Jazz City Diner – Darlinghurst

Call it what you want, Americana has been one of the hottest food trends of recent times. And though I love our Aussie interpretations of American comfort food classics – sometimes it’s great to go to the source. So when I heard Jeroxie was organising a diner take-over – I did the sneaky thing and invited myself along! Luckily they were happy to have me – apparently the diner seats 24 people, and Jeroxie wanted to see if we could fill the whole place up!

Jazz City Diner just celebrated its 1 year birthday in December and has no doubt become a late night haunt of many a hungry Darlinghurstian. Owner/Chef Dan McGuirt serves up New Orlean’s style comfort food in his cosy Art-Deco style diner. According to this interview with him on SBS, McGuirt grew up “with folks from the South and a grandmother from New Orleans” – so you know his groundings are pretty solid.

It’s a super rainy night when we all rock up. Not quite 24, but still – we definitely take up the majority of the diner.

The diner is a cute and cosy place. All the waitresses are dressed in 50s style diner outfits, and whether by coincidence or plan, wear nametags with old fashioned names like “Mary Ann”. So cute!

Love those uniforms!

Art-deco style menus

After poring over the menus, we decide to start with some drinks. Jazz City serves a variety of milkshakes and old classics like Root beer floats with their “homemade icecream”.

O hai suze!

I get a malted vanilla milkshake – it’s really thick and creamy, and has a generous dollop of icecream on top. Suze goes for the peanut butter milkshake which is DEADLY. It is delicious and DEFINITELY peanut buttery, but so rich. Honestly, I could have just ordered that milkshake and been perfectly full and content.

R & I order a few things to share off the menu. We start with Chili Cheese Fries ($10) – a generous serving of seasoned chips with a topping of tomatoey ground beef & cheese. Mighty tasty.

Chili Cheese Fries ($10)

For a main, R orders the Shrimp Corn Dogs ($27) – jumbo shrimp in cornmeal batter – which comes with a side salad of fried green tomatoes and buttermilk dressing. The presentation is so fun, and R says the prawns were good – but we agree that the dish seems a bit expensive with only 4 prawns for $27.

Shrimp Corn Dogs (with side salad) ($27)

Not realising that her main already comes with a salad – we order a Fried Green Tomato salad ($16) to share. The salad comes with a choice of blue cheese, green goddess or buttermilk dressing. We ask the friendly waitress what the green goddess dressing is – but she can’t really tell us… I’m not too sure she understood our question. No matter! We decide to go with buttermilk instead.

Fried Green Tomato salad ($16)

I’ve never had fried green tomato salad before – but I really liked it! The tomato discs are crisply crumbed and give just a bit of sourness to cut through the friedness. After all the high calorie dishes we’ve ordered – everyone on the table is eager to grab a few leaves of lettuce.

For my main, I COULDN’T go past Chicken & Waffles ($22) – a classic soul food dish. And I’m so glad because it lands on my table and is beautiful.

Chicken & Waffles ($22)

Fried chicken & waffles…. two of my favourite things together. It is delicious  – the waffle is made fresh so it’s super fluffy and piping hot. The chicken is crunchy outside and juicy inside, and sits on a neat little pile of wilted spinach (so it’s not entirely unhealthy!).

I’d never really gotten the whole bacon with maple syrup thing – but I find myself drizzling the whole dish with liberal amounts of maple syrup. Maybe it’s because it’s a waffle and my arm is working on muscle memory. The salty sweet contrast is great though, and somehow the sweetness helps cut through the richness rather than amplify it.

Don’t be fooled by its humble size – this dish packs a wallop… and neither I nor Suze are able to finish our plates. Nooooo! Too many chili fries/milkshakes/salads/everything beforehand. We mourn over our unfinished dishes, and berate our too small stomachs.

It’s only now that I realise that the other table of bloggers are still yet to receive their entrées – while my whole table is passing out from over-eating. We did have a massive group, and there are not many in the kitchen – perhaps they were not prepared to bear the brunt force of our collective gluttony.

We feel bad for the other table for a few seconds…. before deciding to move on to dessert!!

Because of our overwhelming fullness – we band together and order one of each dessert to share across the 8 of us.

We get a slice of the Coconut Cream Pie, Pecan Pie and Banana Cream Pie ($10-$12 each)

The Coconut Cream and Pecan pies are admirable and worthy desserts, but I only have eyes for the Banana Cream Pie.

OH BABY:

Banana Cream Pie ($12)

Whatever you do – you must save room for this. It is insanely good. I thought I was full, but I still had room for this.

Jazz City Diner was great fun – and really good sports for tolerating our unruly rabble. The only thing I can say is that it’s not the cheapest diner around. That, and the richness of the menu means that chicken & waffles will probably only be a once in a while treat for me.

Having said that, I adore a place that fosters a loyal community. Throughout the night I could see that Dan has an awesome rapport with his regulars –  just take a look at the little gold plaques next to the mini tvs at every booth. When Dan came out from behind the counter to say hello, I asked him what they meant. Apparently if you become a regular at Jazz City Diner, Dan will dedicate a plaque to you. A really sweet way to reward customer loyalty!

Link love for all the bloggers who attended (let me know if I missed anyone!): Jeroxie, Chocolatesuze, The Creamy Middles, vxdollface, Citrus & Candy, Phuoc’n Delicious, The Littlest Anchovy, atablefortwo, heneedsfood, Adam Dunn

Jazz City Diner
238 Crown St.
Darlinghurst, NSW 2010
Australia

Ph: (02) 9332-2903

Hours:
Lunch Tue-Sat 12pm to 2pm
Dinner Wed-Sat 6pm to 10pm
Closed Sun & Mon

Twitter: @jazzcitydiner