Sake Restaurant (The Rocks, Sydney)

Believe it or not, this is my first time to Sake. I found the right excuse to check it out when K and S were recently in town from Melbourne. It's been a while since my last catch up with my nephew K when I was last in Melbourne and I cannot recall the last time we actually had a meal together in Sydney.

I didn't realise how cool an ambience Sake would have. When I stepped in to the restaurant, I immediately looked around and tried to absorb the decor and vibe around me. As I walked past the open kitchen, I was immediately greeted with a bunch of welcome greetings in Japanese!

We were seated in a long table and shared it with another couple. But The Sake team arranged the seating in such a way that there was an empty seat between us and the other couple. That gave us some privacy and we didn't feel cramped in.

As you would have expected from me, I had browsed the menu prior to my visit! :) So I had an idea of what I would like to order and with my visitors' agreement I went for gold (sort of!).

Sashimi platter - a small plate of extremely fresh sashimi of salmon, tuna, kingfish and snapper. We devoured it!

Kingfish jalapeño - this was recommended by the waitress and I can see why it is one of their signature dishes. There was just a slight kick in the jalapeño to lift up the flavours of the kingfish. The combination of the coriander and yuzu soy was subtle and not too overwhelming. Again, it was a hit with us!

Steamed prawn dumplings - Chinese inspired dumplings but with a twist. It had strips of noodle instead of a wonton piece covering the prawn and had such an interesting texture. Loved that it was different and delicious too!

Sashimi tacos - these were salmon and tuna sashimi diced and filled in baby tacos with chilled tomato salsa. They were matched with kozaemon junmai 'sake shots'. I normally don't have sake but I had to try this. Wow! I definitely liked it, both the tacos and the shot. I found the tacos just a tad small in size but other than that, the combination of flavours and textures were good.

Beauty & Essex (New York City)

Beauty & Essex- what an interesting name. What would you instantly think of when you hear such a name? Well, this name reflects a funky and very happening restaurant. The intriguing bit is that the shop front is actually a pawn shop. YES, you read it right! A pawn shop!

As I mentioned before in previous posts, we meet up as a group for dinner. This time Sami organised for us to have dinner at Beauty & Essex. Once I stepped into the pawn shop, there is a door at the end of the small store and a burly but well dressed security man standing in front of this door. He opened the door and I stepped into another world. Seriously!

This place has a very popular bar and 2 levels of dining space. The ladies restroom is a story in itself. I walked into the restroom and at the end of the room there is a counter of champagne glasses waiting to be filled and served to any of us by an attendant. Imagine that! Champagne in a public toilet!?!?

When we finally got to our tables, we were then challenged with deciding what to order. Tonight is pay what you order and I decided to not go overboard and just have one dish. I decided to ignore what our waiter recommended as the house specialties of Grilled Cheese, Smoked Bacon and Tomato Soup Dumplings; and the Tuna Poke Wonton Tacos.

Instead I ordered Lobster Tacos which consisted of beer battered Maine lobster and red cabbage slaw. Two of the other ladies on our table decided to heed the waiter's advice and selected the Grilled Cheese dumplings.

Before my ordered dish arrived we were served what I would call Tomato Gazpacho. It was quite palate cleansing.

My lobster tacos was delicious. I couldn't find fault with it. But when the Grilled Cheese dumplings arrived for my dining mates and they were raving on about how good it was, I felt compelled to order the dish for myself too. How could I not?

Mexico Food and Liquor (DD's 30th celebrations)

Finally, I get some breathing space to blog this post! It's been another rather hectic week at work and I have been champing at the bits trying to find some time to post about my recent fun time at Mexico Food and Liquor (or better known to me as just Mexico).

My good friend DD was kind enough to invite me to join his 30th birthday party celebrations and he chose Mexico, which is a stone's throw away from Central Station.

Warren Turnbull has done it again! What was previously District Dining has become the hot spot now known as Mexico. As you enter the premises, there are murals reflective of Frida Kahlo and many iconic artefacts reflecting the Mexican theme.

If I didn't know any better, I really could imagine being in Mexico. I won't describe the artefacts, I think the pictures speak a thousand words!

There were 16 of us attending the event. Lovely to meet so many of DD's old school mates who were seated at my end of the long communal table, quite an interesting bunch actually.

So what did we have for dinner? Well, as there were so many of us, we had the banquet menu. Wow! What a spread, there were so many dishes and all in all, we paid a very, very reasonable price. It was the alcoholic beverages that kept the price up, not the actual food.

So here goes:
Snacks - house made corn chips with pickled vegetables, Pumpkin, white bean and agave dip served with tortillas, and Crispy potatoes tossed in celery lime salt with tomatillo dressing.

Corn chips 

Pumpkin dip with tortillas

Pickled vegetables

Potatoes with tomatillo dressing