Since closing their flagship Parkside site in June, Gang Gang’s Nina Hadinata and Morgen Wyn-Hadinata have put the pedal to the metal. In the past few months, their food trucks and shipping containers have appeared at Lucky Dumpling Market, Illuminate Adelaide, Cheesefest, the Royal Adelaide Show and a crop of music festivals.
“I feel like we do that every year but this year there’s been a lot of events!” says Hadinata. “But we’re diverting our energy back into the food truck and the festivals.”
That’s on top of running two venues at 99 Hindley Street and readying a new one in their neighbourhood of Eden Hills. The latter opens tomorrow on the arterial Shepherd’s Hill Road.
“The community outreach and even from the council has been so beautiful,” says Wyn-Hadinata. “The day Nina put up the sign we had people beeping across Shepherd’s Hill Road, the amount of people stopping by while we’re getting it ready, the messages, even people at festivals coming up to us asking, ‘When is it opening?’
“We’re locals, so we know what’s around there … We’re behind Blackwood High School, near the primary school and the rec centre. It’s probably the flattest bit of ground in Eden Hills, so you can actually walk there, which I know our neighbours will love.”
“It’s quite exciting,” adds Hadinata. “I feel like it’s a brand new start in our new direction.”
That new direction is a greater focus on takeaway and a return to their roots, which grew from small pop-ups at the Central Market and Plant 4. In a serendipitous moment, the pair found the pint-sized site the same day they decided to close Parkside.
“We were sad; it was kind of bittersweet. I was like, ‘I’m not cooking tonight’, so Nina went to our local pizza joint and came home like, ‘I’ve got a shop!’ I was like, ‘No bloody way. Nope,’ … but she got me.”
The tiny, takeaway-geared space next to Little Caesars Pizza seats just nine inside. Distinct from the buzzy dine-in atmosphere of Parkside and the city stores, Eden Hills is a no-frills setup with tables made of stacked milk crates, speckled-tile flooring, and a lot of stainless steel.
But the burgers are the main event. The menu is a compilation of Gang Gang’s “greatest hits”, many of which are inspired by Hadinata’s time growing up in Bali and later living in Los Angeles, where she embraced that city’s food-truck scene wholeheartedly. The eight mainstays include the Cardi B fried chicken burger with Balinese salsa, slaw and sweet-chilli mayo; the all-American Cali Love with a double-smashed-patty, American cheese, pickles and In-N-Out-lifted “animal sauce”; and the Spice Girl cheeseburger with pickled ginger, rocket and wasabi mayo.
There’ll also be monthly specials, daily fresh sandwiches, and chopped and caesar salads, plus breakfast bagels (from 8am till 11am). “It’s the best of all three venues,” says Hadinata.
The bagels – best paired with a locally roasted Two Fish coffee – come with soft scrambled egg, cheddar and chives; versions with house sausage or streaky bacon; or a vego-friendly filling of cucumber, red onion, asparagus and chive cream cheese.
“I even want to introduce a night where we do everything with rice,” says Hadinata. “It’s one of our festival things we do. We bring the rice cooker for staff meals and have any burger filling, but with rice. The Spice Girl in particular, or the Nashville hot chicken is really good with rice.”
It’s all part of the pair’s vision to engage, nurture and nourish the neighbourhood. “We started with the small cart, into festivals. Even with Parkside, it was such a community-based operation,” says Hadinata. “We’re now looking to go back into the community.”
Gang Gang opens at 2/276 Shepherd’s Hill Road, Eden Hills tomorrow.
