Restaurant Revolution ADL - where I get to be a snobby snob snob
It's a little different from Masterchef. It's a little different from My Kitchen Rules. It's a real pop up restaurant that you get to eat at!When I first saw the shed present on my way to the markets, I thought, that looks interesting. Then ignored it for a good while.After a while, I decided it was worth checking out what this commotion was all about. It's yet another reality TV cooking show, but appears to focus on the setting up of a restaurant and running its everyday matters, rather than a pure amateur cooking competition. I believe the contestants could be people who already worked in a restaurant, but couldn't be high profile or head chefs. Having had my fair share of dining experiences (mostly high end), I decided I'd give it a go and taste the food there. I agonised for a while how I'd judge the place (for my own purposes, not anything to do with the actual show rules) - would I compare it to an average restaurant? Would I compare it to a fine dining establishment? Was it going to be a disaster where I was left for hours without food?There was only one way to find out!
On a freezing, rainy afternoon, I decided to inspect the crowd that would gather. With full inner snobbery in effect but my usual polite self on the outisde, I was already judging the 5:30PM turnout for the 6PM start. The line was shorter than I expected, and the main two groups I noticed were a family, and reality tv cooking show enthusiasts. It was a smaller turnout than I had thought, even by Adelaide standards - perhaps it was due to the poor weather. The camera man outside was the time-lapse photographer. Poor guy, he had to stand in the wet and chill for the longest time!During the wait in the cold and rain, one of the presenters came out and interviewed the family and one of the cooking show enthusiast groups. It was rather amusing - they were asked questions like "what's the atmosphere like here?" and "what do you think the price of the meals here will be like?" I was thinking to myself, $15-$20 for entrees and low to high $30 for mains. I am out of practise with normal family restaurant prices so that is what I assumed to be the normal cost of food. I'd just have to wait and see!Shortly after 6, we were able to go inside and were promptly seated. It was a cosy, bright space, at my guess, seating approximately 40 people. All the staff greeted us warmly (pun intended) and were very accommodating for alone diners - when I looked around, there were about four alone diners including myself that night.The service was quick and efficient and you could tell how new and short notice everything was because the waitstaff were continually reciting the table numbers to refresh their memory. There was only the one camera man on the inside that covered the kitchen and the floor.The menu was quite extensive for the size of the restaurant: 5 entrees, 5 mains, 4 sides, 3 desserts, 2 kids meals, 3 hot drinks and 3 cold drinks. The items were also quite varied, ranging from rabbit tortellini to seafood bouillabaisse, to spanakopita. With such a large range of styles, I opted for those that I could criticise and analyse the best - that meant things I had eaten or cooked elsewhere.My goal was to order 2 entrees, 1 main, 2 desserts. Here's how I went:
Seared scallops with paprika, chorizo, potato puree and apple cider reduction
The waiter recommended just a single entree when I asked about the serving sizes. I chose seared scallops, and the heirloom vegetable garden. I figured these two would both be quite light due to scallops being naturally expensive for their serving size, and that the vegetable garden would be dainty. I was a little worried when the kitchen remained quiet after receiving their first orders - it was too organised! The food began to came out, and I received the scallops just before the vegetable garden.
Now for my critical and analytic hat to come on. Presentation wise, the scallops were smaller than I expected, and the potato mash larger than I expected. I would have liked half as much mash to be able to get the right balance between the paprika potato and the scallop. The apple batons were slightly large and they looked clumsily placed, and my microherb scattering was unappealing - not only is the scattering uneven, the stems were very long and didn't look properly trimmed to my liking. From the second shot, you can see that the scallops were also uneven; the second from the left obviously got pressed a little too hard.
When each scallop was cut open, I checked to see how cooked through they were. When I see "seared" on the menu, I expect near-raw insides, with cooked and tender being the upper acceptable range. The scallops ended up being opaque on one half, and translucent on the other. Overall tasty, but to be perfect they should have been translucent in the middle.
For your average diner, the presentation is great, the scallops were tender and sweet, the mash had great depth of flavour and moreish due to the paprika and chorizo, and the apple gave this dish a nice acidity.
The dish cost $18.90, and my conclusion is that this dish is worth $16-$18.
Heirloom vegetable garden - roasted carrots, beetroot, parsnip, zucchini flower
Two pictures that look similar! This dish was gorgeous looking, and I had ordered it simply for the heirloom carrots. I didn't read that there was zucchini flower (because I'm presumptuous like that), and I did get excited because the menu didn't say what was inside. When I unfurled the petals, there was a light, tangy, herbed goat curd. It was a little too runny for me though, I would have liked it a little firmer. The flavour was great, so I really couldn't fault that based on my personal preference.
I had a very large white carrot running the length of the plate, and I don't actually like the flavour of carrots, but I do like the way it was roasted and how the skin separated from the rest of the carrot. The carrot was cooked to the point of being soft, and as I ate through it, I noticed that my white carrot was a little broken due to its softness for it to bend around the plate like it did, as if the chef was being forceful with the vegetable. My little purple carrot was pretty tasty though. Little bits of the tops remained on all the vegetables, so while they cleaned them the best they could, there were crunches of dirt in most of the bites - I didn't mind this though.
There was roasted beetroot and shaved raw beetroot, where the whiter ones were sweet and earthy. I noticed that I had two slices of beetroot that hadn't been separated (more visible in the bottom picture), where I should have only received a single one. I loved the addition of beetroot leaves onto the dish as all too often they're discarded instead of eaten.
The parsnip puree was smooth and retained its own flavour.
Overall, the presentation of the dish was great and it pretty much was spot on with what I imagined it to look like based on how I expect my vegetable dishes to be presented as well as how it was described on the menu - if anything, it reminded me a little of Celcius' vegetable garden when it was on the menu a long time ago.
The dish cost $14.90, and my conclusion is that the dish is worth $14 - $16.
Smoked kangaroo loin seasoned with wattleseed and Murray salt, garnished with beetroot, hazelnut and cauliflower.
There are two reasons I chose this dish - the use of wattleseed as a native Australian ingredient, and because kangaroo, if not cooked properly, ends up a disaster. The main actually came out reasonably quickly; I was expecting to wait up to 10 minutes more for a main to come out. The waiter also deftly swapped my cutlery around to have a steak knife instead of the standard knife before this dish arrived, which was great. There was a lot of colour on this dish, red from the beetroot, green from the kale that I wasn't expecting, and yellow from wattleseed, hazelnut and salt crumbs.
When I cut the kangaroo fillet, it looked like it was just past medium rare - not really bleedy at all, so I figured it was well rested and a little more cooked than I like - I believe kangaroo should be more towards rare. However, I was impressed that the kangaroo had great flavour and was still tender, so I enjoyed it. At first I wasn't sure what the crumble was, but after tasting it, it was salty and nutty, so immediately I accompanied it with the kangaroo for every bite. There was a lingering umami flavour to this dish, which I suspect came from the crumble. That was a plus for me.
While the vegetable entree had roasted and raw beetroot, this main had a third beetroot element - pickled - lightly so, but I could taste it. Personally I found that there was too much meat on the plate - there was a large piece and a smaller piece. I was actually alarmed at just how much there was, my estimate places it at 400g of meat or just under. I believe that between 200g and 300g would have been reasonable if an entree, side and dessert was ordered with it in a single sitting. I knew that I might not get through this, especially as the scallop entree was also heavier than I anticipated, so dessert was already at risk of being skipped altogether! I can't tell whether this is because I'm used to the small serving sizes of degustations and tapas style menus, or if it was simply because I'd already over-ordered by choosing two entrees. I consider myself a capable eater, even when alone dining though, so I concluded that it was still a bit too much food for a single dish.
The dish cost $33.90, and my conclusion is that the dish is worth $30 - $36 for this serving size all the way down to 200g and the price point would still be reasonable.
I took a shot of the camera man! He was filming the first table to order and receive the dessert special! I also observed the maitre d' walk around and introduce herself and describe the team, the restaurant, and the competition to various groups of tables, however, I also noticed she didn't approach the solo and duo diners. It was also the large groups that got ushered into the feedback booth. I'm not too fussed about this since I'm there to cast harsh snobbiness upon the food and service rather than ending up on TV (I mean that in the nicest way - I like to think I am very balanced and diplomatic on my social media feeds). If anything, I would have loved to give them feedback on how their food was cooked and presented. Oh well!
The waiter was well trained - he checked in again once my main had been finished to confirm if I'd ordered dessert or not. I ordered a flat white because I was asked if I would like tea or coffee. Nice work, waiter! It's my safe go to drink when I like an after dinner drink but don't want to risk bad coffee. I asked about dessert since I wanted to try the special as well as a tasting plate, but I honestly didn't have room for both. I actually asked him which he thought was prettier, and he said the special. I chose the tasting plate as it was three items of chocolate; I would choose the special if I still had room because it looked like a fairly small dish.
Athena's tasting plate - chocolate mousse, chocolate nut truffle, chocolate raspberry shard, chocolate fudge
The top picture is how the dish was originally presented. The middle shot is what it looked like after I shuffled the truffle over, and the last shot is my standard angle shot. Do I mind that it wasn't a perfect quenelle? Not at all. I am perfectly happy even at a high end restaurant to receive an attempted quenelled mousse. However, the lack of attention to the placement of the truffle did disappoint me. All the portion sizes on this was small, which was great - and both the fudge and the mousse were really light! I felt good eating them. The truffle was naturally heavier, in its ball of shaved nut (I think hazelnut or almond?) and its rich melt-in-the-mouth inside. And that's an objective description of the truffle, for I am not a fan of truffles, only of the mushroom variety. The chocolate shards had a raspberry and honeycomb topping, suspiciously like a Steven ter Horst chocolate (I got this suspicion after seeing Steven ter Horst chilli hot chocolate on the menu as one of their drinks). It was a light and perfectly balanced chocolate dessert.
However, this dish cost $15.50, and my conclusion is that this dish is worth $9 - $12. It was overpriced in my opinion.
At this point I was having a "Hartsyard heart attack" - the effect of ordering and self-force feeding of too much food. I couldn't physically eat anymore, but at the same time, to my disappointment, my waiter forgot about me! I got one more water refill from another waiter long after I'd already finished the dessert and coffee. I sat patiently, expecting to be asked for the bill or if I wanted another drink, but no, he began drying the glasses over at the bar!
I was so sad. I would have chanced the other dessert which was a raspberry and pistachio verrine, which from the other tables, was a cute little crumble/curd with fresh raspberries and a white chocolate (possibly biscuit interior) stick in a stemless glass. It also looked light enough that I could get through most of it and get my money's worth. At $13 for the special, to me it looked like a $10-$14 dish. So I simply asked for the bill and due to that drop in service, missed out on an extra little expenditure from me.
Overall, I liked this experience. My total expenditure was $87.40 for myself and included 2 entrees, 1 main, 1 dessert, 1 coffee. I consumed all of it. The service was great (except that last bit) and having the experienced waitstaff really helped. The ambience of the restaurant worked well too - it was clean and professional and you'd never know it was actually set up in a mash of 8 shipping containers. The customers were well behaved, albeit rather too quiet for my liking. Most of the tables did fill up, though the restaurant wasn't full during my time there between 6PM - 8:30PM. The food came out faster than I anticipated, though having no kitchen experience or research I'm unable to determine why or if it's a good or bad thing, if at all. I'm actually impressed I noticed all that I did with the food - mainly because I've never properly analysed food to that detail before. I'm usually too busy raving about high end restaurants, and due to their reputation, would overlook a lot of these details, so this was great practise for me.
I would love to go again when things change, for example, if the contestants switch sites or there's some other unseen challenge. I estimate that the restaurant will run as-is for approximately 2 weeks before anything gets thrown into the works.
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.
Vivid Sydney
I remember every time Vivid was on, I'd be walking through the city thinking, "oh, it's that light show event again." This was the first time I decided to actually go look at everything, plus, I think I now understand how my camera works to take night shots. Also, with my camera and my phone synced, I could use the remote shutter to take steady pictures of things by placing my camera in awkward places! For example, there was one where I was holding the camera with my back to the actual building on display, but since I could see the view with my phone, I managed to take clear pictures!
This was after Sokyo, in the Vivid lounge at the star. There was a lit up bar with a great view of the harbour, and a funky blimp shaped giant video game thing. It was also cool to see people with costumes of LED on stilts!
Norbert the Nautilus and his undersea adventure! Isn't Norbert adorable?
And the obligatory Opera House shots!
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!
First stop, Central Park to see both the wooshy sculpture thing, as well as admiring the heliostat, but more importantly, to check out a super hyped up cake stall and check out what else was around at the Brewery Yard markets. We managed to get there early while Kraving K was still setting up, so I hopped over to a fancy steampunk stall instead. After a conversation about their different products, I decided to impulse buy two very pretty, live mechanism pendants:
But alas, when I turned around to see how the cake stall was doing, the line was already half an hour long! Me being me, I commented on this to the steampunk stallholder, and my huge expense quite literally paid off - they had a friend who was waiting close to the front of the line, and allowed me to join them, essentially skipping the queue. Win!
And this is what all the fuss is about. Very pretty cakes topped with very pretty flowers! So we bought some of their mini ones to try it all out:
They make for great pictures! Strawberry fruit tart, beetroot and chocolate cloud cake, yuzu cloud cake, and matcha cloud cake. For me, these were only worth getting once for the pictures, though I attribute a lot of that to no longer having much of a sweet tooth - my sugary cravings are more and more infrequent these days. The strawberry fruit tart had little golden crispy malt balls, and I believe a hazelnut paste. Quite nice, and not too sweet.I'm not sure if I like chiffon cakes at all, and I guess I don't like matcha. The yuzu was okay, though my brother said that it didn't taste like yuzu - it was more just citrussy. The beetroot one was quite interesting because it actually tasted like beetroot, and while the flavour combination worked, it didn't stand out too much for me. I guess I like a buttered up, beautifully layered and flaky pastry better!
Now the next overhyped thing, the Aqua S shot. One day I just started seeing a lot of these pictures pop up, and it's just so over the top! Why have ice cream in a massive cloud of fairy floss and take a picture of it in front of their wall of blue and clouds?! So I had to go do it too. They had either apricot or espresso flavour alongside their sea salt, so I chose espresso. It's weird, but since I drink almost exclusively espressos and filter coffees these days, I don't like many espresso flavoured products at all. Also, I just wanted Fairy floss, marshmallow and pop rocks, but there wasn't a price point advertised for three toppings (there were costs for 1, 2 and all 4), so I chose to get everything. I could barely hold the thing and take a picture of it with my camera at the same time because of the size of the cloud! I also spent a long time eating it as it was quite the quest, so my strategy was to consume the cloud first, taking with it the caramel popcorn and poprocks. The ice cream had to be licked throughout this to prevent the melty bits from dripping, and then the toasted marshmallow was consumed while in the ice cream, since it was impaled on a pocky stick. Then, the standard consumption process.I'm definitely not a fan of almost all ice cream (wow, I'm such a hater!), so I had this mainly to say that I had it. It'd be interesting to try out all the flavours, but while they might be nice, I just don't think I'd enjoy it to the level I like. It was still fun watching everyone else taking that same picture, over and over and over!
I really do love Japanese food, so off to Jugemu Shimbashi I went, for their soba. Ah, their soba is so delicious! It wasn't terribly busy at lunch time so I easily got a reservation for myself, and had a nice view of the street. However, this was also the day that I managed to poison myself with caffeine, so I wasn't feeling well and couldn't finish this duck and mushroom soba. I felt so bad!
Even though I was on the brink of death, I had to still make sure I was eating normally, so that night I went to Burger Project (no, Neil Perry wasn't there on any sweep of the premises I conducted, so he still remains elusive) and sampled their cheeseburger (for no burger is complete without cheese!). Even with a diminished appetite, this was quite nice, but nothing standout for me. it's great for a cheap, good quality burger though! Plus the place has excellent table lighting for perfect pictures.
I have a love of taking pictures of animals, especially birds, so I revisited a couple of parks (and the usual places where seagulls flock) to snap some pictures with my newfound camera abilities, so that I had a better idea of what I was doing compared to the last time.
And of course, some non bird pictures around the city:
I love capturing sparkles in my pictures! After taking a few pictures in cape town, I've discovered that water features are also great fun to take pictures of. Then there was this shot of the bridge, where I found the Luna Park ferris wheel (I think it's a ferris wheel in Luna Park) was actually reflecting in a very standout manner!
Ok, more birds! This time, a funky looking chicken. This is a separate post as it features the Grounds of Alexandria. Though it could technically fall under a cafe post, I didn't dine at the cafe itself or consume any coffee, but rather explored the place to get a feel for it, so it falls under Sydney instead. The petting zoo is pretty cute, and I love all the different food outlets they have to cater for different tastes.
I visited The Potting Shed, as their menu looked appealing, plus they have an adorable macaw there! The charcoal bun pork belly sliders were really nice - better than the ones I had in Adelaide. These ones were softer, and the flavours worked better.The strawberry pot plant was also adorable - look at those mushroom meringues! There was a great flavour to the strawberry sorbet too. The only thing I didn't like was how dense the cake was though. It was mainly pistachio based, but also seemed like it was possibly gluten free or vegan in texture, for it wasn't fluffy or even mudcake-gooey, but rather, missing an ingredient. The meringues were my favourite part of the dish.
And here is Fluffy the macaw! She's quite a large bird, and I learned that she's only about a year old. Incredibly well behaved though! She also knows how to dance - well, she bobbed her head up and down at one point when I was taking pictures. Definitely one of the star attractions of this place! I probably will have to come back for their coffee.
Another section that's too small for its own post, is exploring the Hunter Valley. I went there for a friend's wedding, and was a little worried it was going to be a rainy one - but lucky the skies cleared and we had some amazing weather for a great outdoor wedding! We stayed in a house that had some pretty scenic views of vineyards, mountains and cows, though due to the recent storms, this area was actually flooded so that the vines were dead. Hopefully they'll grow back once the water evaporates!There were also a couple of dogs in the area (very friendly!) that visited our holiday home, and they loved the attention that we gave them! My friend had to make sure that her cat wasn't around during that time though - he doesn't like dogs!I'm also happy that we had bought flowers from Flemington markets the day before and arranged them ourselves - it turns out this was way cheaper than hiring a professional florist to arrange bouquets. The flowers lasted a long time and didn't wilt, so much so that when I took them back home, they were still good for at least another week!After the wedding, we had brunch at a nearby restaurant called Emersons, which I didn't realise until later did degustations for dinner. It must be a fancy restaurant! It was already a fancy cafe as it had lamb's fry - which in this case was liver - which is probably the first time I've ever seen it served in my time at Sydney (ok, so this isn't in Sydney) cafes. It was a tad more cooked than I liked, but it turns out I really do like the taste of liver now, so I was fine with it.
And a revisit to The Tea Room. I was having a belated Mother's day outing with my mum, trying to figure out where to take her for lunch, when she reminded me that she's never been to the Tea Room before. I've had several visits there already, and forgot about it after my last few experiences weren't as great as the first. However, I wasn't as knowledgeable about teas back then as I am now. I was a little apprehensive at going back, but since my mum hadn't been, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to revisit.I'm glad I did though - this experience most closely matched my first experience here. We had a really nice waiter who walked us through the tea menu, and even brought out a sample of a few of his favourite teas for us to smell. I like interactive experiences, and my mum has a great nose, so she had fun talking to him and identifying the different teas presented. For once I didn't choose an earl grey, instead I went for the Tarry Lapsang, a variation of lapsang souchong. I really liked this tea - it had a very strong smokey smell, but when drinking, there was a lightness and fruitiness to it that was very pleasant. My mum chose a yunnan black tea, which was so smooth, malty and quite satisfying.The standard afternoon tea set came out, and I love the fact that their little polenta tart is still on their plate after several years - it's my favourite item in the afternoon tea set. The macaron was my least favourite, since I've eaten quite a few amazing macarons around the place.Overall, I certainly had an epic adventure packed into just 11 days. From visiting old favourites to checking out new places, these were some highlights of the trip:Being able to walk right into Sepia and meeting Martin BennTasting a Burger Project burgerGetting a Mary's fried chicken burger and that was an overhyped burger that actually met expectations! So tasty!Rockpool Bar & Grill David Blackmore full blood wagyu burger is still the best burger everArtificer was a place I overhyped for myself and was also totally worth it!Eating lots of ramenVisiting my first Izakaya and really liking the offalSokyo had the most amazing sushiAnd probably a lot of other stuff from my adventures! I guess poisoning myself with caffeine counts as a standout too, as unpleasant as it was!I heart Sydney!