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South Restaurant, Neutral Bay

Little did I know, my interest of the Southern cuisine started early watching American movies where people would order Pecan Pie or Cobbler from their local diner. Though it wasn’t until I watched Tropic Thunder, particularly Robert Downy Jr’s role as Kirk Lazarus (a white American Australian [Ed: Thanks Sisiely for picking up that error] actor playing an African American soldier), that cinched the deal to take on the the flavours of the south with his remarks about ‘cornbread’ and ‘crawfish’.

But where in Sydney could one find such a place? I’m not too sure who recommended this restaurant first, but with a quick glance at the online menu, F and I agreed that this should be our next stop.

Upon entering the cosy-sized establishment we are greeted with a large mural of tabasco sauce and immediately I have a southern accent in the back of my head screaming ‘Hot Sauce!”.

It wasn’t for a while til we decided what to get, despite already perusing the menu online.

Edit: I would like to point out, before I go on with my post, that I am pretty chilli intolerant and am pepper-sensitive too; the rest of table has no problems in dealing with the heat.

The corn bread’s appearance caught me by surprise – I was expecting actual bread slices, not bread in the cute form of baby corn. There are 4 corn breads with each serving, with an extra serving for an extra $1.50.

The bread was a bit more grainy than I thought it would be, and slightly sweet, but quite nice with a nice slap of butter.

The crab cake had quite a lot of shredded pieces of crab, mixed in with corn kernels. The crispy outside was quite lovely, contrasting to the soft inside. It was a little spicy, especially with the sauce. Little did I know, it was a small taste to what was to come.

All of our eyes widened as we saw the ribs approach our table. It was HUGE. I couldn’t believe that this was only half a rack. With moans of appreciation and exclamations that this was better than Hurricane’s ribs, I excitedly bit into my share of the meaty rib.

Oh, it was gloriously soft and unabashfully saucy… and then it hit me. The spice slowly burning its way across my tongue. I could only managed a few bites before succumbing to taking a drink of cool water.

It was so good that our table ordered a second serving half-rack ribs. I fared a lot worse with my second helping and was a bit overwhelmed by the spiciness a lot quicker than the first.

F tells me that the ribs were tender and meaty as Hurricanes. While Hurricanes’ sauce was sweet and slightly smoky, South’s ribs had that with an added ‘kick’ to it afterwards. He agreed with the rest that these are the best ribs in Sydney.

The etouffe was amazingly… pepper-y. To be honest, that’s all I could taste, pepper, which promptly added to my already over-spicied mouth. The fluffy rice was nice and quite soothing in comparison.

F informs me that the crawfish itself was cooked perfectly not being chewy at all. Whilst he thoroughly enjoyed the dish I was told he couldn’t really pick out a distinct flavour within the dish, besides pepper as well. Having said that he gleefully soaked up the remaining sauce with the super fluffy rice and sent the plate back empty.

I wasn’t sure what “highly-seasoned” meant but it was really delicious… and quite spicy. F discovered that it was the sausage that added a more intense heat to the dish and advised for me to skip it. While not eating the sausage did help some, by the end of it, my mouth was definitely on fire, I had consumed too much water and felt slightly queasy and I had a slight headache that decided to set in.

I was quite grateful for the same fluffy white rice that was in the etouffe, as it helped a little with the spice, though I did wish there was a bit more.

The chicken was surprisingly orange, but thankfully not spicy. The blue cheese sauce was a lovely accompaniment to the crispy chicken. The chicken itself was deliciously tender.

The rib tips were quickly consumed and I was told that it was a lot spicier than the ribs themselves. Perhaps this was because of so much sauce over a smaller area.

I had to rely on F again to give me the goss on the dish. He tells me that the rib tips were tender like the 1/2 rack ribs and drowning in spicy sauce which was aided and soothed with a light dash of the cheese sauce. He adored the blue cheese sauce so much that he constantly dipped his fries, wings, ribs and anything he could get his hands on into it.

Praises were sang of the mash, as it was scrumptiously creamy. I had a bite and it was pretty nice, but it wasn’t mash potato! (Yes, I know, I’m a bit pedantic about difference between potato and sweet potato mash).

The wonderfully tender chicken was perfectly seasoned and the melted tasty cheese and bacon went amazingly well with it. It reminded me of the phrase: “bacon makes everything better” hehe. I was told the greens were incredibly spicy, while the blackened corn was kind of like fried corn.

While sauce was a touch spicy, the pasta was cooked to al dente perfection. The prawns were big and juicy. F adds that the sauce was teaming with flavour and surprisingly very creamy.

By this stage, my poor mouth was definitely on fire and the jambalaya did not help matters. My glass of water was getting a good workout and the waitress noticing my distress asked if I wanted a glass of milk. I thought about it, but being greedy and not wanting for the milk to take up precious stomach real estate, I declined. (Which is long-winded explanation that I couldn’t taste a god damn thing in this dish)

F thought the Jambalaya was pretty much a take on the Spanish paella. He said that while it was not overly spicy by itself, when taking a mouthful with a piece of the chorizo Andouille-style sausage, it was transported to a different dimension and he thought it really brought the dish alive, bring out lots of intense flavours.

B requested for fries instead of the coleslaw that came with the beer marinated chops, and we were all surprised by the generous amounts of fries were given.

We were also really impressed with the size of the pork chop though (again) surprised when our waitress bent down and informed B that the other pork chop was too thick and was still being grilled. The Other Pork Chop?! we all thought. Oh my goodness, the other pork chop was massive. There was no doubt in B’s mind that she wouldn’t be able to finish them all, so urged us to eat the other pork chop… which I didn’t take a proper photo of, as I was still trying to slug through the gumbo (yes.. still).

The pork was incredibly soft and tender, and we all were amazed with its tender consistency throughout the chop. The fries were nice and crispy too.

I would have to say that the hushpuppies did not live up to expectations. I remember watching Top Chef and hearing about hushpuppies. I thought it was from Art Smith that I heard about them, but F doesn’t remember him making any on Top Chef Masters (funnily enough, a Google search yielded nothing either). In any case, I bit into them excitedly and was disappointed to find that they were dry and terribly spicy. It was amazing how much spice they could pack into that small morsel of food.

This pie was utterly amazing. The meringue was incredibly light and fluffy and the lemon tart was scrumptiously flavoursome with crumbly base. It was instantly a favourite at the table.

F, whom is not one for lemon desserts, was an immediate convert. Not only was he impressed with the size but also the flavours and textures of the pie. He has vowed (repeatedly) to come back for just the pie alone.

The pie was wonderfully pecan-y flavoured with the same crumbly base as the lemon meringue pie. It was also perfectly paired with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream.

It was everything and more that F had wished and envisioned it would be like from seeing it in the movies. At this point F said, “I now know why the south have the highest rate of obesity, and if I was there I would seriously be a statistic.” (which I don’t remember him saying and he’s huffily retorted that someone wasn’t listening. Ahem.).

I did hear our waitress say that South Restaurant makes their own pies right on the premises. Nice!

The cherries were bursting with tart juiciness which was moderated a bit with a buttery soft, sponge-like top. I was a bit disappointed that there were no butter crumbs at the bottom, but it was quite lovely anyway.

F also envisioned this to have a crumble somewhere, but he was not at all disappointed that there wasn’t any. Whilst the cobbler alone was very delicious, F is adamant that this dish needs the scoop of home-made, creamy vanilla ice cream to really be successful.

South Restaurant is a tiny, tiny place and had a constant stream of customers ordering take-away. The wait staff were efficient, knowledgeable of the menu and how it would best suit our dining experience, as well as being quite friendly.

While our wait staff have seen larger orders, they haven’t seen such a wide variety of food ordered. They were surprised at the different dishes we had selected and then in a half joking and half stern manner told us that they expect us to finish it all. Indeed, it would be a waste not to! In the end, we had to ask for 4 dishes to be taken away (one of which was the drunken pork chop).

So, seeing that I could barely taste most of the dishes, I suppose you would wonder: was the spiciness worth it? Yes. To be honest, this has been the only time where I feel like I’m missing out because of my chilli intolerance. Most of the dishes were so incredibly full of flavour and while I may might shy away from the more spicier dishes (except for the ribs and the gumbo, they’re worth the burn), I’d definitely come back. In fact, I think we’ve already planned to come back next month! Hehe.

South Restaurant
222 Military Road
Neutral Bay, NSW, 2089
Ph: (02) 9908 5225
Web: http://www.south-restaurant.com/