CJ'S Good Food Restaurant, Lithgow, Australia

As has become the tradition, every time I visit Australia I am treated by my wonderful family to a gastronomical event on my last day in the country. Last year, it was a degustation lunch at a vineyard in the Hunter Valley. This year it was a mystery road trip west of Sydney...very west!

Taking a right turn off the Great Western Highway, I found myself being driven down the main street of beautiful Lithgow, a small city on the western edge of the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours drive from Sydney. Our lunch destination was CJ's Good Food Restaurant located on the main street of Lithgow. I must admit, I was slightly curious as to what Lithgow could possibly offer that would entice someone to drive 2 hours for lunch. It must be good, really really good. In the interest of full disclosure, all became clear when I walked through the restaurant to find Mr Chris Warren (a family friend and chef extraordinaire) at the helm. I was in for a treat!

Chris and his wife Cheryl who run CJ's are Lithgow locals. I had the pleasure of first meeting them on the central coast of NSW and have spent many afternoons with them talking food, eating food and drinking much fine wine. I had high expectations for lunch, and I certainly was not disappointed!

For entree, we were served a seafood tasting plate that left us begging for more! It was a beautifully presented sampler of the sea with a large spoonful of creamy prawn risotto, perfectly crunchy tempura prawns and strips of calamari that simply melted in your mouth. A small intermission allowed us to sip on our wine, sit back and watch the foot traffic along the main street of Lithgow before the main course arrived.

If the entree was good, then the two main courses we shared were fantastic! The first dish was Mr Dang's Salad - a warm Thai style salad with lightly spiced chicken, toasted cashews, vibrant fresh fruits and salad greens and leaves. The second dish was the lamb extravaganza with roast lamb and the most delicate filo pastry pockets filled with  deliciously seasoned lamb. This was served over a bed of creamy pumpkin mash and with crisp steamed vegies.

The two mains were completely different, yet somehow managed to complement each other perfectly. They represented fresh and creative cooking that combined simple ingredients in an uncomplicated way to produce amazing flavours without the fuss and fanfare that so often accompanies restaurant cuisine today.

When the utensils were put down, there was not a morsel left on either plate and I was shamefully tempted to lick the plate to capture every last drop of the sauces. While the dessert menu was incredibly tempting (and I have it on good authority that the chocolate pudding is to die for) my stomach and taste buds were in a good place and I simply could not eat any more. Next time perhaps.

While my sneaky travel companion jumped on the bill before I could write down the cost of the meal, I can report that the meals at CJ's are incredibly reasonable with lunch mains ranging between US$15 - $18 and dinners are around the same mark. The deserts are consistently priced at $12 and they have an extensive wine list which is available by the bottle or glass.

RECOMMENDED

I know it is a long way for sydneysiders to trek, but I can absolutely recommend CJ's for great food, friendly hosts and a wonderful day out. Check out their website for directions and their menu.

Zaina Restaurant, Dubai - Minutes to understand, but a lifetime to master

Dubai has a lot of exotic places you can go for meals inspired by all corners of the globe. While it is nice to have choice like that, it's always best to sample the 'local cuisine', since usually the local food offers the best, most lovingly prepared, perfect reproductions of age old dishes made by people who have probably been making it all their lives. You wont see words like 'fusion' or 'interpretation' on menus in these places; in fact sometimes you are lucky to see a menu at all, let alone a menu in our precious little English language.

Zaina Restaurant goes one step further, maintaining the traditional setting in their restaurant, as well as serving up wonderful, slow cooked lumps of various animals for customers with carnivorous cravings.

Our 'table' was a lovely red rug in a cosy corner, complete with enormous velvet cushions and a plastic drop sheet to contain the mess that would inevitably result. We ordered a camel shwarma to begin with, which was heavily seasoned and satisfyingly greasy (add another animal to my have-eaten list).
For the main we ordered a 2-person portion of the Meat Madbi, which is quite an amazing, yet simple dish. Whole goats are roughly seasoned and cooked and for hours and hours in a giant rotisserie which has a bed of hot coals and low gas flames on the walls of the oven. Huge chunks of the carcass are then lopped off with the absolutely zero precision and thrown atop a mountain of fragrant biryani rice, which itself has been slowly prepared with whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and peppercorns dotted throughout.

It was all delivered to our rug in a delicious heap, accompanied by side salads, soups and sauces. I was getting full just looking at the spectacle.

Cheap cutlery comes along with the meal, but you might as well have been given a straw for all the good they could do. I can eat spaghetti bolognaise with chopsticks, but eating ribs and knuckles with a spoon and fork is beyond me altogether. Luckily, we love eating with our hands, so we dove right in and enjoyed as much as we could before admitting defeat. The meat was moist, and not over seasoned, which let the perfume of the slow cooked flesh really stand out. The rice was fluffy, and not clumpy. Bad rice is hard to find in this part of the world, and this was no exception.

RECOMMENDED

These hard working, traditional joints are still doing what they have always done, and usually doing it quite well, supporting the ideas that practice makes perfect, and that some things never change; And with food this good.. this effortlessly amazing, why would you ever want it to do any differently? If it ain't broke, eat it.

The Bill (for 2):



1 x Camel Shwarma - Dhs 25 
2 x Meat Madbi - Dhs 80
1 x Large Water - Dhs 2 
TOTAL: Dhs 107 (Approx US$29)


Restaurant Address: Al Wasl Rd, Jumeirah (across the road from Safa Park), Dubai, UAE