Ollie’s Kitchen on Coogee Bay Road is nothing like your day to day dine in takeaway. The main point of difference is – it is about home cooking. That kind of cooking you feel like you are home with your parents – without living with your parents. This familial nostalgic vibe is what comes with the food.
I initially was sceptical. I wondered why someone wants to go out to get home cooking, when they, well can home cook. One day I decided to try it out and then I never doubt its unique selling point anymore.
Ollie’s Kitchen is about ‘Good Food, Real Fast’. However, when you taste the food you know that there was a lot of love put into it. The food is packed with flavours that keeps exploding on your taste buds. I mean if you are not into rich flavour food, you can stop reading now, cos this is not what Ollie’s Kitchen is about. Ollie’s Kitchen is about the full package of flavours you missed at home but you don’t have time to make it yourself, because, well, we all live in Sydney and we all need to work to pay the mortgage or the rent. Therefore, having a dine in takeaway place championing home cooking is really great, cos it gives us a home kitchen away from home’s kitchen.
Although Ollie’s Kitchen is a dine in takeaway, most people will just take away because the dine in facilities are quite basic – just a few tables with a long bench and a few chairs. I personally prefer to dine in as I am not a takeaway fan. I am just not into getting additional containers home and then feel guilty to throw away and feel annoyed to wash and keep them. Therefore, I usually prefer to dine in. The fact is, the couple who runs the place are extremely nice people and when you get to know them, they are great dinner companion. You can chat with them about your frustrations at work or your dreams for the future, they are great listeners and being parents with teenage to adult kids, they really know a lot of things and know how to encourage your if you are in your lows. It really just feels like at home and dinner with mum and dad, maybe perhaps less judgement and patronising (sorry mum and dad :P).
However, it is a ‘kitchen’ so it is about the food. As mentioned earlier, their food is packed with flavours. They mainly sell dinner bowls (they open after 4pm on weekdays and in the afternoon on weekends) and at times you can find desserts like sticky date puddings and apple pies (which is insanely yummy). For dinner bowls you can choose one main, usually chicken, beef or lamb in a pot. Sometimes they have beef brisket and roast pork etc as part of the daily special menu. If you are a vegetarian, they also sell vegetarian dinner bowls. Once you chose your main, you can choose whatever sides you like in the bowl. For me, as the bottomless pit, I usually choose everything, simply because I like every side dish and don’t want to miss out. However, some people may just choose their favourites only (especially for those who don’t like greens, will probably forgo them). All the food is freshly made on the day and the good thing is once sold out for the day, sold out for the day. In summer they usually run out around 8:30ish but on a cold winter day, a lot of times they ran out of popular dishes around 6ish 7, and as I said, once sold out, they are out for the day. This means there will be no left overs. The owners value nutrition in their food a lot so it was their conscious decision not to cook more than required every day.
For me Ollie’s Kitchen is not just about ‘good food real fast’, but it is also about the heart you felt inside the food. And that is what I personally think home cooking is about. Nothing overly fancy, good serving, friendly service and yummy food that packs a punch in your mouth. And in winter, it gives you that warm fuzzy feel that you treasured. In Coogee, where a lot of people in the area are backpackers, working holiday workers, and expatriates from Europe (mainly English and Irish), Ollie’s Kitchen is heaven sent. If you dine in you will notice a lot of them showing up around dinner time and basically sweep the food counter clean. I guess this is really a home kitchen away from home for them.
You can find out more about Ollie’s Kitchen on their Facebook page.
