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Sydney: sushi e (Aug. 2013)
Exec Chef: Nobuyuki Ura
My Sushi Chef: Jin
Website: http://merivale.com.au/sushie
Date: August 15, 2013
After eating as Yoshii the previous night, I spontaneously decided to get lunch at sushi e the next afternoon. I made reservations, but the restaurant wasn’t too crowded. I’m not sure how crowded it gets for dinners, but you could definitely make last-minute reservations for the lunch scene (at least on weekdays).
The restaurant’s located on the 4th level of the Establishment Hotel, located in Sydney’s CBD. There are a bunch of sushi bar seats as well as some small, more intimate tables that are located near the windows. There’s a lot of sunlight (almost too much for photography!).
I was seated near a sushi chef named Jin, and he turned out to be a great guy—as well as a great sushi chef to pair with me. I generally like being able to talk with my chefs a lot when at sushi bars, and he was really friendly! We talked about where he worked in the past, why he’s in Sydney, what he wants to do in the future, and so on. I really should have gotten his card or something… Oh well!
Notes on the sushi:
1. The fish selection is MUCH better than Yoshii’s. I think the fish might be fresher, too.
2. There was a lot of fish in proportion to the amount of rice per piece. I personally would have preferred a more balanced proportion, but I can see that some people would like the proportions here. (Most of my friends generally complain about too much rice and rarely complain about too much fish—however, that might be because the former is much more common.)
3. The rice was a little grainy. The temperature was fine for the most part, though at times it was slightly cold.
Overall, I thought the sushi was better here than at Yoshii.
Sydney: Yoshii (Aug. 2013)
Chef: Yoshii Ryuichi
Website: http://www.yoshii.com.au/main.html
Date: August 14, 2013
I haven’t posted at all on this blog for months, and I apologize for that. I’ve been traveling a lot, and I just got lazy. I’m going to try to update a liiiiiiiiiiittle more often now!
For most of August, I traveled around New Zealand and Australia. I went to Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, and Melbourne, and it was pretty awesome to be able to check out those cities. I already did a post on Sidart (Auckland), and I’ll be doing Yoshii, a pretty high-end Japanese restaurant in Sydney, here.
I found out about the restaurant by googling around to see what the top Japanese restaurants in Sydney were. Both Tetsuya’s and Yoshii’s came up the most frequently, but Tetsuya’s was booked for quite a while. I called and made a short-notice reservation, and next thing I knew I was at the restaurant! The restaurant was actually fairly empty. Maybe this was because it was a Wednesday evening. Still… I’m not sure how they’re making money; I only saw about four or five other customers while I was there.
I ordered a set menu that consisted of appetizers, sashimi, a few mains, sushi, and dessert! I asked for no dessert, though; I was way over my caloric budget for the day. I had to cut my losses somewhere…
SF: Chez Panisse (in Berkeley, CA) (June 2013)
Exec Chef: Alice Waters
Website: http://www.chezpanisse.com/about/
Date: June 29, 2013
I’d been here only once beforehand, it was several years ago with two of my best friends from growing up. It was amazing then, and I fondly remember their baked alaska with strawberry ice cream as being my favorite dessert ever. The meringue was so soft and chewy like a marshmallow, and I had never in my life liked strawberry ice cream before but Chez Panisse’s made me have that Ratatouille moment where my eyes glistened and I was mentally transported to a sunny field of strawberries. These memories had built really high expectations that I had to keep curbing, the giddy kid in me to be undoubtedly disappointed unless I gave him reality checks.
Luckily, it was a great experience. Alice Water’s pioneering of local organic food has always been admirable and I never fully appreciated it until I moved to New York. The fresh ingredients truly shine and make the dining experience a thoughtful one.
Monte
Victor
tadv3
Happy Noms 