the hungry duck Sydney restaurants

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Onde, French Bistro, Darlinghurst

Onde Restaurant

346 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst

9331 8749

No Bookings

Since J first took me here a year ago, I've been dying to come back. I still remember how good that first taste of duck liver pate was. It took me a whole year to organise dinner again at Onde, mostly because of the restaurant's 'No Bookings' policy and the location.

It was extremely risky going to Onde on a Friday night at 7pm with no booking. It was a half hour walk from Town Hall station (but there is a bus as well) and when we arrived we were lucky enough to get the last available table.

A word of warning- its loud. The place is so popular that they cram as may tables as they can into the restaurant.. And with that many people, it gets very very noisy. This can be slightly chaotic if you're trying to hold a conversation. At one point I had to literally shout to be heard.

Hint- Dont bring a girl here on a first date. But do bring her here eventually because the food is really good.


Blackboard menu


I think the menu changes seasonally because last year we came here the beef cheeks weren't available. We ordered the duck liver pate, the duck confit and the crispy polenta.


Duck Liver Pate & Cornichon

This dish is the reason why I walked 30 minutes to get to this restaurant. It was just as good as I remembered it.. amazing. We shared this as it is very rich and dense. By the way, cornichon is the french word for gherkin. The baguette served on the side was crispy and freshly baked. The waiter was nice enough to give us another piece since we ran out of bread but had lots of pate left :)




Duck confit with caramelised apple, mesclun and walnuts

There is also caramelised peach in this and I think peaches and duck confit go perfectly. I've tried this before so I can tell you that its very very good. They actually serve you two pieces of duck, so all in all you get almost half a duck. But this time it seems like portions were smaller than last time. GFC?




Crispy Polenta with roast tomato, grilled zucchini and eschallot

I decided to try something a bit different ordered the polenta as a main. To be honest, I've never tried this before and I didn't really know what polenta was. I'm so glad that I did order it because this was my absolute favourite dish of the night. The flavours were just perfectly balanced and so fresh. This dish reflects the flavours of the vegetables so honestly that I almost wanted to turn vegetarian. Never before did I realise vegetarian food could taste so good.

Absolutely delicious




The verdict? Again I am wow'ed. Both times food have been spectacular and I'll be back more often this year (I promise).



Onde on Urbanspoon

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