Celcius and miscellaneous
Let's get the random out of the way first. With three weeks to go, I had decided I do indeed need to get inspiration while I'm here. Sure, I cook amazing stuff, but I need to recalibrate what I think is amazing - so I booked a degustation with Celcius, apparently one of Adelaide's top restaurants. From my research, the head chef there used to work in Noma and Marque and a few others I don't remember off the top of my head. They do, essentially, modern Australian/Contemporary cuisine, which always causes me to giggle as the term is rather akin to what the English language actually is - a mash of other things all in one.First, a picture of some new flower jars at Argo on the Square! I really liked the purple-ness.
I went to a place called Andre's Cucina one night, as apparently there was supposed to be after work drinks hosted by our GM - who didn't appear. So instead I drank water (which everyone disapproved of) before slipping out to eat, as I was starving. With no idea what to eat, I figured I may as well go to this cucina since I found their business card at Paddy's Lantern a while ago. I really had no idea what to expect except that it had polenta, and was a bar. Well, there was amaretto and there was WOW POLENTA SO CREAMY IN SAUSAGE RAGU WITH A HINT OF CHILLI. No picture, but it was definitely a good choice! The polenta was amazing, well flavoured and really great texture.Also, buskers at Central Markets, who I threw money at. I thought they had a cute setup!
NOW ONTO THE GOOD STUFF - my official Celcius entry. I accidentally stumbled past Celcius while getting lost one day, and upon looking at the outside, I noticed that they do the fancy plating that I liked. They also seemed to boast being the best restaurant in Adelaide. Then I saw the degustation menu (5 course and 8 course) and I thought, wow, I should do some research on it. The eye catcher was a vegetable garden dish they had when they first opened - I would have loved to try it, and it really does attract attention. After doing my own cooking and feeling I had reached a level of cooking (sometimes) that was really quite genius, absolutely had to visit and try it out - to compare me vs them vs Quay/Tetsuyas. I finally summoned up the courage to book for myself. Turns out it is actually very difficult and super awkward to do this.I rocked up on a Saturday night, freaking out, this was way scarier than going to the movies by one's self, and borderline plain wrong. I then pretty much oggled the Riedel glasses in front of me and asked for tap water. Which they poured into one of these Riedel glasses. Why do I keep mentioning that they were Riedel? Because Rockpool Bar and Grill - their little introduction on their menu about their glasses has stuck with me, even though I don't remember exactly how many Riedels form their decor. I was marvelling at how thin the walls were and very impressed. I should get myelf some Riedels to serve my coffee in.I was so flustered that I conveniently forgot etiquette when it came to complementary bread. I totally missed the bread plate + knife and used the entree knife! Oops! I didn't notice till I was wondering how I was a knife short and the waiter just kind of rearranged by cutlery.Anyway, actual pictures, description and pseudo-reviews now.First up, the bread. House baked, white sourdough and rye, with apple-smoked butter. I liked the rye better than the sourdough, and I was pleasantly surprised by the smoke butter. It was smoke trapped in a jar with butter - the butter was just the right consistency, and the opening of the jar was fun as the smoke escaped. The butter ended up having a smoky flavour that went really well with the rye - for some reason I didn't get as much of it on the white.
Since I am still clueless when it comes to drinks, I ordered a cocktail which I thought had two alcohols in it, until I asked that I wanted no gin in the drink... which made it non-alcoholic! I thought elderflower liquor meant alchocol... but I guess it was a fancified version of elderflower cordial. So at this point I figured I got it at mocktail price (which was correct at the end). It had aloe, basil seeds and lemon too. Quite nice but very sweet, and reminded me of asian drinks that contain basil seed.
First of the colds/entrees was salmon with pickled ginger, avruga, cucumber balls wrapped in cucumber, nasturtium, watercress, and cucumber and wasabi sorbet. At first glance, I thought, "Quay?" as the presentation I felt was quite similar. Very delicate and fancy. I loved the salt from the avruga in combination with the ginger. The cucumber balls were cute - I'd love to try to make it one day though I feel it causes waste since spheres don't stack without gaps. Though that's probably how the cucumber wasabi sorbet was made. It was actually quite refreshing, but it did burn if I had too much. All in all a standard and pretty starter.
Next, tuna tataki with foie gras, brioche, olive oil, watercress, and dehydrated pork crackling. Wow. So the tuna tataki was what I expected, especially since I can now make it exactly the same way - so the two things that really stood out and impressed me were the foie gras and crackling. The last time I had foie gras (at Marquis) was too rich and heavy so I couldn't finish it. However this one was light and fluffy, and all of it was enough with the crunchy, toasted brioche provided. A great pairing made mind blowingly fantastic with the addition of the pork crackling sprinkling. It added that burst of salt and the general awesomeness that is the crackling, and made the tuna and foie gras that much better.
I didn't expect the next dish to be 1. warm and 2. as.. blobby as it was. Sweetcorn ravioli (3) with ash covered goat cheese, roasted corn, tomato and basil. This was the only dish whose presentation wasn't the same delicate, minimalistic style as the rest of the degustation, however I loved the flavour. Sweetcorn is always a winner with me (incidentally I felt stupid for accidentally undercooking my corn that day - though I did have to move from my apartment to a hotel, so change of cookpot as well as stovetop, so I blame teething XD). This was actually one of my favourite dishes of the night, as the first course was standard, and the second had only 1 element that made it godly (the dehydrated crackling) plus foie gras which always tempts me. The only thing I wished was that the pasta itself was a little less cooked through.
Market fish with squid ink, calamari, watercress, potato and fennel. What cute little potato bits! They were tasty. The fennel was plain roasted, and the fish that day was snapper. Personally, I like my snapper the slightest tad less cooked, but now I know I can go crazy with squid ink if I ever wanted to experiment with it - it's mainly for the colouring and didn't contribute a super fishy flavour (if at all). For me, this was neither here or there as I feel I'm now capable of making something similar (though I wouldn't try and replicate it) except for the sauce, since I am not a sauce master.
I decided to be brave, and finished off my mocktail. Here I ordered a wine - 2008 Murray Street Vineyards "Benno" Shiraz, Mataro (Barossa Valley). From the wine tasting I had at Jacob's Creek in Barossa, I remember liking a mataro they had, so here I ordered it. Since I only know coffee terms, I found it to start of being very bright, but then the aftertaste was very nice. Apparently I had made a good choice, as the couple on the table opposite me wanted to try it too and they were swishing and swirling and smelling and also very impressed by it!Next was duck breast with mushrooms, peas and olive liquorice. The waitress explained that the duck was cooked via sous-vide for 1.5 hours at 57 degrees, before being pan fried to finish it off. Well there we go, always twice cooked duck! I don't feel so bad now :). I was a little concerned as I had some sinew that I had to fight while also trying to look like I was sophisticated and not struggling with cutting the pieces. It was nice, and duck skin is always so tasty. There was a combination of mushrooms there, the peas were blanched so some of them were a struggle to attack with my fork so I ended up scooping them, but what I really liked that I had no preconceptions of, was the olive liquorice. Sweet, salty and olive! I really liked how they made it like that. The duck, well, I reckon I do something similar in terms of how happy eating it makes me feel, though my technique of twice-pan grilling is completely different. And mushrooms are mushrooms.
The last of the mains was suffolk lamb (I suspect the same stuff from Rockpool Bar and Grill) with garlic sauce and roasted vegetables - parsnip, turnip, leek, ad heirloom carrots. The vegetables may have been just barely seasoned, but I didn't mind as I believe vegetables are meant to be eaten with their true flavour (even if I don't like it). Those heirloom carrots were tiny and cute. The lamb itself was amazing with the garlic sauce, though I believe the lamb and garlic aioli my brother had at Rockpool Bar and Grill was better. The jus was well flavoured and peppery and brought the whole thing together. What I was amused with was that the knife had a beetle on the spine! So cute and fancy!
Since this was pretty much going to be my only visit to Celcius, I asked for the optional cheese course. I anticipated gruyere as that was what the menu had said (I think), only it ended up being goats cheese - almost a goat brie. I cringed a little because goats cheese, is like witlof. I have a love/hate/masochistic relationship with it. I love the though of goat cheese but can't stand the flavour. It came with vanilla candied celery which was a mind-trip and a half (but very nice), apple, peeled grape, and toasted brioche crumbs. What can I say, I'm a sucker for cheese plates. The goat cheese was pungent and creamy - would get again as it's my weakness even though I don't like that quantity of goat cheese because of the flavour of goat dairy in general. Would recommend to those who love goat dairy!
The first dessert was lemon curd enrobed in a dome of tempered white chocolate, dehydrated lemon curd shards, blackberry sorbet, blackberry sherbet, blackberry jelly, fresh blackberry, passionfruit meringue, fresh passionfruit, and nasturtiums. Wooooow. I personally loved the jelly and lemon curd shards the best. The curd itself wasn't citrussy enough for me but it was creamy and fluffly, which made up for that fact. With so much blackberry, the white chocolate cut the acidity really well. I didn't realise just how tasty this was until comparing it to the second dessert. Standalone though, while pretty, would have impressed me more if the lemon curd had a little more kick, and say, the theme was raspberries. Also, I couldn't help but be unimpressed with the sherbet as I know the secret to sherbet after making it in science class in high school - but hey, sherbet is sherbet is fun! All in all a fantastic dessert.
Last of all, Peach, raspberry, dehydrated raspberry shards, raspberry mousse, nasturtiums in pastry with chammomile ice cream, white chocolate covered rice puffs and fresh raspberry. I was impartial to the pastry and while the shards were tasty, they were a little hard and sharp so I had to be careful chewing it. Compared to the first dessert, it was rather uninteresting... EXCEPT WOW CHAMMOMILE ICE CREAM YES PLEASE. This was the best ending to the degustation as it was creamy, mellow, tea-like and just such a palate cleanser. It was the definition of "I hope you enjoyed your dinner" and I was very happy with it.
Four hours after starting, I was very happy and very very full. The mains were on average larger than the portions at Tetsuya's and Quay. Celcius seems to focus on minimalistic presentation and very natural, fresh flavours. The waitress also informed me that the chef owns a farm where most of the ingredients are sourced, which I really liked. Nothing better than knowing exactly what goes into the food that makes your food! The atmosphere was very casual as it had a bar component, so people were underdressed in my eyes - but that's normal in Adelaide and makes me feel like a snobby Sydney-sider, not that I really minded. These days I'm glad fine dining is so accessible. This has also made me now really want to go to Sepia, Est and Marque as I want to experience the personality of each restaurant. And continue to inspect their bathrooms haha.To finish off, a piccolo which I knew would be so-so, but I wanted as much of the experience as I could get. Overall it was less than $200 for all of the above, which was so painful but I don't regret any of it, including the tip to top it off at exactly $200. I once read that the top restaurants use tips to re-invest into the restaurants through taking the cooks and waiters to other restaurants to experience the difference and to further be inspired to create awesome food, so I hope Celcius does this too.Next time, I should always see if I can con someone into being my food buddy. The presence of friends definitely would have made my dining experience that much more memorable!
Wins hands down and tied behind back
I was looking at Single Origin's menu last night among other things, and discovered that their menu contained this home made creamed corn, avocado, tomato salsa and bacon toast thing. I haven't had creamed corn in a long while, and the thought of it was just so tasty - as I love corn and food in general (but that's obvious). I got so excited seeing their menu and giggling at the term "macerated" and how the only two times I've seen it have been about describing strawberries. It just sounds so messy and violent!Anyway, I'm always trying (and mostly failing) to save money, so I considered not ever trying this wonderfully nice sounding breakfast dish ($15)... but in the end I couldn't resist. I rocked up and ordered it, since they do AMAZING takeaway - they make it just as pretty as if it were on a plate :), so in a way, not only do I get it for the taste, it's just absolutely fantastic to look at as well. So I took it back to work with some awesome coffee, and proceeded to munch/hack away at my food. Wooooow creamed corn tastes SO GOOD! I really need to learn how to make some smashing creamed corn. The bacon was a little more cooked than what I was hoping for, i.e. it wasn't crunchy but it wasn't chewy either. While I generally prefer chewy, I figured that the contrast between the creaminess of the corn and avocado and the almost crunchiness of the bacon did well. However, I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that toast crusts are so annoying to cut with cutlery.
Food and coffee made me very happy! When it comes to good coffee, they have a fair few rivals, but breakfast so far is unmatched by any other shop :)Also my brother came back from his trip to Europe, and got some masquerade masks. I was supposed to get one, but since he didn't have use for the other one he bought, so I'm keeping both for now. I keep wanting to take pictures of them in good lightning, but the weather and sun fail these past few days, so lightbulb it is XD They're so pretty! I think I still like the filigree one better.
And finally, after 3 months and losing hope that this would ever get to me, look what arrived in the mail! TOCCATA AND I CAN NOW FINALLY SAY THAT I OWN AN ARTBOOK YAAAYAYAYYAYAYAAAAYMy life is complete for today :)
SMASHING
QUAY
Last night my brother, his friends and I went to Quay. Finally been to Quay! This post will probably contain some incoherent excitement, but whatever. Apart from needing to visit Rockpool, my eating life is complete... almost.I had been called in on short notice because a friend of my brother's had pulled out, and no one else could fill the spot. So what if I was secretly hoping I could go! Muahahaha. It was definitely an awesome experience, what made it even more interesting and eye opening was the differences between Quay and Tetsuya's, and even Rockpool Bar & Grill since they're the only really super fancy places I've been to. So this might even have a little bit of comparing between the restaurants, just because.I remember staring at Quay from a distance for ages, always wondering how to actually get there. Turns out the entrance isn't actually that hard to find, it was just on the upper level of the Overseas Passenger Terminal. On the day we went, we just happened to have a gigantic boat blocking half the view of the harbour, but then again, the boat was a sight in itself. A sight of white!We had gotten there slightly early, and so they let us hang out on their balcony while they continued to set up. The mirror celings they have always looked cooler on TV, close up I realised they didn't actually cover the entire ceiling, and it had been scratched from many many cleans I'm guessing. At these fancy places everyone always greets you with a smile. It's a little scary considering I'm paranoid of absolutely everything, but it was also nice. We were actually the first group there, so we got a fantastic table that was right at the window. It also meant that we had several waiters walking by asking if we needed anything. We were given wine, cocktail and dinner menus. This was different from Tetsuya's where it seemed to be a set degustation without extra choice of drinks. But then again it could have been because we didn't ask.The presence of a giant boat also made it unique in the sense that we were able to have a merry discussion with the wait staff about the man in the fluoro vest down below who was going to untie the ropes and how he had to be there two hours prior to the ship leaving. There was also a cool tugboat, but not as cartoony as I thought they would be. Anyway, enough talk of boats. To the fooooooood!We all went for the degustation, though their a la carte menu was also tempting. Jewels would have been wonderful to have. We took about an hour to decide on drinks, what I found really impressive was that they had mocktails! There was even one with watermelon and elderflower, but I decided to get an alcoholic drink instead, it was called "Amaretto Sour", apparently it also contained egg white and gomme. I didn't and still don't know the purpose of either ingredient. Initially it tasted like medicine (funnily enough the last cocktail I had also tasted like medicine, and contained completely different ingredients! I must just have weird taste...), but then after a while I got accustomed to the weird almond taste that I like.
We were given a tiny entree-before-entree, which had ginger milk curd in a seaweed and oyster consomme. It looked a little weird but the taste was a pretty amazing, I love anything seafoody and the warm ginger down the throat was nice too. The curd reminded me of a very soft silky smooth tofu in a way, and my brother said it sort of reminded him of miso, so it all kind of fits in!The first dish was a raw marron on grapefruit with bergamot marmalade, almond, elderflowers and other things. There was also the flavour of some sort of dairy curd. At first I thought the marron was sitting on a bed of rice, until I realised that the little bits were actually all the little grapefruit pod things! That was incredible and made me not want to be a chef designated to pull all the little bits apart without popping them. Harvesting strawberry seeds was enough for me!
The second dish was a mud crab congee with some sort of super creamy buttery orange sauce. Funnily enough I still have no idea exactly what congee is (because I am a nub), but this contained rice and crab meat. I actually had an inedible on my crab meat (the funny thin shell thing that is in the meat in the legs), which I found amusing because those sorts of restaurants tend to require perfection with no random bits that aren't supposed to be in there. I didn't mind but I'm convinced when the waiter took my dish away he paused and/or tipped the bowl a little to observe what I had left in there. I wonder if it then got passed into the kitchen XD
The third dish was lobster + lobster velvet, hand caught squid and golden tapioca. I thought that the tapioca looked a little like caviar, but didn't taste like it. Just tasted like tapioca. This dish was sort of so-so but still nice. The velvet was an interesting experience for me since I'd never had anything like it. Fishy and foamy at the same time.
They offered us bread at this stage, whereas at Tetsuya's bread was offered from the beginning until the end of the savouries. It didn't matter to me either way but was interesting to note. They also gave us regular butter with salt on the side, and while the bread was yummy, I found my white sourdough crust just a little too hard. I missed Tetsuya's truffle butter too, but not by much.And then came the fourth. WOOOOOW that was an insane dish with all sorts of textures and flavours!!! A smoked confit pig jowl with shiitake, shaved scallop and jerusalem artichoke. Each individual ingredient was super yummy, and altogether almost made my brother's friend cry. It was like a combination of some pretty unique (and expensive!) salted chips with soft scallop, porky pork, squidgy mushroom in a buttery sauce. I had to agree with my brother's friend, this was the best dish of the night. Everything about it was just wonderful.
Fifth was a slow roasted quail breast, semolina in truffle butter, buckwheat, pumpernickel and these flaky things that looked like coconut flakes, but didn't taste like coconut so it must have been something else. When this was presented to us, the first thing that came to mind was Rice Bubbles! And when I ate it, the first thing that came to mind was Rice Bubbles! That was because it was puffed buckwheat and pretty much was like cereal, which was pretty awesome and made the dish fun (for me at least). There was a sweetness in this dark sauce underneath the quail which was interesting as well. And the semolina truffle butter was OOOOOHHHHH.
Then the last savoury dish came around, which was wagyu in bitter chocolate black pudding and an ox tail consomme. I was a little nervous about the black pudding, but the flavours all blended in and the meat was so soft! It was hard to take a picture as it just looked like a blob in soup. It was definitely tasty, and when the black pudding was mixed with the consomme it was thick, rich and full of flavour.
I took a bathroom break because the bathrooms must always be judged! These ones were hidden away in what I described as a snail tunnel, and one side of the walls was lined with beads, and that was pretty. The doors were ambiguous (in terms of which side of the door opens) and heavy, but at least they told me which was for which! At Tetsuya's I spent about two minutes trying to figure it out because I'm slow :( They had nice towels and no Aesop. But whatever.Dessert time, and LO AND BEHOLD THE SNOW EGG IN ALL ITS SNOWY GLORY. One of my brother's friends had been waiting for this moment and got super excited. It's so much more exciting and mystifying in real life than it is on TV, not that I'd looked at it too closely on TV. I accidentally breathed in some icing sugar, but wow. It really looks like an egg! I think my toffee shell was a little thick, as I ended up with toffee coated teeth. The inside was meringue and then there was some gooey yellow inside. It had white nectarine granita on the outside which had a really nice flavour to it, but did become a little overwhelming... until I reached the creamy custardy stuff at the bottom of the cup. This is definitely the best dessert EVER. It's a fascinating process of cracking open the shell and then actually breaking it open and running the yolk out. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Unfortunately the lightning at this stage got really bad so we weren't able to take clear shots.
Then it was coffee and petit fours, where we received our choice of coffee or tea (mocha, vienna, flat white and earl grey) and some truffles. There was a milk truffle with hazlenut, and a dark chocolate truffle with rice-bubbly bits (I think it was buckwheat) and a muscatel centre (I think). The coffee was okay, and I think being a snob means that I need my coffee branded from a super coffee roaster, which in turns makes me even more of a nub. My brother's tea was... disappointing. We were confused whether he had received earl grey at all because it didn't have the strong citrus flavour that earl grey usually has, even though the smell was right. It was very confusing, and ended up getting a macchiato afterwards.I think it was a little awkward because the waiter asked if we were ready for the "paperwork" and we said yes, only to order that mac afterwards. At least we tipped, right? That should be enough to cover the coffee! Surely! They also only gave us one business card, and we forgot to grab a handful more as we left. However it was definitely a memorable experience and my food tastes have now been destroyed for a while. Need to go back to eating ordinary food now. Ah, I will miss Peter Gilmore's flower covered food. It's so cute!What was interesting is that Tetsuya's felt much more formal, and the actual seating was designed so that everyone looked out at the garden with its fancy bird shadows and fountainy things. I think the way the rooms were set was meant to make it feel more intimate, with fewer guests per room and many rooms spread out on different levels, but I prefer being in a larger, more open environment rather than being secluded. Quay felt nicer and was also brighter due to the fact that all the windows looked out to the harbour in some form, and felt a little more connected through with noise passing through the entire restaurant - it made it much less awkward to speak. I wasn't facing the harbour, but when I got up and took a look, it was a pretty amazing view. Comparing the two, Quay had the more flexible menu choices as well, but it lacked the physical memorabilia such as a take-home fancy paper with the menu, which Tetsuya's provided. Personally I loved the fact I got a copy of the menu there. That's when my brother pointed out that Rockpool Bar & Grill was all about the interior and the Riedel glasses - these three restaurants have very different focuses when it comes to the decor. I personally found Rockpool Bar & Grill to be the most laid back and the place I'd most likely go back to, followed by Quay for their a la carte. Sad to say, but Tetsuya's has the least re-visit value which relies on them changing their menu XDOh, there was an incredibly funny moment where one of the waiters tried to engage in what I think she expected to be a formal conversation when she asked us if we were chefs or serious foodies. One of our friends replied, "we're students" and at that point the waiter ran away. Actually, we had another waiter run away when we told her that we cooked with Pepsi Max. Note to self, don't be ridiculously silly in front of waiters! They will be embarrased for you! Luckily giving away the fact that this restaurant outing was how my brother and his friends were celebrating finishing high school, we actually got a special treat on our petit fours, that is, we got Congratulations! written very nicely and scarily neatly on our plate, which was a nice extra finishing touch to the night.
After writing this (it was way too much work), I don't think I can write coherently anymore... or maybe I've never been able to do so ever. But whatever, Trevor.Wheeee! Next stop, Rockpool!