Moon Park team returns with Paper Bird
Many Sydneysiders went into mourning when the management at Moon Park closed its Redfern restaurant last September.
But now they’re back.
Moon Park owners Ben Sears, Eun Hee An and Ned Brooks have relocated, moving into the space occupied by the Bourke Street Bakery Potts Point.
The all-day cafe-diner is Paper Bird.
The menu is an East Asian version of the food that Sears, Brooks and An cooked at Moon Park.
“It's based on Korean [cuisine] but we've got a lot of Chinese and Japanese influences,” Sears told Broadsheet. “It won't be super fancy. It's like a diner.”
“We’ll have some straight stuff like scrambled eggs and sourdough, but it’ll be with char siu instead of bacon.”
So in the morning, diners will get royal Korean-style congee stewed with milk and served with crab, scallions and doughnut sticks; mushrooms and fried eggs on potato bread.
And in the evenings, they will have snacks like Chongqing-style caramelised spicy popcorn with peanuts and xi’an cumin lamb sausage rolls.
The main courses will include a crab and brussels sprout bibimbap, miso hot pot and taco-yaki, which, according to Sears, is all the elements of takoyaki served in a taco.
Sears says it will be slightly different to what was on offer at Moon Park.
“Ninety-five per cent of the menu is new, the only holdovers we have from Moon Park is the ddeokbokki [stir-fried rice cakes] with gochujang, and the shrimp-brined fried chicken,” he told Broadsheet.
In keeping with that, the place even has the same feel.
It’s designed by Phillip Arnold who also happens to be a former Moon Park customer.
He has kept the bar and stools at the front and the dining tables out back.
The big change is the wood panelling along the walls.
And of course, a fresh coat of aqua paint.
by Leon Gettler, August 2nd 2017
