Rusty Pig
Ah, the joys of dining out. Also, visiting a restaurant I haven't been to before. And best of all, cooking with fire! A triple combo that was so good!
It's a relatively new restaurant at less than a year old. Located next to one of my favourite cafes, I always noticed it but never really took time to go visit (plus I never seem to find the money to go!), but now seemed like the perfect time. Yes, what a fantastic night!
It was just myself and another party of 5 on a stormy Friday night. Usually I avoid Fridays, but I was feeling it this time. The max capacity at the time was 10 people, and already there were no shows! How crushing. It always makes me sad when people don't call to cancel.
Their non alcoholic options were almost non existent, so i was contemplating getting a glass of wine, but then I found on their list a green ant gin! Woah! Yeah, I definitely had to try that! It was garnished with lemon, making it harder to taste out the nuances of the gin, but since I've eaten green ants before at Noma Australia, I could use my imagination to sort of bridge the gin to the tonic and lemon. Good stuff!
Fired baked bread with lamb fat, confit garlic. Ooooooh yeah. Do you know how hard it is to get animal fat bread?? I recall having chicken fat with butter somewhere (maybe Automata?), and then there was the beef fat taro at Orana (ok so that's not quite bread, but you get the point), but it seems to be pretty uncommon? This was incredible. I don't usually like lamb fat but I suspect that this is because I never ate lamb growing up because my mum didn't like it, but since I've been experimenting with my own cooking adventures, I think I'm now used to the flavour so this was delicious! And that confit garlic too! It was just SO GOOD.
Corn ribs, chaat masala, charred lemon. Yeeah that spice on the corn is great! Plus I love corn so this was so good! There was so much corn too!
Abrolhos Island scallops, salted kombu butter. This is the crowd favourite, but I've had a loooooot of scallops, so this one wasn't actually my favourite haha (it was the bread). The salted kombu was super tasty though, so I can see why everyone loves this dish. But when I can get live Rottnest Island scallops for myself, this one's a hard call. Yes, it's great, but I've had many great scallops!
Grilled occy, charred corn salad, fermented chilli sauce. The rest of the menu were basically a list of their greatest hits, and this was more of a new/experimental dish. Not bad! I personally felt that it was a bit of corn overkill, considering how much corn I ate earlier, but I love corn so it was fine. The octopus was super tasty and it came covered in fermented chilli! Hmmm I still think Besk's house hot sauce was just that bit tastier, but this also had a similar tomatoey flavour. I feel like the octopus might pair better with a different vegetable? We could just go Spanish? and say potatoes but maybe it does well with other foods too!
Mottainai lamb, pomme puree, minted jus. Yeah wow that lamb. Such deliciousness! And sorry, but I'm going to call that mash potatoes. That was super tasty too! Thick and luscious. I'm amazed at how tasty that lamb was. The chef was saying how he can always taste it out from other producers - these lambs are fattened up with carrots from the carrot farm next door! So good. This was my second favourite next to the bread.
And lastly for dessert, sticky date pudding, bourbon butterscotch sauce, vanilla ice cream. Yeah I love sticky date pudding! It's one of those foods I wasn't terribly fond of as a kid, but started loving it as I grew up. I pretty much demolished this dessert, it was so good, with a great sauce to pudding ratio. Yeah! If anything I wished there was a bit more date? But that's a very minor thing and personal preference.
Overall it was a fantastic and great value dinner! Plus I loved the whole cooking with fire experience. Flames just make everything taste so much better! Because it was so quiet, I also managed to enjoy a lovely conversation with the chef, who seems to have worked at many restaurants! That's pretty cool! What a lovely bunch of people, and I think everyone's just happy to be out and about again. I've been having so much fun with home cooking, but having flavours and techniques constructed by other people is also very fun!
Firedoor in 2019
Most of the restaurants I go to leave a big impression on me. Each restaurant generally has one or two dishes that leave a huge impression on me. And then there's a dish that changes the way you think about something forever. Those come by only every few restaurants, and one of them is the Firedoor steak.
It was the thought of that steak that made me book Firedoor again, even though this time I would be dining alone and wouldn't actually be able to order the steak. But I also think this place made headlines after I visited because they had a goldfish to accompany solo diners at one point? I could be wrong on that. Either way, I was eager to come back.
Bingo! I got the fireside table! Yeah! Perfect for the obligatory fire shot to begin with!
A mocktail to start. I like that restaurants are starting to feature interesting non alcoholic drinks! This one I think was beetroot based, and the foam on top is made using aquafaba. Nice stuff!
Oh. Oh yeah. Marron was on the menu. I mean I should be sensible buuuuut LOOK HOW CUTE THIS LITTLE GUY IS! How could I not eat it??? So I decided to go for it. What an absolute cutie.
Ok, so this visit was actually very special for me. Since it was early and quiet, and I was fireside, Lennox himself introduced himself to me! How awesome!!! He asked me if it was my first time and I said that I was a returning customer. He also shook my hand! Woah! Yay! I SHOOK LENNOX HASTIES HAND this is so exciting!!!
He even gave me this kangaroo dish as a complementary starter as a way of saying thank you. That's so nice! Already this makes me feel like coming back again for a third visit in the future! I think that small gestures like this are really nice. I really don't expect it at all, especially as it was only my second visit and years after my first, it wasn't even like I was a regular or anything!
I chose a light dish to start off with. I can't remember exactly but I believe this was albacore tuna with kohl rabi, persimmon maybe? And you can see it also has tendrils of seaweed! I liked the combination of flavours and textures in this dish! So interesting!
Ah, look at that fire go! It was hard to get a good shot that includes the little sparks flying off to the side. It was interesting to see how the kitchen worked, since the height of the grill was adjustable so you could bring it down closer to the coals or further away. It was also interesting to see how long each item stayed on the grill too - it was actually longer than I thought! I think that's the beauty of cooking with an open fire, it looks spectacular but the flames seem to be cooler than a gas stovetop, so the way food cooks is different too!
My lovely marron was ready now! Isn't it so cute? Tiny limes with ice plant leaves! I liked this version better than the original I reckon!
Also, DUCK HEARTS! Yeah! I'm eating so many hearts this trip! I had the chicken hearts at Chaco Bar and now duck hearts here! I'm pretty sure duck hearts featured a few years back and I really really wanted them, and finally they were back on the menu, so I was very excited about this! And so tender too. Man, if only I was brave enough to cook hearts myself... maybe one day, but I'd want the super good stuff rather than the 500g packs you get at the supermarkets.
For all the greatness of meat and fire, Firedoor is actually a vegetable heavy restaurant. Veges taste just as good with a lick of flames, and this seasonal dish of asparagus and peas with hazelnuts was too good to pass up! Yeah! It's always worth getting the seasonal vegetables, you don't get fresher than this!
And remember to always leave room for dessert. They'd been advertising a bombe alaska for a while and I was so worried that it was only on the chefs menu or otherwise inaccessible, but no, it was on the a la carte menu too! Yeah!
I prepped my camera in advance since I was anticipating some amazing shots. Look at that brandy or similar go! Yeah! I love those flames hahah. There's fireside, then there's fiery food at your table! It wasn't just a pretty show. That was a solid, delicious bombe. I think there was raspberry ice cream inside? Oh man so good. I love chefs here, they have such a great sense of humour too! After I'd finished, the dessert chef came over to collect my plate and teased me! He said it mustn't have been that good because there was a tiny melted puddle that I couldn't quite scrape! So I said I could lick the plate to make it all better hahahaha. Friendly staff are the best!
I don't know what it was about this trip but everything was just so much better than my first visit of many restaurants! Firedoor is such a lovely place, I want to come back again and again!
DID I MENTION THAT I SHOOK LENNOX HASTIES HAND?! TWICE!!! We shook hands at the end too and I tipped a heap since I got the free dish haha. Plus that saw. I loved hearing the bandsaw go again and again!!!
Ok that's enough blogging for now, it's so tedious hahaha.
Chaco Bar
Yes! Chaco Bar! I'd only been once before for ramen, but this time I really wanted to check our their yakitori for dinner. When I ate here, Chaco Bar and Chaco Ramen were still the same place and ramen was a lunch time only thing, but since then they've been super successful and split into two different venues!
This little joint is amazing. First of all, a starter! A seaweed salady type thing, very refreshing!
Chawan mushi time! This featured some delicious crab! I love the way the custard was flavoured, it was rich but not overpowering!
Spicy tuna belly salad with sansho. Woah. I wasn't expecting it too look like this at all! For some reason I imagined this to be a cold raw dish, but instead it was grilled and served warm. And. Woah. That. Numbing!! It'd been so long since I've eaten numbing chilli that I actually had no idea what was happening to me when I ate this - it was spicy, but not that spicy, I could eat it, but it was tingling, it was sort of spicy, but not, and I couldn't stop eating it?!?! That was pretty much my train of thought as I ate it. It was so good! Woah! So addictive! Definitely something you don't find anywhere else!
They had a special on, which was a Hokkaido scallop! Yeeah I love scallops so I had to get one!
Ok, onto the sticks! I love offal and it's so hard to get good stuff. I ordered all my favourite bits, including this giblet! Oh. Yes. Oh. No wonder people love this place so much. This was served still pinkish inside and sooooo good! And so much flavour, whatever salt they're using on this makes it taste amazing!!
Hearts and okra. I've never been much of a hearts person but I always feel I should eat it, and honestly, it's quite tasty! These were also still a bit bleedy on the inside and that makes it AMAZING!! I will keep raving about each stick because they're all so good! This is how all yakitori should be served!
This one's even called "pink centered liver" ahahaha. And omg yes I love liver that's been cooked perfectly and isn't over and crumbly!
I feel like I've been gushing about the "undercookedness" of these skewers, since I think a lot of people would be concerned about chicken this pink. I did a bit of reading on raw chicken a while back, because I was curious about how Japan can serve chicken sashimi safely. I think it's one of those things where you need existing gut flora to be strong and healthy, but also needs to be exposed to raw chicken to build up the bacteria to be able to eat it? But that's only half of it. The other half is actually the existence of salmonella itself. It's naturally occurring in chicken but it's the super fresh and safe preparation of it that makes the difference. Supermarket chicken is no good because even if the "wrong" bits of chicken make contact with other bits (eg. offal to flesh, feet to flesh etc), that's when you start increasing the risk of poisoning. When prepared correctly so that all parts are kept separate and don't touch each other, the risk of poisoning goes down drastically, which makes this stuff safe to eat - hey, I get poisoned more from beef tataki than I do from undercooked chicken at home, so... that's not a good example LOL.
Anyway, that was my efforts in explaining the food safety of raw chicken, and I probably didn't explain it very well. There is heaps of stuff online about it, so I recommend reading up on it yourself to develop an understanding on chicken preparation, because you can appreciate a larger range of food as a result!
Next up, the godly gyu-tan. YES. WAGYU COW TONGUE. Oh man this was soooo good. It came with a hefty price tag too at I think $15 a stick? But it was definitely worth it! When tongue is grilled right it's so soft and tender! And the marbling! Woah cow tongues can have marbling too hahahaha. Yum!
Ok back to chicken. This time, cartilage! I love crunchy cartilage and this was no exception! So good, though, to be honest, this was the least interesting out of all the sticks I ordered. Not to say this is bad, it was still better than all the other yakitori I've had, it's just that the other offal was all so next level!!!
And finally dessert. Mascarpone matcha mousse, red bean paste, strawberries! Okay, so usually I don't like matcha but this one was actually done nicely and wasn't too bitter! I really enjoyed this and it had a good, light texture! I love the messy look of this too, I love messes as much as I love perfectionism, so I enjoyed this so much!
Chaco Bar is just so good at everything - all the entrees were superb, the skewers were top notch and even dessert was delicious! Yes! Definitely come here for the perfect Japanese yakitori dinner!!!
But wait, there's one last thing I have to post, and that's the lunch time ramen. This was a quail sansho special. Even after having the tuna sansho salad, it didn't occur to me that sansho pepper is the numbing thing! I'm so ignorant sometimes it hurts. I really wanted the quail aspect and this was so good! The quail sausage thing itself was interestingly gamey (moreso than normal quail), and that numbing effect has such an addictive quality about it! There's some smudges of stuff on the side of the bowl - this is intentional. Those blobs on top right are yuzu kosho, a super intense concentrate of salty peppery lemony goodness. The waitstaff explained that it's not meant to be mixed in with the soup, and that the proper way to consume this was to spread a bit on the noodles only, just before you eat it. Nice! Packs a punch and so tasty!
Man, everything about this place is just so good. So good. SO GOOD. I absolutely need to go abck! Just have to wait for my next Sydney trip so I can fill up on chicken and ramen goodness again! It's like a real Japanese izakaya outside of Japan! I love Sydney so much!
Quay 2.0
Quay was the second fine dining restaurant I visited back in 2011. I really enjoyed the first experience, from the view, to the decor, to the food, especially the pork jowl dish! And everything else. To this day, some of the dishes I had then are are still prominent in my memory and a lot of other restaurants trigger the memories of that visit, notably the marron with grapefruit, the congee, and the pork jowl.
Recently they renovated, and started featuring crumpets on their menu instead of the usual bread options. There'd been a crumpet craze, and I joined in that craze when Saint Peter did uni on crumpets (which are SOOOO good!). So, I decided, now's the time to revisit!
The thing is, I've been so behind on writing up my Sydney adventures that I've forgotten what this amuse bouche is! All I know is that it was tasty, but that's a given!
I had booked the shorter course as that was the only thing available on their website, but on the day, they advised we had the entire table so we opted for the full menu! We still received the complimentary drink. Since I'm no good with alcohol I chose their tea instead, which was a savoury style tea, tomato consomme style! I thought that was really cool!
Look at the texture on that bowl! It kind of reminds me of oyster shells, which is fitting since the first dish is about seafood! We even got tweezers to eat this with, that's how delicate the food is!
Juice pairing time! The first beverage was a non alcoholic wine, made by an ex-Noma staff member, how cool!
Yeah. So many interesting things about this dish! This was my favourite for the night (and so early in the meal too!). The caviar itself I've had to death in my New York trip, but the smoked eel cream was absolutely spectacular. It was rich, strong, smooth, full of flavour, it was just so good! Wow! And the sea cucumber crackling was a great way to transform an ingredient that I don't like! I love it when restaurants use things like sea cucumber, fish eyes, beef tendons etc to make crackling because it makes so much sense!
This was the pairing with the caviar. A very light matcha flavour, which is good since I'm not a fan of most matchas and very refreshing!
The next drink was out, and I love this flavour combination. I do love tea based drinks and when they feature oils, it reminds me a lot of how Noma infuse an insane amount of flavour and texture into their juices!
Man those red pea flowers are gorgeous. What is really great is that Peter Gilmore is really into heirloom varieties and breeding interesting vegetables. Most pea flowers I see are white, and occasionally purple, so seeing these red ones were a treat! Plus one can never go wrong with a tartare dish!
A mini snack in between courses, this was so cute because it reminded me of a pot plant - that little succulent sticking out like it was growing from the mountain of peas! All my favourite ingredients in one, I loved this little tart!
Yep, this looks like a concentrated shot! Given that Seedlip was used, this was meant to resemble spirits!
Ah, this is like their new congee dish! Well ok, I should actually describe it as a crab dish rather than the congee since that's the main ingredient. Chawan mushi-like with some tasty broth!
Ah yes, the moment I was waiting for! The entire reason (ok well maybe not entire reason) I booked Quay! It's crumpet time! The smoked roe was so good though there totally wasn't enough cream haha. Very enjoyable, even though it didn't actually turn out to be my favourite dish haha. I still think Mr. Niland's crumpets are the tastiest, but admittedly those are fried so they're hard to beat!
I seem to have either taken the photos out of order or there were an uneven number of drinks to courses? Haha oh well. One day I'll get this blogging thing right. Until then, I'll just assume this is the corresponding picture. A beer-mimicking drink to go with the crumpets!
Woah! Pasta! Infused with bone marrow! Yeah! Nice and al dente, this had a great texture! I really enjoyed this one!
Okay I am guessing a bit here so apologies if I've done it in the wrong order. I think this was the buckwheat drink to pair with the pasta. I love herbacious flavours in drinks too, and I think it really complements the roastiness of the buckwheat!
The almighty smoked pork jowl dish! How it's changed so much but still very much a similar concept! Personally I liked the 2011 version better, but I mean, that was a pretty high bar and it's not like this was bad, I just liked how the textures came together better on my previous visit. Still a very good set of ingredients and such soft pork!
Haha I loved the presentation of this drink! A pear shaped frozen thing! But softly frozen, like fine granita that would melt into the drink. Pear, like apple, seems to be a good pairing for pork!
I love that Peter Gilmore loves peas! Speckled peas this time! But let's talk about the duck. I love duck and have had a few recently, including the one at Eleven Madison Park, and that one didn't actually impress me (sorry guys!). This, on the other hand. WOW. It's been a very long time since I've been surprised by a duck dish and this was GOOD!!! The duck was tender, well flavoured and the reason this is a winner - that skin was thin and perfectly crispy! Woah! I really was not expecting this to be next level crispy skin! What!!!! Yeah this was absolutely mind blowing!!! Ok so I didn't mention it at the beginning of my post as one of my favourite dishes but yes if you ever wonder whether or not you should choose this duck the answer is yes! Definitely! It is so good!!!
Yeah after the food I don't remember much about the drink haha.
After that mindblowingly amazing duck dish, it was time to move onto dessert. Look at the foamy thing on top! Visually this reminded me a lot of Noma Australia's rum lamington, but this had a harder texture and was less melty. There was also a lovely berry ice cream hiding underneath!
This is such an adorably presented dessert! So-called for the jersey milk cream that was so delicious. I'm an absolute sucker for cream so this was a real winner! Super rich and creamy! Plus those biscuits were super thin, and I am always impressed by super thin stuff! There was also some tasty caramel hiding underneath.
I liked this round of desserts better than the ones in 2011 (yes, even surpassing the snow egg!), but that's probably because I have a strong bias towards cream haha.
Ok, so it looks like I am missing a drink photo. There were 10 listed on the menu but I only seem to have 9 shots. Oops! I think this was the pairing with the white coral. I must not have gotten a photo of the Moo pairing, which was apricot, cola, pepper and coffee. Man that last drink was actually quite tasty!
And finally petit fours. I was so full after this! My friend had to leave early so I had to eat all four fours! Ahaha but they were good, and while the caneles look really dark on the outside, they were pretty good!
Overall my second visit to Quay was just as fantastic as the first! Very different food experiences and it's interesting to see how main ingredients have carried through but in very different iterations. Comparing the dishes was really fun and I really should revisit restaurants more often because a lot of the fun is in watching them evolve!