Lunch review: Sazon in the city
It would have to be a first: a regional restaurant opening a city outlet. Established at Mt Barker since 2009, Sazon is well-known to Hills dwellers for excellent coffee and possibly SA’s only authentic Mexican street food outside of Adelaide.
Sazon’s city restaurant opened on Monday, with a completely different look and feel to the Hills venue. Sazon Mt Barker is rustic and intimate while Sazon Grenfell Street is sophisticated and spacious – it even has neon lighting above the bar. Owners Jose and Oswaldo Estrella, both native Mexicans, say the words “y tu sazon tambien” translate as “this is your sazon as well”.
“In Mexico ‘sazon’ has many meanings,” says Oswaldo. “It can mean both seasoning or the effort or passion you put into something.”
The fit out has made use of a lot of timber, adding warmth to the ground floor space in The Grenfell Centre. One long central table features a sunken cavity with ‘sugar skull art’ behind glass. A bar runs the width of the restuarant to one side and there are many tables and chairs, some with comfortable bench seating, and others spilling out through the fully-opened bifold doors into The Grenfell Centre foyer.
In the Hills, weekend breakfasts, lunches and dinners are big, but the city restaurant is only open on weekdays at this stage with the breakfast and lunch trade already buzzing.
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The breakfast menu features all Sazon’s favourite dishes, such as Huevos Rancheros, $16.90 – Mexican scrambled eggs with locally produced San Jose Smallgoods chorizo and pico de gallo (fresh salsa made with diced tomato, onion, coriander, chilli and lime juice); Mexican Pot, $14.90 – Pinto beans with chorizo, roasted capsicum, crumbled feta and fresh coriander; and Corn Fritter Stack, $14.90 – sweetcorn cakes topped with pico de gallo and chipotle lime aioli, as well as a selection of handmade pastries behind the glass counter.
At the moment the lunch menu consists of house made “round” or “square” bread with a choice of tasty toppings and fillings, but it is the quesadillas and tacos made with corn or flour tortillas and traditional Mexican fillings where Sazon comes into its own, including exotic ingredients such as anchiote (a thick seasoning paste made from annatto seeds), nopales (cactus), Mexican truffle, poblano chillies, flor de calabaza (pickled pumpkin flowers) and epazote (“similar to strong parsely”).
After-work drinks is also something different for Sazon and tonight they will test run their new botanas (tapas) menu featuring tacos, quesadillas, abondigas, flautas de papa, quesadilitas, pambazos, tostada, margaritas, Mexican beer, 100 per cent agave tequila and French champagne (NV Zoemie De Sousa Cuvee Merveille).
Plans are to extend to dinner service and expand the menu to include specialties such as enchilada with mole, chiles en nogada … its time to read Laura Esquivel’s book Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies again and attempt some of those recipes at home.
Favourite dish: Taco de cochinita pibil, $6.00 each – A soft corn tortilla filled with Yucatan inspired slow-cooked pork marinated in anchiote, citrus juices and spices and topped with pickled red cabbage, pickled onion, fresh coriander and Spanish onion.
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Other dishes: Quesadilla No. 5, $13.90 – A soft corn tortilla with a flor de calabaza, pecorino cheese and epazote filling, toasted and served with pico de gallo.
Taco de champinon, $6.00 each – A soft corn tortilla filled wth sautéed mushroom, grilled corn, Mexican truffle and topped with pickled red cabbage, pickled onion, fresh coriander and Spanish onion.
Haloumi, pomegranate and rocket salad, $17.90 – this dish may not sound Mexican, but we were assured that the caramelised walnuts, pomegranate seeds and fresh sliced apple are traditional salad ingredients.
Something sweet/to drink: Churros, of course, eaten with Sazon’s excellent coffee or chilli chocolate. They say their famous dessert, the tres leches flan, will soon be on the menu.
Aside from coffee and hot chocolate, there are four Mexican beers to choose from (InDaily chose the Negra Modelo, $8.50), there are four Margarita flavours (lemon, tamarind, hibiscus and strawberry, $12.50 each), a very small wine list including a couple of Spanish wines, and on the top shelf behind the bar are a variety of tequila bottles just waiting for someone to take a shot.
Sazon
3/19 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, 8221 6966
Open Monday to Thurday, 7am to 4pm and Friday, 7am til late.
