Dining Out - Little Momo, Two Tales Cafe, The Pie Tin

Cutting down my number of venues in each of the Dining Out posts from 4 that was mostly to catch up with some older places, and intend on only having 2 in each (as that's about how many I think I can visit in the time between posts about them...)

2 of these venues were paid for as I was there to test how well an app (Tayble) is working in the venue to place orders and make payments. The final one is more of checking things off my bucket list, and sadly wasn't actually an eat in visit.

Little Momo

I'm a big fan of dumplings of all styles and names, so when Little Momo was offered as one of the venues to visit to test Tayble, I quite happily selected it and went to visit. My visit was a little rushed thanks to the wonders of ticket parking that can't work out how to do tickets that cross over a time period, resulting in me having a ticket that expired at 6 pm, 15 mins walk from a restaurant that opens at 5:30 pm. I'd have loved to have another half hour so it wasn't rushed.

Because of this I arrived about 10 minutes before they opened so I could browse the menu and make my selections. The app wasn't useful for this, as it blocks access to the menu when the store isn't open. Possibly a good idea, but was a bit frustrating and meant I stood at the door to look over the menu.

^{Nice and open, looking right out onto the busy road. Also bench seats outside you could sit at if you wanted}

Even though it's on a fairly busy road in Newtown, it was pretty quiet once inside, and the atmosphere seemed nice. Being the only person in the store, and using the app to order and pay, my order was brought to me within 10 minutes of the restaurant opening.

^{Well fried momo and a dipping sauce}

I'd ordered the Duck Momo, and their Chicken Tori Kara Age, which were both quite good. I found the filling of the Momo a little dense, and so most of the filling came out with the first bite, leaving the option of a second bite being just the crispy wrapper, or shoving it all in in one bite. I went with the latter, after dipping them well in the thick sauce that was quite complementary to the duck.

^{lots of little pieces instead of just a couple of larger bits, with a nicer dipping sauce and some lime}

The Chicken dish was a very good take on Karaage Chicken, and was better than the Momo. Crunchy and flavourful little morsels with still having tender and juicy chicken inside them. Served with a dip that I could have just poured over the chicken bits. Might have to try that next time!

Two Tales Cafe

^{as usual, views are from the table I'm seated at. This one was pretty decent giving me a shot at the park across the road}

Getting to do another location for Tayble was very nice, and liking the cafe atmosphere I was pleased to go here. Unfortunately I found their Tuna Melt to be rather lacking in filling. It was still quite tasty, but their balance between the roll and filling was just not there. They can make a decent coffee, though I wouldn't call the few mm of froth a cappuccino, but that seems to be what many places thing is enough.

^{nice simple coffee art, but the lack of depth to the froth is always disappointing. Could have ordered a flat white}

^{decent size to the roll at least, just could have done with more filling}

The Pie Tin

1 street back off the main road and slightly out of the way is a little corner store bakery that came to my attention through the 50 meals (Sydney) list that urbanlist made a few years ago and have now taken offline. It was a nice list as it didn't just focus on super expensive restaurants, which has let me get to about a dozen of them so far. This is a good example of one of the cheaper venues on the list, costing me a total of $8 for my take home pie (because I was here before going out to Little Momo). The shop smelled great, and I'd have loved to just sat down and had a hot pie there, but was quite happy to see that they had their Beef Brisket pie available in their take home display. When you buy take home, they include an A5 sheet with instructions on how to re-heat the pie properly, including reminders about variation of oven temperatures.

The pie filling was great, with a lot of flavour in it, but I was a bit disappointed in the pastry, which is likely just because I suck at cooking pasty and probably didn't give it long enough in my oven. Looking at the photo now and it's pretty obviously underdone. If I'm in Newtown again in the future, I'd consider ducking in here for a pie, though they are quite expensive, even for a gourmet pie.

^{yup, that pastry just looks like it needs another 5 to 10 minutes. I guess I was really hungry}

Previous Dining Out Posts

Bay Italia, One Tea Grill, King of Kebabs
The Hatter & The Hare
Eurobay, Arisun, Big John's, Bondi Pizza
Last Bus, Chat Thai, Rocksia Hotel, Ichiban Boshi
Alphabet St, 360 Italian, Mary's, Sushi Rio
Olive Tree Kafe & Bar