Are you ready for your “Hats” to be blown “off”?

For the past few years, as October approaches, details for the food festival are advertised. I read through each event intensely and even jot down the ones I’d love to go to. Then it occurs to me that they are on the weekdays, and being interstate during the week, I’m never able to attend. However, this year was different; I was back in Sydney for October! Rejoice!
This year, Restaurant Balzac was once again awarded TWO hats for the 2010 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards. I went to Restaurant Balzac for my birthday three years ago and wanted to reminisce back to that night where I had some of the tastiest bread ever: warm, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Tonight, I was back for the ever-so-long awaited Hats off dinner for the Sydney International Food Festival.

Beach-themed table setting

Getting ready to dine!

The theme for tonight’s HATS OFF dinner was called “From the bottom of The Deep Blue Sea”

Theme for tonight's dinner

Me, (being THE Pescatarian of the EST team, or the “Pest” as they like to call me), this 10-course hats off dinner was perfect as the degustation involved (basically) all seafood dishes. What was more exciting was the theme and inspiration behind each dish. Each course was inspired from some country on each continent. Have a go and guess the country/cuisine from where each dish is inspired from…!

So here goes with the “beachy-themed” dinner…

Pacific Oyster with Vietnamese Dressing

Occasionally, I have that *small* craving for oysters (or perhaps its the attraction to this “aphrodisiac”…) and this starter was such a teaser! The fresh and sweetness of the oyster complimented very well together with the sweet/savoury dressing. It was a nice, light starter to entice our palate for the other 9 dishes to come.

Soon after, the waitress arrived with a plate of complimentary bread. MMM! This is what I returned for!

The bread was just how I remembered from three years before: warm. crunchy. warm on the inside. The butter spread so well on the bread. nomnomnom!

Salt Cod Manresa-style

The second meal of the night. The bland flavours of the beans mixed with the rather salty “Salt Cod” attempted to balance the salty flavour, but I felt it was still a little too salty still. However, when washed down with a sip of wine (supposedly for the next course), it was a lot easier and more pleasure to consume.

Boston Bay Clam Chowder

(matched with nv Jed Wines Sparkling Blanc de Blanc – Argentina)
The first time I had chowder was in San Francisco (home of the chowder) many years ago. Cream-enriched, flavoursome, and warming, tonight’s chowder was just like the first time. The bits of clam was rather fun to find and eat! It had a nice strong seafood flavour, mixed together with a hint of ham.
The matching wine came from Argentina. I was informed that West Australian wine merchants, Jed Wines travelled to Argentina just to produce this wine. This was a favourite for everyone that night; sweet, light and complimented well with the freshness of the snapper.

Ceviche of Line Caught Pink Snapper

(matched with 2008 Tomich Hill Riesling – Adelaide Hills, S.A.)
Ceviche is a peruvian-style dish: citrus-marinade raw seafood. Tonight’s fish was the Pink Snapper. The snapper, being a light-flavoured fish, was enhanced by the tomato-ey citrus dressing. Very fresh & sweet!
The lightly flavoured Riesling matched well with the citrus-y dish.

Linguini of Spanner Crab and Asparagus

(with matching wine 2007 Torbreck ‘Woodcutters’ Semillon – Barossa Valley, S.A.)
“This tastes just like noodles! My favourite”, exclaimed my dad. *shakes head*. The handmade linguini did have a noodley texture but it was still pasta. The lemon-flavoured sauce for this dish was sweet and made the dish simple, yet interesting. This was my dad’s favourite that night.

Poppadums with mint yoghurt

Curry of Prawns and Basil with Poppadums

(with matching 2007 Domaine Coteau de la Biche – Vouvray, France)
The yellow curry itself was light and sweet… although, I felt that if the prawns were cooked in the curry itself so it could soak up the curry, the prawn would have tasted fantastic. There was only 1 small poppadum each to dip with the mint yoghurt. If only we were given more to dip with the curry, or even consumed together with some sort of legume. This dish was just missing this factor, otherwise this may have been my favourite.

'Surf n turf', Lobster and Wagyu

(with matching wine 2007 Pommier ‘Bourgogne’ Pinot Noir – Burgundy, France)
A classic Australia dish. Obviously, the “surf” was the lobster and the “turf” was the wagyu. This was the only meat dish of the night and I was highly disappointed when informed that the sauce had bits of truffle. As you all may know, I’m a HUGE fan of truffle; the smokey/burnt flavour is my favourite due to its uniqueness and it fascinating taste. My brother and dad inform me the wagyu was not very fatty which perhaps made the beef a little tough to slice, however, it was perfectly cooked.

The brother slowly and carefully enjoying his wagyu...

By this time, I was pretty full, but there was still dessert to come…

Coconut Caviar with Mango

I have and will always love sago. The mango sago drink readily available in Hong Kong @ Hui Lau Shan makes me love sago even more. The use of the sago in this dish was very similar to “caviar”. My brother was merely disappointed when he realised it was not REAL caviar. At first, I thought it may have been caviar and I wondered how they could work caviar in together with mango (a sweet taste). This was a nice refreshing re-dessert to ready the palate for dessert.

Sand, Cones and Umbrellas

(with matching wine 2008 Josef Botrytis Rieling – Tamar Valley, TAS)
I thought this was the most creative dish for the night. The “sand” was crushed shortbread and sugar, the “person” under the umbrella was a handmade waffle with a raspberry swirl ice cream. This dish was so fun to eat! Dipping the cone in the sand… The waffle was crunchy and not too sweet to be eaten together with the icecream, and the sand was not too sweet to be dipped in. MY favourite of the night!
The matching wine was very good as well. It was not too sweet, and very easy to drink. This was my favourite wine of the night too as it went so well with the dessert together.

Tea with salted caramel chocolate seashells

The night ended with a pot of green tea, enjoyed together with salted-caramel chocolate seashells. The sweetness of the caramel was downplayed by the salt. I didn’t think too much of salted caramel, but the seashell had a unique taste. I found this very interesting to eat.

The service was adequently attentive and there was a nice (not-too-long-not-too-quick) break between each meal. This allowed for better digestion of each dish and I quite liked this. I didn’t leave the restaurant feeling like passing out from food coma, so the quantity was perfect for everyone that night. With a price tag of $160pp (or $185pp with the matching wines), I would have expected better quality ingredients, but the creativeness to the theme of the menu made up for this. I enjoy the french/english-style of the food at Restaurant Balzac, but next time, I’ll go for the a la carte.

Restaurant Balzac
141 Belmore Road,
Randwick NSW, 2031
Tel: (02) 9399 9660
Fax: (02) 9399 6929
Web: http://www.restaurantbalzac.com.au/

Open…
Tues to Sat – from 6pm
Friday Lunch only – 12pm to 3pm
Last Sunday of every Month – from 6.30pm (Seasonal Degustation only)

Even though SIFF 2009 is officially over, I thought I’d post this Becasse dinner anyway because it was a fantastic experience.

I thought I’d surprise F with an early birthday dinner and what better way than to do it with a SIFF Hats Off Dinner – a Hats Off Dinner at Becasse to be precise! I was intrigued and drawn by their theme: an acknowledgement to the Heroes and Masters of French cuisine and I thought he might find it as interesting as I did (and enjoy it).

Even after dragging our feet and spending some time at (and eating) Bon Bon Fine Chocolates, we ended up being 10 minutes too early and were asked by the staff to come back when they open at 6. Loitering outside for a bit, we decided to go back to Bon Bon Fine Chocolates, where F dropped a cool $45 on an assortment of chocolates. Surely by now our 10-minute exile from Becasse was up and made our way back to the restaurant.

We were ushered upstairs, where our waitress began to indicate politely our table, only to stop herself with a start and moved to the table behind, brightly amending her mistake with “Sorry! This is your table”. I brightened up too as the table was well-lit – awesome (so now we all know that if the photos don’t look good, it’s because of the camera’s end user haha).

Pumpkin Brioche, Garlic and Herb, and Sourdough Baguette with Smoked Butter and Pink Salts and Olive Oil Butter and Herbs

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In fond rememberance of Onde‘s pear and frangipani tart, I thought I should see how well Tony Bilson’s Number One’s version stacked up.

Tony Bilson’s Number One wasn’t where I expected it to be. For some reason, I thought it was located in Customs House and when F asked me where I was going, as I veered away from him towards the building, I said, “Going to Number One of course! Aren’t you coming?” A bit of a minor verbal tussle ensued, where in the end, I yielded to Google Maps and someone’s 20/20 vision.

I realised afterwards that I was thinking of the cafe “Young Alfred” that’s established in Customs House, though I’m not sure how “Young Alfred” and “1 Alfred St” correlates in terms of address. Sigh.

I apologise for the terrible photo. I struggled with dim, warm lighting from inside the restaurant and being seated right next to the window, a bright, bluish light from outside the restaurant. I really did try, but then my ice cream started to melt, forming miniture riverlets amongst the pear slices, and so I gave up…

Pear and Frangipani Tarte Fine

While this month’s Let’s Do Lunch offerings are more than enticing, being situated just outside of the CBD means that the majority of these lunches are simply just too far away for me. Scanning through the list of restaurants I narrowed my list down to restaurants in the immediate vicinity and settled on Sean’s Kitchen and their “7 Deadly Sins”, or as I like to call it, “Heart Attack on a platter”.

From the SIFF website the exact description of lunch was, ‘Mixed grill of black pudding, duck-fat-fried bread, quail egg, wagyu sausage, bacon, duck hash and devilled kidneys’. I think my eyes must have been shining at this point as one co-worker immediately backed out of lunch saying she’d like to maintain a manageable cholesterol level, while another jumped to the challenge.

Sean's Kitchen Mixed Grill

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Having spent too much money on food lately, I wasn’t intending on going to Shangri La for a Sugar Hit this Friday night. To be honest I’m not really a big sweet tooth , I’m more a savoury person. If I had to choose between a pierre herme macaron or some fried chicken, I would pick the fried chicken.

We had just finished our meal at the Night Noodle Markets, when Kathness somehow managed to get us a booking for 8 people just 1 hour before the Shangri La Sugar Hit would start.  I didn’t hold much hope for a table as a few hotels have been booked out for their Sugar Hit sessions. As the night was young, I couldn’t knock back an opportunity to increase my blood sugar levels.

Last year, squishies wasn’t too excited about what Shangri La had to offer for their Sugar Hit. Apparently they had a change of hands in the Head Pastry Chef department and the offerings were a bit more different from previous years. I guess each person has different expectations from a Sugar Hit. For me, since it is a month long celebration of food I expect something which makes me go ‘wow’, something which really showcases the talent of the Pastry Chef of the establishment. But at the same time, I understand how difficult it would be to come up with a dessert which appeals to everyone while charging $20.

Hazelnut torte, lemon curd, sugar coated popcorn, and lemon jelly ($20)

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I love lazy weekends – I’ll admit I would happily sleep in til late in the afternoons sometimes (especially if it’s miserable outside). So when we were lazing around, idly discussing what we should do, F offhandedly put forward: “Why don’t we do a Sugar Hit?” Why not indeed.

Seeing that Azuma and the Hilton was booked solid that night (boo), Sir Stamford at Circular Quay Hotel’s Sugar Hit sounded like a nice, simple dessert alternative – and really, how can you go wrong with strawberries and cream?

Trying to be classy with the Cognac

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The word teppanyaki often conjures up images of food flying in my face and walking out of the restaurant with an empty stomach and a dirty shirt. When I use to work in North Sydney, Teppanyaki use to be a reward for completing a milestone or a project on time. But instead, the thought of Teppanyaki style cooking made me cringe. The restaurant would have someone cook the food for us and he or she would do a few tricks and the food would land on our bowl. If I wanted to see tricks, I would buy a ticket to Cirque du Soleil.

Thankfully, Teppanyaki at The Ivy is not your usual Teppanyaki restaurant.

Ever since Merivale decided to get a bit more serious with their food, Teppanyaki has been a quiet achiever while the likes of est. take the spotlight. They have received some positive thoughts from several blogs as well as being full with patrons every time I dine there. This years Let’s do Lunch as part of SIFF gives me another opportunity to see what Teppanyaki is up to.

One thing to note before dining here is that Teppanyaki’s food is not predominately Japanese. The flavours are actually more Asian fusion, as you will see with one of the dishes that I ordered. But anyway, enough of my rambling. As you might have noticed, our SIFF posts are short and sweet. With so many options and posts, hopefully less is more.

West Australian marron, crushed cherry tomatoes, fresh herb salad

I ordered the Western Australian marron and Thai herb salad with the hope that it would suffice as my omega 3 and vegetable daily intake. The dietitians of the world would disagree with my justification, but at least my stomach was satisfied. The entire serving is more than generous, with the marron coming in two huge pieces with plenty of succulent meat. They are grilled or seared with a bit of seasoning, I think I could taste some hints of garlic. The Thai herb salad was a circus of colours and flavours, the perfect spring salad. It was a bit confusing to have a Thai salad in a Japanese named restaurant, but everything these days seems to be a mashup of different cuisines.

Wagyu striploin, marble score 5+, wok tossed shitake, buckwheat and soybeans

One word, amazing. I’ll start with one very minor setback, the wagyu was a tad over cooked. But fear not, the flavours more than made up for it. The shiitake mushrooms, buckwheat and soybeans are a great combination. Not only do they go well together in terms of flavour, but their textures all compliment each other very well. The wagyu had nice strokes of marble and if cooked a little more underdone it would have been perfect.

Well there you have it, another Let’s Do Lunch. You still have about two weeks to check out what is on offer on www.siff.com.au . The $35 offerings from Teppanyaki are great value, they all come with a bowl of rice and miso soup as well as the glass of beer/wine/sparkling water. While the flavours are a bit of a cross between Thai and Japanese, the flavours are spot on.

Note : These two dishes are part of the SIFF Let’s Do Lunch which runs throughout October 2009.

Teppanyaki at The Ivy

330 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph : 9240 3000
w : http://www.merivale.com/ivy/teppanyaki

When F wanted to go to Sheraton on the Park’s Sugar hit, I was reminded of my last time there (from the lack of photos, I would presume this was before my food blogging days). I had a wonderful Alaska Bomb that I raved about to Minh, who did not quite share my enthusiasm for the same Sugar Hit when she went.

However, remembering fondly of the dessert buffets I’ve had there (and that Alaska bomb!), I figured that F most probably would like it and agreed to be his Sugar Hit partner in crime.

Going by memory, we went upstairs where the buffet tables were for our Sugar Hit, only to have the wait staff inform us that it’s being served downstairs in the lobby. Puzzled, we went back downstairs and as I sat down, my puzzlement grew. I was quite sure that it wasn’t near the lobby last time, but doubts started to creep in and I thought perhaps I remembered wrongly.

Funnily enough, Teresa was also there with her group of friends for the Sugar hit! Small world =) Hehe She also remembered the Sugar Hit being served upstairs and that it kind of felt weird to have it in the lobby. Sorry, it wasn’t quite in the lobby, it was more off to the side in a small room, which in a way felt a little odd. (Perhaps I’m thinking too much into it.)

Warm Chocolate Pudding with Golden Almond Splinter, Honeycomb Ice Cream and Chantilly Cream

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Note : Thanks to Alex in the comments he has advised that the Sugar Hit starts at 6pm!

Slightly overwhelmed by the choices at hand of where to go for our Sugar Hit, I remembered that the Sugar Hit at The Westin last year was pretty decent and the wild rice pudding sounded really interesting. I can’t remember the last time I had rice pudding, let alone wild rice pudding, so I figured it’d be a different and, hopefully, tasty experience.

Wild Rice and Cinnamon Pudding with Cranberry and Rhubarb Jam with Poached Blueberry Meringue

Working in the City has it’s good and bad points. The good is that I am close to a lot of the Sydney International Food Festival offerings. The bad, I am going to be a poor man when this month is over. But perhaps I’ll worry about that later, after all I can always make money again .. right ?

The first day of SIFF saw me head to Uccello for their Let’s do Lunch menu. During the month of October, participating restaurants offer a $35 menu with one main course plus coffee, and a glass of matching Brown Brothers wine, Coopers beer or a 500ml bottle of S.Pellegrino sparkling or Acqua Panna still mineral water, a great way to sample the menu of some great restaurants. Like a few restaurants during SIFF, Uccello offer 3 choices for Let’s Do Lunch. Luckily I was dining with a few friends and we managed to cover the entire menu plus a dessert.

linguine ai frutti di mare traditional amalf coast recipe of fresh seafood cooke in fresh tomato white wine and a touch of chilli

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The Growers Markets are always a favourite with the crowds but with the recent spate of terrible weather I expected the crowds to be slim to none. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

After a late night out I had no plans of heading out to the Growers Markets the next morning, parking is usually terrible and the first major event in this year’s SIFF schedule it was guaranteed to be packed. However instead of a hangover found myself wide awake at 7am!

With nothing better to do, and despite the truly miserable weather I decided to drag myself out of bed, making this the 2nd Grower’s Markets I’d managed to make my way out to this year. Despite my reservations parking  was relatively easy and the rain had died down mostly by the time I got into the markets.

Beautiful fresh asparagus

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Our second Let’s Do Lunch was at est. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard lots of good things about it – including retaining its 3 chef’s hat this year while others have sadly lost theirs.

We were surprised that there were three options available for their Let’s Do Lunch (on SIFF’s website, there’s only one): jewfish, duck leg confit and roast lamb. I slightly lamented that we didn’t have a third person with us, but what can you do. I stuck with my original choice (the only one I thought was available) of jewfish, while F opted for the duck.

One of the waiters informed us that the shaved calamari had run out and whether it would be okay if the chef replaced it with some seared scallops. Heck yeah. I said “yes” in a heart beat.

Pan Roasted Jewfish with Seared Scallop, Spring Asparagus, Beans and Peas and Romesco Salsa

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