Bentley Restaurant & Bar (Sydney CBD)

Bentley used to be located in Surry Hills but earlier this year relocated to the business part of town. It is now located on the ground floor of the Radisson Blue hotel. It made it a lot easier for me now that Bentley is in town (literally) to have an early birthday dinner with my dear friend SH.

SH is, I must say, a wine buff and for special meals she tends to frequent restaurants that have a good wine list. Bentley was earmarked by her because they have a good sommelier and have a reputation of having a good repertoire of wine. Having recently won the NSW Wine List of the year, expectations were high!

I found the interior to be quite interesting, it was very modern in look and feel. And it was quite dark. Sigh! :(

One of the first things SH does is to scrutinise the wine list to decide what she wants.

When the young lady attending our table asked for her choice of wine, there seemed to be a slight miscommunication and no matter how many times SH pronounced the label, the young lady failed to understand her. You can imagine how frustrated SH was starting to become. She had to resort to opening the wine list to show the actual label name and vintage she wanted.

To make matters worse, when the wine was being poured, there was no showing of the bottle to her nor was there even a chance to taste the wine before the glass was filled. And on top of that they did not even provide the right wine glass for the pinot noir! Poor SH was quite offended with the whole process and I think that set off a rather negative view of the service at Bentley.

But let's talk about the food. :)

We started with a complimentary Smoked eel and mash crisp. I thought it was going to be a warm bite but surprisingly when I bit into it, the filling was cold but the pastry was crunchy. Very interesting contrasting texture of cold and crunchy.

Entree of Alpine salmon, malt, mandarin, and black sausage crumbs. SH was thoroughly enjoying this dish. The verdict was delicious!

Entree of Quail, smoked celery, and white soy dressing. I was enjoying how perfectly cooked the quail was. The meat was tender, and had a nice touch of pink. The texture of the celery shaved lengthwise was different and this provided the much needed crunch.

Main of Kurobata pork, macadamia milk, wattle crumbs, and rhubarb. I liked that there were elements of our native greens being used in this dish. SH couldn't help but enjoy the dish. She mentioned that the flavours and textures made it a delicious dish.

CHISWICK Restaurant (Woollahra, Sydney)

It was a perfect day to have lunch at Chiswick. Sydney was at its best behaviour and the glorious summery weather made our lunch all the more perfect.

I met up with a few of my friends from my NYC trip. As I was waiting outside in the gardens for them to arrive, I couldn't help but fall in love with the garden and the lovely building that was Chiswick. A perfect surround for a summer lunch (even though it is still spring).

Chiswick has a 2 seating time policy for lunch and we decided to have lunch at 12 noon. This meant we would have to finish up by 2.00 pm. The restaurant quickly filled up and before you know it, it was full house!

As I walked around the restaurant, my thoughts were images of an English summer! There was a colonial feel to the restaurant and a large of number of the guests were young, affluent and trendy. So not me! :)

For our lunch, we decided to share some small plates and have the Chiswick signature dish of the Wood roasted Moran family lamb.

Rosemary flat bread

Snow crab slider served with lettuce, kewpie and gherkins

Heirloom tomatoes, feta and crumbed bread salad (one of the specials of the day)

Ceviche of kingfish, chilli, lime and coriander

Bishop Sessa (Surry Hills)

Yes, I am back at Surry Hills but this time it is for dinner at Bishop Sessa. For some reason, none of my foodie friends whom I spoke to recently even knows of Bishop Sessa. I was very surprised by that.

Bishop Sessa is located at where Crown Street Assembly used to be, and where Tabou was. Even though this dinner occurred about a month ago, I still recall the wonderful meal we had there.

There was the option to have the 6 course degustation menu or a la carte. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we collectively decided to have a la carte. Admittedly, the restaurant was very dimly lit and reading the menu was a challenge in itself. Fortunately I had my torchlight app from my phone which was put to good use that night. :)

Entrees
My entree was Scallop ceviche with cucumber, avocado and lemon and ginger sorbet. If I ate the beautifully and thinly sliced scallop, it would have tasted quite flat. But the sorbet was popping with the flavour of ginger and was a great companion for the scallop. Lovely dish! The sheet of rice paper roll served over the dish was so light and tasty.

NF had the Carpaccio of Glacier 51 Patagonian Toothfish, smoked clam, miso, apple and black olive. NF seemed to have enjoyed it and he commented on how smoky the clam was and the combination of flavours were good.

EF had the Heirloom beetroot and radish salad with smoked goat's cheese, pomegranate and walnuts. Even though I didn't taste the dish, I can already imagine the textures and flavours blending very well together. I have always loved having walnuts in a salad.

Mains
I had the Roasted Aylesbury duck breast, duck leg sausage roll, lentils, kale, carrot, orange and onion marmalade. Yummmmm..yummmm..yummm! Duck is one of my favourite meats and this dish did it for me. The duck leg sausage roll was divine. The duck meat in the sausage roll was full of flavour and melt-in-your-mouth tender. The duck breast was lovely but for me it was the sausage roll that caught my eye.

Gowings Bar and Grill

This place has been on my 'to dine at' list since it first opened last year. Something about the menu attracted me. Upon reflection the food described in the menu didn't sound fancy, quite down to earth actually. Plus there had been a lot of hype when it first opened in the new and trending QT hotel.

So I finally got a chance to dine here with 2 good friends, who I consider to be part of my 'family'. When we got out of the lifts, there was a rather flash reception area (which felt like a hotel reception). We then realised that we had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to The Bar and Grill. As we walked up to the stairs I was quite distracted by the amazingly brightly coloured wall facing us. Quite striking and it did set the mood for what the Gowings Bar and Grill would feel like.

I liked it! It felt new and vibrant, it looked like a place which had been heavily invested. It was very much an image driven environment. Why would I say that? I think it will be more obvious as I describe our dining experience. Watch out for when I mention the waitresses' attire. :-)

But I came with high expectations because the prices of the meals were not your average prices, they were leaning more towards the hatted restaurant prices.

After poring over the menu for a considerable length of time, we decided to go for 3 courses.

The butter served with our bread rolls were from Pepe Saya. It was the first time I had tasted Pepe Saya's butter. Am I allowed to say that it is beautifully addictive?!?!?

Entrees of choice were:

Beer Steamed Prawn Cocktail - a modern interpretation of a classic entree. Surprisingly lovely and P was definitely enjoying it!

Wood Roasted Garlic Snails with Lemon and Mint Butter - G's comment was he could taste the earthiness of the snails. He said it was the first time ever that he could taste the snails as opposed to other snail dishes which he found to be overwhelmed with garlic butter. These ones were actually more focused on the texture and flavour of the snails. Interesting feedback!!

Tartare of Yellowfin Tuna with horseradish, and preserved lemon. This was served with Sesame Grissini. I deliberately selected a light starter in anticipation of a heavier meat dish plus I had to fit in dessert somehow. I liked how light and fresh the tuna tasted. I fell in love with the Grissini. More please!!!!

Thrown in to the mix was an order of a scallop each. 2 of us had the scallop with wild garlic and basil butter. G was slightly adventurous and chose the scallop with sea urchin, lemon and mint butter. The scallops were large and perfectly cooked. I loved it!

Mains of choice were:

Whole Roasted Quails - these were partly boned. They were filled with malt, barley bread, sage, Parmesan, double smoke ham with pea and lemon thyme. P seemed to be enjoying it. The stuffing was the star of that dish as the combination of flavours infused the quail meat.

Milk Fed Veal Wiener Schnitzel served with Organic Egg, Ortiz Anchovy and Nut Brown Butter. The serving was huge! I don't know when was the last time I saw a schnitzel that large a piece!!! It did look good and G thoroughly enjoyed it. I managed to get a sliver to try and I must say it was a lovely piece of schnitzel. I could taste the saltiness of the anchovy which surprisingly lifted the flavours of the veal.

Restaurant Arras

To celebrate SH's birthday this year, we decided on dining at Restaurant Arras. The restaurant relocated to the old Becasse site on Clarence street in the city in late 2011.

I liked what was done to the restaurant, there was a lightness and brightness to the room which was a stark contrast to the heavy wood interior that was of the then Becasse.

Arras is well known for its range of interesting petit fours and I really wanted to see them and try them out. But the petit fours are only included in their degustation menu. We looked at the menu options and decided to go for the 3 course menu instead. But when we were ordering we asked if we could have the petit fours at coffee time and they kindly said yes!

Service started with canapés of sweet corn and potato and house cured beef with paprika. The sweetness of the corn was intended to offset the saltiness of the cured beef. The beef reminded me of the textures and flavours of beef jerky. I definitely liked the sweet corn and potato, I could have had more of it. The canapé was presented in a glass with delicate edible flowers. Lovely!

Canapes

The amuse bouche was Tuna la nicoise, it was light and refreshing, very summery.

Amuse bouche

My first course was quail with fried bread and blood plum. SH had the roast skate with parsnip, raisins, capers and butter. We both enjoyed our dishes. I was fascinated with the crunchy tendrils on my dish.

Quail with blood plum

Roast skate with parsnip