Lunchtime holiday at Cloudy Bay Fish Co.

At this time of the year it hard to get away from thoughts of holidays (especially when an overseas jaunt is involved), but even if it’s just summery (fingers crossed) and you’ve got a few days off in the summer months. Summer means relaxation, beach and seafood, among other things – imagine you could have that during a weekday lunch.

Cloudy Bay Fish Co. at Level 5, Westfield Sydney

Or at least the essence of that. And that’s truly what lunch at John Susman’s Cloudy Bay Fish Co. at Westfield Sydney was – summer holidays in my lunch break.

I reminisce to childhood weekends where post beach or other summery outdoors adventure with the family, we would return home with a kilo of cooked prawns; fresh, crusty bread rolls, an avocado and a couple of lemons for DIY prawn rolls.

Prawn cocktail baguette with potato crisps on the side

And while I can’t really do that during the week, Cloudy Bay Fish Co.’s prawn cocktail roll takes me right back. Well, aside from the swish Westfield Sydney food court interiors.

A fresh baked baguette (by Justin North as reported here) is more soft and chewy rather than crunchy as expected, which made cutting it a little difficult. The roll has a few salad leaves and dressed Spencer Gulf wild king prawns – eight at count – in a sauce more like mayonnaise than pink-ish cocktail sauce.

Spencer Gulf wild king prawn cocktail

The prawns are cooked to the point of just, retaining a fresh softness and opaque flesh that’s delightful to bite into. They’re well seasoned, just slightly creamy in the dressing, tarted up with a squeeze of lemon.

The roll is served with a handful of house-made potato crisps, which are not quite as crunchy as Kettle but at least obviously potato (as opposed to some packet crisps). They add a great contrasting crispness to the overall meal, although they’re just a bit too oily in flavour. To complete the meal, there was also half a soft-ish dill pickle which was just as sweet as it was sour.

Poached kingfish baguette with potato crisps (left) and pickle (right)

We also had the poached kingfish on a roll, with the same salad and sides. The hiramasa kingfish, also from the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, was as expected, less bold in flavour but topped with chopped parsley and a mayonnaise squiggle.

Poached kingfish with mayonnaise

The white flesh was quite firm and mostly subtle and almost a little meaty, nice with an extra squeeze of lemon juice and so many miles away from the idea of a tinned tuna sandwich.

I’m keen to try out the tuna salad or roasted salmon next, and the fish cakes from the hot section – but only if I can get over my current obsession for the prawn roll. Now, thanks to Cloudy Bay Fish Co., we can all go on a summer holiday.