I’ve spoken about this before but this is my blog and I make the rules; if I get the urge to discuss the Power Rangers, you bet your ass I’m going to discuss the Power Rangers.

Some of you might be wondering how I’ve retained all my knowledge on Power Rangers considering someone my age should’ve stopped watching a decade ago. You see, there’s this thing called YouTube which I am on quite frequently. For some reason, all my suggested videos are Power Rangers content and I fall into a Mighty Morphin’ vortex sometimes and don’t escape until hours later.

So yeah, once a ranger fan always a ranger fan.

Growing up, my undisputed favourite was the Green Ranger. He was just a badass, he first entered the fray as the first ranger on the dark side and proceeded to beat all five of the good rangers singlehandedly. The dude summoned a f*cking dragon from the ocean and he was the epitome of awesome.

As Robert De Niro said in Meet the Parents: ‘geniuses pick green.’

Speaking of, this culinary genius picked Green Peppercorn in the CBD as his dinner destination of choice and it was just like the green ranger: badass.

Yeah, this isn’t Green Peppercorn you may have visited in Fairfield. Now located above Civic Hotel in the city, Green Peppercorn has decided to modernise the establishment with an outdoor area as well as a bar in the main dining hall. This would be a great place to host a huge birthday party but I only really have about 12 friends so it’d be a bit too much space for me.

The place may have changed, but the food you know and love is still intact.

Let’s get to it:

iFat is rarely educational but did you know that pad Thai is the most commonly ordered takeaway food in NSW? It beat our pizza, pasta and iFat’s special 2 minute noodle recipe (spoiler alert: I let it sit for an additional 30 seconds….just in case).

The noodles were a bit thinner than you’ll see with most Thai restaurants. This wasn’t an important factor but I thought I’d point it out anyway just to show you that I’m usually awake whilst eating. On the flipside, an important factor that makes Peppercorn’s pad Thai amongst the finest in Sydney is the amount of sauce that the dish is coated in. I’ve encountered both extremes; bone dry and soggy and Peppercorn sits right in the middle. The sauce is a secret recipe but I detected a pretty strong hint of tomato which I think is quite common amongst pad Thai. There were a tonne of bean sprouts and the chilli, lime, lemon and nuts all came together really well. It was like a noodle version of Skittles as all the colours of the rainbow were raving in your mouth with every bite.

On to the next colour:

All other beef dishes cow-er in fear as they will now be compared to Peppercorn’s.

I generally don’t like my beef to be too rare but my dinner buddy (the lovely Ailing from Something by Ailing) said that she would’ve enjoyed it even more if it was a little more undercooked. The beef was fine by itself but bathing it in sauce was the equivalent of an already pretty girl deciding to wear a summer dress in a room full of girls in less-flattering outfits. Separating itself from the pack, the tender cuts of sirloin steak were pretty good. Not chewy and yet not tough to the point of being obnoxious, this was a great dish.

Full disclosure: I’m cheating.

No, I’m not cheating on my wife mostly due to the fact that I’m not married. I ordered the soft shell crab on a previous visit and decided to talk about it in this review. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t write about my previous visit…er….well, my photos actually turned out really bad and I think I got distracted by a butterfly that week.

Anywho, the soft shell crab is one of my favourite items on the Peppercorn menu. I order it (almost) every time I go and I’m never disappointed. The light batter provides an incredibly crunch and might be one of the most deceptive deep fried dishes in the game as you don’t really feel like you’re eating something deep fried. This is probably why I’m finally starting to live up to the name iFat; it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

I’m the reason there’s not many fish left in the sea.

I’ve been snapping (heh) them up left, right and centre and deep frying them.

Ok, the chefs in the kitchen handle the deep frying but just…just let me roll with this one.

I’ll talk about the salad first: full of zest and citrus tang, it was a really refreshing mix of of mango and various herbs. I loved the sourness in play, it cause a slight pucker but it’s not like my eyes started to water like the first time I ever saw the Lion King.

The fish was great as it somehow managed to absorb all the flavours of the salad yet didn’t get soggy even after it had sat on the table for a while (Ailing and I tried valiantly to eat everything we had ordered). I loved how they deboned the fish and just left us with golden fish sticks that I enjoyed immensely.

Arguably Green Peppercorn’s signature dish, the pandan crème brulee is incomparable.

This is one of my favourite desserts of all time along with the deep fried ice cream from Holy Basil, the king of crepes from the Choc Pot and listening to your sweet nothings in the morning.

The best way to describe this would be a sugary nirvana with an a subtle pandan custard hidden under enough the layer of casting sugar. The upper coating is so good that I had a fleeting thought of deliberately having some stuck in my teeth so I could have a second helping of dessert later.

Don’t sleep on the pandan egg rolls either. It’s just so good and anyone that hasn’t tried it before should be green with envy.

Heh.

***

Here’s the TL;DR for everyone who said “ha, as if any girl would take iFat home to meet her parents.”

– Finally, I don’t have to travel all the way to Fairfield for my Peppercorn fix.

– I don’t even care what you get for your starters and mains, you’ve got to cap it off with the creme brulee.

– That has got to be the plan-dan.

Green Peppercorn, CBD

Upstairs in Civic Hotel
388 Pitt St Sydney, NSW

Opening Hours
Monday – Wednesday
12:00pm-3:00pm, 5:00pm-10:00pm

Thursday – Saturday
12:00pm-3:00pm, 5:30pm-11:00pm

Sunday
12:00pm-3:00pm, 5:00pm-10:00pm

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