Fix St James
Fix St James gets its own post! I was originally told about this restaurant years ago, and wanted to go because it had an awesome wine list, but never actually made it there. Over the next few years the restaurant continued to pop up on my radar, mainly on social media and I started thinking that it was a pretty awesome place - especially as it always serves some sort of tartare.So, finally, I decided to go, and I wasn't disappointed!
My obligatory wine at a wine bar - a pinot noir as they didn't have nebbiolo by the glass.
Oysters!!! Au naturale, with only lemon juice. I think I've been spoiled by Adelaide oysters, but I'll still take every oyster opportunity I can get!
I decided to opt for a shared dinner rather than entree/main/dessert, since there were so many things I wanted on the menu! This was a selection of three meats - culatello prosciutto, bresaola and saucisson. They were all so tasty! I like cured meats when they have an earthiness to them and aren't too salty, so these were perfect.
Ah, delicious fried school prawns! I was agonising over choosing between fried chicken or school prawns, and the waiter said there were only a few pieces of chicken, so we opted for the prawns. It was a great choice and it came with some super tasty aioli!
Look at the massive fluffy rice cracker! This was the kangaroo tartare, and it was very impressive. It didn't look like tartare from the original presentation, but the waiter explained that the tartare was hidden at the bottom, with a yolk in the middle, and then parsnip foam was on top. All of it was so well seasoned, and the kangaroo was so finely chopped! I've never actually scrutinised tartare before, but the pieces were so small that I really appreciated the knifework that went into this dish! The rice cracker was super fun to eat, though it wasn't super crispy. I didn't mind though, because it was still very yummy!
Veal sweetbreads! And now I can say I've eaten sweetbreads - which was not brains, like I originally thought, but pancreas. It was a very interesting texture that I'm not sure I liked, but I thought the accompaniments were quite nice - fennel and celery. It was quite a fatty and heavy dish, but had good flavour.
The first dessert - pressed fig, salted caramel ice cream, caramel popcorn and apple granita. I didn't quite expect pressed fig to be just... flattened fig, but I did like the apple sorbet! It was an interesting combination for me.
Rice pudding with rhubarb ice cream. Wow, this was like a really rich smooth custard of a rice pudding! There were no rice bits at all, but rather, it had all been blended together somehow. For me, neither dessert was super standout, but both were quite nice.And now I can say I've finally been to Fix St James, so another hatted restaurant crossed off the list. What a hectic two weeks in Sydney!
Sepia
Sepia, the best restaurant in Australia in 2015. And it's consistently awarded 3 hats. My brother has been before, but I wasn't there to tag along, so I was trying to find any excuse to visit - and an incredibly convenient and worthy reason presented itself, so along I went with a friend.I had spotted on their website that they had a bar area for walk ins, and I assumed that this would just be for their bar menu, but once we got there, we were seated facing the bar and had the option of choosing their full menu, so 9 course degustation it was!
First off was my nebbiolo blend, which was quite nice and aromatic. I love the little lamps to help light up the food!
There was an optional oyster which I of course, said yes to. Sydney rock oysters with a vinaigrette that I don't remember, but it tasted good!
Amuse bouche - tuna tartare with buckwheat and tofu
I never imagined raw tuna and tofu to go together - and it would have been a squishy dish, but the puffed buckwheat added a fitting crunch to the tiny little dish.
Sashimi of yellow fun tuna, jamon iberico cream, avocado, baby radish, pork crackling, wasabi snow
This was a dainty and pretty dish, with finely sliced tuna wrapped around some jamon cream, and then arranged into a circle, decorated with radish, herbs, avocado cream, and then dusted over with wasabi snow. It was quite a theatrical experience, and because the snow was placed at the table, it was a little bit uneven, making for some interesting eating.
Pine mushroom, fried potato, poached quail egg, caviar, roasted chicken powder
When this dish came out, it smelled like chicken pie - a hearty kind of dish. It was a very interesting combination as this appears to be the caviar/egg/potato combo, but with added chicken and mushroom. It was quite nice, though something made the caviar and mushroom combination unevenly salted. From far away it kind of looks like a dish adorned with gold!
The bread served here is a Japanese milk bread, that felt a little more dense than what you find at Asian supermarkets/Asian bread shops. It was accompanied by a perfect sphere of butter which was really cool! I think I prefer sourdough slices from other places I've been to.
King crab, dashimaki tamago, egg rice, kabosu, blood plum, hijiki, wild wood sorrel
This felt like a take on omurice to me, with the egg roll on the outside and sushi rice on the inside. A lovely piece of crab was draped over it, and I liked the tartness that the blood plum sauce.
Charcoal grilled black lip abalone, citrus dashi, Barletta onions, heart of palm, green tea, nasturtium
This pond dish was my favourite dish of the night. I guess I have a soft spot for soup based dishes - there was the mud crab congee from Quay and the crab, chickpea and amaranth from Momofuku Seiobo. I don't eat abalone much, so I couldn't tell if the abalone was cooked properly - it was a little on the chewy side, but still definitely edible. The soup itself was very tasty, I liked the heart of palm, and the burst of vinegar from what I assume were the Barletta onions was amazing and what brought the dish together for me.
Seared sea urchin, smoked bone marrow, cauliflower, toasted milk bread, citrus soy, sobacha
What a funny little ship in the middle of a massive plate! Seems like it's uni season; the sea urchin is everywhere! I didn't actually like sea urchin until I went to Japan, when i discovered just how creamy and sweet it is! And now I love it. This tasty morsel was so good, I really wish there was more!
It around about this time that we realised something. Martin Benn was in the house! Not only that, but he was actually taking the time out of the kitchen to greet some of the guests. Then there was this guy! My friend so wanted to be this person, who was so important that he and Martin frequently spoke to each other! I have currently concluded that he may be a sommelier, as he drank a variety of alcohols ranging from wine, to martini, to beer, and only had a single plate of food. We were so lucky to be seated where we were, for we had front row seats to Martin! So here is the creepy shot to show just how awesome our view from the table was :)
David Blackmore wagyu karubi, hot miso mustard, Japanese pickles, ice plant
This dish kind of confused me, and was my least favourite of the night. The smell of miso was rather overpowering and I couldn't taste much else when eating the beef. The beef was also not quite melt in the mouth, but I'm not sure what cut this was and if this was meant to be that exact texture. Yes, it was medium rare.The seaweed I loved, since I love seaweed. I usually also love ice plant, but this one didn't seem to come with the usual saltiness of a fresh beachside harvest.
Seared Mandagery Creek venison, sansho pepper, roasted Japanese pumpkin,miso, artichoke
I love the golden leaves on this one! Another dish that reminded me of autumn/winter. This was venison, which I assume was cooked rare because it was really really red - which was fine for me since I've cooked venison before. The puree was pumpkinny, and for me the standout were the leaves that were a blend of jerusalem artichoke and Japanese pumpkin. They were so thin and beautiful that I asked how they were made, and the waiter was quite obliging and explained that it was pureed and then dehydrated. So nice!
And this lemon and creme fraiche palate cleanser marked the end of the savoury courses. Usually I would opt for the cheese course, but I was still recovering from my overcaffeination session and so I think my body was still in an emergency detox mode, so I decided eating "light" would be a better decision.
Autumn chocolate forest - soft chocolate, hazelnut and almond, lavender and honey cream, blackberry sorbet, blueberry and rosewater jellies, green tea, licorice, chocolate twigs, bronze fennel
And the famous chocolate forest. It was so pretty, but when I googled other variations on this, there appeared to be a lot more greenery and colour on some versions. It was still very nice though, and I loved the rose jelly! Having recently experimented with agar agar, I instantly recognised that it had been used (and because Masterchef also featured this). The soil was really interesting and what I enjoyed the most out of this dish, as I tasted salt and licorice as part of the crumbs. I also loved the little candied curl!
And to finish the night, houjicha. Ah what a good choice! It was all sorts of warm, toasty and satisfying. I didn't actually know that houjicha is actually classed as a green tea. I loved the golden hue that the brew ended up being and now I feel like I need some of this for myself! Also while I was drinking it, I noticed that there was a very nice feel to the way the cup was being held. In fact, the contoured shape reminded me of something... so I looked through the cup and I was correct - it was a Hario cup! That was so cool.
And lastly, because Martin was in the kitchen today, I had sneakily asked one of the waitstaff if it was possible to get a photo taken with him - primarily because I decided it would be a nice surprise for my friend, but also for my own selfish goal of getting pictures with famous chefs (and I still have not seen the elusive Neil Perry even though he visits Burger Project often!). My surprise was blown when our waiter then asked to confirmed if we had made a photo request, then said that Martin was super busy.
Lucikly though, our politeness paid off, for Martin approached our table and had a quick chat. Usually I chicken out of these opportunities because all of a sudden I feel awkward and self conscious, but this time, I didn't have any of those reservations and straight out asked for the picture, and good thing we did! I finally got my photo with Mr. Martin Benn! Woohoo! What an amazing night.
Sure, this place was voted best restaurant and holds three hats, but my favourite is still Vue de Monde. I have no idea why that place was as impressive as it was, but I still believe it was due to the fact I had no expectations of it at all. Nevertheless, this was definitely a worthwhile experience - the service was flawless! Especially so because I felt that I had made more requests than I've made in past high end dining experiences. Not only did I ask to switch from "still" to tap water after I had an internal panic attack upon seeing a bottle of Aqua Panna being poured for us, but I also asked a waiter from a different section to seek out Martin, and I switched dessert options from textures of milk to chocolate forest towards the end of the meal. It was also an amazingly accessible restaurant, and I jokingly said that it was so accessible that you could just walk in, eat fried chicken and walk out! (For elaboration, this is relating to the yakitori on the bar menu).
APPLY FILTER
Why is the squid blue?!?
But first, my "not anmitsu." It's a dessert that I've been thinking about making for a while now, but I could never bother obtaining every ingredient for every element. I knew I wanted to make my own interpretation of it, in fact, I wanted to hipsterise it. But keeping the mochi, red bean and green tea elements there was so difficult. Plus I wanted shiso leaves, but I didn't want them to go to waste if I had no other plans for them.What ended up happening was this:
Which was a pretty good effort!My original idea was to include strawberries plus other fruit, shiso leaf garnish, cubes of almond milk jelly, cubes of green tea jelly, azuki beans, mochi (or chia seed and coconut milk fake mochi, or a panna cotta), and dark agave syrup.What actually ended up happening was strawberries, plums, feijoa, mint leaf garnish, cubes of very soft almond milk jelly, cubes of green tea jelly, azuki beans. The agar agar was tough to work with, as I've never used it before and didn't bother researching. I didn't realised it needed consistently higher temperatures than gelatine to dissolve completely, so I did have to redo both the green tea and almond jellies through re-heating and adding a bit more agar agar powder. The consistency of the green tea jelly cubes were pretty much spot on in terms of how well they held together, but I could have used a bit more to make them just a tad harder.It feels so good to cook again, and I managed to make a massive soup with beef bones, chicken bones, dashi broth, and a whole lot of vegetables. I also wanted to try my hand at making squid ribbons, but I was put off by the high cost of squid. Luckily, a fishery opened up a stall at the local farmer's markets and sold some squid at a good price, so I bought some!
I prepped my squid from memory, and now feel I can do it quite easily. It still takes me a long time, but I know exactly what to do.
And lo and behold, BLUE SQUID INNARDS!! I didn't even know they could look like that since I've only taken apart squid twice before, and they've always been white on the inside. It was so pretty!
And from the tubes, I managed to slice them fairly thinly to become ribbons, that would then go into my soup.
The soup itself is rather ugly and murky so there's no picture of that.Cooking is so fun!
Farewell Cape Town, Hello Dubai, Welcome Home
This will probably turn into a very long post full of very random rambling things. I would put Dubai in its own post, but considering I spent less than 22 hours there, it may as well all be crammed into one!In the last couple of weeks, I realised that I had visited a great many restaurants and cafes, so I decided to try and remember all of them, which lead to me on a mad last week scramble to match the number of places eaten with the number of days stayed - 84 - and managed to complete this quite easily. What an amazing achievement considering I've probably visited a low 3 digit count of places in Sydney, and high two digit in two years in Adelaide!A last minute cafe that I had to visit was Shift Espresso Bar, who had some cool "specialty" coffees with cool names, such as Rebellion (double espresso with condensed milk and whipped cream), Hashtag (double espresso, vanilla gelato, oreo), etc. I went for the Nicaragua single origin and a Rebellion, and they were both quite nice. I'm not a fan of sweet/novelty coffees anymore, but the rebellion didn't taste too bad at all; I got it more out of curiosity for their presentation.
And then I was off! Zoom zoom
So I'd been awake since 6AM Cape Town time on a Saturday for breakfast, a second breakfast, lunch, before finally heading out for an afternoon flight. The in-flight entertainment selection had greatly improved from three months ago, so I treated myself to The Imitation Game (which I loved because some of it tied in so well to Person of Interest - the parts about human versus machine, and if machines could think. Plus I reckon it helped me with my little cyberpunk story project thingy too!). I decided to also watch Interstellar, but alas, I fell asleep before the ending! So I have no idea how it ended, except that it was to do with trippy black hole gravity time bending stuff. I guess it was a good thing that I got sleep, I estimated it to be about 5 hours of plane sleep. Well, that was as good as it was going to get, because by the time I got settled in Dubai, it was Sunday 8AM - which according to my "explore Dubai" schedule, meant I had to be out and about.My first impression of Dubai was that outside of the city, it was "buildings in sand pits", and inside the city I affectionately thought of it was "sandcastles and glass towers". It's such a mixture of different cultures that it's amazing!
First stop, Dubai Mall to buy my tickets for the Burj Khalifa. Me being me, managed to walk into the residential area, and then had to circle back around to get to the actual mall. The tower is a really impressive sight!
Dubai Mall is pretty massive, but I knew I didn't have the time or the luggage space to buy anything, so I didn't go into any stores. There were plenty of intriguing sweets shops that I would go back to. The mall also has some great features, like the hanging butterflies and the fountain of divers.I was originally just going to get some breakfast here as the food court had interesting food, but then I decided to venture outside, and that's when I saw Fortnum & Mason beckoning me with its almost Tiffany & Co blue.
I never managed to visit one in London, so this was the next best thing! I had no idea what I actually wanted, so I managed to wander into the tea salon. The view from here is amazing, and though it was a very windy day, I managed to be able to sit outside without having anything blow away.
They have an awesome tea selection, though I'm no connoisseur. There were two assams that caught my eye, so I asked the waiter which of the two I should have. I was recommended the Dikom estate.
I love having fancy tea! I didn't actually like the style of the teapot, and I was worried that the leaves would sit in the water for too long and make it all tannic, but the tea was that amazing that it remained smooth throughout the entirety of my breakfast.
The one thing that strikes me as odd is the fact that there's no such thing as tap water here. Even Cape Town had tap water, but here it's all bottled. I ended up being given a 500mL glass bottle of water that I only had half of, which was kind of awkward. I ordered the scrambled egg and cured trout for 90AED, which was actually very costly when I thought about it, but I was glad it was also a decent size! I think this makes my most expensive breakfast, above Sushi Dai. The bottled water, tea and eggs came in at 205AED - yikes! But hey now I can say I dined at Fortnum & Mason and had a great single estate assam while gazing at the Burj Khalifa.
Isn't this the cutest little Synesso? With an adorable cup! With much awkwardness I decided to walk in and found a group of people all working with coffee. Being my odd self, I mentioned that I was visiting and hoping to find out what cafes to go to - after a time they invited me in and explained what they did. The owner then came in and introduced himself - apparently he's from Melbourne and has been working in Dubai for the last few years. We had a great conversation about coffee and I got to sample a couple - an espresso from a roaster in Seattle, and then a filter from their own roast - which was so juicy and tasted like strawberries!He mentioned that in Dubai, there wasn't really anything in the way of specialty coffee right now. Cafe Rider, the only other coffee place on my list, was apparently the only cafe that served specialty coffee, the rest weren't that great. Well, that meant my coffee adventure ended as soon as it started! They were a great bunch though, and did mentioned that they would be opening a cafe soon, which means an excuse to stop over again in the future.
The buildings are seriously amazing here! And being stranded in the middle of nowhere, I felt it was time to test out the public transport system. I walked to the closest station and fumbled a bit to figure out how to get to the Marina, which one of my taxi drivers had recommended. The person at the information booth simply said "Damac station" or something to that effect, and so I just said yes, and received a nifty contactless paper ticket! I totally didn't realise that these lasted 180mins with 3 transfers allowed, so there I was buying a whole heap of tickets till I gave up and bought an all-day ticket.
Walking through what I believe was the Jumeirah beach area (I did manage to get glimpses of the Burj Al Arab while I was on the road, but I didn't take any pictures. I also didn't manage to see the Jumeirah beach hotel) was quite interesting. I love going through alleyways and managed to find a set of stairs nestled between two massive sand coloured buildings. 
What a cute little sculpture thing!
The beach was very interesting because I've never had a view like it before! The sight of construction was so weird, as I'm used to seeing just endless ocean. They also had an outdoor cinema way further right. It was about lunch time now and I knew I had to eat, but my appetite wasn't quite there, which I attributed to not having had proper sleep in the last 24 hours, so instead of choosing something I hadn't had before, I defaulted to a light meal of sushi (I ordered each piece off an a la carte menu) and a sea bream tartare. Since the tartare came with free sides, I went for miso and cabbage salad.
I guess the sushi at Kyoto Garden Sushi in Cape Town really left a mark, as this I felt was your average sushi shop. Tasty, but not mind blowing.It was then time to figure out how to start heading back to Dubai Mall, for my final hours in Dubai up the Burj Khalifa!
All that is posh, hipster, pretentious and classy
It's almost time to return home, and I feel that I have eaten through Cape Town with a valiant effort. I finally found some mindblowing places - the first being Hemelhuijs. It's a weird name that I can barely pronounce, but I had noticed a crowd around the place during my explorations, so I decided to pop in for a visit. The decor is visibly posh, and even has a cute little deer head with leaves sprouting from its head as a piece of wall decoration. The other thing I noticed straight away was the black salt in petri dishes at every table.
I decided to order a flat white, having no expectations of their coffee, which was a good thing... it tasted like coffee, but nothing delicious or super fantastic about it. How it was served, on the other hand, was quite interesting indeed. This came in a handmade ceramic mug that was lined with gold, and there was no saucer. Instead it was placed on a serviette, with a spoon on the side, and was accompanied with sugar cubes in yet another petri dish.It was super fancy and classy, and would impress most people - but here I was, being the snobbish fake hipster that I am, judging all of these elements and then sadly sipping away at my average coffee.
I ordered a potato rosti and was offered a side of smoked trout, which I accepted. It turns out the side of trout cost more than half of the cost of the dish itself! The breakfast was already seasoned as well, so I wasn't actually able to use the salt, which was a shame. The waitress came back with a pepper grinder when I was halfway into my food, which I thought was a little silly. This post sounds a little harsh, but hey, I'm allowed to judge when a cafe decides to be as opulent as this.Afterwards, decided to do some exploring by myself again - I counted about 73 different cafes and restaurants visited during my stay, which I'm hoping is an impressive feat, however I don't really have anyone else's experiences to compare with, since I assume everyone else stayed in their hotel rooms or visited the same places over and over again. I too had several revisits to some places, but I have a feeling I have a better feel for the food here.As part of my exploration, I managed to witness some people waving guns about just outside where I was staying. At first I had no idea what was happening, it was just people shouting at one another. It wasn't until I heard a fairly loud click that I decided to see what was happening, and lo and behold, there was a person pointing a gun at someone down the street. He turned a corner, and the pursuer jumped into a car, also holding a gun and occasionally pointing it at this other person.Funnily enough, the first thought that crossed my mind was that I really hoped I wouldn't jump if there were shots fired. I had no idea how loud it would be, and I wasn't interested in finding out. Luckily, nothing actually eventuated. However, I can now say that I've seen people waving guns about on the street for real!After that excitement, I did some research on a Japanese restaurant I spotted while on a quest for yet another cafe on my foodmap and getting my hot dog fix while there. It turns out there's this wonderful little spot called Kyoto Garden Sushi, which is rated very highly!A quick glance at the restaurant indicated it was no ordinary sushi shop, and no other sushi place compares to this. Scallops, abalone, crayfish were all on the menu, and they have a small list of Japanese whiskies. So why not, I figured I'd step into this horrifically expensive looking place.
Lo and behold, Nikka single malt Yoichi, 15yo. I asked for it neat after agonising over which one to try, and I figured this one looked good. I did worry a little when I heard them playing with some ice, but then when I saw how the whisky was presented, I understood why. I call it "MYO whisky" - water and ice to your preference!
I ordered a small sashimi plate, and if I recall, the white fish might be kingklip. My desire to re-confirm the fish types fell away as soon as I saw the wasabi. It wasn't the standard green tube paste, it looked very different. I started wondering if this was real wasabi - it had quite a punch to it, something I was pleased with as every other place I've eaten at had the same weak green goo that I had to pile on with no effect. I eagerly asked the waiter about it, who then explained it wasn't real wasabi as it was too expensive to acquire, instead this was made in-house by their chef. A very nice touch!
I finally found scallops in Cape Town! And these were perfectly cooked.
The last savoury dish I ordered was known as "the sea" - mixed clams, scallops, octopus, prawns, seaweed. It was so tasty and I loved all the different clams in it. It was seriously raising my happiness level as the food was amazing as well as the service - after asking once for a water refill, the rest became magic. That's my kind of restaurant.They also had a very interesting dessert; a fried tofu and ginger ice cream, but I chose the cherry blossom ice cream and chocolate instead. Too bad that my choice tasted like a cherry ripe without the coconut - I would have liked to have had the tofu instead, but nonetheless the whole experience was still fantastic.I would now say this is the best restaurant I've been to in Cape Town - and simultaneously the most expensive I've been to.Now I simply have to save up money as I plan to spend big when I go back to Sydney...