Gastro Park

After being away from my computer for so long, I am finally back for a post from awhile ago. That night was actually my birthday, so we went to Gastro Park! I have always been admiring (and drooling in front of) the pictures of different dishes from this restaurant, so it was really nice to see and taste the real thing!

 

I really liked how the restaurant was presented, it felt like I could turn around at any point and find some artistic objects. I've heard about how creative the dishes were like, so I was really looking forward to the 7-course degustation.



Firstly we started off with a selection of snacks:

Mmmm...talking about crunchy things...yum yum. I found it really fascinating that they were placed on a stone rather than an actual plate.

We got a little cheese stick, and I felt like waving it and let the wind blow on it! Somehow it reminded me of those spirits gathering stick thingy from an ancient temple...lol

Sourdough bread

Ofcourse, how can we not have sourdough bread in a degustation? Except this one came in an extraordinary presentation that almost reminded me of a rock, a wave and bits of glittering diamonds floating in the black sea.

Foie gras, cherry, rhubarb, toasted grain.

Ok, I won't lie, when I first saw this, I thought it was some kind of animal lying on a rock plate. First thing came into my mind was "lobster", then some random bug with long legs. It was visually surprising, and definitely challenges your tastebuds.

Spanner crab, carrot, endive, pork pebbles.

By this time of the meal, I already knew that every dish will turn out to be an artwork. I was very pleased at how well they balanced the colours and textures for each dish. This one was a little mischievous, almost like something we usually see in children books, where the plants grow in all sorts of directions. I loved that combination of spanner crab and pork pebbles, it's that perfect almost of saltiness that stimulates your senses.

Roast scallop, cauliflower tofu, leaves & crisp, lobster reduction.

Comparing to the last few dishes, this was a little bit less outstanding in appearance. Yet the satisfactions from its taste did not disappoint us at all. We especially liked the cauliflower tofu, as it was like the softest food on Earth.

Liquid butternut gnocchi, shimeji, mushroom consommé.

When this came, I was like "nooooo! Egg yolks!!" (Yes egg yolk is not one of my favourite), but then I realised what it was suppose to be. Gnocchi, yep, you got it, it was POTATO. I carefully placed one in my mouth, then closing it, and then...BITE. Oh that sudden juicy feeling down the throat, it was somewhere closer than heaven. I loved it, and it was definitely my favourite of the night.

Crispy scaled jewfish, smoked potato puree, calamari crackling, ink sauce.

We got a choice between two main dishes, so I decided to go with the crispy jewfish. Those scales were so crunchy and they make quite a bit of noises as you chew on them. I liked the idea of calamari crackling, as it was a completely refreshing taste. The only thing I didn't quite enjoy was the ink sauce...I found it a little too heavy in the taste for me.

Salted bush baltarra lamb sirloin, cabbages, blood pudding, aged sherry vinegar.

Bun picked this one...just because it's meat...? It was a simple dish, but the combination of the lamb and vinegar was quite a good one.

Chocolate, honeycomb, vanilla sphere, cardamom, saffron, ginger.

We also got to pick a dessert out of the two, so Bun decided to go with this one as he found it amusing to crack eggs. That initial crack took a little while, and then all you see was an explosion of all the sweet goodies, flowing out eagerly into the bowl. It was a little sweet but still a really nice dessert.

Cooked & raw cherries, red wine pear, bolero snow, hibiscus ice cream, sesame sponge.

I actually regret a little about picking this one after I've seen how entertaining Bun's dessert was. Although it was nice, I wished it had something more to it. I think my favourite part of this dish was actually the sesame sponge, and I found the idea pretty interesting mmm...


Overall I really liked this place, particularly its creative dishes! I would highly recommend this restaurant to people, you can order either a 7-course or 10-course tasting menu...mmm I wonder what's the 10-course is like?


Address:
5-9 Roslyn Street, Kingscross NSW

Phone:
02 8068 1017

Opening time:
Lunch
Thu - Sat  from 12 noon
Dinner
Tue - Sat  from 6pm till late

Waitan - Media Launch Party Oct 2013 (含中文简介)

WAITAN: A NEW CONCEPT IN LUXE ASIAN DINNING WHERE EAST MEETS WEST AND OLD MEETS NEW LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Located at the heart of Sydney Chinatown, Waitan has emerged in Oct 2013 with a promise to deliver the ultimate Asian foodie experience. Waitan is the first Australian venture for Asian hospitality groups, Xiang Er Qing and Tung Lok, with Patrick Tian as the local managing director and Aaron Ching as the Chief operating officer. Together with over $10 million spending and a stunning 2,500sqm venue, Waitan has certainly set its impression to bring a new and exciting vibe to the old Chinatown.

"My Hunger will go on" was really grateful to be invited to this party at Waitan, and we knew what we were going to see on the night would be amazing and memorable. We arrived just before the sun went down, and there we saw the colourful Lamborghinis sitting glamorously at the entrance and attracting many attentions from the public. At that instant, we couldn't wait to walk up the red carpet and check out this new giant inside Chinatown.

With an overwhelming crowd, rows of red lanterns and the traditional antiques, we felt that we have been teleported immediately into the old Shanghai back in the 1930s where it was known as "The Paris of the East, the New York of the West".

If Shanghai in the 1930s represented an era of class, style, elegance, romance and the classics, this world-class interior designed by Thuan Teh (previous works including Chef's Gallery and boutique hotels of The Kirketon and The Diamante) has certainly brought it all back. Waitan consisted of main dining hall with an exhibition-style kitchen, intimate laneway, 14 private dining rooms, Waitan's O Lounge, and even member-only spaces like the Library.

On every corner of Waitan, you can find statues that resembled people from ancient China. With a combination of red and blue lighting shinning down on them, it almost felt like they were to come alive in any minute and enjoy a delightful meal with you.

Going into the bar inside Waitan and staring at this faux opium bed, it reminded me of all the movies and dramas I use to watch about old Shanghai when I was a kid. My impression of nights in Shanghai was full of neon lights, melody notes floating inside the Paramount nightclub, gangsters with money to burn on cigars and beautiful women, and wealthy ladies walking on the street with Qi Pao and short curly hair. The voice of the live music band has dragged me back to reality from the chain of thoughts, and I quickly took a snap of this dark, mysterious, yet addictive scene. I wondered if the illustration on the wall was to depict a deep sea, where people drown themselves into their most fascinating dreams.

With John Rankin (worked for Quay, Astral and Sean's kitchen) taking on the lead of the kitchen, Waitan will offer something different to the crowd, something that redefines your expectations, and bring back the "French Gourmand tasting menu with a unique eastern twist".

With these in mind, we took a journey around the kitchen area to find little surprises that Waitan seeks to offer, and we spotted fresh oysters, fried buns, spring rolls, prawn sticks, Wagyu beef buns and the famous Peking duck pancakes.

The master Peking duck chef Mr Yuejin Ma has been flown to Sydney for this special night at Waitan, and prepared these ducks pancakes from the signature oven to please the crowd. We constantly heard "Mmm this is really good!", "I love it!", "Absolutely amazing!" phrases from the crowd, I guess a bunch of exclamation marks just popped out of everyone's head.

We loved the traditional dark wooden tables and chairs, the silky cushions full of flower patterns, and the flawless dinnerware.

If these weren't exciting enough, an amount of $10,000 will buy you a VIP ticket to access the second floor members-only areas, where Sydney's largest circular table measuring 5.2m is located, and the $50k bottle of cognac will be available to indulge.

This venue at Sydney Chinatown will be the first of an international chain of Waitan restaurants, the second of which will open in New York next year. There are two more planned for Australia including another one in Sydney and one in Melbourne.


用了千万*资金打造的Waitan，2013年十月在悉尼中国城开幕了。Waitan拥有占地两千五百平方米的豪华场地，其中包括了十四间私人包间，展览厨房，酒吧以及VIP会员专区等等。主厨是曾在Quay, Astral, Sean's kitchen工作过的John Rankin, 这让人很期待Waitan会带给我们什么惊喜。当我们走进Waitan时，感觉像是穿越时空来到了三十年代的旧上海，每一个角落都散发着古典美与神秘的气息。 在酒吧里还摆设了模仿旧时代的鸦片床，不由让人想起了那个灯红酒绿，纸醉金迷的老上海。当晚我们品尝到了生蚝，炸虾棒，Wagyu牛肉包，北京烤鸭等等的精致派对美食，值得一提的是Waitan的特殊烤鸭炉和准备了三天的烤鸭，很让人惊叹不已。如果这些惊喜还不够，Waitan还有会员费一万块*的VIP专用区，包括图书馆和悉尼最大的圆饭桌，人们还可以品尝到Waitan价值五万块*的白兰地。然而，这只是Waitan的一个开始，第二家Waitan餐厅准备明年在纽约开幕。(*澳币)


Again we are really thankful to be invited to this great event, and we can't wait to visit here for a delicious meal soon!


Address:
405 Sussex Street Sydney

Phone number:
02 8218 1000

Opening time:
Mon - Sun 6pm - 12am


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Sepia

It was Bun's birthday, so we have decided to try Sepia for this special occasion. The restaurant was located near Darling Harbour, so it was nice that we could take a walk after dinner.

The initial impression that Sepia gave me was that the staffs had great manners, and the decorations somewhat combined the Japanese and Western styles. The seats and tables were in dark colours, with merely a small amount of dim lights above our heads and a candle light on our table. I spotted a tree near the back wall, it reminded me of cherry blossom. We were given the beverage menu, and slowly anticipated the upcoming degustation menu for a Saturday night.


(Menu as of Saturday 3rd August 2013)


House made chevre, rye, smoked roe, pickled seaweed

Here was our Amuse bouche, numerous of round roe sat comfortably on the chevre (goat cheese), along with the sprinkle of rye and pickled seaweed hanging around. There's something I love about goat cheese, the creaminess and the freshness of roe seemed to go well together in a funny way.




Sashimi of Southern Blue Fin tuna, steamed Japanese omelette, white soy jelly dashi onion cream, puffed buckwheat, green apple and wasabi

This was such a refreshing little dish, and I love it when sashimi combines with any kind of jelly textures. The slippery soy jelly dashi has gone down the throat with the cooling tuna, together with the spongy omelette, in which they have created such a fulfilling moment. This dish made me feel like I was at the bottom of a deep ocean, searching for that scene where fish and other sea creatures swimming wildly.




Sashimi of bonito, flavours of roasted chicken, umeboshi, upland cress, green tea, nori

This was quite an unique dish where crispy chicken skin was combined to the seafood flavours. I found the taste was a little complex, especially with the addition of green tea powder. But Bun seemed to love it as he crunch down the chicken like the sound of those Kettle chips.




Yabby, seaweed puree, ginger, shellfish and blood orange emulsion, sorrel

LOL I totally didn't expected this but here we are, a cute little yabby snuggling on the plate. That first bite was totally satisfying along with the great sensations of blood orange emulsion. Although...I personally don't like ginger very much, so when I tasted that subtle hint of ginger, it made me shiver a little.




Sea scallop, sudachi, grain mustard and ox cheek dashi mousse, potato and garlic crumb

This has got to be my 2nd favourite dish for the night, as I loved every single bit of it. It was mushy and creamy, with a beautiful aroma coming from the crumbs. The textures contrasted with each other, making that mouthful more exciting than usual.




Charcoal grilled wagyu rump, sea urchin and wasabi butter, garlic chive mustard leaves, ponzu

TA-DA! My favourite dish of the night, Wagyu beef!!!! Oh god, I can never resist the meat dishes can I? But what I want to say here was...I couldn't believe how perfect the wagyu was cooked. I usually eat median rare, and I found the meat were often not juicy enough. When my teeth sank into this one here, I was really about to cry in tears. Not to mention the sauce made it even better! I think I can just have this for the rest of the night...




Seared Mandagery Creek venison, boudin noir, chocolate crumb, macadamia nut yoghurt blackcurrant, shichimi pepper

Comparing to the Wagyu, the next dish definitely didn't seem as outstanding. I wonder if it was because of the type of meat itself, the venison seemed rather harder to chew off. In general, we didn't have too much memories of this dish, as I think it was because all our attentions have been absorbed with the previous one...

Frozen strawberry, sheep yoghurt sorbet, Champagne cream wild strawberry sherbet

When this dish arrived, we stared at each other and questioned how this was made. I found it very fascinating and I loved the bright colour it came in. When I cracked it open, we found the heaven of creaminess inside. This definitely created a little highlight of the meal, and it has put a smile on both of our faces.




Soft poached meringue, truffle ice cream, hazelnut praline, malt

For some weird reason, I always found the texture of meringue a bit odd. Not surprised that this pre-dessert gave me the same feeling. Although I liked the little pieces of hazelnut praline spread around the meringue, they were quite amusing to chew on.




Soft chocolate, hazelnut and almond, orange and thyme cream, sour cherry sorbet cocoa brandy jellies, green tea, licorice, chocolate twigs

So this was the legendary "Winter chocolate forest" that Sepia is famous for, as depicted to be one of the top 10 dessert in Sydney from Good Food Guide. We are not really sure what words and phrases to use here for its description, but it was "different" to what we had pictured. I loved the presentation of it, and they really did remind me of a forest. However, I found a million of different texture, taste and temperature pieces exploding simultaneously in my mouth, in which made me no longer understand what was I suppose to taste? On the other hand, it could be that we were so bloated by the time we reached this last dish, thus the flavours just didn't seem very appealing to us as expected.


PS. The waiter congratulated us for finishing the dishes (YEEEHAAA!)


Address:
201 Sussex St, Sydney NSW

Phone number:
02 9283 1990

Opening time:
Tue - Sat  Dinner from 6pm
Fri and Sat Lunch from 12pm
Note: For Fri dinner and Sat lunch and dinner, Sepia offer degustation menu only.


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MUSE Restaurant and Cafe - Hunter Valley

Once again we were at Hunter Valley, and we decided to go to Muse as we didn't get the time to do so on our last visit. It was awarded with one chef hat from 2013 The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food guide, thus we couldn't wait to see what dishes would be served.

The restaurant was a bit different to what I imagined, but the exterior design fitted perfectly into the vineyard setting.


It was spacious inside, with approximately 65 seats. The restaurant was full of warm sunlight, and the ceiling appeared to have an interesting pattern. Our waiter handed us the menu, with tasting or course meal (two or three course) selections.


These were the complimentary breads, and I have to say I loved these more than all other ones I've tasted. Purely because they weren't as hard, and didn't come in an awkward shape that was difficult to bite on.










We ended up the following at $95.00pp, and our food adventure at Muse begins...


Amuse

I didn't get the full name for this, but I do remember the taste and texture LOL. The Amuse came in a circular shape that landed at the centre of our plate, and the base was a little creamy and very sour, along with the black truffle flakes and tomato powder. We found it quite sour to our taste bud, but the combination of the layers of textures was interesting.



Blue Swimmer Crab, Apple Glazed Pork Belly, peas, New Zealand wasabi, shellfish butter.

This was Bun's first course in which I have stole a few pieces from :p We absolutely loved the Crab meats, and the addition of that layer of pork belly just mixed together so well. I wasn't sure about the wasabi bit because I didn't taste too much of it, but I wasn't a fan of wasabi anyway. I found this combination was truly unique, you get that flavour of the sea along with the sweet aroma of the pork belly, HELL YEAH!



Sashimi Yellow Fin Tuna, Watermelon, pickled ginger, coriander, cucumber.

After I've seen Bun's first dish, I kind of regret my choice. At first I was very happy with the presentation, I loved the big portion of pink colour, the decoration of green, and that swipe of black to finish it off,  and it was almost like a perfectly balanced painting on a white canvas. So I took my first mouthful of the Sashimi and the Watermelon, and I felt this cold air fill me up from inside my mouth all the way down my throat. Yes it was very refreshing, but wasn't something that could surprise us.



We then got this little dish to clear up our palate, and it was some orange sorbet with lemon cream.



Crispy skin ocean trout, tomato, ketchup, garlic, pickled eschallor, herbs.

I really liked the contrast of the orange and green colours used here, as it really reminded me of this feeling from Monet's paintings. When the waiter handed this to Bun, I had a quick taste of the crispy skin ocean trout. Yep, the skin was EXTREMELY crispy, and it was cooked to the perfect temperature. However...the only thing I realised was the skin was too salty, and the other bits and pieces don't really balance this salty flavour. Other than that, it was still a quite amusing dish.



Nulkaba chicken breast, Liver Parfait, Yolk, "faux" black truffle, creamed corn, spinach, seeds.

When we saw the word "faux" black truffle on the menu (yes, the one that was sold for about €1000 per kg back in 2009 in farmers markets), we immediately know that this was something we have to try. The outcome didn't disappoint us at all, as the whole plate was full of different flavours, textures, sizes, and colours! The yolk was unbelievable, and this softness could not be described in words. The "faux" black truffles had a dry but tasteful coat, with a mixture of fillings inside the core. The creamed corn was soft, yet the seeds were hard, so that mouthful was challenging at first, but eventually you will like the combination of flavours. The chicken breast was quite tender, although again the skin was a little too salty. I wasn't sure about the Liver Parfait though, it had this odd sensation.



"Nitro Tiramisu"

I think most of us knew that Sydney had this ice cream shop called N2 Extreme Gelato, where they used Nitrogen to create the ice creams. Now here at Muse, we saw this "Nitro Tiramisu" and wondered..."What?" We couldn't imagine what it would be like so we just ordered this for my third course. I couldn't capture the mist that was coming of it, but it looked similar to N2. I couldn't remember all the things inside this dish, all I remember was the waitress poured in a shot of coffee. I had a complicated experience with dish, and I can only say I liked half of this dish. The top half was the sweet biscuits, Tiramisu and dry chocolate pieces, and bottom half was soaked in a sharp bitterness from the coffee shot. Although it was a very intelligent idea, I was a little overwelmed...



Coconut Cloud, berries, lychee, crystallised violet.

This was something I was going to pick before I saw the "Nitro Tiramisu", something that's much simpler. Bun liked the coolness of the Coconut, and the pieces of lychee hidden inside. I found this dish was more pleasant to eat, but it lacked abit of creativity.



Petit Four: Macaroons and some Chocolate Cocopops.

I looooooooove Macaroons, although these weren't as good as Ladurée ones, they were still nice little sweet to finish off the meal. LOL Bun loved the Chocolate Cocopops thing too...



The dinner at Muse finished off beautifully with a stunning sunset, and we were glad that we chose to visit here. We loved some of the dishes and they were truly worth the time to appreciate them slowly, and we hope to come back again someday for a completely different seasonal menu. Perhaps next time it will be good to try their food at the Cafe!



Address:
1 Broke Rd, Pokolbin NSW

Phone number:
02 4998 6777

Opening time:
Cafe: 7 days 10am - 5pm
Restaurant: Wed - Sat 6.30pm - 10pm


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