aNarcist
food and drink in sydneyNew Website!
http://gaishokujin.com
I have decided to close this blog. I will no longer be adding to the site, but you can still view my favourite posts:
- Holidays: Xmas, NYE, Japanese NY
- Info: Mino, Monkey Magic, Satsuma
- Saké: Azuma Kushiyaki, Busshari, Toko
- Writing: Etch, Sean’s Kitchen, Tabou
Instead, I am opening a new blog at http://gaishokujin.com. There are already quite a few new posts, and here are some of my favourites:
- Tetsuya’s, Sydney
- Ryugin, Tokyo
- Roan Kikunoi, Kyoto
- Zero-go-ni, Nagoya
- Bo Innovation, Hong Kong
- Shoya, Melbourne
Enjoy!
- Adam
Anniversary ♥ Quay
Marvellous views in background, but food comes to the fore.
IT’S BEEN A GOOD YEAR, for me and for Quay. I’ve been having the time of my life, eating and drinking around Sydney with my girlfriend. This weekend is our anniversary, so we wanted to go somewhere special.
And what better place than Quay? Over the last year, the restaurant has taken out every ‘Best Restaurant’ award in the country. It also recently entered the list of the top 50 restaurants in the world.
Monkey Magic
THE FIRST THING you notice about Monkey Magic is the name. The “Monkey Magic” TV series had quite a cult following, and was many young Australians’ first exposure to Asian culture. That’s probably why last year’s Noodle Markets at Hyde Park had “Monkey” episodes projected onto big screens.
It comes as no surprise, then, that this is one of three restaurants named after the Great Sage Equal of Heaven. In addition to this Japanese restaurant in Surry Hills, there’s also a Thai restaurant in Bondi and a takeaway sushi restaurant in the City. Whether any of them are related, I don’t know.
The Surry Hills restaurant has been open for a few months now, but I can’t find much information about it. It hasn’t been reviewed by any major publication, and its website is under construction. But according to the company that decorated the restaurant’s interior; the owner used to be head chef at Tetsuya’s.
This was not my first visit to the restaurant. I had been before and tried their crab betel leaves, sashimi, sushi, and their oh-so-luscious pork belly dish. I quite enjoyed the food and was rather impressed with their wine and saké list, so I was determined to try their $55 degustation menu.
sushi e (Merivale: Event)
sushi e was the last of my Marches into Merivale. Unlike the others, I didn’t go for the $33 dinner, but instead opted to go for the Special Event. Promoted as “Turning Japanese” night, it promised a “geisha” show and a four-course meal. It could have been a recipe for disaster, but I was pleasantly suprised.
Teppanyaki (Merivale: 4)
TEPPANYAKI was one of the first restaurants to open in the Ivy complex. Like Sushi Choo, the menu was originally designed by Shaun Presland (Sushi e) but has since been taken over by another chef. Sushi Choo is now headed by Shimpei Hatanaka, and Teppanyaki is now headed by Akira Urata. But while the chef may be Japanese, this is by no means traditional Japanese fare.
