Category: Food
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Pretending to be a chef: Truffle steak tartare
I promised myself last year that I wouldn’t buy truffles again – they are so fragrant, but so expensive! And I can’t afford to be poor right now. But trufflemania is on, and having watched Chef’s Table, I couldn’t resist buying some again. I had my eye on some Tasmanian winter truffles, but when I went and asked, they were all sold out! So I asked about the WA truffles they had and how they were different. The shop owner mentioned that this was the first time they stocked WA truffles because they were of a good quality for their price this year. He explained that previously, he didn’t buy them because the supplier mixed all different regions into their stock, so it was impossible to tell where the truffles were from, and therefore the quality.
He also mentioned that I had to use more than I would for a Tasmanian truffle, but it was also $1000/kg cheaper than a Tasmanian truffle. I love how truffles are described in thousands of dollars per kilo, it’s hilarious! So, I was satisfied and more educated as a result of his explanation, and could comfortably buy these knowing they weren’t as good as other truffles I bought, but that they were good for their value. And he got me (almost) whole ones from a jar full of truffles, and I could smell the aroma from the other side of the counter! It was so lovely!
Very happy with my truffles and planning to add them to pasta, I figured it was also time to once again test my knife skills and make some steak tartare.
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Pretending to be a chef: Reserve banquet
The markets yielded a very rare opportunity: Port Lincoln sashimi grade blue fin tuna. It was placed right next to the standard tuna I buy – a yellowfin tuna, and the blue fin was paler, indicating it was fattier. I decided I’d fork out the $80/kg and give it a go, since I had a knife that was keen to cut. There happened to be Port Lincoln sashimi grade kingfish too, so I had an idea forming. There wasn’t any black caviar, so instead of choosing red, I went for the Huon Reserve hand milked salmon caviar, just because I could. It resulted in a four course meal!
Curvature: blue fin tuna, kingfish, salmon caviar (more…)
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Cooofffeeeee?
Dear diary,
Today was a good day. I got up early to make dashi broth so that I could get a pandan infusion going. Then I went to Bar 9 where Ian greeted me and gave me some guest coffee: Honduras Las Moras CoE#4 2014 roasted by Nozy Coffee and described how it was roasted a little darker but not charry. I liked it. I want to go to Japan again. I then chose Bolivia Estanislao Pununi because I really liked it when Artificer made it. Still as sweet and bright, I really like this Bolivian coffee.
Then I shopped and came home, realised I had way too much watercress and snow pea tendrils because all I wanted was two “arching” tendrils with pretty leaves for the dish I was going to make.
I marvelled at the 200g sashimi grade Port Lincoln blue fin tuna I bought for $79.99/kg and was very glad I chose that over the standard cuts of yellowfin tuna; there was a marbling to the flesh that made it taste great!
I cut up a lot of fish and made dashimaki tamagoyaki for the first time. It was a bit too sweet and kept breaking up when I tried to roll it, but the texture was there even though it was a chaotic swirl rather than orderly swirl. It also offset the fish very nicely in the chirashi that I made.
My knifework isn’t great but I’ll keep working on it.
My food actually tasted as good as it looked today, which was better than last week where it tasted worse than it looked.
I’m thinking about buying truffle next week for a beef tartare and call the dish “black gold” because I had this hilarious and useless idea to add gold leaf to a truffled beef tartare. I think it’s too over the top, so I probably won’t do it.
Then I went to my favourite cafe where I was so tired from so much food making that I couldn’t remember what I ordered. It was the house blend espresso. It explains why the Pedra Redonda tasted so different when I was given that after my first drink. I was surprised because I hadn’t ordered it, but I was thankful and appreciative because I was thinking of a second coffee. Then I was asked how much coffee I can drink, to which I replied a lot even though I recently broke my coffee immunity. I do believe I actually still have most of that immunity.
I was then given two more coffees; I was essentially cleaning up their batch brew at closing time. One was an Ethiopia Aramo from Monastery Coffee which reminded me of the “sunniest” Yirgacheffes I’ve had. It was bright and fresh and smelled great. The other was the Santa Isabel which did pale a little in comparison.
I am also proud of the chicken livers on toast I made for dinner. They were a bit bleedy so I didn’t eat it all, but the bits that I did eat were yummy.
Now it’s bed time. I have to make azuki bean smash tomorrow morning and buy milk to make a matcha panna cotta.
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Pretending to be a chef: Jewelled Sea
Jewelled sea
Tea cured ocean trout, shaved scallop, jerusalem artichoke crips, horseradish creme fraiche, finger lime
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Sydney 2015
Now that I’ve gotten most of the restaurants and cafes out of the way, it’s time to blog about everything else that happened in Sydney!
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Nel
So a little place called Nel restaurant popped up on my feed, and I thought it was worthwhile visiting. Sure, there were other places, such as LuMi, Ume, or fancy places in Potts Point. However, for some reason, just the thought of a “Nel” was intriguing.
It seemed like a fairly easy place to book for lunch, and the fare was described as modern British, which was good, since I have a strong tendency to go for Japanese restaurants. I was also a little wary of their price point – $35 per person for lunch. I’ve never seen any fine dining so cheap, apart from prix fixe menus.
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Masu Izakaya
Treating Sydney as a holiday destination is tough. Mainly because it’s expensive, requires a lot of eating, and then blogging about all the pictures I took. The taking pictures part and hanging out around Surry Hills are totally enjoyable though!
My two week stint in Sydney was so packed full of jam that I’ve decided that this little izakaya in Chinatown gets its own little post – which is usually reserved for high profile restaurants or coffee adventures! You lucky little izakaya, you!
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Hartsyard
Hartsyard wasn’t a place that had popped up on my radar, however my brother wanted to go. I had no idea of its popularity, fame, or even the type of cuisine it served – in fact on my initial viewing of the menu, I wasn’t sure I’d like it at all.
However, I booked it anyway, and when I checked the menu again on the day, it looked quite interesting – which was a good thing – we needed very large appetites and stomachs for this meal!
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Sokyo
Oh Sokyo, whoever thought that you would be so amazing! Having previously had a mediocre experience at Sake, I wasn’t sure what to expect here, especially since I’ve had sushi from Japan which is pretty impossible to match. That being said, Sydney is probably one of the best places to have Japanese, given the large Japanese population here.
I totally didn’t realise I could ask for the omakase when I made the booking, and it turns out a week’s notice is required so that the chefs can age the fish. If I can’t get into Raita Noda, I may as well put this on my revisit list!
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