartufovo, which comes topped with a fried egg which has been infused with truffle (vaguely similar to how Chinese pei daan are prepared, but without any discolouration) and parmesan which is freshly grated for you at the table. They also toss the pasta for you and when the egg yolk is broken, the truffle aroma immediately bursts into the air. Yum.

The interior decor is warm and pleasingly well lit. Buon Ricordo seats a decent amount of people on two levels, but it’s not a noisy restaurant. Service is efficient and courteous. Apart from the issue with getting there and finding parking, if you’re in the mood to splurge a bit for great Italian cooking, I’d recommend this place. Expect to spend about $100pp for a three course a la carte meal, not including drinks.

  1:26pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Food  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (2)  • 

Three-quarter Pounder

After reading this article about McDonald’s gluttony, Doz and I decided to go through Maccas and perform a little independent verification. It’s been a while since they’ve offered the Triple Cheeseburger, so we decided to improvise and order a Triple Quarter Pounder (couldn’t quite bring ourselves to go for a full pound) – three 110gm patties and slices of cheese. We pulled up at the drive-thru window:

“Hi, could we get two medium value meals with quarter pounders – but could we have three beef patties and three cheese slices?”
The person at the register a tiny Indonesian girl, who was busy punching in the order paused and looked up.
“So you um… want quarter pounders, but with uh… three patties of beef?”
“And three slices of cheese.”
This brief look of repulsion crossed over her face and then she was trying her hardest not to smile. She looked down at her screen and started taking deep breaths. She pressed a few buttons.
“That will be uhhh… $9.55 for each meal,” she finally said, mouth crinkled at the edges.
“Yeah yeah, we’re hungry.”

We got to the second window and another girl stuck her head out. “Hey are you the guys that ordered the modified quarter pounder meals?”I could have sworn she was looking at us with this strange smile – one that said, “you sick, sad people, I feel sorry for you”.
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be three minutes. Please wait in the waiting zone.”

About five minutes later, another person emerged with our meal. Despite the fact that there was no one else waiting for anything outside the drive-thru queue, he asked, “What are you waiting for?”
“Uh, quarter pounder meals? … With three patties?”
Snigger. “Heh. Yep, here you go.”

The weight of the bag was heavy, and the burgers were dense.

  12:29pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Food  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (6)  •