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Azuma ,Chifley Plaza

An azumazing meal

When I visited Japan a few years ago during my uni days, I actually didn’t get to eat any sashimi at all. Back then, I hadn’t developed my appreciation for food and all we ate was cheap ramen , teriyaki chicken and katsu curries to name a few dishes. Throughout Uni, I only ever ate food court Japanese and I always maintained that Kura had the ‘best’ japanese food I had ever tasted. Fast forward a few years, and I see myself sitting in Azuma which is regarded as one of the top tier japanese restaurants in Sydney.

I have been told that Azuma has one of the freshest sushi’s and sashimi’s and the quality of their food and ingredients is up there with the ‘best’. I’m a bit skeptical when people refer to something as the best. At any given time, food can taste so different from person to person. The weather, your mood, the restaurants ambience and lighting, the annoying table next to you who won’t shut the hell up because they are on their mobile phone the entire meal all can contribute to how you interpret a meal. My expectations were high for Azuma, but when I stepped inside the restaurant I had a good feeling about the place. The waiters were polite, the ambience was nice and we were seated next to a window which made me quietly chuckle to myself because it meant good natural lighting for photos.

Linda went to the trouble of ordering a custom degustation for my birthday (or perhaps it was for her, as I had no say in anything). She requested that the Chef (Kimitaka Azuma) try to incorporate seafood (that shouldn’t be too hard), sea urchin and wagyu beef into our meal, with the latter two things which we have not tried before. As I write this, I also recall not eating wagyu beef on my last trip to Japan. It makes me wonder how much Macca’s and First Kitchen we had instead of real Japanese food. My next trip to Japan in February ’09 is going to be a different story, I’ll be trying anything and everything which makes Japanese food good.

It wasn’t long after we were seated into our chairs that our first dish of the degustation arrived. I actually thought it was my birthday cake for a second because of the candles (yes, this is another dinner for my birthday!).

The presentation of this platter was absolutely stunning and the candles made the platter look like a little sashimi ‘island’. It was like viewing a piece of art, almost too pretty to eat. The chef must have took his sweet time arranging everything so perfectly, the individual touches were very visible. Unfortunately the lens on my camera wasn’t wide enough to capture the entire platter but it was atleast 17 inches in width. What impressed me about this ‘entree’ was that despite it’s size, there was only enough portion of everything to not destroy your appetite for the rest of the night ahead.

This was probably the freshest sashimi I have ever tasted. If it was any fresher, it would still be moving. The salmon was particularly buttery. The John Dory was very nice texture wise, but I couldn’t taste any distinctiveness about the fish itself (this is my first time tasting raw john dory). The temperature of the sashimi was almost perfect, at room temperature.

This was my first time trying sea urchin, so I was naturally a bit wary. It didn’t look at all appetising and reminded me of tongue for some reason. Despite this, I was welcomed with a soft and buttery taste which was easy on the taste buds. The shredded cucumber when eaten in conjuction with the roe ensured I wasn’t ‘creamed’ out from the sea urchin. As it was from the sea, I expected a salty taste, however to my suprise it was actually slightly sweet.

The flesh of the kingfish was delicate and cooked perfectly. It actually tasted a bit like chicken which was strange, but comforting. The wasabi also tasted a bit different. Gone was the punch in the face irritation, only to be replaced by a longer lasting mellow mild coolness. Looking back at the experience, the texture combined with the taste makes me wonder whether it was actually real grated horseradish that I was lucky enough to try. Another nice touch was the way the carrot was carved. As you can see, the chef carved it into a flower which was symetrically consistant on all sides. If he ever loses his passion as a chef, perhaps he should take up a career as a florist.

The presentation of the seared scallop was awesome. The seared scallop was wedged in between two pieces of thinly sliced lime, which I assume is depicting a scallop shell. The scallop itself was seared to my liking and the juice from the lime was all that was needed to bring out the sweetness of the scallop. I still can’t get over the simpleness yet the effectiveness of the presentation of the scallop. Yes I know what you are thinking, I am easily amused.

Ths scampi was delicately soft and cooked only briefly as the tail of it was still a bit raw. It was simply topped with some chopped scallion, coriander and smeared lightly with a wasabi-like mayoinnaise. Once again, the freshness shines through as the preperation of the scampi is actually quite simple.

Next on our degustation was the amuse bouche. A giant shell like plate was strategically arranged with the following (from top, anti clockwise):

Fresh pacific oyster with salmon roe and citrus soy sauce
This was simply a very fresh pacific oyster with generous amounts of salmon roe, a touch of scallion and a superb citrus soy sauce. At the burst of each tiny roe, it seems like a flood of salty ocean goodness water comes flushing out of it. I wouldn’t mind having a few of these handy instead of my bottle of maggie soy sauce.

Japanese braised baby abalone
I find that when it comes to abalone, if it’s not cooked correctly or if it’s too mature, the flesh tends to be very rubbery, requiring hours upon hours of simmering before it becomes remotely edible. Lucky for us, the braised baby abalone was very tender. Japanese marinade was similar in taste to a very light teriyaki sauce, enough to enhance the natural sweetness of the abalone.

Twice cooked duck breast with yuzu citrus and green pepper paste
Four slices of duck were cooked medium-well with a small dash of yuzu citrus and pepper. I just loved the tenderness of the duck, I didn’t even need the citrus or pepper to be added.

Grilled silver cod fillet marinated with Saikyo miso
Without doubt my favourite of the amuse bouche. The cod fillet was fresh and the flesh tore apart strand by strand easily with one stab of my chop stick. The saikyo miso marinade was sweet and did just enough not to overpower the freshness of the grilled cod. I was left in awe with Azuma’s rendition of cod fillet, I had to steal Linda’s last piece.

Smoked salmon and cured white fish with konbu ‘temari sushi’
Room temperature smoke salmon was wrapped around cured white fish and sushi rice. Simple but effective.

White wine poached cherry tomato
This looked like one of those red nose’s you see during red nose day. The poached skinless cherry tomato was very soft yet it still retained it’s firmness, whereas the wine added a new dimension of sweetness.

Grilled eggplant with sweet miso
Despite looking like a lump of shit, the grilled eggplant was actually quite nice. Linda found it a little too sweet, which I can understand. The sweet miso tasted alot like red bean paste, but ALOT sweeter.

Mystery pan fried chicken thigh fillet
The chicken wasn’t on our custom menu, so I can only assume it was some form of pan friend chicken with teriyaki sauce. I’ve had teriyaki on so many occasions and it all tastes the same to me now.

Shitake mushrooms in white sesame dressing
The shitake mushrooms were stuffed into a hollowed out lime piece. If I had to pick one thing which I disliked, it was probably this. The texture and taste didn’t go well with the rest of the amuse bouche at all. The grainy white sesame paste was too sweet, overwhelming the dish, what mushroom? Though, I must give the chef credit for once again making something so simple look superb.

Such a wonderful concoction of ingredients. Very generous amounts of lightly seared tuna was accompanied by moist daikon, assorted salad leaves and a citrus based soy sauce. The tuna was soft and cooked rare, as you can probably see on the far right piece of tuna up there. Crispy fried and dried onions were also scattered sparingly through the dish to add a bit of crunch to the tuna.

Sometimes I look at a dish like this and think to my self ” err why am I paying some for raw fish with a bunch of weeds from my garden scattered on top ” . But then I took another mouthful of tuna and all it’s accompaniments and marvelled in the genius of Mr Azuma and his ability to ensure all ingredients of a dish have a happy marriage.

This reminds me of the dumplings you can get at yum cha, except Azuma’s version is more luxurious in content and flavour. The seafood based soup tasted pure yet refreshing, not an ounce of fat or additive flavours was detectable. It would be impossible to pinpoint which species of seafood was used for this flavourful broth, whatever it was, it definitely did its job. For all I know, it was all the left over fish from the day. The beans were probably unnecessary, but added colour to a somewhat mundane looking dumpling.

The wagyu was lightly seared and dissapeared quite quickly in my mouth as minimal chewing was required. It was perhaps too soft as it didn’t give me a chance to taste the true fattyness of the wagyu. The presence of two pieces of artichoke was perhaps for comforting purposes considering how much “marble” we were going to consume with the wagyu dishes. If I had to compare it to a type of meat, I’d probably say its texture is closest to mince meat but much more strong in flavour. The ratio of fat to meat on the wagyu was basically one to one. With each bite, it immediately disintegrates and melts into your papillae (thank you thesaurus).

Unlike the seared wagyu, I could actually taste the true flavours of beef with the carpaccio version. The beef was tender , jucy , ‘insert random food blog adjective here’. Each piece was swimming in a light soy sauce and melted in my mouth. The brussel sprouts alfalfa was a life saver as I constantly drowned my wagyu in the soy sauce which made it overly salty.

I’ve had lobster balls before, but they come in the frozen packets from a dodgy chinese grocery store. The lobster ball here was crunchy on the outside and the lobster flesh was sweet on the inside. Some people would say it’s such a waste eating lobster flesh which has been deep fried, but not me as I enjoyed every mouthful. The eryngii mushroom tempura was interesting, but I came to the conclusion that mushrooms should be excluded from tempura as it just didn’t taste right. Despite the fact that tempura should be applicable to all vegetables, it is probably just a matter of personal taste.

When I think of miso soup, I think of the bowl that is flung onto my table as a complimentary starter or the bowl which accompanies my set lunch bento box for $10 at any random Japanese eatery. It came as a surprise when I dipped my spoon to the base of my miso soup bowl to find giant pieces of lobster flesh which have soaked in the aroma of the miso soup. I’m not an expert on miso soup, so I could barely tell the difference between this and normal miso soups at cheaper establishments. However, there was definitely a hint of lobster essence in the miso soup which would have raised the value of this bowl of soup by ten fold. In order to eat the lobster effectively, a small fork was given, which helped in excavating the lobster claws and legs. I felt like a pirate probing around looking for treasure, the tables next to us were probably somewhat bemused at my facial expressions when trying to excavate the meat out of my lobster.

My stomach was struggling after the lobster and miso soup but my appetite was soon regained when this eligantly arranged sushi platter was brought to our table. We were advised that each piece was already flavoured, therefore it was suggested that we did not use the soy sauce. However, they gave us soy sauce anyway as alot of people request it. We actually got one platter each, but Linda was struggling by now and had to embarassingly ask if they could doggy bag her portion. The waitress smiled and was quite happy to do so.

The presentation of the tuna and special white fish nigiri zushi cemented my initial thoughts of Azuma in terms of freshness, flavour and superb presentation.

What separated Azuma’s roll from ones that I have tried elsewhere is the quality of the ingredient. From the top of the mound right down to the bottom surface, not a single flaw in any of the ingredients. We have here a fresh room temperature smoked salmon with an appropriate portion of sushi rice, avocado and tofu. It was topped sparingly with flying fish roe and a mystery sauce (perhaps japanese mayo ?).

I’ve only just recently started eating eel, therefore was grateful that the portion was quite small. The slightly sweet flavour of the marinade complemented the fatty eel well, whereas the addition of the cucumber act to cleanse the palate once the deed was done. I made the mistake of one-shotting this entire piece and nearly choked as it felt like the little pieces of eel were still alive and clogging up my throat.

I like my scallops simple, no fuss. I was quite dissapointed in the scallop tempura sushi. By preparing it this way, I found that the sweetness of the scallop had been stripped, leaving a piece of flavourless flesh. But in saying that, I love fried stuff so my dissapointment was offset by my cheap thrills with fried food.

We asked the waitress to hold off on our dessert so we could let our stomachs digest in peace. I was very impressed with my meal so far. Everything was almost perfect in terms of taste, freshness, consistency and preperation. I wonder if the dessert would live up to the rest of the degustation ? It seemed like throughout the night, several other tables were celebrating birthdays as well. On each occasion, two waitresses would walk out with a dessert with a sparkling candle and sing happy birthday to the birthday boy/girl. It was actually pretty cute seeing them sing with a japanese accent, a top effort from the waitresses. I knew my turn would come inevitabily, and the ‘surprise’ was somewhat subdued due to the fact I could see them approaching our table in the mirror. But alas, it was still a nice feeling having them sing to me. They even took a photo of us and had it developed and printed onto an Azuma birthday card which was quite awesome.

The cake was delicately soft and surrounded with copious amounts of cream. Pieces of bananna were also tucked into the middle of the cake. I find that bananna goes with almost everything so it was no surprise that it tasted good in this cake.

One of the sacrifices you have to make as being a food blogger is only being able to eat your food once you get the ‘right’ shot on your camera. By the time I got around to eating the sorbet, it was melting like I was on New Years Day, 2006. The mango sorbet was sweet and refreshing, but the highlight was no doubt the caramel sorbet. The caramel had a ‘burnt’ after taste which I found to be unique and fantastic. At one stage, I wanted to start licking the sorbet off the plate because so much of it was melted. I couldn’t rescue the sorbet with my spoon either due to the uneven surface of the plate!

Everyone loves a good Crème brûlée and Azuma’s rendition is what I expect from a good one. The bowl was actually quite big, even though we had to share it between the two of us we could barely finish it. The custard was creamy and as expected had a stong hint of vanilla. What impressed me most was the layer of hard caramel on top. It wasn’t too hard, nor too soft and didn’t have an overly burnt after taste which I usually get when I try to make Crème brûlée.

Chocolate ganache

I saved these for last as they look quite rich, and indeed they were. The chocolate ganache was heavily creamy, sweet and the dark chocolate used was good quality.

Complimentary tea and coffee was served, I opted for a cappucino and Linda went for the green tea. They used Vittoria beans for the coffee and while it wasn’t the best coffee, I guess I can’t expect much from a Japanese restaurant.

Azuma was an eye opening experience and a flawless introduction to ‘authentic’ Japanese food. They seamlessly combined good service, food and atmosphere into a small but intimate restaurant environment. It got a bit noisy as the restaurant reached maximum capacity, but I actually preferred this sort of ambience as I didn’t have to contain my decibels when I was talking. Azuma is a classy joint, it’s a place that I would be back to sample the rest of their extensive menu. There is no doubt that Mr Azuma prides himself not only the quality of food, but also his presentation.

Tip : Free parking in Chifley Plaza if you get them to stamp your parking ticket at the counter. Park your car on Level 4.

Azuma
Level 1, Chifley Plaza
2 Chifley Square (Cnr. of Phillip & Hunter Street)
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: +61 2 9222 9960
Web: www.azuma.com.au