Sunday, March 16, 2008

Tetsuya and Archibald

This was our long anticipated "Tetsuya's weekend": celebrating Judy L.'s birthday at one of the top five restaurants in the world (according to London's Restaurant Guide), right here in Kent St Sydney, the most unlikely end of the city to find this exquisite, perfectly proportioned, Japanese style pavillion building surrounded by zen like gardens.

12 courses in the degustation menu, thirteen if you include the Pacific oysters from Tasmania, each prepared and presented with exquisite balance and refinement, with Japanese references obvious in each course.

Tetsuya’s signature dish was our favourite: confit of ocean trout served with unpasteurised ocean trout roe, daikon & fennel, but the double cooked de-boned spatchcock with olive & caper jus was an amazing dish too. I found the grilled wagyu beef with lime and wasabi delicious, but extremely rich.

We shared the degustation wine list between two people, which was just as well as 9 glasses of wine (each only a bit smaller than a standard glass) would have had as all under the table. Having the Fischer's there to guide us through the aromas and the layers of flavours made it a very rich experience. The Margaret River Merlot was our favourite.

We fitted in a visit to the 08 Archibald Prize Exhibition (& the Wynne & Sulman) at the Art Gallery of NSW this weekend too. Its always a fun experience to see the Archibald entries and pass comment on the judges' choice and marvel at and/or turn our noses up at the work of the up and coming and/or established portrait painters. Our pick was the Jon Farriss (from INXS) portrait - and a thumbs down for the winner "You are what is most beautiful about me".

The L's & Fischer's stayed five star at the Meriton World Towers Hotel with the stunning full length glass window city views and we stayed 2 star(?) at 8/85. The morning walks at Coogee are 5 star however, as is the general ambience.

Once again we were able to catch up with J&J and Miss E on our return to Canberra. Miss E enjoyed the organic crackers and Baba Hummus we brought her home from Maloney's Grocer at Coogee. I was lucky to capture her doing her new yoga pose on the floor: "the downward facing dog". Jody says she does it when she is tired of standing up. I used to hate this pose in my yoga days, but Miss E looks like she can do it with ease!







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