Little Sicily
Last year I was living on the cusp of Mt Wellington and Otahuhu. The choice of local eateries was somewhat limited given the industrial nature of the area. Then unexpectedly a Sicilian food truck popped up in a carpark in Penrose.
People just know about this place (thanks to the power of social media), as evidenced by the steady stream of punters lining up to get their fill of arancini and calamari fritti. This year’s summer has been a long one, which is perfect for this food truck with its outdoor tables and awnings (and sloping berm running alongside the train tracks if all those are taken) but they also have indoor seating available at the music practice space next door.
They do pizzas but please don’t order them unless you’re really boring and unadventurous because Little Sicily excel in their ever-changing weekly seafood specials. After reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain I’ve come to regard ‘seafood specials’ with suspicion but Little Sicily are genuinely picking the freshest offerings and serving it up the Sicilian way, but only on a Thursday. Think big eye tuna crudo, fresh anchovies with onions and cream, paua arancini and mussels pomodoro just to name a few.
The constants on their menu include calamari fritti, chickpea and zucchini fritti, sandwiches, pizzas and their famous arancini. When we visited, Little Sicily had a special of pistachio granita (of which we ordered several) which were absolutely deliziosa (I’m not sure if granita is a masculine or feminine term but I am feminine so it is deliziosa). Think nut milk slushy that is equal parts creamy and refreshing; I can imagine slurping these all day long in the heat of an Italian or Auckland summer. The team I had assembled ordered and sampled the menu widely, all for your benefit. We started with the calamari fritti which was superb, the tender rings of squid dusted in polenta and perfectly fried, served with aioli and a zingy chilli spiked vinaigrette. We ordered a couple of pizzas, the garlic pizza bread and the pepperoni, the former being my favourite. It had a mellow roasted garlic flavour, the crunch of semolina and came with their ubiquitous lemony olive oil dressing which is great to dunk the crusts into. The pizza style is doughier than a Napoli style pizza and the sauce that gilded the pepperoni pizza was rich and tomatoey.
The arancini are enormous, just to tell you up front. Again, fried perfectly so they aren’t the least bit greasy, these risotto balls come filled with mozzarella and either pork ragu or artichoke and sun-dried tomatoes. They’re served with a little side salad including a caponata of sorts. The vegetarian arancino unanimously gained crowd favour.
A final order of the pork meatball sandwich for the token male at dinner was the straw that broke the camel’s back. A hefty house made semolina bun is filled with fennel studded pork meatballs, Napoli tomato sauce, relish and pickles. We were all expecting a sandwich akin to the Subway meatball variety so it was a surprise to see the meatballs here were crispy and dusted in cornmeal. This treatment leant the meatballs to be a little on the dry side but were nonetheless tasty.
There’s not much of a view from this carpark but Little Sicily offers up a fun al fresco atmosphere to enjoy their Sicilian food in and with an ever changing menu of seafood dishes there’ll be plenty to keep coming back for.
702 Great South Road
Penrose
Auckland