Going down under
A year after my first trip to Sydney, I am back. This is a great city and worth every minute of the painful flight you have to endure when crossing the Pacific.
Eating plans for this trip aren’t as ambitious as my visit to Europe in the summer, but there are some definite highlights. The one I am looking forward to most is Tetsuya’s, which has been hovering in the Top 5 position on the Restaurant Magazine list for years. I underestimated the need to call at least a month ahead for a reservation last year, but this time I come prepared and armed with a much stronger US dollar (hard to believe, but true).
More important than Tetsuya’s ranked among the restaurant glitterati is that the meal will focus the best in Australian and Japanese seafood. If there is anything I learned about Australia last year is that the quality of seafood is outstanding.
The amazing display at the Sydney Fish Market, second largest in the world outside of Tokyo in range of species, is a post in itself.
A trip to Yoshii, est. and Marque may be in the cards as well, though Oscillate Wildly is still booked out a month in advance, so it seems unlikely.
I plan to revisit Bentley, which was a sleeper hit last year in the “neighborhood molecular gastronomy bar” category. I will probably make time for Rise, which does a nice and rather informal kaiseki menu a few nights a week. I will definitely be back at Pizza Mario, which puts out flawless VPNA certified Neapolitan pies out of a small storefront located in the back of a residential tower.
Viva Goa, Sydney
With all the promising restaurants I sampled last year (Neil Perry’s Rockpool was a total bust), surprisingly the place I am looking forward to revisiting most is Viva Goa, which produced one of the best Indian meals I have ever had. I see an occasional Goan curry on Indian menus, but this is really the first place devoted to it as a cuisine.
The restaurant is located in a beat down part of Pyrmont in Sydney that cabs abandon as soon as they drop off their fare. But the chef is the real deal, so devoted to Goan cuisine that the sole North Indian dish (butter chicken) comes with a written apology in the description. The cooking is inspired, taking no shortcuts with the ingredients or the flavors.
Swimmer crab at Viva Goa
I do not know if it was the access to great local seafood, the interesting blend of Indian and Portuguese cuisines, where chorizo shares the plate with curry and bacalhau on the menu, or simply the fact that it was the only strongly spiced food I was able to find in Sydney, but the dinner I had at Viva Goa delivered on every level.
Stay tuned.
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4 comments
dont forget to visit shannon at vue de monde
That seems to be in Melbourne. It’s a big country, you know?:)
Misha, I’m not sure if I can take your reviews as a guide for restaurant going, y’know? Cafe Annie last night was a bit of a disappointment… service was incredibly disappointing (we had to ask for a wine menu, then actually had to ask for the wine we had ordered to be brought out!!!), food was fine but not exceptional. On the other hand Glass Wall last week was AWESOME. It’s almost like Ruth Reichl’s infamous “favored patron” vs. “normal person” experiences. Though I do like reading what you write just to get a take on what it must be like to be one of those people who the chef comes out to visit while you dine…
Jenn - I don’t know if you should take what I write as a definitive dining guide, if such a thing exists. I am not a reviewer, in fact I work for a software company. Food is a hobby for me and this is as much of a journal of personal experiences as anything.
There are other things you have to keep in mind. I don’t care about service and I don’t drink, so my restaurant experiences are very different from people who find those things important. I know a grand total of 4 chefs in Houston and that’s only because they have blogs and all 4 of them have spent significant time at the Tenacity dinners. They currently work at Rainbow Lodge, Voice, Textile and Beaver’s. I have also met the folks at Feast, but that happens when you go to a restaurant a dozen times or more.
Finally, every time you sit down for lunch or dinner is different. It’s very difficult for a restaurant to have a 100% consistently good kitchen (consistently bad is another story). My whole point about Cafe Annie was that I never found it especially impressive, as you found yourself. The two business lunches I had were within 30 days of each other and each time I ordered pan seared fish, which was exceptionally selected and handled. It could very well have been prepared by the same line cook (who may become the best chef in Houston in the future), who only works during lunch and has since rotated to a different station or maybe even another restaurant, like the Glass Wall. I’ve had a number of meals at Cafe Annie and the Grove and in my opinion Robert Del Grande minds the business more than the kitchen. Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t go to his restaurants unless someone else is paying at this point. That sort of thing works quite well for a business meal.
As for Glass Wall, I have only been once. The chef used a coffee rub on a steak that burned pretty badly. I thought it was a poor choice, unless you have a kitchen that knows how not to turn things into charcoal on the grill. I haven’t been back for a variety of reasons. The place is too loud for a business meal. They don’t serve any vegetarian food for a dinner with my wife. So I haven’t been back. It doesn’t mean its a bad restaurant, it means that through a confluence of factors the one thing I ordered there once wasn’t great.
I don’t know if any of this helps, but that’s all I have right now:)
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