Ten dishes in 10 years at Bodega

Ten dishes in 10 years at Bodega

As the Bodega family raises a glass to a decade of rockin’ Latin-infused eats at its Surry Hills digs, chef and co-owner Elvis Abrahanowicz walks us through 10 of the Surry Hills restaurant’s most memorable dishes. 

See all the recipes in our July issue, out now.

Piquillo peppers stuffed with bacalao

“These were on our menu right from the beginning and they still make an appearance once in a while. It’s a classic tapa; salt cod and potato stuffed into a piquillo – there’s not much to it, it’s just bloody delicious.”

Lamb, miso and eggplant

“We had this on the menu for a while because it was a favourite with everyone, we couldn’t take it off. Kenji [Maenaka, owner and chef at Izakaya Fujiyama] used to make this special miso paste that we put on the bottom, and he’s never told anyone the recipe. We think he doesn’t even know it himself! We’d always ask him and he’d never tell us. Whenever special customers request it and we do bring it back we get him to make it for us. He makes us a batch in his restaurant and brings it over.”

Cabbage rolls

“This dish shows a bit of my Eastern European influence – my dad is Polish. The last time they were on the menu was about six years ago. Pat Nourse [GT‘s deputy editor and chief restaurant critic) likes these and he’s always hassling us to bring them back.”

Hot cross bun and fish fingers

**Hot cross bun, corned beef, smoked oyster mayo, lettuce and daikon kimchi (left)

**”We always have a sandwich on the menu. Easter was coming up and we like hot cross buns, and we just thought these flavours would go well together. It’s a really spicy dough, sweet from a glaze, which is really nice with the kimchi and corned beef. It doesn’t taste like anything I’ve had before. It’s still on the menu now, we don’t want to take it off.”

**Fish fingers, kingfish, charred toast, cuttlefish ceviche, shaved mojama (right)

**”One of the first items on our menu used to be marinated sardines with tomato bread – Catalan style. This rendition is like a Spanish nigiri. It’s got a really nice contrast in textures; hot and cold, crunchy and soft. It’ll never come off the menu. We used to change it around with different kinds of fish but now it’s morphed into kingfish.”

Octopus and crisp pig’s ear salad and steamed pork belly with bullhorn peppers

**Octopus and crisp pig’s ear salad with green apple and tomatillo and jalapeño dressing (left)

**”This is just delicious. It’s funny because it’s so simple, but it’s really textural and delicious. It’s not the prettiest dish, but it’s still on the menu now.”

**Steamed pork belly, bullhorn peppers and pickled green chilli

**”This was one of the first dishes we came up with. Everyone used to do crisp pork belly. The pork is gelatinous and served in the skin so the fat’s still really wobbly, almost like white-cut chicken. With stewed peppers it’s really simple.”

Morcilla and scallops with braised cabbage, tahini sandwich and pickled cauliflower

“This is a pretty standard combo that everyone was doing at the time – blood pudding and scallops. This dish is our take on it, with added braised cabbage. It’s like our version of Viennetta ice-cream with all the layers and different temperatures. It’s not on the menu anymore but we still get asked about it.”

Buttermilk pancakes with bacalao, egg and smoked maple butter

“The pancake was a bit of a piss-take because everyone was doing a 62 degree egg with grains and making it healthy, so we thought, pancakes! We used to travel to the US every Easter for two weeks to a rock ‘n’ roll fest in Vegas. We were pretty hungover all the time eating fried chicken and waffles, and this dish is our take on that, plus a 62-degree egg. It’s not so healthy though.”

Banana split: cream flan, banana purée, gingerbread, salted peanuts and vanilla caramel

“This is SO bloody delicious. We used to get pastry chefs coming in saying it was their favourite. It’s still exactly the same as day one. We started off with the cream flan with fruits, and then we just pimped it out and loaded it up with dulce de leche. Within six months of opening it never changed. We took it off the menu once and people actually started up a petition to get it back on. A regular used to purposefully finish eating before his friends and order his own banana split before everyone else just so he didn’t have to share. Some things are so good we can’t take them off.”