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Address: 1 Macquarie Street, Sydney, Australia
Telephone number: (02) 9252 2555
website: www.ariarestaurant.com
Date of visit: 11 January 2011
Price guide: Be prepared to pay A$80 plus for 2 courses from the a la carte. Set meals available.
Comments on wine and beer: Serious wine list with serious price list – starts at $60. Most wines significantly above $100.
Currency : £0.65 = A $1
Cuisine: Australian/ modern European haute cuisine
Summary:
Aria is one of the top restaurants in Sydney. It has 2 hats (Australian Rating similar to Michelin Stars. Top mark is 3 hats). It has a fabulous location – next to the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay. The views are spectacular on a good or bad day.
As it is located near to the opera house, it offers a pre theatre dinner – $42 for one course and $68 for 2 courses.
On the day I went, the choices for starters included vegetarian options, scallops, shashimi, soup etc. Mains include salmon, chicken slow cooked lamb and steak. I had the shashimi and steak.
The shashimi was a take on the Japanese version. It was tuna seared at high heat on the outside, served with ponzu dressing with a touch of soy.
The beef on offer was really a piece of sirloin with an au proive sauce. It came with sweet pickled cabbage, a rissole of mashed potato with cauliflower and a thick slice of porcini mushroom cut along the stem. The presentation was meticulous and the steak cooked medium. It was a great piece of steak on a par with the one in Pony.
I also had a bottle of Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon at $80.
Everything here was old school and represented class – service to cooking
The only disappointment was the toilet. The tiles on the wall were cracked.
I saw Madam Butterfly at The Sydney Opera House after the meal. It was a sensational performance. A very good evening – overall.
By the way, Aria was still packed when I came out of the performance at 10p.15 pm.
E
Address: 6th floor, Westfield, 188 Pitt St, Sydney, Australia
Telephone number: (02) 9223 8822
Website: www.pheonixrestaurants.com.au
Date of visit: 7 January 2011
Price guide: Dim Sum from $5.50
Comments on wine and beer: Tsing Tao $7.50 a bottle. Reasonable Oz wine list.
Cuisine: Chinese (Cantonese)
Exchange rate: A$1 = £0.65
Summary:
Sited on the 6th floor in Westfield, this is a large and modern Chinese Restaurant. During lunch time, they served dim sum on trolleys.
The dim sum carts would come by and you would point at whatever you wanted. It gets a bit difficult with steamed food as they are served in brown bamboo containers. The ladies that push the trolleys around will announce what they have and tout for business, so the chance of you going without is zero.
The trolleys offered more than dim sum, there were plates of roast meat of various types, stirred fried vegetables as well as noodles. Desserts were also available. On this day, they were offering mango pudding, mango pancakes and jellies. There are no menus, prices are based on what they termed “large”, “medium” and “small” dishes. There is a card on the table which the servers will stamp in the appropriate price area. When you cash up, the waiter/waitress just adds up the bill based on the stamps on the card. You can eat a full blown meal and be out within 15 minutes.
I had prawn toasts, spring rolls and yam croquettes. They were all warm – a downside of trolley meals – not hot. The spring rolls had loads of vegetables in it – I am not sure if they were vegetarian ones. The prawn toast was a small square toast, spread with the usual minced prawn/pork mixture. Where it scored wass that unlike the UK, there was a proper prawn sitting on top of the meat paste – a mixture of minced pork, minced prawns and chives.
Including a bottle of beer, the total bill came to just over $20. I was in and out in 15 minutes – beat that for fast food.
E
Address: 14-15 The Rocks Centre, Argyle St, The Rocks, Sydney, Australia
Telephone number: (02) 9252 7767
Website: www.ponydining.com.au
Date of visit: 9 and 12 January, 2010
Price guide: Around A$ 50 for 2 courses
Comments on wine and beer: extensive list of wines and beer – stick to Oz products. Some gems.
Cuisine: Australian fusion
Summary:
This is a strange looking restaurant housed in The Rock Centre. It is long and narrow like a corridor with the kitchen at one end and a bar at the other. Smallish tables lined the corridor in a straight line. There are 2 outside tables. One sits 4 and the other 30.
The decor is very modern with rope and steel arranged as wall patterns. There are white boards with light bulbs on a twisted wire shining a weird pattern. I hope you get it; the place is modern and funky as the cooking totally reflected the decor.
They offered small plates and certain main courses in starter and main course portions. I was attracted to the small dishes as they sounded sensational.
I had the flat bread with a bean and aubergine spread ($7.20), tuna sashimi spring roll ($17.40) and the seared sirloin ($12.90). The bean and aubergine spread was really good and tasted of smoke and “charred” aubergine – the aubergine was probably grilled over a naked flame until it blistered. After the charred skin is scrapped off, the flesh is then mashed with beans.
The tuna sashimi in my view did not work. I first had something similar in Atlanta (ran by Hispanic Sushi Chefs) called Yum Yum rolls. It was raw tuna completely covered with rice and deep fried. Here, the tuna was covered in crushed Edamame beans and then housed in a Vietnamese spring roll skin (rice paper). The hot outside and the cold inside was a bit strange and there was no wasabi. The sirloin was seared over high heat, then sliced very thinly and served with a light soy dressing. It was quite sensational and is meant to be their signature dish. The diners next to me had the filet steak which came with the fattest chips I have ever seen – arranged Rubic Cube style. The steak was a big piece of meat and would weight around 500g. It was very rare – the chap ate half of it then send it back as too rare so they did him another piece with all the trimmings which he proceeded to demolish totally.
The wine list was pretty expensive but it is now becoming clear that a decent bottle in a restaurant would cost around $75 plus. I had a bottle of Tasmanian sparkling wine which at $50 was really good on a hot day.
I like the place and will go back to try more dishes this week.
Update:
Went back with 3 friends for dinner on 12/1/11
This time we had the asparagus, goats cheese tart and a salad for starters. The steak ($38) and lamb ($38) for main courses. The steak was wonderful and was without doubt the best piece of meat since I landed in Australia. The chips were enormous – about 4 chips per large potato ?. The lamd was good too. For dessert, we had the chocolate tart which came with ice cream and half a fig. With a bottle of white called Sideways (saugvinon blanc) and a bottle of cabinet saugvinon, the total bill came to just over $300 – not bad at all. If you are visiting the Rocks, I would definitely recommend this place.
E
Website: N/A
Date of visit: 6 January 2011
Price guide: Under A$ 20 for main courses (approx £1-$1.60)
Comments on wine and beer: Very simple list, normal mark up. Sapporo on tap,Asahi and Kirin by the bottle
Summary:
I arrived in Sydney at 7 am, dropped my cases off at the York Apartment Hotel near the harbour and I was in the grounds (SCG) to watch the penultimate day in the Sydney Test.
That evening, a tremendous rain storm hit Sydney. Rather than getting soaked, I thought that I would try the Japanese cafe next to the hotel. By the way, there are 3 Japanese restaurants all at this address.
The place was a square room with about 50 seats – wooden tables and chairs. Fairly basic.
Price wise, it was very reasonable with starters – dumplings, sushi etc – all portions under $10. Main were under $20 and there are various combinations with noodles and bento boxes – teriyaki, eels, tempura etc.
Feeling flushed, I ordered a bottle of Oyster Bay at $39 (£8 in Majestic warehouses in the UK), a large draft Sappro (800mls at $15) and the combination noodles – prawns, beef and pak choi. The meal came, I ate it and that’s about it. The food was average and just about everything else was average. Not a great place but great if you want to go to bed and not get wet in the down pour. By the way, I only managed a glass of wine. The rest was for consumption over the week at the hotel.
E
PS I shall be in Australia for a month.
Address: 12 Argyle Street, The Rocks, Sydney
Tel: +61 2 9259 5656
Website: www.sakerestaurant.com.au
Costs per head: Starters c.Aus$15, mains c.Aus$25-35, sushi c.Aus$10 per 2-pieces, beer Aus$8 per bottle
Date of visit: Monday 19th July
Having been recently featured on the hugely popular Masterchef Australia, my expectations were high when I was told we had secured a table at Sake, located in the ultra-trendy heritage Argyle Precinct in Sydney’s Rocks, close to Circular Quay.
As the name suggests the influence here is seriously Japanese, and Australian ‘sushi guru’ Shaun Presland serves up some exciting and innovative dishes that offer a modern contemporary take on traditional Japanese cuisine. Our very attentive waitress advises that dishes are meant to be shared and that the food is served tapas-style i.e. randomly as each dish emerges from the pass.
My host and I are relaxed with the format, and we choose a variety of interesting-sounding dishes from the folded-up menu, split by hot and cold starters, kushiyaki (skewers), mains, salads, soups, sushi, sashimi and maki (rolls).
First to arrive are some sashimi tacos, one each of salmon and tuna alongside a chilled tomato salsa and washed down with a shot of Kozaemon Junmai sake. The fish is incredibly fresh, succulent and moist, and coupled with the crunchy texture of the taco and the sharp fresh salsa the ensemble is a resounding success – what a great start.
We follow with a selection of sushi, all sea-fresh and divine, and then a couple of maki rolls, one crispy salmon-skin, the other tuna & avocado, both scrummy. Next up some crispy-skin pork belly bites, served with edamame puree and reduced balsamic teriyaki sauce, and then a selection of vegetable and seafood tempura – crispy light batter and with a delightful dipping sauce.
An encore of the wonderful tacos and some miso soup finish us off, with everything washed down with clean-tasting Kirin beer.
The prices are not extortionate, however be warned with this kind of more’ish food, the temptation to eat and eat can easily run up quite a bill. Luckily for me, my host was happy to pick up the cheque.
For quality Japanese food in a great setting, you will have a struggle to find better.
Paul Plant
Address: 116 Queen Sreet, Woollahra, Sydney
Website: www.bistromoncur.com.au
Costs per head: Starters c.Aus$20, Mains c.Aus$40-50, House wines start at $40 per bottle