Quay - Tasting Menu

I had meant to blog about this immediately after visiting Quay, but the world cup took over my life! Better now than never I guess.

The one thing that hits you when you're seated at Quay is the gorgeous view!


Since we couldn't decide on what to order, we went with the Tasting Menu to keep things simple. Plus it means I get to try more food!



Yes.....I have an obsession with Cutlery, and Quay has awesome cutlery!

Amuse Bouche

The Amuse Bouche was a tuna tartare with tapioca and horseradish creme friache. Wonderfully light and complex, definitely kick started our appetite!

Signature Quay cocktail

I ordered the Quay Signature cocktail even though I don't like half of the liquors in it. I guess I should've chosen something else because I didn't really enjoy the cocktail. Its not really Quay's fault though, I should've known to choose something else.

Malted sourdough bread

I have a confession to make. I hate sourdough bread. The fact that the bread is sour makes my brain think its off. However, I was plesantly surprised that the bread at Quay actually went down quite well! So well in fact, that I tried one of each of their types of bread!


It helps that they had awesome butter as well:

Sea Pearls

Starting from the bottom and going anti-clockwise, we have:

- Crab and yuzu pearl
- Octopus Pearl
- Tuna with a creme friache centre
- Sea Scallop
- Abalone

The crab pearl was a bit too bland for my liking. It needed a bit of seasoning and maybe a bit more yuzu kick. Octopus pearl was surprisingly delicate in taste and given a big thumbs up by my friends. My favorite would have to be the Tuna pearl, the rich fatty tuna with the creamy centre really hit the spot for me. Sea Scallop would have to be my second favourite. The Abalone pearl had a very rich and almost overpowering dashi and soya sauce taste.

Check out the see through abalone one!

Mud Crab Congee

The moment they place this down infront of you, you get hit by a gorgeous waft of congee. It smelled incredibly rich and complex, but was surprisingly light and delicate in taste. I loved the fact that there are big chunks of crab meat in it. My only complaint would be that I needed a bigger bowl! A huge bowl infact!

Confit of pork belly, abalone, mushrooms and silken tofu

Honestly, who can say no to crisp crackling and melt in your mouth pork belly? But the pork belly was not the star of the dish. The tofu and the mushroom not only outshone the pork belly, but also the abalone! Infact, I forgot there was abalone on the dish altogether!! That's how good Peter Gilmore can make tofu and mushrooms!

Butter poached Quail, Bitter chocolate black pudding, milk skin and jamon

Of the whole tasting menu, this dish had the least appeal to me. But after tasting this dish, it was my favourite savoury meal of the entire night! The quail was incredibly tender and juicy, the chocolate black pudding was soft and packed a punch of flavour. I wanted more more more!

Wagyu beef with quinoa and nuts

I was so incredibly full by the time this dish came out. I still remember the beef being tender and juicy, but didn't remember much besides that. I was starting to slowly slip into a food coma.

Check out Quay's awesome plates

Strawberry Guava and custard apple snow egg

Yes I was full, but I didn't know I had a seperate stomach just for snow eggs! This is the famous version that was shown in the MasterChef finals. We were quite lucky that we went in late May when they were still serving this. Because when the episode aired, Quay was serving just a Guava version. I'm so glad I got to taste this as I can hands down say, this is one of the best desserts I've ever tasted in my entire life. The thin crispy maltose shell, the soft fluffy meringue, creamy custard apple ice cream all ontop of a bed of granita and cream.


I know my friends loved the snow egg, but my favourite was waiting til the end. When the slightly melted granita mixed with the cream and guava puree. It kind of resembled a vietnamese ice slushee drink.


I would've licked the inside if my tongue was long enough!

8 textured chocolate cake

Looks pretty average of a dessert, until the waiter comes with a pot of melted chocolate and proceeds to pour it ontop. The hot chocolate basically melts a hole through the dessert.

Melting...

melting...

Melting......

Ready to eat!

If you're a chocoholic, you would be in chocolate heaven after eating this. Me? I'm not a big fan of chocolate and basically went into a catatonic state after a chocolate overdose. I forced myself to eat this, and had to give up after I got through 1/3 of the cake. This was way too rich and basically smashed me into a food wall.

Peppermint tea to help aid digestion

Petite fours

I can understand why Peter Gilmore is one of the best Chefs not only in Australia, but in the world. The food is simple, complex, delicate and rich all at the same time. The snow egg more than deserves the fame its received since MasterChef. I just can't wait til Guava and Custard apples are in season again!

Quay
Overseas Passenger Terminal
The Rocks, Sydney
Ph: (02) 9251 5600
http://www.quay.com.au


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Japanese Feast

Life is finally starting to get back to normal after dedicating 1 month to the world cup. I thought life could rsume quickly after that, but I've spent the last few week rebuilding my room and also playing StarCraft2! I have a 1 week quiet period coming up before we totally gut out kitchen and rebuild that too! I'm not sure how we're going to survive for a few weeks without a kitchen inside the house. Looks like I better cook up a storm now and settle for eating out when it does happen.

Lately I've been in a real Japanese food cooking mood.

Japanese seaweed and tamago salad

The seaweed salad was store bought, luckily the grocery stores now sell them by the kilo! Tamago was made with my trusty tamago pan, all sitting on a bed of lettuce, cucumber and tomatos. I topped the whole thing with some light Japanese salad dressing.

Paul!

Its ok, I love paul. This is Paul's distant cousin! hehe So why did I need octopus? So I can slow cook it for takoyaki!

My new takoyaki pan

Not a bad first attempt!

The batter was a bit thick for the first few goes. By the time I had the batter worked out, I had run out of octopus. I ended up using anything I could find in the fridge to keep making these babies! haha

2nd attempt

I invited some friend's over for dinner just so I had some more guinea pigs to try out my takoyaki.

Gyoza

Pork, prawn and wongabok gyozas. I served these with a soy and rice wine vinegar dipping sauce. I love cooking and presenting gyoza this way, its so awesome looking when you plonk it down in the middle of the table.

Oyako don

Super fast and easy dish to make. I cooked up a huge pan and just served it over boiled rice.

Oyako don served with pickled ginger

Teriyaki chicken

After serving all that savoury food, I thought I'd whip up an impromptu dessert. Sweet takoyaki balls! Basically the batter was a sweet green tea mixture, and the filling was a red bean paste. I ran out of batter half way through making the batch, so there are some half balls in there haha. Still tasted awesome though, especially when its still warm and soft served with ice cream!

Jason's La Candela - Summer Hill

I do love my entertainment book. All the discount vouchers make it so much more fun trying out new places! My reasoning is, if its bad food, atleast you didn't pay full price. If its good food, even better! You got it at a discount.

With that in mind, I decided to try Jason's La Candela at Summer Hill. Having tried heaps of other restaurants around there, it was time to give Jason's a go.

The layout is clean and simple, giving you heaps of seating room. Since we were very early, the restaurant was empty except 2 other tables.

Not in the mood for pizza, I went the seafood marinara.

Seafood Marinara

The serving size was quite small, especially when you think of how much room the mussel shells actually took up. Taste wise, it was quite nice. Fresh seafood, simple tomato sauce and the pasta was cooked al dente. I just wish the serving was bigger as I was still hungry afterwards.

BBQ meat lovers pizza

My friend ordered the bbq meat lovers pizza. Since I was still hungry, he offered me a slice. I took about 2 bites before giving up. I found the pizza very very greasy and almost sickly with the sweet bbq sauce. The pizza was also too mushy for my liking, both the dough and the meat has the same soft texture. Meanwhile, my friend loved the greasiness and sweet flavour, but by the last slice, the grease and mushiness also got to him.

OVerall, the food was ok. The pasta was tasty even though the serve was small. The pizza was a decent serve, but I didn't like it at all. Mind you, I had a slice at the end of the meal, so I don't know if time was a factor, but my friend liked the pizza. I'll probably come back again since I'm armed with a new Entertainment book and see how it goes this time round.

Jason's La Candela
24 Lackey St
Summer Hill NSW 2130
Ph: (02) 9798 3897


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Mr Chao Seafood Restaurant - Hurstville

After a fairly early morning airport pick up (10am is early on a weekend alright!?), we decided to swing by Hurstville to take our guest for a bout of Yum Cha at Mr Chao Seafood Restaurant.

My dad started panicking about how we're not going to get a table even though its only 11am, so he dumps us in front of the restaurant whilst he finds parking. I thought it was a bit over the top, but by 11am, there were only 2 free tables left.

Steamed beef rice noodle (Ngau Cheung)

Prawn Dumplings (Har Gau)

These were super full of chunky bursty prawns. Definitely hit the spot.

Dim Sim topped with baby abalone (Siw Mai)

This is my must have every time I go yum cha. I always prefer the standard traditional ones. Unfortunately, they said they only have the abalone topped ones today. It wasn't bad, I gave the abalone to my mum, but it also meant we got 3 instead of 4 :(

Shortcrust bbq pork triangles

Uber flakey and full of bbq pork goodness!

Beef tendon in black bean sauce

Done very well. The worst is undercooked chewy rubber ones. These ones melt in your mouth and had a lovely gelatinous stickiness to it.

Black bean pork ribs and salted fish rice

My dad's must have. He prefers the traditional one with black bean pork ribs with the chicken feet though. Luckily he loves salted fish, so it was still good.

Black bean chicken feet

Malaysian steamed cake

Lava buns

OMG! These are one of my favourite dishes that are rarely served at yum cha places. So when I heard they were on the menu, I had to get a steamer for myself! What's so special about them? On the outside, they look like an ordinary steamed bun. But its what is inside that matters....

Innards

The centre of the bun is a sweet and salty custard that oozes out like lava. Its made from salted egg yolks and sugar and turned into a custard like filling. I wish more yum cha places served this because its incredibly moreish!

I probably only go yum cha 2-3 times a year, so I can't tell you if its good value or not. My dad actually goes yumcha every week with the oldies and apparently this is one of the better ones in Sydney in terms of quality of food, taste and cost. I guess it must be good coming from a bunch of retirees! hehe I did find the quality of food pretty good though!

Mr Chao Seafood Restaurant
127 Forest Rd
Hurstville NSW 2220
Ph: (02) 9580 8003


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