Dinner at Tetsuya's

Dinner at Tetusya's

I was a bit apprehensive about dining at Tetsuya's. I mean, it's the country's most prestigious and acclaimed restaurant and as such had for me more or less represented the pinnacle of Australia's dining scene, which sets an incredibly high level of expectation. In lieu of this, I'd avoided the restaurant until now,convinced I'd set my own expectations so sky high i could only, feasibly, be disappointed.

On the occasion of my 26th birthday, however, my mum simply wouldn't take no for an answer and booked us in. Deep breaths, and.. we're in:

Pacific Oysters with Rice Vinegar and Ginger

This was actually an optional course, carrying a supplementary charge. Given it was my birthday though, and the great things I'd heard about tetsuya's oysters, it really left us with no choice at all. And a great choice it was. My mum, oyster fork in hand, bless her, seemed a bit wary of how to approach eating the oyster, swimming as it was in the dressing, until I picked up the shell and slurped it down in one go, encouraging her to do the same. Brilliant, almost the best oyster of my life- no small compliment, given oysters are my hangover cure of choice. In fact, these were second only to the one served at the fat duck.

Sashimi of kingfish with blackbean and orange

Stunning. It might be the case that every ingredient in the world has one, or several, other ingredients which perfectly accentuate their natural flavour. If this is the case, then Tetsuya's has nailed it with the kingfish.

Soft roast scampi tails with herb and citrus oil

Another incredible dish. It's amazing how much the simple act of grilling can transform an ingredient's flavour, as was the case here with the fennel. The scampi had that just-set consistency typical of sous-vide cookery and the dressing was spot-on.

Salad of confit ocean trout with zucchini & non-pasteurised roe

Tetsuya's signature dish, apparently having undergone another transformation, this incarnation served on its side instead of upright, and additionally seasoned with what tasted like a curry oil. At any rate, the ocean trout was perfectly cooked and well seasoned. A magnificent dish befitting its signature dish status.

Scallop with fregolone and togan

Togan? To be honest, I didn't know what it was then and I don't know now, other than to say it had a vaguely cauliflowery/new-potatoeish level of starch. The scallop was sweet and delicious and the fregola (fregolone?) well cooked and seasoned.

Raviolo of octopus with oregano and black olives

With my own cooking most closely aligned with italian cuisine, I really thought this would be a knockout: simple italian flavours prepared by Australia's top kitchen. Unfortunately, it was really rather ordinary, with there being a strange textural contrast between the pasta and the octopus filling- a harsh criticism perhaps, but sous vide can, and has, been used to provide a perfect textural harmony of otherwise disparate ingredients. Furthermore, as a purely personal criticism, the sudden thrusting of familiar italian flavours jarred with the asian fusion flavours of the dishes which had preceded it.

Breast of chicken with corn and foie gras


Sadly, this dish was the most disappointing of the evening. Unfortunately, the chicken was unacceptably overcooked, a real shame given the perfectly cooked chunks of foie gras lobe and a silky corn mousse. This could have been amazing given a bit more care.

Sirloin of Wagyu with braised leeks, sancho and soy

After the french/italian misfirings of the previous dishes, I was glad to see a return to Japanese cooking yield a stunning result. A thin tataki of wagyu, served atop leek and nicely sauced and seasoned, this was exactly the kind of red meat hit that was needed at this stage of the meal.

Fig ice cream with caramelised fig

Look, I'm all for seasonal produce, but this was just crushingly ordinary. Really, this was the sort of dish that I could put together in a couple of hours at home, with nothing special about it whatsoever.

Cannelini beans with mascarpone and soy caramel

The key component to this dish, not listed on the menu, was the blue cheese which played a significant role in this dish. Paired with the soy caramel and mascarpone, it was a strange mix of sweet and salty which worked better than expected and was a timely reminder of the depth of knowledge of the cooking staff who work behind the scenes.

Chocolate fondant with hazelnut and praline

A special dish, prepared for my birthday, this was truly a nice surprise. There was a candle stuck into the vanilla ice cream on the left, but I yanked it out prior to taking the photo, which accounts for the misshapen quenelle. A nice touch, and a lovely dessert.

The meal as a whole is difficult to categorise, though I am confident in saying that it met my expectations, which is definitely quite an accomplishment. A lovely meal, and I also want to mention Tetsuya's incredible lack of pretence and the warmth of the staff and the dining room. Having mentioned I was a keen cook, I was invited not only into their kitchen for a peek into a behind-the-scenes look, but also in order to help out whenever i liked. I think i'll take them up on this.

Est.

Dinner at Est

For some people birthdays are just another day; for some they're a depressing reminder of their own mortality and of how little they've accomplished. Personally, I love birthdays, not least because it invariably leads to my going out to a bunch of great restaurants with other people footing the bill. On this occasion I was generously treated to dinner at Est by my mate and his girlfriend, a terrific gift I was only too happy to accept and was anxiously looking forward to.

Booked in for a Friday night, I expected it to be a bit manic, however, the restaurant did not appear to be full to capacity and in fact the service, with one exception, was terrific. I say 'with one exception' because of the waiter we had for the majority of the evening. He may have been new, or perhaps related to someone within the restaurant and as such had received the job via nepotism rather than merit; whatever the case, the guy was a fumbling incompetant.

Now, at this point I just want to make it clear that I'm not the sort of person who complains about this sort of thing and I actually don't care much about service- as long as they keep my water/wine glass full and put food in front of me, I'm happy, I just thought this was funny. For instance, after taking our requests to all be served the tasting menu, he looked at us with a pained kind of expression and explained regretfully that the chocolate dessert which usually appears on the menu wasn't available and had to be replaced with something else. It sounds petty, but the way he explained it gave us all the impression that on this occasion we were shit out of luck, and that our replacement dessert may as well be a turd sandwich.

Poor guy. Anyway, our first course (no amuse bouche- what gives?) was :

Heirloom tomato granita, lemon and fennel

Not bad. I didn't love this dish, though it was refreshing. I guess I just wasn't in the mood for a savoury sno-cone at that point.

Nage of lobster claw, moreton bay bug, cucumber, peas, ginger and lime

Fantastic! Beautifully fresh seafood prepared carefully and served without any unnecessary frills, allowing the sweet, perfectly cooked shellfish to take centre stage.

Steamed Murray cod fillet, shaved abalone, snow peas, oyster mushrooms, ginger-green shallot

Another very nice dish, and not at all as busy as the name suggests. The broth accompanying the fish was fantastic, with a lovely spicy gingery warmth.

Parma prosciutto and duck foie gras rolled quail breast, chanterelles, leek, fregola, porcini

I have to admit, I was very excited about this dish, fregola and foie gras being two ingredients I find it easy to get excited about. And it was a nice dish, just not as amazing as I'd hoped- the foie gras existed in too small a quantity and as such failed to provide the kind of flavour hit it should have done.

Pan roasted lamb rib eye, portobello mushroom, confit tomatoes, zucchini flower, panisse, tapenade

I was very happy with this as a main course, nothing outrageous or unexpected, just great, well-established flavour combinations with ingredients prepared and seasoned perfectly. The panisse, in particular, was a standout, and is something i'm going to use in my own cooking.

Blueberry sorbet, milk, lemonade, tarragon and lemon

And now, onto the desserts. Unfortunately, this dish did not taste nearly as interesting as it sounded. But then, it does sound very interesting. Honestly, there was nothing particularly memorable about this one.

Passionfruit souffle, passionfruit sorbet

And now, the final dessert. If this dessert pales in comparison to the chocolate one, as our waiter had previously implied, then I suppose I'll have to go back to try that dessert, because this one was quite flawless. There seemed to be a touch of mango paired with the passionfruit, which made the whole affair very summery and enjoyable, and paired with the cream, it tasted like a more-delicious weiss bar.

We were next served our coffees and petit fours, no pictures unfortunately, which is a shame, because one of the petit fours, an olive oil jelly, was absolutely superb: it tasted so familiar and yet i couldn't place it- when I asked a waiter what it was, he said that I would 'kick myself when i found out', which only made me more intensely curious. Generously, he then brought out some more of them to help me determine the flavour. Unfortunately, my by then booze-addled brain couldn't process the information and all I could determine was that it had notes of banana, was incredibly familiar, and was an ingredient not normally used in dessert preparations. And yes, I did kick myself when I found out. It's always nice when something like a petit four, a pre-dessert or an amuse-bouche can be the one thing which stands out in a meal, it shows that the restaurant has a serious commitment to quality and delivering standout dishes at every point of the meal.

Overall, a very nice meal, made all the nicer by not having had to pay for it. Next up, Tetsuya's!

Restaurant Arras

My former career in media sales required that I attend a certain number of meetings with my clients per week. My biggest client was located just around the corner from this restaurant. Although I hated the meetings, I loved the area- Walsh Bay is a superb part of Sydney, with great heritage sandstone buildings situated right at the water's edge. Restaurant Arras is located in one of these buildings, which in keeping with their stated ambition, has been converted by chef/owners Adam Humphrey and Lovaine Allen into 'a restaurant that they would enjoy dining in'. A year and a career change later and I would finally discover whether I too would enjoy dining there.

First of all, I'll have to disclose that I came to Arras with very high hopes, with the restaurant having enjoyed great reviews both from professionals and the eatability community. Furthermore, I really wanted to like Arras- put simply, they seemed to make the sort of food I liked to eat. So then, it was my intention to order the degustation and prepare to be amazed.

First impressions were excellent, being quickly seated by my friendly waiter and presented with this thing:

This lovely snack consisted of variously favoured crispbreads rooted in a kind of honeyed nut crumble. Then, ordering a drink, I was informed ofthe restaurant's excellent 'unlimited sparkling water for $9' policy- great value given that there are others who think nothing of charging that amount, or more, per bottle, and then, I assume, sleep soundly at night.

A selection of terrific breads and butter then arrived, followed promptly by the amuse bouche

This was described to me by my waiter as a 'cheese sandwich with pickled blueberries'. The cheese was actually a blue cheese mousse and worked well with the acidity from the blueberries. Plus, it did look quite cool.

The raw and the cooked

Simply called 'the raw and the cooked', this dish was designed, according to my waiter, to showcase 'vegetable's vertality'. Featuring too many little vegetables and edible flowers to name, interspersed with little pools of a rich carrot puree, this was, I suppose, the Arras version of the famous Bras dish 'gargouillou' and was a great way to get things started

Smoked, roast and dressed

With the dish descriptions on the menu seemingly restricted to the realm of ambiguous punnery, I had to rely on my waiter to furnish me with information regarding each dish. This one featured kohlrabi, a sardine and a perfectly cooked scallop and some other things I didn't recognise. One ingredient I did recognise, however, were the now ubiquitous little purple flowers, their having made an appearance in every dish thus far. Anyway, the scallop was very nice, though I'm still not sold on sardines.

Quinoa kedgeree

Kedgeree is a uniquely british dish of rice, smoked fish, eggs, parsley and, showing the indian influence on british cuisine, curry powder. Like most taditional english dishes, it is typically a pretty slap bang affair- this one, however, is a fair bit more sophisticated. Forgoing rice for quinoa, curry oil for the powder and topping it off with a slow cooked quail egg, this was a great display of various textures and flavours while not trying to be too clever or straying too far from the traditional preparation of this dish.

Birds of a feather

Next up- a pheasant terrine with golden raisins soaked in mead, accompanied by what tasted like a gingerbread cream. Despite the terrine being slightly disappointingly bland, this dish was saved by that gingerbread sauce, which was slightly sweet, cinnamonny and smooth. I'm going to have to remember to rip this one off in my future cooking experiments.

A plate of duck- beak to tail feather

Accompanied by a little ceramic jug of duck gravy, this dish sought to celebrate all things duck and largely succeeded- the duck breast was incredibly tender, the little chips of what I presume was duck prosciutto were a nice textural touch and the corn puree was a surprisingly complementary addition. Where the dish fell down was the duck sausagey thing, which I didn't feel was quite as good as it could have been. I think a little bit of duck foie gras would also have worked extremely well here.

Slow cooked lamb, lavender and honey sweetbreads

Huh? This dish actually has a conventional name on the menu- I figure this must be a new addition to the lineup and they haven't thought of anything clever yet. In keeping with its prosaic name, the execution was also fairly straightforward - a nice piece of lamb, some kale, jus and some wedges of potato. The only real aberration came in the form of the sweetbreads, the honey and lavender not doing much to enhance their natural flavour. Still, a nice dish.

Ah pre-desserts- a course which is fast becoming my favourite of the meal. I'm not sure why, but they so often overshadow the dessert itself. This one was a shot glass of chiled melon soup, coconut sorbet, coffee crumbs and a touch of bitter orange powder. Not bad, and all of the ingredients certainly didn't interfere with one another, but they didn't exactly marry perfectly either. I hoped that in this case the dessert would buck the trend and be incredible.

An adolescent breakfast

It wasn't. Consisting of a 'muesli' of nuts and raisins topped with a milk sorbet and a chocolate 'thing' (my words, not theirs). I was disappointed, as I really wanted to like this dish. I liked the idea of different elements to the dish, all playing off a central theme, and I initially thought the tube of what turned out to be a chantilly cream to be a nice touch. Unfortunately, the theme itself seemed contrived- merely a means of getting these individual elements onto a plate together. Does a typical adolescent breakfast consist of a chocolate bar and some cereal? I don't know, I have only ever really had coffee for breakfast, but something tells me that it doesn't.

This would have been forgiven if everything came together well, but it didn't. The chocolate thing featured a meh chocolate and nut base, a too-dense chocolate ganache centre and an oversalted caramel topping. The little toothpaste tube, meanwhile, wouldn't have been wanky if it held something that really tied the dish together excellently, rather than an unnecessary cream.

Just as well for what happened next then. I peered up from the book I was reading to see my waiter straining with an enormous slate tray, which must have been a metre squared. Struggling over to my table, he sighed with relief as he balanced its heft on the edge of my table. It's at this point that I see that the tray is abolutely festooned, overloaded, with an array of various petit fours. There must have been 20 different types, from peanut brittle to honeycomb, jellies, cookies and a vast array of filled chocolate treats. Invited to help myself, I attacked the tray with the gleeful abandon that the situation invited, loaded up my little plate and then went to town on it.

A terrific end, then, to what was, overall, a good meal. While none of the dishes were bad, there were no standouts either, which is a shame, because I like the English food angle and the creativity of the chef, even if everything didn't quite work as well as hoped.