Category: Degustation

This option is only offered by the cream of the crop, the best of them all, and would guarantee an almost eternal happiness.

Good Food Guide 2018
Good Food Guide 2018 introduced a massive change where instead of statewide list, it is now a National list. Hence, the winner might not necessarily be from New South Wales.

The winner of this inaugural format is Attica in Victoria.

Other Awards in this year’s Good Food Guide 2018

Best new restaurant of the year is Saint Peter in NSW by Josh Niland. They are coming in to the list as a two-hat restaurant.

Daniel Puskas from Sixpenny in NSW has won the Chef of The Year award. Sixpenny is a two-hat restaurant.

The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery & Store in Tasmania was awarded the Regional Restaurant of the Year in 2018. Its head chefs are Rodney Dunn and Severine Demanet.

The late Jeremy Strode received the Legend Award.

Young Chef of the year award was given to Kylie Millar from Attica in Victoria.

Nikki Friedli (Africola, South Australia) won the Service Excellence Award.

Food for Good award was given to Orana Foundation in South Australia. This award combined innovation, charity and sustainability.

If you want a good wine, you should go to Aria Brisbane in Queensland as they won this year’s Wine List of the year.

Sommelier of the year went to Raul Moreno Yague from Osteria Ilaria in Victoria.

Best Bar Food can be found in Bar Brosé.

Best Bar is Arlechin in Victoria.

Regional Wine List of the Year went to The Summertown Aristologist in South Australia.

List of NSW restaurants with hats in Good Food Guide 2018

Three hats

There are only two restaurants in NSW awarded with three hats as listed in the Good Food Guide 2018 website:
- Quay – 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2013 and this year’s restaurant of the year. Quay has once again reclaimed the top spot!
- Sepia – Winner of 2015, 2014 and 2012 Restaurant of the year award.
Three restaurants (Attica, Brae, Minamishima) in Victoria and Urbane in Queensland also received three hat status.

As listed from the website, the rest of the hats are as follows:

Two hats

Aria, Automata, Bennelong, Bentley Restaurant & Bar, Biota Dining, The Bridge Room, Cirrus, Est., Ester, Firedoor, Fleet, Fred’s, Icebergs Dining Room & Bar, Lucio’s, LuMi Dining, Momofuku Seiobo, Monopole, Mr. Wong, Muse Restaurant, Ormeggio at The Spit, Oscillate Wildly, Pilu at Freshwater, Porteño, Restaurant Hubert, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Saint Peter, Sixpenny, Tetsuya’s

One hat

10 William St, 4Fourteen, Acme, Aki’s, The Antipodean, The Apollo, Bacco, Baccomatto Osteria, Banksii, The Bathers’ Pavilion, Beach Byron Bay, Bellevue, Billy Kwong, Bistro Molines, Bistro Officina, Bistro Rex, Bodega, Buon Ricordo, Catalina, Caveau, China Doll, Cho Cho San, Clementine, Continental Deli Bar Bistro, Cottage Point Inn, Da Orazio Pizza & Porchetta, Darley’s, The Dolphin Hotel, Eschalot, Felix, Fratelli Paradiso, The Gantry, Glass Brasserie, Hartsyard, Harvest, Izakaya Fujiyama, Jade Temple, Jonah’s, Kepos Street Kitchen, Lolli Redini, Long Chim, LP’s Quality Meats, Margan Restaurant, Ms. G’s, Muse Kitchen, Nomad, Otto Ristorante, The Paddington, Paper Bird, Paper Daisy, Pearls on the Beach, Queen Chow, Restaurant Mason, The Restaurant Pendolino, Rocker, Rosetta, Sagra, Sake Restaurant & Bar (Double Bay), Sean’s Panaroma, Sokyo, Sotto Sopra, Spice Temple, St. Isidore, Stanbuli, The Stunned Mullet, Subo, Sushi e, Three Blue Ducks (Bronte & Rosebery), Tonic, Town Restaurant & Cafe, Uccello, Yellow, The Zin House

The following restaurants lost their hat status

Ajo, Berowra Waters Inn, The Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay, Kepos & Co, Mercado, One Ford Street, Vini

The following restaurants closed permanently

Guillaume (2-hat), Bar Brose, Bistrode CBD, Gastro Park, Master

Note: Green is a new entry to the list. Orange is the one who lost a hat
Oct 17, 2017
Kabuki Shoroku

Kabuki Shoroku Review:

We had a special occasion this week and decided to have a nice dinner at Kabuki Shoroku Japanese restaurant in Sydney CBD. Their restaurant had an old feel to it (according to them, they have been around for 25 years!).

They have a degustation menu called Kaiseki – autumn. It was priced at $88 per person. It is predominantly seafood dishes, highlighted by lobsters cooked in two ways.

Chef’s seasonal selection of appetisers
There were four different appetisers: slow cooked tuna, bamboo shoots, cheese and squid with fish paste. They were quite small but full of flavour.

Assortment of various fresh sashimi
Three of the most common kinds of Sashimi for each of us: salmon, tuna, kingfish. The cut was rather thick but it was so fresh.

Lobster tail grilled in two ways – mornay & soy
I usually was not a fan of lobsters. They carried a premium price but less tasty than a tiger prawn. Kabuki Shoroku served their lobsters beautifully. I wouldn’t mind a second serving.

Slow cooked duck and seasonal mushrooms served in clear starchy sauce topped with spinach and yuzu
The duck was probably our favourite for the night, just by a small margin from the lobster. I would also definitely go back to the restaurant for this dish!

Pacific saury seasoned with sweet soy and lightly fried, sansho pepper, lime
Saury is a kind of fish (yes, I had to google it when seeing the menu). It was quite an oily one, especially after being fried. Despite its small look, it was actually pretty heavy.

Sushi chef’s best selection of today’s nigiri sushi
We had three very fresh sushi. I couldn’t quite remember what they were.

Miso soup
Instead of the usual cloudy soup, the colour was actually quite dark. The flavour was pretty intense. It is interesting how they served the soup at the very last.

Chef’s special dessert selection
The dessert of the day was green tea mousse with strawberry and cream. It was quite a thick dessert to end the night.

Additional dishes
The following dishes are not part of the kaiseki menu, but came in as extras for the little one (or mine).

Saute Salmon with soy butter – $28
The soy butter for the salmon was pretty salty. It needs to be enjoyed with a bowl of rice.

Sushi – Scampi and steamed oyster
Scampi is my personal favourite in a Japanese restaurant. I usually order it when they are available. I actually also ordered sea urchin, but they were not available that day.

Tofu Rare Cheesecake with Ice cream – $12
Tofu cheesecake was so interesting that we just had to order it.

The final verdict for Kabuki Shoroku

You know you had a very nice dinner when you left the restaurant feeling nourished and happy. That’s how we felt upon leaving Kabuki Shoroku. Their service was impeccable.

Did you know?

Kabuki Shoroku has a sister restaurant for a more informal dining called Sakuratei. It is located right in front of the restaurant.

Rating for Kabuki Shoroku:

8.5 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: $88 per person

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Ground Floor 31 Market Street Sydney 2000

(202 Clarence St)

+61 2 9267 4552

http://www.kabukishoroku.com.au/

May 2, 2017
Toko Contemporary Japanese Izakaya

Toko Japanese Izakaya Review:

Our review this week came from a Japanese izakaya restaurant, called Toko. The restaurant is located in a busy suburb of Surry Hills in Sydney. We were there to celebrate one of our friends’ birthday with a set menu, Matsuri Banquet Menu. There was quite an extensive list of items in the menu.

Edamame – soy beans, maldon sea salt

There is nothing out of the ordinary to talk about here. It was just a regular edamame.

Hiramasa no usuzukuri – sliced kingfish, yuzu, chives

It was another quick munch-and-devour dish that was not memorable enough.

Koushi no tataki – venison carpaccio, nashi pear, yuzu koshu, potato airbags

This venison was the first dish that we took notice. It was quite a spicy dish. The potato airbags gave an added crunch to the dish.

Japanese salad – seasoned leaves, asparagus, cucumber, avocado, light-wafu

Some of our friends thought that Japanese salad was the best dish of the day. Although I am not a big salad eater, I actually quite enjoyed it. It was sad to think that salad was the best dish in a degustation.

Osashimi omakase – assorted fish from chef’s best selection of the day

It was supposed to be the dish that would bring the wow factor. Instead, we were given the usual sashimi: salmon, tuna, kingfish, scallop, and snapper. To make things worse, we didn’t think the tuna and scallop were sashimi fresh.

Toko signature maki – chef’s selection of maki rolls

Again, there were three ‘standard’ maki rolls: california, ebi, and kingfish.

Pirikara dofu to avocado – spicy fried tofu, avocado salsa, barley miso

Despite the word ‘spicy’, the tofu is nothing but spicy. The venison was actually more spicy than this one. The tofu was also quite dense.

Ebi tempura – crispy prawn tempura, dashi broth

It was a very ordinary prawn tempura. Each one of us only got ONE mediocre prawn.

Wafu zucchini – zucchini, waft sauce, sesame

Despite being only one stick of zucchini, this robatayaki was actually quite enjoyable.

Sake no aburi yaki – smoked miso king salmon, house pickled ginger

Personally, I think this dish was the best for the night. Unfortunately, we had to share this salmon amongst the four of us. It was just my luck that I was also the only one getting fish bone in my piece.

Ko-tori hoba oven-yaki – miso marinated spatchcock baby chicken

We wereIt was a deboned spatchcock. The glazing was almost similar to the salmon.

Dessert platter – chef’s selection of toko desserts

The dessert platter was the saving grace for us. There were quite a lot of elements on it – basically it was all of their desserts lumped into one. The desserts on the plate were rhubarb crumble, pannacotta, fondant, three types of ice cream and assortment of fruits.

Drinks

Considering that they are an izakaya place, their drink menu was pretty good.

Yuzu Martini

Lychee and Jasmine Mojito

The final verdict for Toko Japanese Izakaya

It is quite sad that this amazing venue was majorly let down by its subpar degustation selection. The king salmon and dessert platter were the ones that saved our night.

Did you know?

The group has three restaurants in Australia. One of them is also in Sydney, called Tokonoma, and the other is in Melbourne.

Rating for Toko Japanese Izakaya:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $100 with drinks

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

490 Crown Street, Sydney 2010

+61 2 9357 6100

http://www.toko-sydney.com

Apr 16, 2017
Sake Japanese Restaurant

Sake Japanese Restaurant Review:

We had a birthday celebration this week and I wanted to have an Omakase dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Omakase is a Japanese term that is loosely translated into ‘leave it up to the chef’. So, instead of choosing from the menu, we let the chef choose our meal for the night. We went to Sake Japanese Restaurant at The Rocks on this occasion.

Sake Japanese Restaurant used to have Omakase on its menu. However, they are no longer offering it. Luckily, on this occasion, we were granted a slightly modified version of Omakase – in which the chef have already decided in advance what we will be having on the night. The price was $125 per person.

Omakase Menu from Sake Japanese Restaurant

Pacific Oysters – with Japanese salsa (ponzu, sweet garlic, tomato salsa)

Each of us got three oysters with three different dressings. Half of the table chose the sweet garlic and the other half chose ponzu as the best one for the night. Despite offering the freshest tasting oyster, the tomato salsa dressing was dead last.

White Soy Snapper – thin slices of sashimi snapper, sesame seeds

The serving of sashimi (9 pieces for 2 people) was quite generous on this occasion. It was quite the perfect continuation of three servings of oysters.

Tuna Ceviche – Lemon dressing, coriander, jalapeno, tomato, crunchy fried onion

The menu listed jalapeno as one of the ingredients. However, this version of ceviche wasn’t spicy at all. Instead, we got this sour-tasting tuna with quite a lot of crunchy onion.

Steamed Prawn shumai – spicy ponzu

The prawn shumai was arguably the strangest Japanese shumai skin I’ve ever seen. Instead of the usual ‘wrapper’, we got noodles wrapping around the prawn meat. The shumai went pretty well with the spicy ponzu. Each of us only received two shumai.

Scampi Tempura – amaze ponzu, red onion, jalapeño, coriander

If they served scampi, I usually ordered two at most in a Japanese restaurant, due to scampi’s more premium nature (in price) compared to the other meat. I was pretty excited that each of us got three scampis. On one side, I thought having a scampi as tempura was quite a wasteful avenue as I would rather eat them as sashimi. However, the scampi tempura that they presented was close to perfection. It was probably one of two highlights of the night.

Caramelised Miso Toothfish – den miso, aji amarillo, shimeji

This was the only dish on the night that truly amazed me. There was that ‘oh my, what was that I just put into my mouth?’ moment. It was probably one of the best fish I have ever tasted. The toothfish’s texture was super smooth with slightly sweet taste.

Nigiri Sushi – tuna, scallop, seared salmon belly, kingfish belly, tamago, red snapper

There were Six beautifully laid out nigiri sushi on the plate. Each one of us got a whole plate for ourselves. I am quite happy with this arrangement, although it might be a bit too much for our partners.

Dragon Egg – Dark chocolate, passionfruit, chocolate mousse

There was a touch of theatrics when they poured the liquid nitrogen onto the dragon egg. Personally, I felt that the dessert was a tad underwhelming. However, my little one had no issue devouring it.

When you cracked it open, you could see another layer of chocolate encasing the passionfruit and chocolate mousse.

Additional:

These two are not part of the Omakase, but we ordered it separately. The edamame as the opening course (would have been nicer if it was an amuse bouche.. but no -_-). The chicken teriyaki is for my little one who still could not eat degustation.

Edamame – $9 – lightly salted soy beans in the pod

Chicken Teriyaki – $29 – sweet teriyaki | bok choy | spring onions

The final verdict for Sake Japanese Restaurant

We had an enjoyable evening at Sake Japanese Restaurant. The portion was also enjoyable, meaning I wasn’t too hungry nor too full.

Did you know?
Sake Japanese Restaurant charges 10% fee on top of your bill when you are in a big group of 10 or more. If you happen to reduce the number to less than 10, they still put that charge on top of your bill.

Rating for Sake Japanese Restaurant:

8.5 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: $125 Omakase

Place: 9.0 / 10

Details:

12 Argyle Street, The Rocks NSW 2000

+61 2 9259 5656

http://www.sakerestaurant.com.au/

Oct 7, 2016

Oku

JAPANESE INDULGENCE AT OKU: Where great food exceeds fancy place

I really prepared myself for Saturday’s meet up on May 29th, 2016. It was a lunch invitation from Zomato Indonesia, which was held at Oku Japanese Restaurant in Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta. When I heard it was at Kempinski the first time, I was like “Oh man, this gotta be good!”

When I arrived, the place met my expectation. Here you’ll meet a clean, modern, and sleek look of Japanese restaurant, but all screams luxury. They have sound-proof private rooms, semi-outdoor private rooms, and a bar too. They were newly opened a couple of months ago.

	Menu They let us picked a seat and mingle with other bloggers. After a few explanations from Rebecca, the PR director of Kempinski, they gave us a couple of menu books. Here was our today’s set menu, full of exciting dishes! Just couldn’t wait to start and I was drooling, haha… You could see that they’d serve more appetizers, just maybe to tease our appetites through main courses.
Appetizer
	Oku Karaage Ok, first teaser was Oku Karaage (IDR 110,000) They were actually black! The plating was as if we were gonna eat coals. I immediately took one, and bit it. Wow, it melted in my mouth! The chicken thigh was tender and juicy, and there was mayo filling inside. They used some kind of black pasta of garlic and leek for the batter to make it looked black. One-of-a-kind Karaage this was! I loved it.
	Karasumi Uni Then the second dish came… On that thick-based plate, you could find angel hair pasta, with uni a.k.a sea urchin and black caviar on top. It is called Karasumi Uni (IDR 320,000). It was served cold, surprisingly. And I found a hint of olive oil when I ate it. There was a sense of bitterness but after a few chewing it was gone.
	Aburi Salmon Roll The next one was Aburi Salmon Roll (price not listed). You can basically find this one in every Japanese restaurant. However, at Oku the presentation was so tempting! Instead of using tobiko on top of the rolls, they used black caviar. It made it tasted so rich.
	Uni The next dish came in in a bowl with bursting smoke! They called it Uni (IDR 245,000). Interesting! Inside the bowl was white asparagus, onsen egg and uni. It was served cold too. Unfortunately out of all the dishes, this was my least favorite. Maybe I just didn’t like it served cold or simply because I’ve never been a fan of asparagus.
	Ajitama Then there was Ajitama (IDR 50,000), organic egg with onion flower and shigureni beef, served with smoked rice straws. The egg didn’t give an egg smell, maybe because it was smoked. I liked this one, except for the small size, haha…
	Sashimi Next that came was a bowl of happiness… or the Japenese would simply call it Sashimi (IDR 350,000). There were 7 chef-selected sashimi, such as salmon, tuna, shrimp, squid, etc. Put as the base of the sashimi were soy jelly, angel hair seaweed, gracilaria seaweed, and sea grapes. These came with excellent quality, very fresh and clean cut.
	Oku’s Signature Cocktails I couldn’t hold myself to try one of Oku’s Signature Cocktails. I picked Ume Jumon (IDR 170,000), which contained Ume-shu, whisky, sugar cane juice, and bitters. In one sip, I knew I fell in love with this one. It was so refreshing, not strong, and just had a slight of bitterness.
Main
	Omi Japanese Beef Ok, then we came to the peak of this culinary party. Did you know what we’ve got for main course? I couldn’t believe myself that we deserved such an indulgence. Okay, don’t freak out! They gave us Omi Japanese Beef (IDR 1,200,000), a 150gr Japanese Highest Marbling A5 OMI Sirloin. The price couldn’t lie. It tasted soooooo good! Like it really melted on your mouth. No extra power of chewing needed, it was so so so soft, tender, and very very juicy. I thought it was everyone’s favorite dish of the day.
	As you can see here, they cooked it perfect medium. The center of the meat was still pink. I ate it altogether with the barbeque sauce, the black paste, wasabi, and fried garlic.
	Potato As a side dish, we got Potato (IDR 50,000). It was a cold potato salad, with cherry blossom, wood smoked aroma. The texture was a combination of mashed potato with diced potato. It was nice but I wasn’t crazy about it.
Dessert
	Granite Dessert time! When these cuties arrived at our table, they got me thinking which one would I choose? These three sorbets on stick are called Granite (IDR 60,000). The green one is made from shiso and japanese plum, the yellow one is from pineapple and yuzu, and the red one is from beetroot and blood orange. I was hesitated between the green and red ones, but I finally chose the green one. It tasted good, so refreshing an had the perfect sourness.
	Lychee Pannacotta Then came the pinkish dessert. They said it was chef’s new creation, a lychee pannacotta (price not listed). The plating was awesome, but I wasn’t a big fan of this one. I found it just a standard pannacotta and a little bit too sweet.
	Yuki Here is Yuki (IDR 120,000). A yuzu-chocolate mousse with lemon cloud, dulcey sponge cake, and crunchy chocolate praline. They added passion fruit sauce at the time. The plating once again was awesome. The mousse, the sauce, the cake and the crunch altogether made an interesting combo. But I didn’t like the lemon cloud though, tasted too sour for me.
	Green Sundae The last dessert, and also the last on the menu today was Green Sundae (IDR 80,000), a sweet matcha custard with shiratama mochi and azuki beans. This one was my favorite. It screamed matcha, the real matcha. Some bloggers found it unflattering because they didn’t like the hint of bitterness. But hey, it’s matcha! I’m soooo gonna buy this one!
	Finally, at the end of the lunch, they brought us the man behind those fancy dishes. That man is Chef Kazumaza Yazawa. He is French-born Japanese. He was actually specialized in French cuisine. But then he got back to his root, and tried to cook Japanese. Thank God he did that, because he’s very good making Japanese cuisine.

The verdict for Oku

OKU is a really great place with great food. They really fulfill their promise: to serve excellent cuisine and not just a fancy restaurant. I’m so pleased with the dishes, and will absolutely go there again. Big thank you to Zomato.id for bringing us here.

Did you know?
The black paste that is used to make Oku Karaage was a mixture of garlic and leek, and it is continuously baked at 40 degree Celcius for a month!

Jun 15, 2016

Woodland House

Review:

Woodland House is a two-hat restaurant (based on 2016 Good Food Guide) located in the city of Melbourne – Prahran, to be exact. They have a 10-course, fixed-price degustation menu of $155. Since it’s quite a lengthy list, I will get on right away.

Purple potato chip

It was quite an interesting amuse bouche. Three purple paper-like things were neatly arranged on a log. We were quite hesitant to eat it at first – the risk of looking pretty stupid before we even ate anything. It felt like munching an edible paper – which was quite fun!

Danish and Sourdough rolls with butter

This is available throughout the course should you want them. The Danish is probably why I would want to visit the restaurant again in the future… They were just so good!

Foie gras, kiwi

It looked like a very tiny croquette with a little kiwi decoration at the top. Expectations were quite high after this strong start.

Charred abalone, wood ear, wasabi and ponzu

Well, nothing really wows more than having an abalone as your first course, doesn’t it? It was probably one of the best starts of a degustation course I have ever had. Having ‘abalone’ in your dish’s title usually guarantees an instant favourite. This was also my first charred (and/or grilled) abalone ever.

Rock flathead, puffed quinoa, toasted corn, pickled cucumber

There was a bit of theatrics when the waitress poured the toasted corn sauce (?) into the plate for the second course. There was also a nice crunchy texture from the quinoa. However, it was clearly overshadowed by the abalone.

South Australian marron, chicken liver, finger lime

Third course was quite simple and artsy. To be honest, it was quite small for my tummy to realise what it was. There was a little crunch from the veggies and a strong chicken liver flavour. The marron itself was nicely done.

Pea bavarois, lemon sorbet, almond

Fourth course was the in-between course. To cleanse our palate for the main course that was about to come. It was quite a complex dish with quite a strong lemon sorbet.

Master Kobe beef, roasted onion, nameko and miso

Just like the appetiser, the main course also started off with a bang. Master Kobe is the highest marbled beef that you can get, with a score of MB9+. To illustrate how special (and expensive!) it is, the plate was minimally designed with only three small slices of meat. It went really well with the miso paste and nameko mushrooms.

Kangaroo, grilled kohlrabi, quandong and native fruits

Despite boasting quite a number of native Australian ingredients, this sixth course was a miss for us. The dish was quite bitter and very sweet… quite interesting I must say, but unfortunately it was a bit too strong for me.

White rabbit saddle and leg, turnip, mustard and yeast, polenta

It was nice to see carrot in the same plate as rabbit. The polenta could use a bit more crunch, but it wasn’t as disastrous as the previous one. However, given that the standard of the first few dishes were so high, this one was more on the ‘average’ side.

Coolea, walnut and apple cider

We had a doubt about what was actually in our dish. It was listed as above, but couldn’t work out the walnut and apple cider in the dish. It was quite a heavy one before desserts… or was it a savoury dessert?

Milk chocolate flan, toasted rice, fairy floss

Having a fairy floss was always fun. Although I’m not really sure how you eat the fairy floss with flan and toasted rice. It was more of a decoration than the integral part of the dish.

Fig leaf and smoked coconut sorbet, candied ginger, wild fennel

Now this is a dessert which elements worked really well together. There were quite a lot of elements that were in-sync. It was cold, slightly spicy, crunchy, sweet and sour at the same time.

They also gave us three kinds of petit fours: a jelly, nutty chocolate, and something that looked like dutch pancake.

The final verdict for Woodland House

Woodland House showed some flashes of brilliance in their 10-course degustation. However, it was apparent why they fell short of their third hat. Specifically, the sixth course, kangaroo, was a tad too adventurous for us.

Did you know?

Woodland House used to be known as Jacques Reymond. It was an iconic restaurant that was a three-hat restaurant when the chef for 23 years, Jacques Reymond, retired in 2013.

They also serve vegetarian degustation menu that I have uploaded to our facebook page. The price for 10-course vegetarian menu is $140.

Rating for Woodland House:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $155 for degustation

Place: 9.0 / 10

Details:

78 Williams Road, Prahran, VIC 3181

+61 3 9525 2178

http://www.woodlandhouse.com.au/

Apr 4, 2016