SIFF- Azuma Kushiyaki (Sydney CBD)

By St

When October's Sydney International Food Festival is approaching, foodies and non-foodies usually rush to book a "Sugar Hit" at venues like The Hilton, InterContinental, Shangri-La Hotel, etc. However, last year, one of the most popular Sugar Hit, if not most popular, came from Azuma Kushiyaki. 

What makes it special is how it distinguishes itself from the other hits with a clever theme of  "East meets West". If you want something more fancy you can opt for the hotels above but take a chance and have a look at what you get at Azuma, and you won't be complaining.

As with all Sugar Hits, there is the option of the Brown Brothers dessert wine, in this case Orange muscat and flora. You can also choose Azuma's special blend Japanese green tea or glass of Hennessey too. 

Brown Brothers Orange muscat and flora

Out comes two boxes and all conversation ceases as we strategically decide on what to have first.

Clockwise: Matcha green tea ganache tart, freshly baked macaroon,
Japanese wasabi ganache tart, petit almond financier 

A wasabi dessert was never going to be too popular and so I just nimbled around the crust. This box contained my favs: super crazy concentrated premium green tea ganache tart and macaroon! Look, two of my friends said that the green tea tart tasted like seaweed but I beg to differ. Simply for the true green tea dessert lovers.

The macaroons come in varied flavours and faces, as modelled below.

Dan the happy Macaroon Man

James, can you handle this? Cathy, can you handle this? Jo Iceberg, can you handle this? I don't think you candle this woooooooooooo another box!

From top: Belgian chocolate mousse cake with raspberry coulis centre and freeze-dried rasperry flakes;
Vanilla pannacotta with strawberry coulis

The vanilla pannacotta was probably the group's favourite for the night. With any chocolate mousse you might run into the mistake of eating too much and getting full too quick. I guess that's one good thing about the raspberry flakes, they were quite sour so my spoon didn't dwelve deeper into that mousse.

All this for $20. Yes, if you were on The Price is Right and had to guess that, you would have gone home empty. 

Nb: Once seated after 9pm for the Sugar Hit session, each person must order a Sugar Hit. There were 8 of us and Kat came along to chit chat cos the night was young. All she wanted was a cold drink but she was denied. It was either order drinks to the value of $20 or order the Sugar Hit or leave. Tough love.

Wokking rating /5:

Azuma Kushiyaki

501 George St

Sydney

02 9267 7775

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Miso (Sydney CBD)

By St

Be prepared to take a ticket and wait for seats at Miso unless you're there bang on opening time. The restaurant isn't big so for four people on a friday night at 7pm, we had to wait ~35 minutes (thank goodness for the company of friends to make time fly by- maybe except James who was going to abandon and dash elsewhere at the 34th min waiting period :). They also do take-away so that's an option. It was very sweet of Miso staff to bring around a tray of warm rice green tea while we waited outside.

Rice green tea

I warned everyone that we had to save ourself for the Sugar Hits later that night so that meant no pigging out! Unfortunately, you can not help but do exactly that at a place like Miso. Most of us opted for the dinner sets and being here before, I could not go past the legendary Tonkatsu pork loin set. This is the deep-fried all-natural Otway pork with Japanese coleslaw, potato salad, ogonori seaweed (it's good), bean sprouts, rice and miso soup. You might notice the yellow mustard in the photo below. It's actually infused with wasabi so only dab a little or else you will get the "wasabi up the nose" effect.

Tonkatsu pork loin set $16.50

Guys being guys had to order more. Ivan had the Chirashi sushi and tonkatsu set. The extra features of this meal were the aburi salmon, salmon roe and mini-dessert.

Chirashi sushi and Tonkatsu set $19.80

James ordered the karaage chicken (a must have!) and Miso's special for the night, Sukiyaki beef bento. Did I not tell people to not over-eat? Oh too bad, this bento set was such a great yummy deal: Wagyu Sukiyaki beef on rice, salmon sashimi, vegetable spring roll, potato salad, dashimaki tamago (Japanese omelette), kamaboko (fish cake), miso soup, brocolli, tofu, fruit and... soft shell crab! What's the catch? What's the catch?! Oh, that 35 minutes of waiting was so worth it!

Karaage chicken $4.80

Sukiyaki beef bento special $17.80

Poor Kat had her appetite ruined earlier with take away sushi so she opted for an udon. The broth was more on the clear healthy side making the set parties going on above much more desirable.

Gomoko udon $14.80

You will always be satisfied here. And if you're into Japanese flavours, you should try the black seasame and green tea shakes. Suggestion: come here in smaller groups (<5) to ease waiting time.

Wokking rating /5:

Miso Japanese restaurant

20/123 Liverpool St

Sydney

02 9283 9686 

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SIFF- Becasse (Sydney CBD)

By St

Let's talk about lunch baby, let's talk about you and me. Actually, let's do lunch!

October is an exciting time for foodies because it marks the start of the Sydney International Food Festival (SIFF)! You might be scratching your head going, "really?", "have I been living under a rock?", but chances are that you have been to one of the many events rolled out such as the Night Noodle Markets at Hyde Park or a Sugar hit.

One event is "Let's do lunch", where some of top restaurants listed by the SMH, offer a lunch main and matching Brown Brothers wine, Coopers beer, San Pellegrino sparkling bottle or Acqua Panna still mineralwater for $35. I called in September to make a booking with Est. and it was already booked out. Next was Aria, and they only had Mondays left. It was third time lucky with Bécasse.

You might have seen Bécasse's head chef and owner, Justin North, on the most recent Masterchef season- Jonathon had to butcher a pig and cook North's suckling pig and cutlet in a cook-off. North, whose philosophy centres around selecting the freshest produce from farmers and growers daily and combining that with clever technique, won SMH Good Food Guide's "Chef of the year" award in 2009. His restaurant was the 2007 "Restaurant of the year" and runner-up in 2009. And for all the lads, at GQ's Men of the Year awards, Justin North was crowned "Chef of the year". Gosh, he is like the Johnny Depp of cooking.

Now back to food. Bécasse's "Let's do lunch" menu consisted of organic grass feed Gundooee Wagyu bresaola with smoked hazelnut and confit beetroot as an entree for an extra $15. Timmy and I decided to share this and he also had an oyster. It was different to other Wagyu I've had- I expected it to be more steak-like in taste but it was more salty like prosciutto. This shouldn't have come as a surprised if I knew what bresaola meant. Timmy loved his oyster, confirming that they do seek out the freshest at Bécasse.

Organic grass fed Wagyu bresaola $15

St Helens Pacific oysters $4

Before the food came out, along with with bread and butter, we were presented with Bécasse's own sweet biscotti with goat's cheese and black olive- c'est magnifique!

Bécasse biscotti

Onto the main focus of lunch- risotto of king prawn and prosciutto, with baby gem lettuce, leek and fine herbs. I never really thought risotto was all that. You hear more than often of people butchering their risotto attempts so I was never too keen. Fortunately Timmy was keen which was the deciding factor in choosing Bécasse over North's second restaurant, Etch. After eating this risotto, it is going to be difficult for other risottos to compete. Woah! They were not frugal with the prawns which was a delight because they were so plump and meaty. The risotto itself was like eating a warm, wholesome chicken and garden vegetable soup. Our plates were spotlessly clean afterwards. 

King prawn and prosciutto risotto $35

Part of the deal, we had the Brown Brothers Pinot Grigio and Tempranillo.

Brown Brothers wines from King Valley

This was such a wonderful opportunity to experience one of the best, fine-dining restaurants Australia had to offer. The icing on the cake was that it was all paid for by my winnings from the Girra NRL tipping comp hehe. We also got to witness the wait staff iron the table sheets ohh la la. 

We were too full to try Bécasse's cafe next door, Plan B, but I know I will be staking out there and Etch in the near future. 

Wokking rating /5: 

Bécasse

204 Clarence St
Sydney

02 9283 3440

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Toko (Surry Hills)

By Boo_e

To celebrate the end of my annual vegetarian month, my partner and I decided to go to Toko Surry Hills for dinner. This place has got to be one of my favourite Japanese restaurant, they seem to do everything Japanese with extra gusto, including the price tag. Despite the slightly higher price range however, a night of dining at Toko is almost always sure to please even the most discerning of patrons.

Being deprived of all things meat for a good 30 days, I was more than ready to test just how many different types of meat I can eat in one sitting, so to start we had Tuna sashimi and a very small bowl of soba miso with slivers of duck breast and a poached quail egg. These were great starters for the feast we had coming. The sashimi was as always of the best quality, I guess when you’re paying $10 for 3 incy wincy little slivers of fish, you'd want it to be of good quality. The soba miso was really quite delicate and subtle; the soft poached quail egg was the best part of the dish for me. Our next treat came in the form of sushi maki, we ordered California and white fish tempura. The former is made using spanner crab mixed with Japanese mayonnaise, this gives the sushi a distinctly different flavour to your run of the mill California roll which is usually done with seafood extender or "crabstick". A refreshing sweetness that accompanies most fresh seafood dishes comes through with every bite. I was very much impressed with this simple but effective dish, the white fish sushi maki however was really lacking in oomph, the flavour of the fish did not come through so it was just like eating seaweed flavoured rice. 

Tuna sashimi

Soba miso

California rolls

Kingfish carpaccio is a dish that we like to order whenever it appears on any menu. So I feel that I was extra discriminating when it came to this dish, I found that the while the dressing was spot on the kingfish itself did not taste as fresh as I would expect for a place of this caliber. Very unfortunate indeed as this is usually one of my favourites. 

Kingfish carpaccio

Agadashi Tofu is another dish that features a lot in our Japanese dining experience so again I feel that Toko had a lot to live up to in this dish, and I have to say they did not disappoint. These very appropriately sized cubes of deep fried tofu was coated in a well seasoned batter and topped with tiny pieces of marinated eggplant, they were delectable and I could've made a meal out of these little things all on its own, but alas I was committed to the rest of our order for the night. This then leads us to the last 2 types of meat for the evening. The pork and the good old chicken.

Agadashi tofo

Our pork dish for the night was the marinated ribs, done of course, right before our eyes on the Robata grill. It was tender and tasty. The meat melted off the bones and the bonus part was that the ribs were cut into individual pieces, each with enough bone space so as to not get our fingers too messy. Not that I would've had too much trouble licking the mess from my fingers. It was, simply put, delicious.
 

Marinated pork ribs

Our final savoury dish for the night was the Nam Ban chicken, this dish packed a punch when it came to flavour, for me I felt that I needed some rice to have with this chicken, without the rice, the flavour was almost too overpowering. But by that stage of our dinner, we weren't going to fit in any carbs so we just ate the chicken on its own. The ginger dipping sauce that came with it was very nice, but the chicken did not need anymore flavour added to it so we didn’t end up using much of the sauce at all. 

Nam Ban chicken

For dessert I had the Ginger pudding. This pudding was served hot with a fig caramel topping and a scoop of white miso ice cream. The ginger flavour was definitely present but was not overpowering as is the usual case with ginger desserts. The fig caramel was really just caramel flavoured and not at all "figgy" and the miso in the ice cream was just as non-existent, although thats not neccassarily a bad thing. I’ve also had the trio of crème brulee here previously and was left with an unsatisfied dessert belly. So long story short dessert is not Toko's forte.

Ginger pudding

The service on this particular night was unusually slow and we found that we had to work to get the attention of staff. This can be quite annoying when you want to have another glass of wine or even just to get the bill. We have sat at different spots every time that we have been to Toko and on this particular night we were placed just in front of the Robata grill, and even though there was a glass panel separating us as well as a massive range hood we still left smelling a little like smoky ribs, so the prized seats for me are the ones right in front of the sashimi bay. Here you can watch the mesmerizing hands of the sashimi chefs slice, dice and knead food into artwork. After having dined at both Sake and Sushi Choo I found that for similar prices and menus, Toko leads the pack in Japanese fine dining.

Robato grill

Suggestions: Arrive early between 6-7pm if you don’t want to wait up to 90 minutes for a table. Toko does not take bookings so you’ll just have to chance it. They do have a very nice bar that does great cocktails right next door called Tokonoma. Great place to go and wait for your table.

Wokking rating/5:

Toko Restaurant & Bar

490 Crown St
Surry Hills 

02 9357 6100

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Gilles Street Market (Adelaide)

By St

Hooray I was still in Adelaide on the third Sunday of the month! I love a good old market from your vintage, designer seconds, to hand-made crafts pieces but the food here takes it to another level. I managed to take a few photos but we had to rush back to catch our flight home.

For more details check out: http://www.gillesstreetmarket.com.au/