Rambutan

Firstly, to clarify, I'm talking about Rambutan the restaurant not the fruit, although the fruit did feature in a few of the dishes. Our house guests generously decided to take Mr Jen and I out for dinner and asked a chef friend of ours (known as "Chef") what his meal of the year so far had been and he immediately picked a fish dish at Rambutan. We were able to book a 7.30pm table for that night which was refreshing as I hate the "two sitting" times that lots of restaurants seem to use these days. 7pm is too early as the Monkey only goes down at that time and while we can get the babysitter to do it, its much easier if we know she's settled before we leave. 9pm is just too late for me as you never end up eating before 9.30pm and I'm starving by that point. Anyway, as we knew nothing about the restaurant we asked what style the food was and they told us it was "thai with a southern feel" which sounded interesting....


We arrived hungry so immediately ordered our starters and picked some pre-dinner cocktails - there is a cocktail bar downstairs which would be nice for a drink if you arrived early. With advice from the friendly waiter, we ordered betel leaves with tea smoked trout, a chicken dish described by our waiter as a thai san choy bow and some salt and pepper squid. I think they took note of our hunger and the food arrived really quickly. The betel leaves were nice but the other dishes were far better - the chicken was fresh and zingy with coriander and chilli and the salt and pepper squid was perfectly cooked and had a real peppery hit. I wasn't so keen on the lemon dipping sauce with the squid so after my first dip I just left it plain but my dining companions stuck with it and said it grew on them.


We relied on our waiter to help with the mains as we couldn't remember which dish Chef had recommended, there were two fish dishes - a hot, sweet and sour whole crispy fish or a salty fish with crispy pork, lemongrass, thai herbs and hot sweet fish sauce. I can never resist a pork addition to a dish and the waiter recommended it so we went for the salty fish (pictured above). We also ordered a king prawn yellow curry, a dry red curry with pork belly and the crispy duck with sweet rambutan, eschallot, garlic and tamarind sauce. The prawn curry arrived first which was right up my street and I had to use all my willpower not to pile my plate high with rice and covered it with the sauce. I held back and just had a small delicious portion. I was glad of my restraint when the other mains arrived. The salty fish was more of a salad with crunchy pork and a great constrast to the other dishes. The pork belly was also excellent and my dining companions all voted it as their favourite immediately. Then the duck arrived. Now to put this in context, I never order duck in restaurants anymore as its so often a disappointment. I also don't like fruit with meat so the rambutan sauce didn't appeal either. I tried it first and can say without a doubt that this was the best duck I have ever tasted. The meat/fat/crispy skin ratio was perfect and the sweet but sour sauce was an ideal accompaniment.

We were too full for dessert but decided that we could fit in two portions of the ice cream/sorbet selection between the four of us. The ice creams and sorbets are all made in the restaurant and each platter consisted of: sesame ice cream with tamarind syrup, passionfruit ice cream with red chilli syrup and a rambutan and kaffir lime sorbet. I love sesame ice cream but I couldn't pick a favourite out of the free as they were all so good .


While the food was amazing, the great service with personality really made the meal. We found out later that night that Chef's favourite dish was actually the hot, sweet and sour whole crispy fish - what a fantastic excuse to go back again! But why didn’t he tell us about this place sooner??


Rambutan
96 Oxford Street
Darlinghurst
NSW 2010
02 9360 7772

02 9360 7772