In honour of their current exhibition, New Romance, on at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia right now, the gallery has put on a special menu at the MCA Café. If you haven’t been up there, you need to fix that, because the café has one of the best views in the city.
It’s situated on the top level of the MCA, within the modern extension, and has masses of white-toned, glass-walled space inside, as well as a sprawling rooftop terrace, so you can sit outside overlooking the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Because New Romance is a collaborative show between the MCA and Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the special menu is all about Korean fare. It has been brought together by Fresh Catering, the MCA and Pott Points’ Kim restaurant. Kim was one of Sydney’s best Korean eateries until it closed last month, so this looks like your last chance to try their food.
What’s on offer? There are king prawn, pork and chive dumplings with soy sauce dipping sauce; there is oritang – hot duck soup laced with transparent, yam-based noodles; and namool – stir-fried greens topped off with scattering of puffed rice. Given its rep, you should definitely try Kim’s Korean fried chicken, the pieces doused in chilli barbecue sauce and peanuts, and the Korean Super Bowl – a bibimbap-like dish comprised of mixed grains, lengths of seaweed, kimchi, mayo, sweet shredded pork and shredded zucchini. Don’t eat everything separately; mix it together yourself at the table before you dive in.
For dessert, fluffy Korean doughnuts are stuffed with syrup-drenched peanuts, making them taste like a Snickers bar married a doughnut while having an elicit affair with a baklava.
The special menu is on until the exhibition closes on Sunday September 4. The café is open every day but Kim menu is only available on Thursdays. They are licensed so you can even have a bevvy while you’re there, and pop down to see the exhibition afterwards. Perfect day = realised.
This is not a review. Time Out ate as a guest of Fresh Catering and the MCA.
Check out our write-up of New Romance here.