Subsolo

161 King Street, Sydney
P: 02 9223 7000


I have long had a yen to try Jacqui Gowan's food. I've seen her quite a few times on Ready Steady Cook and always liked what she's done with the ingredients people present to her. When she left Garfish I hunted around and found out that she'd moved on to Subsolo, so I decided to make a trip up to Sydney, some time, to eat there.

The Sydney trip happened last weekend... but sadly, Ms. Gowan had left Subsolo, and is now freelancing around Sydney. Even so R, M and myself went along for dinner on a Friday night.

Subsolo offers Spanish and Portugese fare, with a range of options on the a'la carte menu. We chose a selection of tapas to share between us, and on the whole were very happy!

But first, we started with a rather large-ish glass each of sangria. Bueno!!


Ensalada a la Espanola with jamon, salami, spanish cheeses, olives, mushrooms, and tortilla got the meal off to a damned fine start. Alas, as you can see I didn't quite get the camera to it before we started digging in... and you can just spy M's fork coming in for more!


The baby squid and shaved chorizo salad with roasted garlic, heart of palm, and wild rocket was superb. The squid was perfectly cooked, the salad ingredients were delicious and fresh, and the dressing blended well with everything. Sabroso.


Pork tenderloin, wrapped with Morcilla and pistachios, on calvados spiced apples - or rolled pork tenderloins with black sausage and pistachios, on apple sauce. Y'know, I've never had black sausage before - the thought of it kinda turns my stomach a little bit. And if our waiter hadn't told us what it was, I would have probably said this was freakin' great. As it was... well, to hell with it, I really enjoyed this dish. I'm not sure black sausage is something I'll be rushing out to eat again, but I really enjoyed this. I think I ate about half the plate, actually.


R and I are both big fans of cheese-stuffed meatballs - I first made them after getting the idea from from R when she blogged a recipe for pork, thyme and cheese meatballs - so we were keen to see what Subsolo could offer with their crumbed meatballs with melting Manchego cheese centres with Romesco sauce. These were very tasty, but I think I'd kind of been hoping for a little bit more cheese. I know it melts and kinda goes through the meat, but I guess I'd just been hoping for more. Nevertheless, these were great, and there were none left on the plate at the end of the meal, despite groaningly-full stomachs.

Service was also quite good, and the bill was quite respectable. I'm already flagging this as a place to go back to, on my next trip north. Bookings might not be necessary (I'm not sure), but I'm glad I made one as the place filled up pretty quickly.