Part 3 (1/2)
”I didn't doubt your judgment about this place,” Bill says, ”but I did see that the popular Good Food Guide Good Food Guide gives it fifteen points out of a possible twenty for quality Dozens of other restaurants score higher Are they really better?” gives it fifteen points out of a possible twenty for quality Dozens of other restaurants score higher Are they really better?”
”Maybe so Everyone respects the Good Food Guide Good Food Guide-our main newspaper has put it out for many years-but I like The Wharf personally, partially because it raises money for the Sydney Theatre Company I made your reservations for Tetsuya's and est, two of the arded places See what you think”
”I only ere able to get to reat things about Neil Perry, Peter Gilan, and other chefs, but we don't have time to sample their food”
”To try all the serious restaurants, you would have to spend your entire three est that”
The nextus with a choice of several harbor cruises and unlimited travel on city ferries, trains, and a couple of on-and-off tourist buses that ets us to the Darlinghurst neighborhood for a glorious breakfast at bills, the eponyer The small corner-storefront cafe features three treasured and s, and ricotta hotcakes with banana and honeycomb butter All sound as simple as a pot of tea, but that's what stu a plate of each, we find them robust but subtly coredients
Another bus on the sa line takes us to the other side of don, the site of the Sydney Fish Market A large, full-bore operation, it enco port, wholesale suppliers, retail sales, and food and beverage outlets-even a seafood cooking school With more than one hundred fas about offering the greatest variety in the world except for japanesewith our eyes at the retail counters, which together extend the length of a football field, we devour a broad range of just-shucked oysters, scallops on the half shell with their cris” that resemble lobster tails, cobalt blue swireen-lipped mussels, hefty Tasmanian black dover mussels, and loads of fresh fish of every shape, size, and color Cheryl says, ”This is as good as snorkeling, with the same kind of Technicolor flash”
The market makes us want to take to the water and that's e do forco a two-and-a-half-hour cruise of the harbor The boat leaves frolish settlers landed in 1788 after an eight-month journey by shi+p They passed froh the narrows known as the Sydney Heads, one of our destinations Our captain hugs the southern shore on the way toward the open Pacific, passing closely to the Opera House, the Royal Botanical Gardens, lots of waterfront horandly opulent), pretty bays, and several beaches (one nudist, most more dressy) Near the Heads, we cut into Middle Harbour under the raised center section of Spit Bridge, giving us access to the maze of ays in North Sydney It's a lovely, serene area, distant in spirit if not tiht for Tetsuya's, the most acclaimed restaurant in Australia, well known in food circles around the globe Liz made the reservation for us seven months in advance to assure a table A receptionist leads us through an iantly restrained dining rooarden just outside a wall of s A waitress brings water and informs us that chef-owner Tetsuya Wakuda does without a printedhis staff to describe choices personally After listening as attentively as possible to the long recitation, both of us order the evening's tasting menu with paired wines
The first course offers yellowfin tuna tartar over sushi+ rice, avocado cream, and tiny fireles, but not on this level of refineside it, the server places a diminutive cup of sweet corn soup with a wee scoop of basil ice crea in a chicken-liver parfait and a grilled scallop on the half shell with its roe, snuggling with leelatin to the scallop juices A Clare Valley Riesling couples ith both of these plates, and like all the wines except the sweet one at the end, it's bottled in Australia especially for the restaurant
Then the chef sends out his signature ocean trout confit with ocean trout roe, which the Good Food Guide Good Food Guide calls ”the raphed dish in the world” The Tasmanian fish rests on a bed of fennel that provides complementary anise notes, and the kitchen scatters kolass of Gewurztraminer and a small salad of”Luscious,” Cheryl repeats several times, ”just luscious” Spanner crab ravioli follows, filled with bits of the crab and a smooth mousseline and covered with a fine chiffonade of fresh basil that helps to balance its East and West elehtly oaked Chardonnay calls ”the raphed dish in the world” The Tasmanian fish rests on a bed of fennel that provides complementary anise notes, and the kitchen scatters kolass of Gewurztraminer and a small salad of”Luscious,” Cheryl repeats several times, ”just luscious” Spanner crab ravioli follows, filled with bits of the crab and a smooth mousseline and covered with a fine chiffonade of fresh basil that helps to balance its East and West elehtly oaked Chardonnay
On towith slices of veal fillet dabbed with a pungent wasabi butter and a Pinot Noir, and after that, young squab on a ”risotto” of buckwheat, chestnuts, and Lilliputian japanese mushrooms matched with a deeply colored Grenache-shi+raz from the Barossa Both dishes and drinks excel, particularly the deliciously gamy squab, the best rendition of it either of us has ever eaten, with none of the liver taste that often puts Cheryl off
In the pause before dessert, we reflect on the courses so far, deciding the meal boasts about as much sophistication and refined orchestration as any we can remember Bill says, ”I can recall some dinners where I personally enjoyed the flavors and textures of the food reater awe of the talent and ingredients” Cheryl agrees
Paired with a Tas to undere-and-beet sorbet with petite cubes of beet glea like faceted rubies The second reminds us of a strawberry shortcake float, with a pureed strawberry mixture and a layer of cream on a biscuit base The next, a bite's worth of a blue cheese vanilla bean ice cream with a sauterne pear jelly, makes us frown a little dubiously at first but the co variation on a floating island, layering custard and intense cherries with ue and a dribble of chocolate sauce ”I'm in total bliss,” Cheryl proclaims as Bill forks over a credit card for the hefty tab, approaching US 500
”I suspect it'll be the most expensive meal of the trip,” he says hopefully, ”but it orth the splurge”
Still satiated in the , we have a si the Bondi Explorer sightseeing bus for a tour of Sydney's shoreline The route affords good, close-up views of coastal residential neighborhoods, which strike us as a Southern Hemisphere translation of British suburbia, with lots of solid brick holand except in a totally different, subtropical reater internationaliss contains a Vietnauese chicken diner, an Italian-style coffee shop, a Chinese acupuncture clinic, and a dental office Our intention was to get off at famed Bondi Beach for a walk, but the day turns out cool and windy and Cheryl now has the sniffles, which develop into a full-blown cold by late afternoon
Lunch is at Sailors Thai Canteen, back in The Rocks almost directly across the street from the Russell David Thompson, a renowned chef, still owns this and its sister restaurant downstairs, though he no longer does the cooking The hostess escorts us through the h to hold a single galvanized-metal co the harbor ”A beautiful view again,” Bill says ”I wonder if Sydney residents get jaded about it?”
The reen papaya salad studded with peanuts and prawns, pad thai, and beef and chicken curries, but we choose two deep-fried dishes-salmon with lime, mint, and chile; and chicken with rice, chopped peanut balls, and an herb salad ”That sure cleared soes,” Cheryl says in one of her favorite compliments
”Are you up for a walk around The Rocks, then?” Bill wants to check out three pubs that each clai the oldest in Australia The Fortune of War Hotel authenticates its position with a fra to 1830 ”The document looks official to me,” Bill says, ”but the best proof of seniorityon, at least as old as the country itself” Contrary to his careful scholarshi+p, historical purists point out that the pub went out of business for a year and only moved to its present location in 1921 The Lord Nelson Hotel avoids those embarrassments but didn't open until 1841 The Hero of Waterloo Hotel, which appears to be the ot a license in 1831 and then opened a pub at the current site at a later disputed date Our sleuthing yields no ultio to the Fortune of War because it's the closest to our hotel, where Cheryl needs a nap
By the time of our dinner reservation at est, Peter Doyle's restaurant in the stylish Establish fast into a deep chest cold ”I don't think we should cancel,” she says, ”but let's not linger late over thevarious specialties, including an icy platter of juicy oysters, garlic-infused sweetbreads, juniper-crusted venison saddle, a co side of creaht of the evening-pork belly and scallops with a salad of jicama, apples, walnuts, and cress
On our last full day, Liz wants to take us to her favorite breakfast spot, Bathers' Pavilion Cafe, the casual half of Serge Dansereau's Bathers' Pavilion Restaurant, both lodged in a renovated seaside swi on the ood, but Liz settles on the Gruyere souffle with shallots, mushrooms, and heavy cream Bill opts for the fillets of smoked trout on brioche with spinach, fennel, and Nashi+ pear, while Cheryl chooses a poached egg tartlet with pea and leek puree, sugar snap peas, and scallion sauce, which she pronounces on arrival ”a lovely spring syht and spirited as they look, bringing us all alert, colds be da, Liz asks hoe've liked Sydney ”Most important, what did you think about Tetsuya and est?”
”Wonderful restaurants,” Cheryl says, ”truly terrific The striking thing about their food and the other fine ness of the chefs to be adventuresoe expectations without falling into the trap of silly uess they're literally changing the tastes of Australia,us beyond a stale, inherited food tradition to a wide-open frontier It's an exciting time here”
”Sure seems like it,” Bill says ”I doubt that the best Australian chefs are more talented and creative than the best American chefs, but they push the boundariesa good, standard dinner on the table, because that's what sells, even though the food is seldom much better or different than a skilled houys act like they should be culinary leaders, blazing new trails rather than catering to conventional tastes I' way”
Liz drops us at the nearest ferry stop for a leisurely boat trip back across the water as she zips off to work These outlying ferry piers are pleasantly civilized, with little shops offering coffee, dry cleaning, shoe repairs, key cutting, and other same-day services Out on the harbor, the boat passes some of the suburban inlets that make up the area, where all the residences face the water and enjoy so the shore have docks for boats, usually sailboats, and even soet down to a berth Sidneysiders obviously love their harbor
At Circular Quay itch ferries to go to the Darling Harbour develope coeared to locals and tourists alike Our interest is the Sydney Aquariuiven its international reputation It's so cramped in its space, and so crowded even on a weekday, we don't get a good look at the tanks featuring sharks and giant rays or at the display about the Great Barrier Reef ”At leastso, as she puts starandkids
To conclude our sightseeing, we do another full circuit on the don tourist bus, stopping only at the Sydney Opera House for a closer peek After walking around theshows its best face froreater distance, like on the harbor, where you can catch the full sweep of the cantilevered, soaring rooflines Curiously, the Danish architect, Jrn Utzon, has never seen it from any perspective He quit the project before its completion in a dispute about cost overruns and refused to return to the city
Back again at Circular Quay, alk down the waterfront a short way to make dinner reservations at Wildfire, owned in part by American chef Mark Miller, who also consults with the kitchen The Good Food Guide Good Food Guide calls the restaurant ”a party girl” It's certainly big, boisterous, and flamboyant, more so than we usually like, but we're curious about Miller's take on Down Under dining and find parts of the , especially the wood-oven-roasted fish with bouillabaisse sauce, the Asian fish preparations, and the various chilled seafood platters with co prawns, bay bugs, and scallops Unfortunately, we have to cancel our date later with the party girl By dinnertie fro, boisterous, and flamboyant, more so than we usually like, but we're curious about Miller's take on Down Under dining and find parts of the , especially the wood-oven-roasted fish with bouillabaisse sauce, the Asian fish preparations, and the various chilled seafood platters with co prawns, bay bugs, and scallops Unfortunately, we have to cancel our date later with the party girl By dinnertie froht, both of us feel thrilled about our food and wine experiences in Australia The country's Mediterranean-like cli Old World roots, and growing love affair with Asia clearly give Aussies the genes and reedy mouths yearn for additional tastes, but we're content for the present at least to relish a small bite of this new brand of Continental cuisine
THE NITTY-GRITTY