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

New Year's Eve 2013

Happy New Year everyone! Without meaning to do so, I took a short break from blogging. But it's all systems go now.

So my first post of the year is to do catch up on what I was up to on New Year' Eve. I spent it having a lovely dinner at CW's. I didn't know what to expect for dinner as I forgot to ask when I was initially invited. All I knew was I would be bringing the cheese plate and my dessert contribution was the mango pudding.

Lo and behold I was delightfully surprised that we were going to have an American style dinner, Southern style to be more precise!

We started the evening by hanging out in the courtyard, catching the cool breeze, enjoying some cheese and a beautiful jug of ginger beer cocktail. Very refreshing on a hot summer's day.

Then we sat down for our meal. Yippee! We had coleslaw, mash potato with gravy, buns, and Buttermilk fried chicken. Yummy, yummy, yummy!!!!

Christmas Day 2012

This will be my last post for this year and I thought to myself, why not end on a good note?!? Let's talk about the lovely day I had on Christmas.

I had lunch at E and N's place this year, and N's side of the family joined us for the celebrations. It was a strange weather day. Normally Christmas is warm, sunny and hot. This year it was cold, grey and wet. How bizarre! It wasn't a day to be out in the backyard pool or horse around playing cricket.

But we still had a lovely lunch filled with a few salads, glazed ham, chicken rolls stuffed with apricots and herbs, roast potatoes, home grown cherry tomatoes. Of the salads, there were 2 new types that I had not seen or tried before. There was the mango, avocado, rocket leaves salad served with caramelised balsamic vinegar. And there was a kale salad which was finely chopped and served with a balsamic vinegar dressing, shaved almonds and grated cheese. Both were delicious.

Tomislav

It's the time of the year again for my Christmas catch up with DD. We racked our brains for dining options and chose Tomislav. It was such a last minute decision but we managed to get a booking for a Saturday dinner. I was looking forward to an interesting dining experience and based on the reviews I have read, I didn't think I would be disappointed.

Firstly I must say that it is located at a very convenient spot, literally walking distance from Kings Cross station. From where we were sitting, I could see the traffic on Darlinghurst road and I could also see snippets of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We chose an outdoor table as it was quite a humid evening, and it was lovely to sit outside and feel the breeze.

I was surprised at how much smaller in size the restaurant was than I anticipated. We had two menu options, the 4 course meal or the 8 course degustation. We opted for the 4 course meal. The next challenge was to decide which of each dish we wanted for each course. There were some interesting dishes and we wanted to be a little left centre with our choices.

Before the dishes were served, we had some beautiful bread which were presented with a Wattleseed burnt toffee butter. The butter was beautifully presented on a stone block. The bread, by the way, was from Iggy's.

Course 1:
Venison tartare with a poached yolk, mustard crumbs served with poppyseed toast.

Fried chicken wings with cauliflower cream, anchovy juice and raw cauliflower.

Verdict: The venison tartare was so smooth and creamy. It did not taste like raw meat. DD had not had steak tartare before so this was a first time for him. It was surprisingly good, but for DD a smaller serving would have sufficed. The presentation of the venison tartare was a work of art, really lovely plating.

My chicken wings were deboned, it had some interesting flavours but I felt the anchovy juice was just a tad too strong and the other flavours got lost in the midst of the the savouriness of the anchovy.

Christmas 2012 Greetings

Merry Christmas everyone! As you enjoy the food, the fellowship and the chill out, let us remember that today is Jesus' birthday!

Image sourced from Dryicons

Hope you have fun times, and may the new year be one of many positives.

God bless.

Cindy :)