Healthy Food: Madam Char Char: Chicken and Salads, Surry Hills (13 Nov 2010)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Madam Char Char: Chicken and Salads, Surry Hills (13 Nov 2010)

285a Crown Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
http://www.madamcharchar.com.au

Fresh and interesting salads

'Madam Char Char is shameless, brazen and bashful. We want to seduce you, we want to satisfy you, we want to stimulate your senses and tempt you with our feast of fresh, bold and delicious flavours and textures'

Madam Char Char apparently do a roaring trade of around 700 burgers a week but it's the Quarter Roast Chicken with 3 salads ($14.90) that brings me in for the first time today. The Lilydale free range chickens are either roasted or cooked portuguese style and there's a variety of $1 sauces to choose from to add more flavour. I love a good potato salad and the Smashed potato salad with crispy bacon, crunch gherkins and soft egg is what I was hoping for. I really enjoyed the taste of the gherkins in it if you're lucky to get some — they seemed few and far between. The Marinated cauliflower and broccoli with hazelnuts, feta, seeded mustard and herbs was an interesting collection of flavours — I think one of the herbs might have been mint but I can't be sure. The Peas and beans [broccoli] with currants, feta, pinenuts and zaatar kept being named with 'beans' but I'm thinking they must have meant broccoli as I couldn't find any beans ie green beans in the salad. It had some lovely bold flavours and the peas were nice and sweet.

I've been told their most popular burgers are The Foodie ($14) which has lean beef, caramelised onions, crispy prosciutto, gruyere, green apple and beetroot relish & aioli which sounds like a very flavoursome burger and the Little Lambie ($14) containing 7 hour lamb, caramelised onions, rocket, aioli and nan's relish. Service was efficient and friendly although the narrow customer service area makes it a little hard to see what's available when it's crowded — hence a little customer cha-cha-cha might be required. I wish a place like this existed closer to my home.

Other visits to Madam Char Char:
• 16 July 2011 - Pork roast catering with salad and roasted vegetables

• 13 Nov 2010 - Roast chicken and salad

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Freshly made and interesting salads, Moist and tasty chicken, Interesting burgers, Efficient staff, Cakes and salads made on site, Quality ingredients, Catering available

CONS: Limited and tightly packed seating, Narrow area in front of service counter, More expensive than your regular charcoal chicken or burger shop

MUST TRY: All the salads

NEXT TIME: Chocolate Brownie, Little Lambie burger, The Foodie burger, Portuguese Chicken

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