100 things you must eat in SA

LOOSEN your belt and feast your eyes on this bucket list of the state's best food experiences. 

SA's top 100 food experiences: Part 3.

Reviews: Simon Wilkinson, Dianne Mattsson, Tony Love, Kylie Fleming, Katie Spain, Renato Castello, Michelangelo Rucci, Tory Shepherd, David Jean

Banjaan Borani (eggplant)

Rice palaw, eggplant and daal at Parwana Afghan Restaurant.

A humble vegetable is transformed into something quite wonderful in the loving hands of Farida Ayubi. It’s a dish that says a lot about Parwana, where the Ayubi family, and particularly matriarch/chef Farida, are unfailingly humble about their remarkable little Afghani restaurant and its delicious cooking. The eggplant has been simmered long and slow, until its flesh is reduced to luxurious silkiness that is a sensation with a fresh tomato sauce, garlic yoghurt and mint.

While you’re there: Try the traditional Afghan drink made with rose syrup and basil seeds.

Parwana
124 Henley Beach Rd, Torrensville
8443 9001
www.parwana.com.au 

Big mixed platter

A selection of dishes at Addis Ababa.

Shared plates might be fashionable in many restaurants but nowhere is the experience as intimate or authentic as this heartwarming Ethiopian eatery. Owner/chef Zed Wondimu leads diners to a small basin to wash their hands before bringing a large platter, the size of a party pizza, to the table. It contains a pinwheel of different meat and vegetarian preparation, with unique flavours often highlighting cardamom and a spiced ghee. A separate bowl holds little rolls of spongy “injera” bread that are used to dip and scoop the other food. No cutlery required, though for the less-adventurous individual bowls, forks and spoons are available.

While you’re there: Kitfo, an Ethiopian-style tartare of raw beef mince with ground chilli, is fabulous.

Addis Ababa
462 Port Rd, West Hindmarsh
8241 5185 

Katsikaki fournou (baby goat)

Baby goat at Hellenic Argo.

This big bowl of slowly braised goat is the kind of homely comfort food that makes winter nights worthwhile. It’s not pretty or fashionable, but the tender, pink meat peels easily from shoulder, rib and other unidentified bones, while the soupy juices, flavoured with oregano, can be thickened by mashing in accompanying pieces of spud. Well worth the drive to Port Adelaide.

While you’re there: Finish with the house-special “bougatsa”, a hot filo parcel dusted with cinnamon and filled with semolina custard.

Hellenic Argo
45 Commercial Rd, Port Adelaide
8241 2223
www.argocaferestaurant.com 

Antipasto plate

Antipasto platter at Pizza e Mozzarella.

Yes, the pizzas are very hard to go past at this bustling lunchtime favourite in the heart of the CBD. But the antipasti is also fabulous, a combination of meats, preserved veg, frittata and, of course, creamy mozzarella that shows the fastidious attention to ingredients that makes those pizzas so good. If you want a more focused selection, try the mozzarella with tuna carpaccio or tomato and basil, if the season is right.

While you’re there: The wood oven does wonderful things to lamb ribs.

Pizza e Mozzarella
33 Pirie St, Adelaide
8164 1003
www.pizzaemozzarellabar.com.au

Porchetta

Gusto

Roasting rolls of porchetta, with a stuffing of garlic, rosemary and fennel, are one of the great sight and aromas of an Italian market. So where would one enjoy such an authentic delicacy — albeit without the same backdrop — in Adelaide? Answer: Gusto on The Parade, with the plate either supported with polenta for those wanting the northern Italian way or, to the central or southern Italian taste, with the masterful rosemary-roasted potatoes and green beans. After porchetta at lunch — with a well-bodied red — plan for a light dinner. The joy lingers.

While you’re there: After lunch, have an Amaro Averna, a sticky digestif with a gentle herbal bitterness.

Gusto
121-125 The Parade, Norwood
8364 6422 

Spaghetti vongole

Spaghetti vongole at Borsa Pasta Cucina.

The morning batch of fresh pasta can be seen hanging from a rail near the kitchen at this new trattoria in an unlikely location at the bottom of the “Black Stump”. Spaghetti is at its best with the strands coated in the salty juices of just-opened cockles, flecks of parsley and a nice little tingle of chilli. With a glass of pinot grigio from the Veneto, close your eyes and be transported to a table by the Grand Canal.

While you’re there: Look out for the Daily Pig special.

Borsa Pasta Cucina
Shop 1, 25 Grenfell St, Adelaide
8211 6572
www.borsapastacucina.com 

Lucky beef short ribs

Lucky beef short ribs at Lucky Lupitas.

There’s a primal pleasure about Mexican food maestro Greggory Hill’s wood-smoked, bumper ribs which are slow cooked until the meat slides smoothly off the bone. The show-stopper ribs have smoky, earthy aromas and plenty of melt-in-the-mouth tender meat. A housemade, zesty chimichurri sauce adds a lovely fresh zing.

While you’re there: A vego side of elotes, which are grilled corn cobs slathered in chipotle mayonnaise, cheese and squeeze of lime.

Lucky Lupitas
1/4 Rupert Ave, Bedford Park
8277 4004
www.luckylupitas.com 

Duck Soup

A variety of dishes at Nghi Ngan Quan.

The staff are on full speed, it’s noisy and the menu is long, so it would be easy miss a “new duck soup” on the inside back of the menu. What a shame that would be. The big bowl gives a rare OMG moment, all about meat and mushrooms, not even so much the duck flesh, but the extraction from it developed into a gorgeous deeply flavoured, clean broth. Nghi Ngan Quan is a nondescript backstreet joint of exceptional Vietnamese flavours. Don’t miss it.

While you’re there: Try the best, plumpest, juiciest sugar cane prawns you will find, and beef in charred betel leaves on a noodle salad.

Nghi Ngan Quan
4/34 Wright St, Ferryden Park
8244 6003 

Roti canai

Roti at Baba Gallery.

Roti is the great street food of Malaysia, where it is eaten from dawn to late in the night. Baba Gallery, in the heart of Chinatown, makes the best in Adelaide, the golden discs of bread delivered finger-burning hot, crisp and flaky. Dunk them in the accompanying bowl of curry sauce for a small meal-for-one or use to mop up the remains of a plate of assam oxtail.

While you’re there: Don’t miss the smoky kway teow noodles and finish with an ice kachang.

Baba Gallery
31 Moonta St, Adelaide
8212 1686 

Kebab

Mixed kebabs at The Ghan Kebab House.

Plenty of kebab joints are daggy and drab little affairs but The Ghan Kebab House has set a higher benchmark as a larger restaurant-like room, including a raised floor section for Afghani diners wishing to eat more traditionally. The menu offers 18 options in the kebab department alone, a mixed set ($15) including all the classic items of a basic salad, and flatbread but with the bonus of two sauces, yoghurt and a chopped tomato. The meat is more tikka-marinaded than many, the shami kufta minced lamb beautifully herbed and spiced. Authentic and awesome.

While you’re there: Try rice with red berries and the okra curry.

The Ghan Kebab House
366 Prospect Rd, Kilburn
8262 4042