Sushi Dai – 19 September 2014

Short but memorable post: Sushi Dai, the most poplular sushiya at the Tsukiji Fish Markets.

On our last day in Japan, my brother and I may have possibly made a bad decision to attempt to visit Sushi Dai at 8AM in the morning, because we ended up queueing for four hours! The queue was long enough that my brother was able to buy a suitcase, pack the final bits of stuff for our departure, and check out of the hotel. I can’t believe that people would line up for a single sushi store like this, but once you get in, it’s amazing and you forget how long you’ve spent in line. The chefs are super cheery, friendly and polite. We also got there just when a new giant scallop was being opened which was quite the sight! What a delicious set of sushi, some similar, and some different from Daiwa sushi (the place next door that costs about 1000yen less and the wait time is about half as long). I loved the sanma and chose scallop as my sushi of choice, and here I also got asked what level of wasabi I preferred, which saved me from wasabi shock. I was very impressed.

What I love about having sushi in Japan is all the different types of seafood – there’s pretty much no salmon and the tuna here is the best you can get. My favourite, however, was the sanma (sauri pike, pictured right of the sea urchin). I love it so much but it’s near impossible to get in Sydney. I also now love sea urchin as a result of how good it tastes here, and got my scallop fix.

If going here, I’d definitely recommend queueing as early as possible; it’s totally worth a two hour wait, but four hours is definitely a stretch!

 

Japan Coffee 2014

I was so excited about going to Japan, but a little apprehensive at the same time as it was the first time I’ve visited a country where I didn’t speak the language, and didn’t have anyone who could translate for me. However that little barrier became something that made me love the country so much more – I had so much more fun because of the fact that I couldn’t understand a thing!

Now I avidly follow some Japanese baristas, so I had a small list of places I could go to try out some coffee. Since my visit, there have been so many more places that have popped up so that a revisit is definitely required.

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City Social – 06 September 2014

City Social was Jason Atherton’s newest restaurant at the time, and its opening was the reason I found out about it at all. Now I’m gonna globetrot in his path! Or something. I was really glad to have visited; shortly after my dining experience here, this place was awarded a Michelin Star. I’m really starting to enjoy visiting restaurants where I have no expectations, because when it delivers, it’s amazing. It was definitely a fantastic experience!

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Dinner by Heston Blumenthal – 04 September 2014

Lo and behold, San Pellegrino Top 50’s Number 5 in 2014 – Dinner. This is the highest ranked San Pel restaurant I’ve visited so far, and it’s great to finally sample Heston’s/Ashley’s cooking. All I knew about this place was that it was vastly different from The Fat Duck, and was a modernised version of food consumed in the 1300s – medieval brought back to life! They had beautiful menus set up, with bits of trivia to read while perusing the menus. We were also lucky enough to be seated right in front of the kitchen, so we had a great view of flames and ovens and a total head count of about 15 chefs in that small space. It’s a fairly large restaurant from what I could see, and it blended into a bar in the Mandarin Oriental.

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Commune Social – 30 August 2014

I learned of a fellow called Jason Atherton not too long before I was due to visit Shanghai. He had opened a new restaurant in London called City Social, and upon further research, I discovered that he had what appeared to be a near-global empire of restaurants. My trip in 2014 spanned three countries, and thus began my own journey to sample the Social chain.

I was full of curiosity about the presence of a Western restaurant in Shanghai. Sure, it’s the international hub of China, but society and culture there caused me concern about the restaurant’s consistency and success – in a way it was a great opportunity to begin benchmarking restaurants and service levels around the world. The restuarant was an open courtyard, and in a preliminary visit before actually going, we were advised that the food portions were very small – but luckily I had known that already, it being fancy and tapas style, so I was prepared. The downside was, I had never ordered tapas style food for more than four people, so it became awkward when we were dividing tiny portions into six! I should have doubled all the orders, and that would have been enough.

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Rockpool 1989 – 14 August 2014

Rockpool, a place I’ve wanted to visit since before Rockpool Bar and Grill, but never found the opportunity to until I decided to squeeze it into a two day Sydney visit.  Their new place on Bridge St is super pretty and I love waiters that are suited up and are wearing lapel pins too! I do really regret not having visited sooner, as I would have loved to have seen what it was like back on George St, and I admit I was put off because it served Asian cuisine, but I can confirm it’s actually well worth it and for once, doesn’t taste like my parents’ cooking.

It’s essentially a degustation plus up to three extra courses (2 savoury and 1 sweet) to finish up. Since everything on the menu looked tasty, I went for three courses.

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Rockpool Bar & Grill: David Blackmore’s full blood wagyu burger

There’s a very important debate that goes on in the world: where do you find the best burger?

In Australia, many claim that the David Blackmore full blood wagyu burger is the best. It’s also the most expensive, coming in at $24. After I tried my first one, I definitely agreed. Nothing could beat it. I kept stumbling upon places with burgers. Then I would sample the David Blackmore full blood wagyu burger again to recalibrate myself. Each time, it won. No other burger compares.

However, my opinion matters only to me. The burger’s flavours work so well for me that I haven’t found better since (Mary’s gives it a run for its money though!). Mind you, I don’t look terribly hard, but I try where I can.

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Intermission: Palate training: Citrus

Every now and again, I see things that seem a little crazy, but help me understand coffee and food a lot better. For example, when baristas and roasters go palate training and sample various fruits and acids to help them pick out flavours in coffee. It can be as tame as eating fruit salad, or as crazy as drinking vinegar and other acids.

A barista from Workshop Espresso in Sydney kept recommending wine tasting to assist with identifying coffee flavours, but alas, I believe I am alcohol intolerant! But alcohol sampling I did, where I could, small sips at a time. It’s how I ended up with a very small but pricey wine collection, and a smaller and less pricey whisky collection. Oh, and a bottle of gin.

Anyway, what really sparked me to start testing this out for myself, was when I found that people were describing tasting notes as “meyer lemon acidity” – how on earth can you tell a meyer lemon from any other lemon? Was it even a valid flavour descriptor?! It was time to put all this to the test. I had a lucky week at my local farmers markets, where I could obtain two types of lemon and three types of limes. Time to undergo palate training of the citrus variety!

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