Slide on through The Passage

Right up near the Kings Cross end of Darlinghurst, The Passage has been onto the slider craze a while now. The long, narrow space offers respite from the Kings Cross hubbub with its own brand of bar and club cool, and of course, sliders.

There's a weekly Wednesday night special on the ubiquitous miniature burgers, which get pretty creative in their fillings (think 'The Fisherman's Basket' and 'The Mighty Duck') .

"Fillet o' Fish" slider with caper mayonnaise and cos lettuce from The Passage,
Victoria Street, Darlinghurst

There are four sliders on their regular menu; one being the irresistible 'Fillet o' Fish' with crumbed fish, cos lettuce and caper mayonnaise.

Even if it lacks the plastic-like cheese of the original, it's hard to beat a freshly cooked fish burger and the slider disappeared in several bites.

Spicy meatball slider with cheddar and tomato relish 

The meatball slider is more your classic burger with a flattened meatball pattie, melting cheese and a tangy tomato relish. It was a noticeably spicy and utterly satisfying handful.

I particularly like the fact that The Passage uses mini burger buns and not brioche buns for their sliders, as there's only so much brioche one can take.

Crazy 99 cocktail

There's lots of fun to be had on the cocktail list, such as the pretty pink and quite lethal Crazy 99 cocktail with both Japanese sake and shochu, shaken with pink grapefruit and lemon.

Crispy chicken wings with ginger and spring onion

From the snacks menu we ordered the chicken wings which, fried crisp, are hard to get wrong. These wings were doused in a sauce of ginger, Chinese salted black bean and spring onions, and not so crisp for it.

While the sauce flavours were great and quite rare outside of a Chinese eatery, the chicken itself could have done with more marinating and seasoning - but that didn't stop us from picking the bones clean.

Stuffed zucchini flower with goat's cheese and truffle honey

The zucchini flower small plate was a generous one with four crunchily battered stuffed flowers on a plate with polenta, crumbled goat's cheese and pepitas.

The drizzles of truffle honey matched the cheese and stuffing remarkably well and left us wanting more.

Apple and witlof salad

After all the slider and deep fry action, we sought some redemption through the undeniably healthy rocket, apple and witlof salad with a lemon dressing (but only because they were out of the pork and crispy rice noodle salad, to be truthful).

The Passage is doing some great things to differentiate itself from its Darlinghurst and Kings Cross neighbours, both the boozy and the foodie, with a dynamic slider menu and daily specials - slide on in to join the slider craze before it's all over.