About: Tucked on a side street off Victoria Street in Darlinghurst, you wonder what people are doing when you see a crowd of chirpy inner city diners waiting around to be seated. Passing pedestrians look around and ask themselves – is this place any good?
Lucky for those who are waiting for a seat, the food is good, well-priced and well worth the wait. Buffalo Dining Club offers simple Italian fare in a wine bar style. There’s nothing wrong with simple food…as long as it’s done well!
Food and drink: Once you get inside, it’s rustic, clean and it’s all about celebrating the food. So, naturally, I look up at the blackboard and spot dishes that are designed to share. I expect great things from their cheese plates especially their buffalo mozzarella (hence their name, right?). My fellow diners and I share a platter of prosciutto, cheesy croquettes with some kind of beetroot dressing, deep fried cauliflower, buffalo mozzarella and bread. It looks simple, doesn’t it, but wow! Simple done very well. The highlight is the finely sliced prosciutto is addictive – salty, smoked and sliced so finely that it melts in your mouth (I’m craving some right now as I type!). The croquette would be the perfect hors d’oeuvre to serve at a dinner party, but I felt a bit disappointed with the cauliflower. Tasty, but a touch dry – maybe a Gorgonzola sauce would have been nice to dip it in. Last but not least, the buffalo mozzarella saved the day. Creamy and fluffy – it has made me a bit of a snob to the “regular” buffalo mozzarella I get at my local supermarket. A big ball of that happily fed three hungry diners, but I’m sure we could have had more…we just had to save some room for what was coming next.
The gnocchi – just like how Nona makes it. Again, it was a simple dish done very well and my fellow diners and I lapped up the sauce that remained after all the gnocchi was scoffed down. The gnocchi was very good – not the best that I have eaten in my life, but soft enough that it absorbs the sauce and not too dense that it was cooked past the “al dente” stage. I can tell that this will become a “winter food craving” item to add to my list.
The wow-factor dish is the cheese-wheel pasta served fresh at the table. A friend of mine told me that they tried to replicate this dish, but it wasn’t quite the same without the wheel of cheese to toss the spaghetti around in. Springy and cheesy, the bite comes from the freshly cracked pepper that is tossed throughout the spaghetti. How this dish works is that the heat from the pasta melts the cheese which coats each strand in cheesy-goodness. Genius!
Atmosphere: considering how crowded it was inside (and outside), the acoustic inside was surprisingly very good. Not too loud, and it was easy for my fellow diners and I to have a good conversation between tasty bites. A great place to come along with a group of friends, as the dishes are designed to share. In saying that, it’s not a bad place to have a first date (or the 100th date) either. Casual feel with classy surrounds. The friendly service made it a homely kind of place.
Rating: 16/20
Cost: $ – good value for money
Details: Firstly, this place doesn’t take bookings, so get in early or take your Kindle to make the wait time feel shorter. If you don’t notice the crowd, Google this address: 116 Surrey Street, Darlinghurst. Easy walk (350m) from Kings Cross station up Victoria Street.