Civilian Bar And Kitchen

Finished, kaput, dead. Couldn’t compete with Phamish I guess.

I decided to take some friends here because I heard the burgers here were good through some food bloggers and FBAS… well, this goes to show I don’t think I will be trusting those food bloggers or FBAS much more cause it’s not the first time they’ve praised a very mediocre burger to be one of the best in Sydney… makes me wonder if they’re getting paid behind the scenes or promoting their mates.
Service was fine, we all ordered the cheeseburger and they were all decidedly average/​mediocre. I mean they weren’t bad by any means but they were kind of forgettable. Kind of a poor man’s Old Growler… like real poor… like so poor you can’t get on the dole poor.

What causes diarrhoea? The food from Civilian Bar & Kitchen. I have a pretty solid stomach, that’s rarely bothered by anything, but something from this place got me, tonight.
Went with a group of friends. The first thing that struck me was that the other venues in this courtyard dining space were full and pumping, but there was nobody at Civilian. Okay, it was 7pm on a Sunday night, but still… Eventually, a few more people turned up, but by the time we left at about 10pm, there were still only two other tables besides ours. Obviously, lots of people knew what we didn’t.
We ordered:
Olives — overpriced, but tasted ok.
Popcorn lobster — incredibly overpriced and extremely small quantity, obscenely pumped up by lots of sliced lettuce. Didn’t we do this with prawn cocktails in the 80’s to save money and fleece the guests?
Suckling pig — a whole pig they say? Not on your life. I’ve raised, slaughtered, cooked and served suckling pig before, so I know what it should be like. Quantity aside, this was badly cooked, with gelatinous fat under the crisped skin. Ssssoooo not worth the money. $ 60 as I recall.
Slow roast ribs — never eaten anything as fatty and gelatinous as this before. Aside from the suckling pig above. But this one’s repeating on me something awful.
Whole snapper — badly, unevenly and horribly cooked, plus butchered by the staff who offered to fillet it at the table for us.
Total cost of meal? With one bottle of wine, too much. Way too much to be sitting on the loo at 3.30am with horrid cramps and the runs. Now I know what everyone else knows, I’ll never be seen dead at this over-​rated, over-​priced and disgusting place again. And for the record, four of the six in my party got the runs. The other two only ate the fish and lobster.

Civilian is a nice modern Australian restaurant. The menu is not too big which ensures freshness of the dishes.
It is quite original with a lot of mix of ingredients, interesting. We had a pasta (orrichiette), lamb shoulder with polenta, roasted cauliflower and kingfish as an entrée. All well done. No room left for dessert.
Unfortunately the night we went the chef was on its own so a few options were not available. The staff was helpful in trying to accomodate at best though.
It is probably nicer in summer when you can enjoy the terrace.

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of the once legendary Universal, Civilian Bar and Kitchen has made a decent crack at it. Fairly new to the scene (opened just over a month ago), their concept, layout and food menu seemed promising … so off we went to celebrate a birthday.
I couldn’t quite workout the cuisine of this restaurant … was it mediterranean inspired? Was it some sort of asian fusion? Can I call it modern australian? *shrugs* The menu has been designed so that you can share — so kinda tapas like but not really — the dishes are large enough to have as a standalone meal (if sharing ain’t your thing). They also have a 6-​course tasting menu for a very decent price. The food was presented so beautifully, and overall, not offensive to the palette however there were some inconsistencies across the dishes. The NZ snapper on a bed of linguine, peas and pork hock broth confused me to no end, was the linguine intentionally cold? I’m not sure it should have been. The gnocchi I was told was a little meh. it was one of those ‘take it or leave it’ type dishes. The standout was clearly the king prawns — major food envy right here from all !! But the real star of the night was dessert — trumped mains in every aspect — look, taste, smell. nailed it! I think for a moment, we all sat there loading up our spoons with all 3 desserts, not a single word exchanged … just a universal «ohh gawwwd» after every bite.
Lets talk cocktails … loved the theme — 4 suburbs, 3 cocktails for each. Choose from Darlinghurst, Surry Hills, Bondi or CBD — each suburb showcasing a bit of that area (dunno how they worked this out but lets break it down:
Bondi — beach inspired cocktails, rum and tequila focused yeahhh what else would it be right?
Surry Hills — gin and coffee (Reuban hills cold drip to be precise) ohh and more gin
Darlinghurst — its all about the vodka here … and salted caramel (totally makes sense — thanks to Messina, I now associate salted caramel with Darlinghurst)
CBD — the grown up of the lot, its gin and citrus
Despite the number of staff buzzing about the place, we often found ourselves desperately trying to get their attention — nothing more than some teething issues I’d say and no doubt they’ll soon find their feet.