NOSHER NELSON SURVIVES

Nosh as the name implies encompasses all forms of dining, eating enthusiastically or greedily. In Yiddish it means to snack so it could be anything in between. This column has covered Nosh style dining for over fifty years on all continents bar the Antarctic.

Venturing out in Covid surroundings, looking for where one gets the most value for money in a good Nosh in Sydney, I ventured out to Cabramatta last Saturday evening and tried out the Cabra-Vale Diggers Club in Bartley street, Canley Vale NSW.

Going through the registration and sanitizing at the door and leaving aside that I would have been the only “digger” guest, the whole place had a strange feel about it with the upper floor no longer featuring music and the stairs barred by a guard. People were sitting at spaced tables in the various food choice areas looking surreptitiously at you as if checking whether the group might just be carrying an infection.

Placing the orders which you have to do at a counter, I went for the Wagu 200g steak with parmesan crisp and balsamic onion in red wine sauce at $25 and my friend for the 350g T-Bone steak, same trimmings at $20. The ladies went for seafood with one grilled Huon Salmon Fillet, roast veg, tomato and saffron broth at $20 and the other for half Lobster Mornay with chips at $25. In case there were any "diggers" there who only spoke Chinese or Vietnamese, the menu is in those languages as well. While the ladies might not have gone with red wine, they gave in to the men's steak with a slightly overpriced Penfolds at $50.

My son went for the grilled Angus Beef Burger 150g beef patty, bacon, cheese, pickle, onion rings and chips at $18 and my daughter just wanted the Country Vegetable Soup, sour cream, crouton, chives with crunchy roll and sour cream at $9.

The food was served at the table but then they do that at McDonalds and you still have to go to fetch extra water and napkins.

In summing up the whole experience, if one wanted to go somewhere for a good reasonably priced feed or just have a "Nosh", the place would tick the boxes. If however you didn't go there to then play the pokies, it might be better to phone in for home delivery. Otherwise of course as the guy said to me once, "It's a good place to visit but depends where you are coming from...

Nosher Nelson