Ippudo, CBD

1:03 PM | Labels: , ,


Panting after long walks, 30 + degree temperatures, these are not the situations you want to go to have a bowl of hot steaming ramen and yet that hasn't stopped the droves queuing up these past few days outside the newly opened Ippudo. Famous in Japan as a chain restaurant, it has made its way to the land down under in Pitt St Mall.


What can I say... It gets loud. It gets really loud. On top of the music, the acoustics of the area and the constant 'Irrashaimase!' chorus by the staff every time someone comes in, there's not much room for conversation to be had. That Irrashaimase really gets on your nerves but I suppose it does to contribute to the restaurant's atmosphere.


Tempura Camembert 8
I was crazy enough to order their deep fried camembert. Oddly, it wasn't that crazy at all. I don't know, I guess the idea seemed ridiculous to me at the start. It's a comforting level of rich without being overly so and it was well fried without all the cheese melting out.


Ippudo Pork Bun 4
Their famous pork bun was next, a creamy concoction of braised pork, lettuce, a touch of mayo and soft bun. It's incredibly delicious with simple contrasts and it shows; nearly every other table had one sitting in the middle as well.


Shiromaru Tamago 17
Their Shiromaru Motoaji, which is their original ramen soup, comes from a 25 year recipe where the soup base is made from simmering pork bones. It arrives garnished with pieces of pork loin, kikurage mushrooms, cabbage and scallions. It's a thick soup base, rich and potent with good flavour that oddly doesn't leave you feeling grotty afterwards. The option to pick your noodle toughness is nice although we didn't take full advantage of that and choose normal.


Ippudo Karage Men 17
Their Ippudo Karaka Men was no where near as hot as I thought it was. It comes with pieces of pork loin and ground pork along with scallions and cabbage and packing good a depth of flavour. There's a bit of heat but not mind blowingly so but it packs full of spices with enough potential to clear a block nose. It's a warm comfort that's seriously going to be addictive.



Everyone will have qualms with the price. It's no where near as cheap as some of the others around Chinatown and you have to pay for garnishes on top of that. Restaurant location really does lead to premium prices I guess. Their service, despite being warm, is poorly co-ordinated and was often a haphazard of confusion. I think there was a 3 minute period where I was asked at least 5 times whether I was done with my quarter full bowl to only be repeatedly said no to. That aside, Ippudo was enjoyable, the atmosphere you can get used to and it eventually becomes quite fun and ramen is great.


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Sepia, CBD

12:47 PM | Labels: , , , ,


It's 3 and a half years since ex-Tetsuya head chef Martin Benn colaborated with George Costi from De Costi Seafoods to form Sepia. It's evidently a match made in heaven; Benn's very Japanese grounding (being obviously a very seafood driven cuisine) and a reputable seafood entrepreneur in Costi. It has since gone to receive glowing reviews and has been at the forefront of Sydney's gastronomic attention.


It's quite an impressive although not entirely unique space. It seems like to would attract the corporate audience more so than any other with it's location at Sussex, the some what intrusive jazz soundtrack and a classic design that typifies any luxe olden day fine diner.



We went all out. I don't think there's anytime that I'm with A that we don't do a degustation. It's 160 for a degustation, 130 for a 4 course menu or you can go A la carte but it's not everyday that we find ourselves at Sepia so why not?


Sydney Rock Oysters 5 ea
The perfectly shucked oysters came with a good amount of brine and were tiny and salty and the lime and rice vinaigrette was balanced enough. My qualm, however, is the markup from what is around a dollar at de costi to 5 dollars which is probably the most dear you'll find around Sydney. 



We were fascinated by the perfectly formed sphere of butter that made its way onto our table. Bread was good; crusty outside and pillowy insides.


Amuse bouche
Our amuse was what I remembered to be a bonito accompanied well by a ginger and daikon bed.


"Sushi nigiri"
Sashimi Tuna, seared smoked ocean trout, poached banana prawn
The aforementioned attention on seafood shows. Our first main course is a celebration of freshness. Tuna, prawns and ocean trout slabs are topped with the puffed rice, toasted rice aspic, nori dust and soy and ginger gels. The pink gel domes are quite synonymous with the Sepia name, making an appearance in the past in their nori rolled Scallop dish, and brings a very piquant ginger flavour with out any of that heat.


Butter poached Port Lincoln squid, barley miso cured egg yolk, lemon, wild woodland sorrel
I was particularly entranced by the roll after roll of extremely tender squid 'noodles' stuck together to form a cylinder. Those little slivers of yellow are in fact lemon infused egg yolk contrary to me thinking that they were lemon zest initially and the lemon part is actually the dust around the dish. Fascinating.


New Zealand scampi cooked over Japanese charcoal, sudachi lime, shellfish mousse, Japanese land seaweed
The scampi was very good but it was the shellfish mousse that was the hero with its pungent umami oomph.


Charcoal smoked freshwater eel, yuzu curd, toasted almonds, tapioca, licorice, watercress and nasturtium
The robust flavour of the eel was balanced well with just enough tart yuzu emulsion along with the faint sweetness of liquorice.


South Australian lamb, goat cheese and sake kuzu dumplings, fennel cream, black olive, miso vinagrette, fennel molasses
The lamb was well cooked to a blushing medium rare but I kept thinking that the aniseedy flavour of the fennel almost, I say almost dominated the usually potent flavour of the lamb but not quite. The olive miso vinaigrette gave an all too familiar salty umami hit.


Seared rolled David Blackmore wagyu beef, chestnut mushroom, roasted red onion juice
wasabi, fried potato and kombu crumb, citrus soy
In my rare moment of gluttony (terrible joke I know) I started devouring it to only realise half way that I forgot to take a picture. Not a true blogger at heart. I had to borrow a picture from my dining partner because of that. The earthy smell was intoxicating and it was exactly the reason why I dug at without a second thought. The wagyu is beautifully marbled and simply put melt in your mouth. The accompaniments were good particularly the little earthy mushrooms but they were brought together extremely well by the splosh of nutty sweet red onion jus.


Saint Agur and mascarpone cheese, crystallised macadamia, celery cress, roasted chicory granita 15 supplement
Cheese lovers will cherish the next dish with its balanced spicy, fresh, nutty, toasty and tangy notes. You initially taste the celery leaves, which I absolutely loathe but then it then feels very appropriate as you start getting the semi strong bite from the blue cheese to which it melds quite well with. I did thoroughly enjoy it.


Sherbet, strawberry, chocolate
We were presented next with a strawberry dish accompanied by a crisp and fruity Lillet Rose from Bordeaux, France, complements from the chef. You've got to love surprises, thank you Sepia. It was a perfectly formed 'strawberry' made from a hardened strawberry sugar syrup. Crack it open and it reveals a slightly tangy strawberry flavoured sherbet. It was such a joy to eat and we just kept laughing all the way. The beginnings of our sugar high I guess.


Pre dessert
Our pre-desert came next, a simple affair of cooked apricot, ice cream and savoury sweet caramel underneath.

"Summer chocolate forest"
Soft chocolate, hazelnut and almond praline, rose geranium cream, sour cherry sorbet,
blueberry jellies, green tea, liqorice, chocolate twigs, crystallised fennel fronds
There's not a lot of joy greater than exploring through their signature Chocolate forest. There's so much going on, but befittingly so; there's a bewilderingly well considered layer after layer of assorted textures from the crisps and cracks all crowned with a lucid maroon quinelle of silky sour cherry sorbet. This is a Sydney icon that needs to be enjoyed and revered by everybody. 


Blueberry, vanilla caramel, brick pastry, blueberry jelly, cinnamon custard, candied orange zest, sugared almonds
frozen creme fraiche
I absolutely adored this dish. They kindly offered to substitute the Chocolate forest with a dish of my choosing because I've had it before and so I chose one randomly. Luck seems to be on my side because it looks like I choose the right one. It came smoking presumably from the preparation method of the caramel and again, the myriad of textures and flavours is jumping at you but they all work.


Japanese Stones 32
Surprisingly not on the menu, we went ahead and asked additionally for their 'other' famous dessert: the Japanese stones. How can I not after watching the 17 and a half minute fast forwarded process earlier. It's very labour intensive as you can see and there's a surprise inside every one of them. You might get the seasonally appropriate gooey sour cherry or passionfruit or chocolate fillings all wrapped around a charcoal white chocolate butter shell. The stones hide a yuzu jelly in the middle with a dusting of violet sand and green tea moss. Unlike the previous desserts which can get a tad complicated, it's visual simplicity is remarkable and it's just undeniably beautiful.



It's not the first time I went to Sepia. I think it was a year and a half ago before it received it's third hat in 2012 that I first tried Sepia and since then, the menu has changed substantially. It's exciting what they have going on and besides their highly raved Chocolate Forest that I don't think should ever be removed and their spanner crab risotto on the A la Carte, everything else is different. There's so much innovation going on and it's really evident on their Saturday's degustation where every dish is different to the previous week.

A Japanese-like respect for presentation and elegance in flavour, imagination and fun meeting control and restraint and the use of molecular gastronomy so subtle that it's to only lift ideas rather than dominate ingredients with its spectacle; this is the epitome of what Sydney fine dining has to offer. They're at the top of their game but I believe they can go even higher. 


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The Fish Shop, Potts Point

1:46 AM | Labels: , , , ,


Boy, Merivale really is building up quite an impressive collection of restaurants. This is like what... the 10th? CEO Justin Hemmes really has a talent of spotting well... talent. He's hooked in a big fish in acclaimed British chef Jeremy Strode and has since then create 2 restaurants with him; Bistrode CBD and the newly opened Fish Shop. My friend and I literally walked a circle around the City the other day go from Newtown to Potts Point and pretty much back and around it and we ended up at the Fish Shop.


It's a restaurant that sells... well you guessed it: fish, located in quiet suburban part of Potts Point with the sign slightly covered by trees. 3 things that typifies any Merivale restaurant is the big name chef, loads of booze and masters of restaurant renovations. They haven't missed a step here at all: Jeremy Strode's confidently in the kitchen occasionally even coming out to deliver the food with of course fish being the main star, there's a giant wine rack with an extensive well considered aperitif list that accompanies it on request and the restaurant looks top notch. 



It certainly looks the part with lots of exposed wood, ropes and nets, sails and hooks.



There's an open kitchen at the back where you can see all the action happening. It's a well oiled ship (all this sea discourse... I can't help it!).



It's the little touches, however, that win it for me like the child friendly colouring stencil, a menu with little bits of info about fish and decorated plates that makes it really casual and interesting.


Sydney Rock oysters 2.7 ea
We start off with the freshest oysters accompanied by a bit too generous jar of balsamic vinagrette. They were small and sweet and came with a decent amount of brine.


Polynesian raw kingfish 13
The kingfish has a gorgeous texture; it's creamy and beyond tender and it has a wonderful mouth feel. It's missing a lot of the zing and zip that even the tiny wedge of lime didn't provide but I suppose it's because I was incorrectly expecting a ceviche.


Petuna smoked salmon sandwich 9.5
We also order a simple light fish sandwich consisting of smoked salmon and the usual accompaniments of capers, dill and creme fraiche.


Crumbed fish, bacon & chilli burger 18
Wowee their burger is really something. It's just all sorts of deliciousness; you get the salty smokiness from the slight charring of the bacon, soft bun, kewpie mayo, a thick meaty crumbed fillet of fish, a good thumping of chilli from the sriracha and jalapenos. It really is the real deal. With fish burgers like these, who needs wagyu patties?


Quinoa & fetta tabouleh 6.5
Our side salad of tabouleh oddly came last whereas it would have felt more appropriate arriving with everything else like the fish burger. We just sat there eating salad but although I'm not a huge fan of feta, there's a lot of balance with this.



Aptly named The Fish Shop, it delivers on simple food with quality ingredients and you'd expect no less from a Merivale establishment. It would appear a tad over-priced but although you'd have better luck going to Pyrmont fish markets and getting the same quality for a fraction of the cost, you are paying for the much more desirable setting and of course the sustainability mentality at Fish Shop which is always a good thing. Their burger however, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else quite as special. I can picture multiple visits in the future for that burger alone and maybe to try their signature fish and chips and other market specials.


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Crepe & Coffee Co., Redfern

1:04 AM | Labels: , , , ,


My friend was in Sydney on her break and wanted to catch up with the girls. S took us to a lovely place in Redfern ...Who would've thought? I almost died when she told me that Crepe & Coffee Co. do both waffles and crepes. Yum! :9 It seems like it will be on my list of favourite places to hang-out before/after uni. Hihihi.


A cosy cafe with a comfy lounge at the back.


Belgian Waffles w/ Caramelised Apple, Cinnamon Sugar and Condensed Milk


Surfer: Fresh baby spinach, feta and wild rocket
I was deciding between salmon and chicken. I ended up choosing the 'Chick Club' which has roasted free-range chicken breast, crispy bacon and delicious greens. It was a very filling lunch for me. I felt so full afterwards that I didn't have enough space for a smoothie. That's okay, I'm coming back for the waffles so I'll try one of their healthy smoothies soon.


Chick Club: roasted free-range chicken breast, crispy bacon, tomato, fresh baby spinach and mayo

I loved it so much that I even took photos of the menu so next time I'm in need of breakfast before uni or lunch, I can take out my phone and decide what I would like to order on my way there! Unfortunately, I have seemed to have misplaced the photos of the menu. Maybe it sounded so delicious that I've eaten them...


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Hours:





Mon-Fri 6:30 - 18:00
Sat-Sun 8:30 - 15:30

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