At long last...Tetsuya's!

Life works in a funny way. I was having a bit of a whinge to my friend when we were at Bistro CBD saying that I really wanted to go try Tetsuya's, but most of my friends aren't that interested in spending that much money on a meal. She suggested that I should ask PP to go, and I almost had to stop myself from smacking my own head! Of course! PP is the most likely candidate who will be interested! Over the next few days, I kept reminding myself to email PP, but I kept forgetting. As I was walking to work one morning, I kept saying to myself "Email PP. Email PP. Email PP". My phone goes off and I get an SMS from PP saying that he has a booking at Tetsuyas and did I want to join them! Of course I called back and started screaming that I wanted to go! The date was in 2 weeks! And I think that is one of the best things. I didn't have to wait 3 months to get a booking, because it was already booked!

I had a quick look on the net to see how to get to Tetsuyas. Now, I've seen the map of where Tetsuyas is located, and I've seen photos of the outside of Tetsuya. What I didn't realise (until I was on Google St View), was that I had walked past Tetsuyas over a hundred times and never knew!!! This meant I had no problems getting there after work where I met up with PP and friends.

We walk up to Tetsuyas gate which automatically opened for us. We're greeted by a team of waiters/waitresses before being seated. They even offered to put my bag in the cloak room. For those who want to keep their handbags with them, they provide you with a little hang bag holder that hooks onto the table. We've got a table right next to the window where we get a great view of the gorgeous garden before ordering a round of cocktails to get us started.

Sloeberry Bomb

Yin Sling No. 2

I ordered the Yin Sling No 2. My definition of a perfect cocktail is that there is a perfect balance of ingredients, and this cocktail was perfect. You can barely taste the alcohol in the cocktail, which makes it extremely dangerous as I was perfectly happy to keep throwing these back all night! Alas, we had chosen to do the wine matching with our degustation menu.

Before our first course, we were given a choice of a sourdough roll or a crusty italian roll. Not being a fan of sour dough, I went with the Italian roll, which was freshly out of the oven and still warm to the touch.

The sour dough and my bag number

The crust was crunchy, and the inside was warm and fluffy. I then proceeded to SLATHER the famous Tetsuya truffle butter all over the bread before consuming with gusto! I am generally not a butter eater. Usually I eat 1/4-1/2 a slab of those butter patties you get with one roll. But this was no ordinary butter. This was Tetsuya butter. The butter was whipped together with truffles, ricotta, olive oil and a touch of caramel. I was eating the butter like it was the cream on a warm scone.

The GORGEOUS truffle butter

Enjoying the butter one bite at a time....

Finally, our first course arrived.

Cold Corn soup with a saffron and vanilla ice cream

Everyone had a spoonful of the soup before sitting there goggle eyed staring at each other. OH. MY. LORD. This soup certainly didn't come from a can! It was smooth and velvety, lucious but light. The cold soup contrasted with the extra cold ice cream giving me an explosion of flavours! I swear my brain spasmed for awhile trying to process what I had just put into my mouth. It took me awhile to come back down to earth, and one of the first comments I remember hearing was "So are we going to make another booking before we leave tonight?".

Smoked Ocean Trout and Avruga Caviar...

...served with a glass of 2003 Clover Hill Blanc De Blancs, Piper River, TAS.

Oh my...wasn't this a pretty dish? It was almost a shame to eat it! But under the instructions of our wonderful waiter, we were told to mix everything together and enjoy all the flavour together. Cutting into what looks like a raw egg yolk revealed what looked like a cooked egg yolk!

Apparently the egg yolk had been frozen, and as it defrosts, it gives a texture almost like a perfectly cooked egg yolk. All the ingredients on this dish were in perfect harmony, wonderfully complimented by the glass of Clover Hill it was paired with. I loved savouring the caviar by popping them one by one in my mouth. An absolutely stunning starter which I would love to make one day.

Leek and Crab Custard...

...served with a glass of Hakkaisan Sake Junmai-Ginjo, Nigata, Japan.

This isn't really a custard, but a steamed egg/Chawamushi. Except it was the best Chawamushi IN THE WORLD! The egg was barely set, wobblying in the spoon as we tried to scoop it up along with the delicate broth the leek concentrate was floating in. It was like eating the silkiest, smoothest cloud.... This was an eye rolling moment. And by eye rolling, I meant everyone was gripping the spoon, their eyes rolled to the back of their heads as they enjoyed every mouthful of this. After every bite, we took a sip of cool sake to compliment the lingering flavour.

I personally am not a fan of sake. All of the sake I've had tastes a bit like rocket fuel. But all of the sake I've had is not of Tetsuya standard. But now....now I know why people like their sake. It was incredibly smooth and aromatic and did not detract from the flavour of the dish at all. My favourite bit was getting to the bottom and finding a nice chunk of crab.

Scampi 3-ways (L to R): Grilled scampi in Pancetta.
Scampi in sea water and lemon scented olive oil
Marinated Scampi with white miso and passionfruit...

...served with a glass of 2008 Paradigm Hill Riesling, Mornington Peninsula, VIC

We started with the scampi in sea water and lemon scented olive oil. The waiter kindly told us that we were NOT to drink the liquid. Not that I'm stupid or anything, but when I see a shot glass out of the corner of my eye, I have an urge to grab it and toss it down my throat. This nearly happened quite a few times....

Anyway, to eat the scampi, we gently lifted it out of the glass on the skewer. The lightly sea water salted scampi will pass through the layer of lemon scented olive oil giving it just a hint of citrus flavour. Oh yum! Except that's not what I said, because I had my eyes and mouth closed so I can savour the taste. When we all managed to talk again, I moved onto the pancetta wrapped scampi.

To me, Pancetta is basically like bacon. And who doesn't like bacon? You can never go wrong adding bacon to everything because bacon is perfect. This made the pancetta almost better than a plate of pure bacon. Almost. Because bacon is perfect. SO. GOOD.

The scampi was much more delicate in flavour. Surprisingly, the miso and passion fruit went very well together. You don't taste the passionfruit upfront, but it had a lovely lingering aftertaste.

Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Apple, Daikon and Wasabi

Seasonal Green Salad...

...all served with a glass of 2008 Delatite Dead Man's Hill Gewürztraminer, Upper Goulburn, VIC

This is Tetsuya's signature dish, and you know why when you taste it. I'm not even sure how to describe this, because no matter what I say, it won't do the dish justice. I can tell you however, that even a simple green salad made by Tetsuya, is better than most salads you can find out there. You must try this dish!

Terrine of Queensland Spanner Crab with Avocado Soup...

...served with a glass of 2007 Pierro Chardonnay for Tetsuya's, Margaret River, WA.

MMmmMmmm Mmmm mMM MMmmMmm Mm MMmm mmMmmmm mMmmmMmm..... Sorry. I was remembering what this dish tasted like. This has got to be my favourite savoury dish of the night. I was literally left speechless, gripping the edge of the table in a reenactment similar to "When Harry met Sally". Embarrassing I know. But this dish literally gave me headspins it was so good! I had goosebumps with every bite of this dish. The avocado soup was delicate enough to let the naturally sweetness of the crab shine through. The only way I could describe this dish is orgasmic.

Grilled Fillet of Barramundi with braised baby fennel...

...served with another glass of 2007 Pierro Chardonnay for Tetsuya's, Margaret River, WA.

I'm not sure if I was still reeling from the crab terrine, but this dish really confused me (in a good way). It looks like a perfect French dish, yet the aroma was screaming "Chinese steamed fish with ginger and shallots". However, when I took a bite, I could only think in Japanese. Amazing! I am also not a huge fan of fennel. I rarely get fennel that is cooked in a way that I like it. I'm not sure what was done to the fennel, but I could barely tear myself away from the fennel to try the fish!

Breast of Duck with braised Witlof with Shansho and Walnut Jus...

...served with a glass of 2006 Felton Road Pinot Noir for Tetsuya's, Central Otago, NZ.

Perfectly pink slices of duck sitting on a lovely piece of braised witlof. Again, witlof is not something I generally enjoy. I've had witlof so bitter that I couldn't spit it out fast enough and have been scarred ever since. This witlof was perfect. I wanted more! MORE!

Grass fed Angus Beef Fillet with asian mushrooms...

...served with a glass of 2003 Parket Estate Terra Rossa Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra, SA.

You know your beef is going to be perfectly tender when they give you a butter knife instead of a steak knife. The beef was buttery and melts in your mouth. The asian mushrooms was a perfect accompaniment to the dish. HP is allergic to mushrooms, so they kindly paired her beef with some grilled white asparagus instead.

** By this stage, I was seriously behind with the wine. I still had my glass of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir AND my Cab Sav! I had given up on the Chardonnay, threw back the Pinot Noir so I could enjoy my beef with my expertly paired Cab Sav.

Heidi Gruyere with Lentils

This is an inbetween palette cleanser to help transition you from savoury food to dessert. We held the spoons for awhile, sniffing and sniffing. And all I could really smell was the cheese. Kind of like mild parmesan (aka, old socks). The taste, however, is nothing like what it smelt. I reminds me of a Chinese red bean soup crossed Thai sticky rice (Sweet and salty). It was certainly nice and interesting.

White peach sorbet with Champagne Jelly
Summer pudding...

...served with a glass of 2007 Heggies Botrytis Riesling, Eden Valley, SA.

We started with the White Peach sorbet and Champagne Jelly as we didn't want it melting. This was a fantastic idea as it was incredibly delicate and refreshing. Plus, once we tried the summer pudding, we may not have gone back to the sorbet!

The summer pudding was incredible. The fresh summer berries with the creamy dollop of cream on top. But the best was at the bottom of the shot glass. It was the most incredible custard I've ever had. It was super custard! Did I mention that I'm not a fan of dessert? I would happily give up a dessert course in exchange for an entree course. Tetsuyas has changed the way I think! GIMME MORE!

Lemon scented floating island with vanilla bean anglaise...

...served with another glass of 2007 Heggies Botrytis Riesling, Eden Valley, SA.

They weren't kidding when they said floating island. It should really be called a floating cloud. Incredibly light and fluffy, the centre of a perfect meringue without any of the crunchy outer shell covered in the most decadent vanilla anglaise. The candied lime peel was incredibly aromatic yet delicate at the same time. I know I've been using the words "delicate" and "light" a lot, but the food really is delicate and light. Yet, it manages to give you a real hit of flavour without over powering anything. Genuis.

Chocolate Ganache with Green Tea and Red Bean...

...served with a glass of Romate Moscatel Ambrosia, Jerez, Spain

Hahahaha.....oh gosh.....this was heaven. The rich dark chocolate ganache was the perfect way to end the dessert courses. Velvety and creamy at first, then you get the crunch of that chocolate toffee disk, followed by the lovely bite of red bean. And then, a slightly bitter after taste of green tea. I LOVE green tea. Especially when its JUST on the verge of almost being bitter. I could eat 10 portions of this and I still won't get sick of it.

The room we were sitting in had started to empty, giving me a chance to run my finger through the plate trying to get the last of the chocolate. Classy!

Petite four - Short bread, coconut biscuit type thing, green tea marshmallow and chocolate macaroon with lime and pepper.

We were offered tea and coffee, but I really was too full to have anymore. I mean, I did have 11 glasses of wine by this stage! However, we did not say no to the Petit Four when they brought it out!

We started from left to right. The shortbread is like the king of shortbreads. It must be 80% butter since it literally melted in your mouth. It was soooo buttery and decadent! I'm glad it was such a small bite, because it can not be good for you if it tastes so good!

We couldn't figure out what the second ball is. Its kinda of like a coconut macaroon with biscuit bits in it. Whatever it was, it was good.

The Green Tea Marshmallow was....was...I don't know how to describe it. Spine tingling? Mouth watering? Eye rolling? Toe curling? Orgasmic? None of that can capture what I tasted. This time, the whole table joined me in reenacting "When Harry met Sally". I'm soooooo glad the rest of the customers had left at this stage! Oh my. I still get a little out of breath when I think of this. Soft and fluffy, not like those horrible marshmallows you get at the supermarket. It was incredibly intense in green tea flavour. Again, almost bordering on bitter. I am definitely going to learn how to make this!

The last was the chocolate macaroon with a lime like ganache and a definitely hit of pepper. That's right, pepper. And yes, it tasted wonderful! I've never had pepper in a dessert, who knew it would work so well?

By the end of the meal, 5 hours had passed. This wasn't just a meal, it was an experience. And when you have such wonderful company to enjoy it with, it was worth every cent we paid. Oh, and how much was the overall damage? $350 pp. Well worth it in my opinion. Now to just get another booking.....

Tetsuya
529 Kent St, Sydney
+02 9267 2900
http://www.tetsuyas.com/

Bento madness!

With all the family here during December and all the xmas preparations I had to do, there was basically no time to do any fancy bentos. Most of these are from late November to early December.


Left: Nam Yu (Fermented red beancurd) stewed potatoes, boiled rice topped with nuts and lentils marinated in chilli oil
Top right: King Prawn and scrambled egg stir fry
Bottom right: Carrot and cucumber salad


Impromptu Bibimbap - bugulgi beef, sauteed carrot, beansprouts, shitake mushrooms and lettuce (I didn't have any spinach)
Fresh mango

Left: Cold Somen (To be served with zaru soba sauce), bunny egg and ham rolls
Top right: Greek Salad
Bottom right: Beans, asaparagus, carrots, semi sundried tomato and ham rolls

Left: Leftover Valencia Paella from Encasa
Top right: Oranges and cherries
Bottom right: Cherry tomatoes, cucumber and sliced goats cheese. I dressed this with a little raspberry balsamic vinegar


Top left: Lamb Kofte
Bottom left: Raw baby corn, cucumber and cherry tomato salad
Right: Cha Soba, mandu, snowpeas and boiled cocktail potatoes

Top left: Cucumber, snow peas and cherry tomato salad
Bottom left: Pan fried chicken and wedges with bbq seasoning
Right: Chilli fried rice with baby corn, beans, peas and tofu fish


Top: Fake crab and omlette roll, home grown beans and cucumbers, snowpeas, cherry tomatoes and boiled cocktail potato
Bottom: Tomato fried rice with diced vegetables and grilled Toulouse sausages

Top left: Teriyaki chicken and mandu
Bottom left: Blanched home grown Choy Sum
Right: Sliced cheong fun (Rice noodle roll). I bought along a container of udon soup to eat this in. I love sliced cheong fun in soup to replace normal noodles


Left: Cut veggie box of home grown beans and cucumbers, carrots, beetroots and cherry tomato and bocconcini skewers
Right: Turkish style bulghur and paprika chicken

Left: Salami and lettuce roll (I figured it was the easiest way to pack lots of lettuce into my meal without making a salad). Cherry tomatoes and cucumber
Right: Turkish Bulghur and beef rissoles

Left: Not the most pretty looking, but definitely tasted fantastic. Lamb kofte on rice with pan fried garlic mushrooms and eggplants
Right: Garlic eggplants, cherry tomatoes, home grown cucumbers on a bed of home grown lettuce. (Definiately making the most of our garden!)

Despite my bento efforts dwindling to nothing, but I can tell you, its about to make a MAJOR comeback! A few months ago, I sent my sister in Singapore a VERY long email asking her to go to Daiso and help me stock up on everything that can possibly be used for bentos. And this is what she brought over:


MUhaUAhaUAha Bento heaven! The only thing was that she didn't buy me a bento box! Well, she bought me a tinyyyyyy little bento box which is barely enough for a snack (Considering I'm not good at packing the box tightly). But besies that, I've got every kind of sauce containers and bottles, countless types of rice moulds (star, heart, triangle, round etc), dividers and even a new thermal hankerchief like thing for the bento box.

I also cleared out all my food supplies in December to make room for my sister's cravings, so I'll be building all of that up again over the next few weeks. So hopefully there will be a few new variations to my bento repertoire.

The bentos are back

Phew, finally caught up on a lot of my blogging. Back to bentos! Woohoo!!

Left: Kimchi soba - My sister bought over 1/2kg of homemade kimchi given to her from a friend. As much as I love kimchi, I wouldn't be able to finish it with rice. So I chopped up some kimchi and tossed them with soba. Simple yet tasty. The spinach leaves is to stop staining the lid. I also lined the container with lettuce.
Top right: Bulgolgi beef
Bottom right: Spinach and tomato salad with edamame. The little container is filled with japanese salad dressing


Left: This was hugely inspired by TFP's french toast. After reading her posts, I couldn't stop obsessing over them! My french toast was made with eggs and milk only. Since I am cooking these the day before eating them, I used a lot less milk than I usually would, so it was much eggier than I'm used to. I also bought a mini bottle of maple syrup with me to work. Boy did I get a sugar rush after lunch...
Top right: Ham, snow peas and bread and butter pickle salad.
Bottom right: Sweet potatoes and corn. This was almost like eating dessert!



Left: Teriyaki beef on a bed of lettuce with rice. I like to put a barrier between the beef and rice, as I'm hoping the lettuce will capture most of the juice/sauce and doesn't get absorbed into the rice overnight. When I am ready to eat, I poke heaps of holes in the lettuce and let the sauce drain onto the rice.
Top right: Chinese banana cake
Bottom right: Wokabok and garlic chives tossed in teriyaki sauce


Left: Udon noodle soup - I kept the soup seperate to avoid the udons going mushy. I added a heap of seaweed into my soup as well. I make a mean kick arse udon noodle soup!
Top right: Teriyaki chicken and a bear egg (Not sure if you can see the bear face)
Bottom right: Blanched wongabok

This bento was designed to be a deconstructions udon noodle soup. I basically nuked everything up and chucked it into the soup (with the exception of my boiled egg of course).

Back on the Bento wagon

Even though I haven't blogged, it doesn't mean that I've stopped with the bento boxes. Work has just been too hectic for blogging, and a few days even too hectic to wack together a bento box. Here are the bentos I did manage to make though.


Left: Udon (Soup in a seperate container) and a container of salad dressing to dip the veggies in
Top right: Blanched wonga bok, carrots and a boiled bunny egg*
Bottom right: Chicken patties

*not real bunny


Left: Stir fried vegetable udon
Top right: Fresh strawberries
Bottom right: Miso chicken fillets


Left: Veggie tomato fried rice
Top right: Cherry tomatoes, seafood sticks and a container of honey mustard
Bottom right: Beef patties

Back on the Japanese Bentos

I decided to stick with something Japanese for the last few bentos, just because I've been going out a bit at night, and haven't had the time to do something more creative.


Top left - Ham, lettuce and nori roll. A riceless sushi.
Bottom left - Tomato, lettuce and cucumber salad, really good to dip into the soba sauce
Right - Zaru Cha Soba


Gyudon...kind of. I mixed some oyster and inoki mushrooms with the beef and cooked it in a light sauce with egg over it. I put a bed of sugar snap peas under the rice, to stop it soaking up all the yummy broth. And that big black blob? Its supposed to be a star ;)

Leftover bento boxes

I was being really lazy and decided to basically raid the freezer, fridge and the leftovers. All really simple to make, the most time consuming would be the tamago.


Beef rissoles on rice, courtesty of my mum and the freezer. I used the leftover carrot sticks from my leb bento box to dice up along with some celery and fake crab stick to make a salad with mayo. The leftover sugar snap peas was just throw in for decoration along with a half mangled capsicum. I also added a few slices of tamago (the sweet type you get with sushi) and takuan.


Teriyaki chicken on rice with a carrot border (again, leftovers from previous bento box). Note to self, always check chicken for bones when deboning it yourself. I'm sitting here with stomach pains because I'm still trying to digest a chicken drumstick bone I accidently swallowed at lunch. Anyone ever see that episode of House, where a dude swallows a toothpick, and the reason he was getting these stabbing pains was because the toothpick got stuck in his intestines pierced through them??

The rest of the box was the tamago and crab stick salad. I bought a few blood oranges at the markets so I added a few slices as dessert.

Bento gone mad

My friend told me about Maruyu, which is a small Japanese grocery store that imports a lot of traditional Japanese things and is often frequented by Japanese people. I had to work on Sunday, which gave me a good excuse to dash across to Maruyu, about 10mins walk from my work to load up on some supplies. They also had a $2.50 store where I managed to pick up a few things as well. I told my friend about it, so we went back again today to buy MORE stuff. I almost bought a box of frozen Natto, but I didn't think my workmates will appreciate it.

If you think that's bad, I spent Saturday trawling through every single bargain store in Auburn to pick up other supplies as well. It was only today did I realise how much I've accumulated over 3 weeks??


And the scary thing? That's not all. I know I'm missing 2 of my egg moulds (The bunny and the fish), another pan and a few other gadgets. I also managed to pick up 2 collapsable sandwich boxes (top middle, the pink boxes), I'll have to try those out soon.

At Maruyu, I also managed to find these!


WTF is it? Sausage cutters. The green one is a penguin, yellow is a tulip and the pink is a crab. The red one is to make octopus sausages. You really need the proper japanese sausages that are firmer and skinner, but I grabbed some cocktail sausages to try out.


Peel skin and put in mould, press the cutter onto the sausage to get.....

Penguin!! hehehe The crab one didn't turn out at all using these soft cocktail sausages, which was a real disappointment. The crab one was the one I was most excited about. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to use it properly.

Which brings me to my animal bento! I used the penguin cutter and the octopus cutter for the sausages. I then quickly pan fried the sausages with a bit of the bulgolgi marinade.


The noodles was leftover rice noodles I quickly tossed together with sliced green beans, carrots and leftover korean banchan mushrooms. I cooked up a few mandu and quickly blanched the sugar snap peas and packed it with the last of the cherry tomatoes. My little animal sauce containers arrived from eBay, and I filled that up with honey mustard.