Just Open: Fat Pomelo, Narrabeen

Fat Pomelo is a brand new South East Asian restaurant located across from Narrabeen Beach on Sydney's Northern Beaches. This dog friendly restaurant with indoor and outdoor eating follows the success of its sister restaurants, Chubby Cheeks in Paddington as well as Armchair Collective in Mona Vale. Find out what you have to order when you visit there and which course is a highlight (and where you can take your dogs for a run afterwards!).

It’s a brilliant Sunday afternoon when Mr NQN, Teddy Milo and I drive to Narrabeen for Sunday lunch. Fat Pomelo has only been open for a week already since the 11th of November but word is out and it's already busy and it's busy. The owners of Fat Pomelo are Songpol and Lyn Manoonpong and in the kitchen is ex Mimi's chef Julian Luczyc-Wykowski. The restaurant is named after the pomelo, a large yellow citrus fruit that is a symbol of good fortune. The "Chubby" and "Fat" in the name of Chubby Cheeks and Fat Pomelo comes from their daughter, Mischa from when she was a baby. A customer came in and pinched her cheeks and called her 'chubby cheeks' which made them laugh and they thought it would be a fun name for the venues, tying them together.

The interior is striking with the roaring tiger print fabrics, comfortable green booths and pink highlights. We take a seat outside at one of the outdoor tables and Mr NQN settles in Teddy and Milo while I have a look at the menu. I’m excited to see that they have brought over my favourite dishes from Chubby Cheeks, the drunken noodles and the chicken in master stock.

We choose a couple of cocktails: I have a non-alcoholic slushy made with Coco Lopez, white chocolate, lime and pineapple juice while Mr. NQN goes for the watermelon cosmo with Australian distilling co Vodka, Aubrey watermelon liqueur, lime and cranberry. The watermelon cosmo isn't so much about big watermelon flavours, the flavour is mostly from the tart cranberry.

There’s a choice of four fillings for the steamed baos and we choose the crackling pork and soft shell crab. Both are delicious especially with the spicy mayonnaise and green onion but the pork with that distinct crunchy crackling on top is a slight favourite over the soft shell crab.

The hiramasa kingfish ceviche is tasty and fresh but balanced with a spicy toasted sesame chilli nori miso oil that gives it a lot of warmth rather than the astringency that you would expect from ceviche.

The most popular starter are the betel leaves topped each with a seared scallop with cashews, crunchy toasted coconut and lime and a sweet spicy sauce. These are fresh and tasty with a good contrast of textures and you could definitely visit yourself eating half a dozen of these (or maybe that’s just me). Just make sure to lean forward when you eat them because the sauce can drip out when you bite into them (again maybe that's just me! ;) ).

The prawn toast is an easy favourite. A slice of milk bun is topped with a prawn and sesame filling with sesame seeds on top and deep fried and then cut into quarters with dabs of wasabi mayonnaise, plum sauce and spring onion on top. I steal a little chilli from the other dish to just add a little bit of heat and it’s perfect. I briefly consider eating 3 out of 4 pieces before realising that we have a lot of food coming.

The potsticker dumplings arrive bottom up with the crispy layer skirt. Inside the dumplings are pork and cabbage and they’re very tasty and easy to share. We dip them in the chilli soy vinaigrette.

As much as I enjoyed the starters, the mains are really where the action is at and curiously I found the same at Chubby Cheeks years ago. The beef rendang is superb and uses a 150 day grain fed Black Angus beef cheek that is marinated in coriander root, ginger, lemongrass garlic and shallot overnight before being roasted in the oven for 4 hours. At first it looks like the cubes of beef are a little dry but don’t be fooled by the appearance. They just melt in the mouth and that sauce is delectable. At this point my hands are covered with crispy roti and I'm dragging it through that sauce and just mopping up every last drop of it.

The rendang doesn’t come with rice, but there is the option to get a roti ($6) as well. Here they deep fry the roti which makes it super crispy but it also makes the roti quite greasy, especially if you’re using it to scoop up some of the sauce And I don’t think it needs deep frying especially as roti are like a sponge for the oil. But make sure to get something for that delectable sauce whether it be rice or roti (or just ask for the roti to be dry fried in a pan).

I may have overextended myself with the starters so it was with enormous regret that I could not finish the wok tossed XO hokkien noodles with crispy cubes of pork belly rendered to perfection, egg, chives and chilli oil. It has a lovely char from the wok and the XO sauce is a powerhouse of flavour.

We both love Thai desserts and we have to try the sticky rice with pandan egg custard and coconut ice cream. It’s fantastic rendition of a classic Thai dessert and is sweet but not overly so.

The deep fried ice cream a giant ball of salted caramel swirl ice cream coated and deep fried in a crunchy and drizzle with a salted caramel sauce and caramel popcorn. It’s absolutely perfect although when we ordered the deep fried ice cream, neither of us expected it to be as enormous as it was. The deep fried ice cream could conceivably feed 3 to 4 people for dessert.

After lunch as Teddy and Milo have been waiting patiently we take the 5 minute drive to Griffith Park the off leash dog park where they run free to their heart's content! They tire themselves out so much that they fall asleep for the entire drive home.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you prefer sitting inside or outside at a restaurant? And do you keep tabs on when there's a new restaurant opening in your area?

Fat Pomelo

16 Ocean St, Narrabeen NSW 2101

Phone: (02) 9477 4931

Monday Closed

Tuesday to Thursday 5–10 pm

Friday to Sunday 12–3 pm, 5–10 pm

https://www.fatpomelo.com.au/