No, I haven’t been to Porteño. I know I’m missing out. Trust me, the carnivore in me is yearning to satisfy its red meat desires. I want to go so bad it almost hurts. But I can’t. Yet. Because being the utterly considerate social citizen that I am, I’m waiting to go with friends who can’t make it until December, so for now, I’ll read everyone else’s posts and… yearn.
But! I have been to Gardel’s Bar upstairs!
So, because I can’t actually go to Porteño, I kind of pretended to go anyway, even if it meant I was diverted two steps into the restaurant up the stairs into Gardel’s Bar. That’s not such a bad thing. Gardel’s Bar is really super cool, with 50’s style moustached barmen serving up the funkiest of cocktails.
I wanted to take a photo of the bar and barmen. And then I saw the bar menu and totally forgot.
Gardel’s Bar has an awesome bar menu. It’s not huge, but what’s on it is worth its weight in culinary gold, with tapas style sharing plates and individual sliders and mini chilli dogs. So. Brilliant.
smoked kingfish tartare with crispy tortilla
mini chilli dogs with crispy onions
grilled pork belly skewers with roast garlic and jalapenos
We each had a slider and chilli dog, and shared the kingfish tartare and pork belly skewers. Everything was hands down perfect but if I haaaad to pick a favourite? It would be the pork belly skewers. Or the sliders. No, the pork belly skewers.
GAH I DON’T KNOW.
There was only one dessert on the bar menu (liquorice ice cream) so we asked to order from the main restaurant dessert menu. This is allowed, but honestly, I wouldn’t do it again. The desserts were too rich, too overpowering and I didn’t really like either of them.
chocolate pudding with coffee and fernet sabayon served with mandarin ice cream
South American style pavlova
After dinner, I ordered a couple of extra sliders to bring by my Argentinian friend’s house. I also totally grilled him on why South American pavlovas were so gross (basically bottom up: bread, peanut butter, fruit, bread, cream, meringue EWWW) and he was like “wtf man, who orders a South American style pavlova? We don’t make pavlovas, you fool.”
Ok, I get it. Next time I’m skipping dessert and filling up on more sliders and pork belly.
Gardel’s Bar (upstairs at Porteño)
358 Cleveland Street
Surry Hills, NSW, 2010
(02) 8399 1440
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