Super short Sydney trip!
I've somehow been whirlwinded into classical music and had decided to browse performances at the Sydney Opera House, and stumbled upon Maxim Vengerov performing a recital! And I decided to buy premium tickets to see how a violin master plays in real life! It was also good for a short trip to see if my pigeons can survive unattended for a few days, in case I decide next year that I want to do Singapore for a few days.
The owner of Steam Tank coffee still recognised me after all these years! And this espresso was really good!
And AP Bakery's egg sandwich! I was really hoping that there'd be mortadella on this too, but it was just cheese and egg, so I decided to add on some ham, but it really wasn't needed! That egg was a really great custardy texture, definitely worth getting, and I was lucky that there was barely any wait when I visited!
Did you know the seats in the Opera House concert hall are such a pretty colour?!
Oh yeah, that was a great performance! The sound was so clear, and watching his bowing was amazing! How can he put the bow on the strings and it all just sounds perfect, while I'm there scratching away haha!
I am definitely enjoying this classical/performance phase!
Sydney 2024
Just a photo spam! Seagulls are forever bullies, and the new parts of Central Station are so pretty!
Petermen
Haha, I'm so silly for starting a post about a seafood restaurant using a picture of a flat white! But there's a reason for that, I was here for brunch, and, the coffee was surprisingly good! I've never had coffee this pleasant from one before (including Saint Peter's Artificer batch brew; that was nice but not at an Artificer level).
Ok, let's get onto the seafoody goodness. Petermen is a newly opened Josh Niland establishment, and conveniently (for me) located in St Leonards. I'd read that it wasn't quite as experimental or out there as Saint Peter, but I was here specifically for brunch, so that I could get a chance of tasting those wonderful sea urchin crumpets again. But I couldn't just have the crumpets, I had to try some other things too! More oysters, especially as I hadn't had a wapengo oyster in forever, so I had to get one, plus a merimbula rock oyster too.
Here is the delightful little expensive crumpet! Yes, how delicious! I remember really loving the actual crumpet at Saint Peter, and it's just as good here! The best thing about this little morsel is that the crumpet is at the same level as the sea urchin, super crispy crusty on the outside and soft on the inside!
They had larger dishes that I also wanted to try, but since most of these were for two people, I had to think strategically. I couldn't order anymore appetisers or else I'd be too full to finish the main, even though I really wanted to try the scallops. Maybe next time! I decided on the fish sausage with tomato, since I haven't tried a fish sausage yet. I really wanted to know how the taste and texture would be, and it was very good. It absolutely fits right in with beef sausages on a barbeque! Super extremely good! And the best thing about this dish was that the tomato dressing was the perfect accompaniment to the sausage! So much flavour! So much so that I realised I needed bread to mop up all the sauce!
I was so full, but I did have to try out a dessert too. This was the apple tart, and it was a nice simple dish! I was hoping for a shortcrust pastry crust, rather than this flat style, but this wasn't bad! Not quite my style of dessert, but I already knew that too - I deliberately chose something I wouldn't usually go for to expand my palate!
And the best bit of all was that Josh was actually there at the restaurant! So I had to turn on my stalker mode and take a photo!
What I love about this place is that it's so much easier to get to than Paddington, which is automatically a plus for me! It means that I don't miss Saint Peter as much. The seafood here is very good, even though the prices are through the roof. It's worth the experience, even if it's just once!
Gildas
First there was Firedoor, and now there's Gildas, a new Lennox Hastie establishment!
My trip to Sydney was rather impromptu, and I found myself without any plans on a Friday night. So what do I do? I google Gildas to see if they're walk in friendly, and lo and behold, I got myself a spot!
Look at these lovely bite size gildas! I love the naming system too. I was only in here for something small, and this fit the bill perfectly! They had three gildas on offer - gilda, grillda, and matilda. The gilda is a classic - anchovy, olive, and pepper. The grillda was bonito and caper, while the matilda was kangaroo and desert lime. My favourite (if I had to choose one) was the grillda, but to be honest, all three were fantastic!
When I saw the retired dairy cow tartare on the menu, I totally had to get it! I've been wanting to eat more dairy cows, and this one was great! Because of the way it was prepared, I couldn't tell that this was any different from a beef cow. There was a cute cup of kipfler chips to go with it!
I can't get enough of mushrooms, so I had to order the oyster mushroom and smoked yolk dish. Oyster mushrooms are too expensive to buy at home, so it was a great excuse to splurge!
And lastly, the tocino de cielo. I'd never had anything like it so I had to try it, and I'm glad it was small! That's what I get for having a pre-lunch and a late lunch! This had the most interesting texture, it's described as being similar to a creme caramel, but this was soooo much richer. It's like a creme caramel if it was made of 90% egg yolks! It was the perfect size and I love all the tiny glistening grapes on top!
I'm really glad they take walk ins so that I could try out a few of these dishes. It's very much a case of simple things done well, and some food I've never had before! It is a great place to have drinks and some food!
The best bit about the visit was the souvenirs, I have no idea if these are given out to every table, but my bill came with fat matchsticks and a ... coin? thing? I have no idea if it has a name. But it was very fun to get, better than just a business card! I left the matchsticks behind though since I didn't want to take them on the plane. It's so retro, it's great!
Sydney 2023 - Chaco Bar
Wow, has it been forever since I posted about a restaurant! In this Sydney trip, I wanted to do a mix of new and old. Technically, this is both, since I've been to the old Chaco Bar, but not this new one in this new location! It was interesting to see what was the same and what was different!
These dried fish bones were pretty awesome, I wonder if they're going to be used for stock. They look so cool just hanging there!
The grill's nice and hot! I took a few different photos of this but I couldn't get the framing or focus right once the fire started up, so this one is the nicest shot of the lot.
Some wilty but pretty flowers as decor too! It's same same but different from what is now Chaco Ramen, but what's interesting is that all the yakitori boards got moved here, even though they're no longer as yakitori as they used to be? There's also a dyson on the table, and it has a digital air quality display. It was all green until the flames started up on the grill, then the numbers went sky high!
First things first - pickles! I love pickled vegetables, though this didn't quite taste like I expected, because I had made an assumption that these would taste like a Japanese sweet vinegar pickle. They were instead quite different, but still yummy!
Gotta get my fill of oysters while I'm on holiday!
Ok, stuff off the grill time! King browns with sharp comte goodness and cured yolk! I love barbequed mushrooms!
Chicken wing prawn toast. Not quite the flavour I was expecting; I was hoping it was exactly as described, that it would taste like prawn toast inside a chicken wing, however, it was more gingery and not quite as prawny as I wanted it to be.
And the yakitori - this one was the chicken thigh, and it was great! This was just like the Chaco Bar stuff I had in my previous visit, super delicious!
Chicken skin too, which were very flavoursome!
Lastly, some pork belly. It was interesting to compare what my brother and I liked, my favourite was the thigh, and his favourite was the skin. We liked the stick we took first, which was interesting, because I didn't think that time or order would normally affect the taste that much. It could be that we simply liked different things! Definitely a possibility!
Now this was the dish that I was anticipating the most. Horumon yaki - chicken hearts, giblets, cartilage, coriander. I was sad that they took the offal off the yakitori menu, so I wanted the dish that still contained the most delicious bits of a chicken. The flavour was totally not what I was expecting at all! It was a spice mix that I would generally associate with... my random cooking than a Japanese style. It was still very tasty, all the bits were cooked so nicely!
This was probably my favourite dish of the night. Yeah, the yakitori was just as good as I remember, but this special - a 4 week aged rump cap, was amazing! I wasn't expecting to eat a steak at a yakitori joint, and I don't usually get rump cap as a cut, so I didn't really have any expectations for it. But wow, WOW, I love steak from non steak houses, cause they're done so much better (controversial I'm sure)! This had so much flavour and was so tender, and cooked to a lovely rare to medium rare ish. I absolutely loved it!
And finally we tried the daifuku for dessert. Mine was the yuzu coconut one, and it was quite nice! The mochi skin was great! The only reason I'd pick the Sokyo mochi ice cream over this one is because Sokyo's ice cream is softer; it's at just the right melty point for consumption, whereas this one was very much a "just out of the freezer" feeling.
What was interesting about this visit was that there was a couple sitting next to us on the communal table, and it seemed like their first time there. They started talking to us about the place, and it was interesting to hear that it wasn't quite as amazing as they expected. I can't remember exactly what they ate, given the menu's range and smaller yakitori choices, they probably had a mix like we did. Not all of their non-yakitori were quite up there in terms of what I like for flavour, so I can see where the couple were coming from. That being said, I do hope they were in fact very pleased with some of the dishes, because there's some very good food here!
Overall, I think I can't compare this Chaco Bar to the old one; this is its own new self with a balance of all kinds of dishes. I do really miss the sansho tuna salad that I had last time, and the offal yakitori, but the yakitori still remains one of the best, for which I'm glad! And now I know they make awesome steak specials too!