Dove & Olive – Surry Hills, Sydney NSW

I give the Dove & Olive 6 baby shrimp out of 10.

Once again I was in Sydney for a weekend. Though unfortunately there wasn’t anywhere near as much time for food as I would have hoped. Bu Thankfully I did get the chance to eat at the Dove & Olive in Surry Hills.

I didn’t have my photography A-game on either sorry as I had decided to take the food blogger cap off for today and was more there to hang out and enjoy the company.

We were on our way to the A-League Soccer Final or Football Final, depending on which side of the fence you sit on for what the game is called. I was with a couple of guys I already knew but a bunch were friends of a friend.

So the Dove & Olive is craft beer central. They have over 25 beers on tap, and some are even hand pumped. They also rotate their beers so if you happen to try all 25+ one visit then next time you may still have a new beer to try.

Now I don’t know beer like a guy who knows beer knows beer. Therefore I followed, my mate ordered and I said yes please I’ll have one of those too. It was a hand pumped English beer called London Pride.

I hadn’t had an English beer before, they aren’t carbonated like Australian beers and they aren’t as cold either. But I enjoyed it, it was a nice change and nice to experience something different.

We had a couple of snacks with our beers. The Rustic Cut Chips with chicken salt and smoked garlic mayonnaise. These were very tasty, that sauce was fantastic.

We also had the Paprika Spiced Calamari with parmesan and hummus. I enjoyed the calamari but didn’t love its pairing with the hummus. I’m usually a big hummus fan but I just didn’t love the combination.

A little later we decided to get something decent to eat and I settled on the Buttermilk Fried Shrimp Burger with spicy Louisiana remoulade, fresh tomato, lettuce, and a drizzle of hot sauce.

This was on the menu sandwiched between the Southern Spiced Fried Chicken Burger and the Southern Fried Haloumi Burger. So my mind is thinking big shrimp with generous crispy batter, almost falling off the bun there’s that much. So when I was served this you can imagine my disappointment:

Four tiny shrimp. That’s it?!?!

I want to complain and complain so very hard about this burger. But I can’t. The taste was spot on. It really was a nice burger. The sauce was just perfect, the bun, the flavour combination, it was all delicious.

I’d still love more shrimp, but honestly the biggest disappointment was that I couldn’t complain more.

Others at the table had the Hickory Smoked Pulled Beef Brisket Burger. 12 hour slow cooked beef with slaw, cheddar, American mustard, aioli & pickles. They were very happy with that. One of them had been here previously and was telling us had good the food had been in the past too.

Then we had an Englishman dining with us too and he had the Sunday Special, Roast with Trimmings. He too was impressed.

The Dove & Olive is very much a pub but has a good atmosphere, lots of seating, a few booths, and even a cool little beer garden.

There’s plenty on the menu and even suggestions as to what type of beer would be paired nicely with the meals. It’s a good place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon.

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