BAMBINI
Trust Cafe
Elizabeth Street , SYDNEY
PH: 02 9283 7098

When I was a kid, all those eons ago, we would drive every Sunday in the Morris Minor to my grandparents’ house in Opunake, New Zealand.

And we would sit in an oppressively, airless, living room crammed with over-stuffed chairs and couches, and eat too much home-cooked food. Sponge cake, lamingtons, “fly cemeteries” (also known as fruit squares) and fudge.

On special days we got brandy snaps. Those cigar-shaped, cream-filled, rolls of dark brown sugared candy that made you drool.

I thought of those “Nanna Days” the other day when I dined at the new Bambini in Sydney. They had brandy snaps on the dessert menu. Not with the dish that I ordered but they were happy to add them.

Okay. They weren’t the rolled, clotted cream stuffed, ones my grandma used to make but they were genuine brandy snaps.

They were usually served with pistachio praline iced soufflé. I grabbed a couple of the caramelised discs with my dessert of Fig ice cream with glazed fresh figs. And the chocolate tower with raspberries will get you in as well. Hinch’s tip: put some cracked pepper on the raspberries. Orgasmic.

Bambini is impressive. Awesome ambience. It has a touch of Melbourne’s Café e Cuccina on Chapel Street but e Cuccina’s problem is that it is so small, with the tables so close together, you have to go outside to change your mind.

Bambini is classy and spacious and warm. You don’t have to “send for the ambience”.

I think I had the best veal piccata I have ever eaten. Too often the “veal” on the menu is thick, tired old yearling. Tired and tough.

This piccata was like the music says: light and tight and breezy. It was served with lemon and a tangy, tasty, buttered sauce featuring capers.

I promise you the veal piccata at Bambini is genuinely melt in the mouth stuff. I’d go back just for that.

There’s other classy mains: crispy skin barramundi fillets and duck and serious steaks. But three of our five diners went for the piccata. And were not disappointed.

The restaurant is in the St. James Trust Building in Elizabeth Street. And that’s appropriate. Because you can trust this place for a great feed.

May 9, 2004