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!
Rusty Pig
Ah, the joys of dining out. Also, visiting a restaurant I haven't been to before. And best of all, cooking with fire! A triple combo that was so good!
It's a relatively new restaurant at less than a year old. Located next to one of my favourite cafes, I always noticed it but never really took time to go visit (plus I never seem to find the money to go!), but now seemed like the perfect time. Yes, what a fantastic night!
It was just myself and another party of 5 on a stormy Friday night. Usually I avoid Fridays, but I was feeling it this time. The max capacity at the time was 10 people, and already there were no shows! How crushing. It always makes me sad when people don't call to cancel.
Their non alcoholic options were almost non existent, so i was contemplating getting a glass of wine, but then I found on their list a green ant gin! Woah! Yeah, I definitely had to try that! It was garnished with lemon, making it harder to taste out the nuances of the gin, but since I've eaten green ants before at Noma Australia, I could use my imagination to sort of bridge the gin to the tonic and lemon. Good stuff!
Fired baked bread with lamb fat, confit garlic. Ooooooh yeah. Do you know how hard it is to get animal fat bread?? I recall having chicken fat with butter somewhere (maybe Automata?), and then there was the beef fat taro at Orana (ok so that's not quite bread, but you get the point), but it seems to be pretty uncommon? This was incredible. I don't usually like lamb fat but I suspect that this is because I never ate lamb growing up because my mum didn't like it, but since I've been experimenting with my own cooking adventures, I think I'm now used to the flavour so this was delicious! And that confit garlic too! It was just SO GOOD.
Corn ribs, chaat masala, charred lemon. Yeeah that spice on the corn is great! Plus I love corn so this was so good! There was so much corn too!
Abrolhos Island scallops, salted kombu butter. This is the crowd favourite, but I've had a loooooot of scallops, so this one wasn't actually my favourite haha (it was the bread). The salted kombu was super tasty though, so I can see why everyone loves this dish. But when I can get live Rottnest Island scallops for myself, this one's a hard call. Yes, it's great, but I've had many great scallops!
Grilled occy, charred corn salad, fermented chilli sauce. The rest of the menu were basically a list of their greatest hits, and this was more of a new/experimental dish. Not bad! I personally felt that it was a bit of corn overkill, considering how much corn I ate earlier, but I love corn so it was fine. The octopus was super tasty and it came covered in fermented chilli! Hmmm I still think Besk's house hot sauce was just that bit tastier, but this also had a similar tomatoey flavour. I feel like the octopus might pair better with a different vegetable? We could just go Spanish? and say potatoes but maybe it does well with other foods too!
Mottainai lamb, pomme puree, minted jus. Yeah wow that lamb. Such deliciousness! And sorry, but I'm going to call that mash potatoes. That was super tasty too! Thick and luscious. I'm amazed at how tasty that lamb was. The chef was saying how he can always taste it out from other producers - these lambs are fattened up with carrots from the carrot farm next door! So good. This was my second favourite next to the bread.
And lastly for dessert, sticky date pudding, bourbon butterscotch sauce, vanilla ice cream. Yeah I love sticky date pudding! It's one of those foods I wasn't terribly fond of as a kid, but started loving it as I grew up. I pretty much demolished this dessert, it was so good, with a great sauce to pudding ratio. Yeah! If anything I wished there was a bit more date? But that's a very minor thing and personal preference.
Overall it was a fantastic and great value dinner! Plus I loved the whole cooking with fire experience. Flames just make everything taste so much better! Because it was so quiet, I also managed to enjoy a lovely conversation with the chef, who seems to have worked at many restaurants! That's pretty cool! What a lovely bunch of people, and I think everyone's just happy to be out and about again. I've been having so much fun with home cooking, but having flavours and techniques constructed by other people is also very fun!
Firedoor in 2019
Most of the restaurants I go to leave a big impression on me. Each restaurant generally has one or two dishes that leave a huge impression on me. And then there's a dish that changes the way you think about something forever. Those come by only every few restaurants, and one of them is the Firedoor steak.
It was the thought of that steak that made me book Firedoor again, even though this time I would be dining alone and wouldn't actually be able to order the steak. But I also think this place made headlines after I visited because they had a goldfish to accompany solo diners at one point? I could be wrong on that. Either way, I was eager to come back.
Bingo! I got the fireside table! Yeah! Perfect for the obligatory fire shot to begin with!
A mocktail to start. I like that restaurants are starting to feature interesting non alcoholic drinks! This one I think was beetroot based, and the foam on top is made using aquafaba. Nice stuff!
Oh. Oh yeah. Marron was on the menu. I mean I should be sensible buuuuut LOOK HOW CUTE THIS LITTLE GUY IS! How could I not eat it??? So I decided to go for it. What an absolute cutie.
Ok, so this visit was actually very special for me. Since it was early and quiet, and I was fireside, Lennox himself introduced himself to me! How awesome!!! He asked me if it was my first time and I said that I was a returning customer. He also shook my hand! Woah! Yay! I SHOOK LENNOX HASTIES HAND this is so exciting!!!
He even gave me this kangaroo dish as a complementary starter as a way of saying thank you. That's so nice! Already this makes me feel like coming back again for a third visit in the future! I think that small gestures like this are really nice. I really don't expect it at all, especially as it was only my second visit and years after my first, it wasn't even like I was a regular or anything!
I chose a light dish to start off with. I can't remember exactly but I believe this was albacore tuna with kohl rabi, persimmon maybe? And you can see it also has tendrils of seaweed! I liked the combination of flavours and textures in this dish! So interesting!
Ah, look at that fire go! It was hard to get a good shot that includes the little sparks flying off to the side. It was interesting to see how the kitchen worked, since the height of the grill was adjustable so you could bring it down closer to the coals or further away. It was also interesting to see how long each item stayed on the grill too - it was actually longer than I thought! I think that's the beauty of cooking with an open fire, it looks spectacular but the flames seem to be cooler than a gas stovetop, so the way food cooks is different too!
My lovely marron was ready now! Isn't it so cute? Tiny limes with ice plant leaves! I liked this version better than the original I reckon!
Also, DUCK HEARTS! Yeah! I'm eating so many hearts this trip! I had the chicken hearts at Chaco Bar and now duck hearts here! I'm pretty sure duck hearts featured a few years back and I really really wanted them, and finally they were back on the menu, so I was very excited about this! And so tender too. Man, if only I was brave enough to cook hearts myself... maybe one day, but I'd want the super good stuff rather than the 500g packs you get at the supermarkets.
For all the greatness of meat and fire, Firedoor is actually a vegetable heavy restaurant. Veges taste just as good with a lick of flames, and this seasonal dish of asparagus and peas with hazelnuts was too good to pass up! Yeah! It's always worth getting the seasonal vegetables, you don't get fresher than this!
And remember to always leave room for dessert. They'd been advertising a bombe alaska for a while and I was so worried that it was only on the chefs menu or otherwise inaccessible, but no, it was on the a la carte menu too! Yeah!
I prepped my camera in advance since I was anticipating some amazing shots. Look at that brandy or similar go! Yeah! I love those flames hahah. There's fireside, then there's fiery food at your table! It wasn't just a pretty show. That was a solid, delicious bombe. I think there was raspberry ice cream inside? Oh man so good. I love chefs here, they have such a great sense of humour too! After I'd finished, the dessert chef came over to collect my plate and teased me! He said it mustn't have been that good because there was a tiny melted puddle that I couldn't quite scrape! So I said I could lick the plate to make it all better hahahaha. Friendly staff are the best!
I don't know what it was about this trip but everything was just so much better than my first visit of many restaurants! Firedoor is such a lovely place, I want to come back again and again!
DID I MENTION THAT I SHOOK LENNOX HASTIES HAND?! TWICE!!! We shook hands at the end too and I tipped a heap since I got the free dish haha. Plus that saw. I loved hearing the bandsaw go again and again!!!
Ok that's enough blogging for now, it's so tedious hahaha.
Quay 2.0
Quay was the second fine dining restaurant I visited back in 2011. I really enjoyed the first experience, from the view, to the decor, to the food, especially the pork jowl dish! And everything else. To this day, some of the dishes I had then are are still prominent in my memory and a lot of other restaurants trigger the memories of that visit, notably the marron with grapefruit, the congee, and the pork jowl.
Recently they renovated, and started featuring crumpets on their menu instead of the usual bread options. There'd been a crumpet craze, and I joined in that craze when Saint Peter did uni on crumpets (which are SOOOO good!). So, I decided, now's the time to revisit!
The thing is, I've been so behind on writing up my Sydney adventures that I've forgotten what this amuse bouche is! All I know is that it was tasty, but that's a given!
I had booked the shorter course as that was the only thing available on their website, but on the day, they advised we had the entire table so we opted for the full menu! We still received the complimentary drink. Since I'm no good with alcohol I chose their tea instead, which was a savoury style tea, tomato consomme style! I thought that was really cool!
Look at the texture on that bowl! It kind of reminds me of oyster shells, which is fitting since the first dish is about seafood! We even got tweezers to eat this with, that's how delicate the food is!
Juice pairing time! The first beverage was a non alcoholic wine, made by an ex-Noma staff member, how cool!
Yeah. So many interesting things about this dish! This was my favourite for the night (and so early in the meal too!). The caviar itself I've had to death in my New York trip, but the smoked eel cream was absolutely spectacular. It was rich, strong, smooth, full of flavour, it was just so good! Wow! And the sea cucumber crackling was a great way to transform an ingredient that I don't like! I love it when restaurants use things like sea cucumber, fish eyes, beef tendons etc to make crackling because it makes so much sense!
This was the pairing with the caviar. A very light matcha flavour, which is good since I'm not a fan of most matchas and very refreshing!
The next drink was out, and I love this flavour combination. I do love tea based drinks and when they feature oils, it reminds me a lot of how Noma infuse an insane amount of flavour and texture into their juices!
Man those red pea flowers are gorgeous. What is really great is that Peter Gilmore is really into heirloom varieties and breeding interesting vegetables. Most pea flowers I see are white, and occasionally purple, so seeing these red ones were a treat! Plus one can never go wrong with a tartare dish!
A mini snack in between courses, this was so cute because it reminded me of a pot plant - that little succulent sticking out like it was growing from the mountain of peas! All my favourite ingredients in one, I loved this little tart!
Yep, this looks like a concentrated shot! Given that Seedlip was used, this was meant to resemble spirits!
Ah, this is like their new congee dish! Well ok, I should actually describe it as a crab dish rather than the congee since that's the main ingredient. Chawan mushi-like with some tasty broth!
Ah yes, the moment I was waiting for! The entire reason (ok well maybe not entire reason) I booked Quay! It's crumpet time! The smoked roe was so good though there totally wasn't enough cream haha. Very enjoyable, even though it didn't actually turn out to be my favourite dish haha. I still think Mr. Niland's crumpets are the tastiest, but admittedly those are fried so they're hard to beat!
I seem to have either taken the photos out of order or there were an uneven number of drinks to courses? Haha oh well. One day I'll get this blogging thing right. Until then, I'll just assume this is the corresponding picture. A beer-mimicking drink to go with the crumpets!
Woah! Pasta! Infused with bone marrow! Yeah! Nice and al dente, this had a great texture! I really enjoyed this one!
Okay I am guessing a bit here so apologies if I've done it in the wrong order. I think this was the buckwheat drink to pair with the pasta. I love herbacious flavours in drinks too, and I think it really complements the roastiness of the buckwheat!
The almighty smoked pork jowl dish! How it's changed so much but still very much a similar concept! Personally I liked the 2011 version better, but I mean, that was a pretty high bar and it's not like this was bad, I just liked how the textures came together better on my previous visit. Still a very good set of ingredients and such soft pork!
Haha I loved the presentation of this drink! A pear shaped frozen thing! But softly frozen, like fine granita that would melt into the drink. Pear, like apple, seems to be a good pairing for pork!
I love that Peter Gilmore loves peas! Speckled peas this time! But let's talk about the duck. I love duck and have had a few recently, including the one at Eleven Madison Park, and that one didn't actually impress me (sorry guys!). This, on the other hand. WOW. It's been a very long time since I've been surprised by a duck dish and this was GOOD!!! The duck was tender, well flavoured and the reason this is a winner - that skin was thin and perfectly crispy! Woah! I really was not expecting this to be next level crispy skin! What!!!! Yeah this was absolutely mind blowing!!! Ok so I didn't mention it at the beginning of my post as one of my favourite dishes but yes if you ever wonder whether or not you should choose this duck the answer is yes! Definitely! It is so good!!!
Yeah after the food I don't remember much about the drink haha.
After that mindblowingly amazing duck dish, it was time to move onto dessert. Look at the foamy thing on top! Visually this reminded me a lot of Noma Australia's rum lamington, but this had a harder texture and was less melty. There was also a lovely berry ice cream hiding underneath!
This is such an adorably presented dessert! So-called for the jersey milk cream that was so delicious. I'm an absolute sucker for cream so this was a real winner! Super rich and creamy! Plus those biscuits were super thin, and I am always impressed by super thin stuff! There was also some tasty caramel hiding underneath.
I liked this round of desserts better than the ones in 2011 (yes, even surpassing the snow egg!), but that's probably because I have a strong bias towards cream haha.
Ok, so it looks like I am missing a drink photo. There were 10 listed on the menu but I only seem to have 9 shots. Oops! I think this was the pairing with the white coral. I must not have gotten a photo of the Moo pairing, which was apricot, cola, pepper and coffee. Man that last drink was actually quite tasty!
And finally petit fours. I was so full after this! My friend had to leave early so I had to eat all four fours! Ahaha but they were good, and while the caneles look really dark on the outside, they were pretty good!
Overall my second visit to Quay was just as fantastic as the first! Very different food experiences and it's interesting to see how main ingredients have carried through but in very different iterations. Comparing the dishes was really fun and I really should revisit restaurants more often because a lot of the fun is in watching them evolve!
Gramercy Tavern
I had no idea what kind of restaurant I was going to. Gramercy Tavern was a place that the waiter from Per Se suggested, and since I had no dinner plans, checking this place out felt like a good idea since good old Google said they served American fare.
There's some interesting decor here, including this star!
Bread and butter came first here, and this was a cool piece of bread that actually broke really cleanly across, making it easy and neat to pile on some butter.
I chose a mocktail here because of the name. This was the N/A-groni, a play on the negroni. I was pleasantly surprised by the flavour here - it was not all that sweet, and had a nice bitterness to it. So this is what negronis taste like, and why people like it! I think non-sweet mocktails are so much easier to drink with food, and it reminded me of how complementary good non-alcoholic drinks are with food, like the time I had the Clamato juice at Waku Ghin.
Yum, clams to start off with! I think these might have also been top neck clams, the same ones from Wildair. I love all the clams I'm eating here!
Since it's been a while, I'm not sure exactly what this was, but using their website as a memory aid, this was probably the hamachi dish, which was really enjoyable with apple and kohl rabi.
Scallops with salsify, potato and mussels. I actually got the order wrong in my blog, I ate the salsify here before the one at Contra but I can't be bothered going back and changing the words around to fit. These scallops went so well with the broth!
Halibut and white beans. Woah, this halibut. Is it a crime to say I liked this one better than EMPs? The texture of this one was better, it felt more like "just cooked" and that made it so much more delicious. The service here was awesome too! Throughout my meal, I felt that I was really looked after, and that was really nice. I don't know exactly why it stood out at the time, but I just felt that I noticed it for some reason.
Ugly delicious time!!! Squid ink spaccatelle, langoustine and whelk! Yeeah that's a seafood bonanza that I love, with punchy flavours (and the slightest hint of spice) and really nicely cooked pasta. That pasta. Also, getting to eat whelk was a bonus too! Definitely the highlight of the night.
What a cool looking knife. Knife's about to say hello to some delicious red meat!
Beef with ramps. Yeah, another restaurant featuring ramps! I don't know why I get so excited about these oniony-garlicky flavoured spring greens, but possibly because I never see them in Aus. The beef was quite nice too!
After that, there was an optional cheese course. I wasn't sure if I wanted one or not, but the waitstaff said that the servings were quite small... so I ended up agreeing to have some. Here's some bread to accompany the cheese!
It was also time to have another drink, and when I asked what paired well with cheese that was non alcoholic, she recommended some cider! Remember that cider here is non alcoholic. I can't remember if it was pear or apple, but either way, I quite enjoyed this with the cheese!
The waiter was right, the servings were small, great as a taster for this all American line up. It was some soft cheese, washed rind, and a blue cheese. The blue cheese was quite tasty, and the washed rind had an interesting funk to it.
A cute little palate cleanser, but I don't remember what this was. Possibly some apple granita or the likes?
Dessert was a vanilla mousse with pomegranates. I haven't had a mousse for dessert in ages! This was heavier than I expected, but the flavour and texture were pretty good, and the richness was offset by the sauce,
And to end the night, some petit fours. What a lovely dinner!
Wow a morning after choc banana muffin care package! How nice! It tasted good too! I didn't realise heaps of restaurants offer care packages these days, since Vue de Monde was the only one that's done so before my trip to New York. What a nice place this was, I'm so glad I came here after the waiter recommended it.
I actually can't believe how nice it was since I hadn't heard about it before. The service was just so nice! And then I realised afterwards, oh, this has a Michelin Star. Oooh. That's why! I think I'm probably the only person who'd go to a restaurant without knowing its reputation hahaha. I love unexpected surprises so this was really fun! Would definitely come here again to try the cafe/bar seating too!