Australian Series 2: The journey continues. Azuma Restaurant, Sydney, NSW

Hello readers.
Let's get back to the Australian series, shall we?
The second restaurant we visited in Sydney is Azuma. Operated by Chef Kimitaka Azuma, the restaurant adheres to the tried and true value of japanese cooking, where simplicity is the most profound. The restaurant is on the top floor of a mall, featuring a elongated dining room with full height windows at the end of the room, overlooking the streets in the rocks area underneath. the dark-wood oriented dining room gives proper warmth and atmosphere, while the large windows provide the proper lighting. the place feel airy.

Restaurant: Azuma Restaurant, The Rocks, Sydney, NSW
Tasting personnel: Dweeb, Dweeb's girlfriend, who manages this fine blog.
Menu Selection: Lunch Degustation Menu "Omakase" - $70.00 AUD per person
Remarks: Sydney Morning Herald's good food guide 1 chef hat(toque) award

Oyster served in Soy served with trout eggs, Gelee Trio
Oyster is from local waters. The freshness of it is impeccable. Thick, creamy texture along with the particular acidity common in oysters in this area, offers support to the fine nuances of mineral-ish taste, making this a very stunning first bite to the meal. The soy sauce was light, and it gives proper seasoning to the oyster, which in and of of itself, is already sublime. the trout egg seemed to be a popular element in summer dining here, as it will show up times again in our later tastings. The expose of the trout egg to soy sauce made the skin of the egg itself leathery, which provided a very satisfying pop once it is bit in. The one bite of oyster and trout egg tasted complex, offering so much flavor and texture. The gelee is not gelee in the new cuisine sort of way. This is closer to the japanese starch product konnyaku. It's dence, and sliperry and very resistent to bite. However, it gives a clean, refershing, almost watery taste, which contrasts particularly well with the richness of the oyster. The almost mineral taste in the gelee offers the common link with the oyster. The 3 type of gelee offered are(as I recall): pasley, citrus, seasame. While it is served with a seasame based sauce, I barely used it. This this is very well composed, as the perfect start of a meal. Bravo.

White Miso Marinated Cod, Fried Prawn, Spinach dressed in Seasame
This feels familiar. The cod was well cooked. The miso marinade worked with the fish well. the rest of the dish, while well done, fall short of the elevation prompted by the previous dish. This is not to say that it's not well done, but it does give a feeling that this is a filler to make the count.

Sashimi Salmon, Tuna
Fresh, clean, proper.

Sushi Duo - Tuna
I was told that this is the sushi in which the house is known for. After a quick tasting, I concur. This is absolutely beautiful. The natural fattiness of the fish shines above the underlying acidity of the fish itself. the slighty charred surface offers a light smokiness, and a presense of very high quality charcoal. Together, they make for two bites that explained it all. Simplicity truly is most profound.

Tempura
It's tempura. There's not much to talk about.

Wagyu Beef served in Nanban Sauce
Beef was flavorful, lacks fat. The nanban sauce is very gingery, somewhat overwhelming. "Nanban" in Kanji form means "savage from the south (basically means white skinned foreigners, a word used in a fairly particular time in Japan)". The beans were cooked perfectly, chilled to preserve sweetness and texture. However it bares little relation to the beef itself.

Udon

Desert Trio - Creme Brulee, Chocolate Mousse, Rasberry Sorbet.
Fiarly well done, but not much in the ideas department.

To sum up, Azuma is a fine restaurant, some of the stuff they offered was truly sublime. While it is marred by a few dishes, the lunch tasting was nevertheless a decent process, not to mention good value(from a fine dining persective). I do suppose that instead of offering much cutting edge ideas, the Japanese restaurants in Sydney focuses more on getting their clients' stomach filled. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that, I will have to remember for the next time, If I want to see interesting ideas in meal, I should go with dinner instead of lunch.
Folks, do pay Azuma a visit if you are in town. They do good work.

-Dweeb

A little detour: Street foods of Beijing - Fried Liver( Chao Gan )

Hey folks, dweeb here.
I know, I know, the Australian series has not been finished. I am aware of that. I've got about 5 more of installments of the Australian series. They will arrive very very soon. I promise.
Since we've been doing fine dining reviews here for a while now, I feel somewhat ashamed to say that we have yet to cover some of the street food tastings since my move to mainland China. (That's right, Dweeb's no longer in the United States, from now on, all the new stuff you see here about the US tastings will most probably be done by Dr.T and Techmogeek.) Afterall, we do have street food in the little "sub"-title of our site. So, here we go.
In this installment, we cover an local favorite of the Beijing people(the Doc is from there.), fried liver(Chao Gan). While the name of the "entree" suggests serving of savory offal cooked in oil, possibly with some very pretty caramelization on top. What I can tell you would be this: While it does contain offal, quite a bit of it, the cooking method and service, however, is something that's quite different to what the name may suggest.

Location: Yao's Fried Liver Shop ( Yao Ji Chao Gan) No, it's got nothing to do with that Yao.
Tasting personnel: Dweeb, Dr.T

The dining room is hardly anything worth talking about. If you have been to China, it's the typical small dining room(some call it hut) that the common citizen buy their breakfast to go. Located in the Drum Tower area of Beijing(Gu Lou), The room is dimly lit, with about 6 tables next to a diner style counter. Strips of plastic curtain lined the only entrance, trying to block out the cold. There's some random posters of discolored flyers on the wall. There's a couple old local guys milling around in the dining area doing pretty much nothing.
So, The food. Fried liver looks like this:
That's right. It's in liquid form. The guy that serves it scoops it out from a stock pot that looks like it's been simmering for ages.(you can tell they've burned through a couple pot bottoms, there's weld marks) The large dark pieces you see near the spoon would be the one thing that this dish is named after. Liver. (there's some intestine in there for good measure as well) The liquid you see containing the offal is, well, highly viscous(yes, it's a gel). It's got about the same density as the offal, capable of suspending the bits of meat without letting it touch the bottom of the bowl. The little off-white pieces in there you see all over would be stewed garlic, enhancing the dish as it cooks.
Tasting wise, this is not bad. This is not to say it's fantastic either. Of course, this comes from a man who's love with offal is fairly pronounced. So feel free to scale this review to your own liking. The intestines and liver had been cooking in the liquid for a while now, releasing it's flavor into the soup, while picking up a mildly garlicky flavor and supple texture. The soup itself doesn't have much flavor aside from the garlic. It is somewhat underseasoned, probably for the sake of early morning consumption. Yes. It's a breakfast item. The Texture of the soup is, again, very thick. It feels like it's been thicken with a combination of starch and gound lotus root, with a oily, lumpy, also waxy texture to it. It is eaten with a spoon, assuming you are not hungry. The guy sitting at hour next table demonstrated another method of comsumption: Pick up the bowl with one hand, spoon with the other; tilt your chin up with the bowl resting on your lower lip, use the spoon to help getting the material down your throat as fast as your can.(Think trying to get the last gulp of dense ICEE at the bottom of cup, without the lid)
As you may know, The Doc being from the part of town, he loves this stuff. He's practically praising and moaning with every spoonful. Me, on the other hand, has very little feeling about it. It's not good, nor is it awful. It tastes, well, garlicky, and Blah.
Oh, one thing I can tell you though, when you bite into the offal, which you get between a few spoonful, it is quite nice.(just the offal, not the soup).
Thanks for reading, folks. Stay tune for another installment of, well, whatever the hell I feel like writing. Which will probably be about food, hopefully good.

-Dweeb

Australian Series 1 - Yoshii Restaurant, Sydney, NSW

My dear readers,
This particular entry marks the beginning of a series of posts about my recent trip(dweeb here) to Australia in the beginning of February. While I could not possibly explore all of the landmark restaurants in this vast and beautiful country, the ones that I did have a chance to visit was well worth the journey.
Ok. No more bullshit. Restaurant number 1 was our first lunch at Sydney, Yoshii's. Operated by Chef Yoshii Ryuichi, Yoshii's is a small restaurant that features a beautifully cozy dining room in The Rocks neighborhood of Sydney. The room features a sushi bar as well as maybe two short rows of tables seperated by a wooden blind. the Dark earthy tones of wood and stone interior felt clean, and was very inviting. We arrived fairly late for lunch. Upon consulting the chef, we are allowed to stay for the tasting menu.

Dining partners: Le Dweeb, Dweeb's girlfriend(self-proclaimed manager of this blog), and Dweeb's mother(yes, even someone like me actually have a mother)
Menu Selection: Yoshii Lunch Course @AUD$60
Remarks: Sydney Morning Herald's good food guide(This is, according to what I was told, Aussie's answer to The Michelin Stars) award this place 2 out of 3 chef hats(toque), see picture in back of post.

Restaurant exteriors

Menu

Kopachi

Appetizer
Scallop wrapped in seaweed, taro root ball served in syrup
This is a fairly interesting offering. The scallop was perfectly cooked(possibly marinated as well), with the thick kobu-like seaweed wrapping offering much contrast in texture and flavor, making it a thoroughly interesting bite. In comparison, the Taro root tastes somewhat dull.

Soy marinated Tuna Sashimi, Asperagus, Scallion Floss
While it does say Soy marinated, the marinate used here is obviously more than soy. there's the presence of the added flavor of alcohol, amongst other element in which I will have to report back once I manage to find my notes. (Left it at Dr.T's Office) This is a proper continuation from the lass course, prompting what's to come. Nice.

Black Cod marinated in White Miso
The simplicity of the name of the dish doesn't even begin to describe this. To start, this damn thing came as a smoldering pouch, still giving off smoke like a minature chainsmoker on steroids. The pouch was made with Japanese cedar. as it was heavily blacken on the grill, the fragrant smoke filled the room. As our envious neighbors on the table behind us observed, I opened the wooded pouch(it's still burning, sort of). The fish sat pefectly center, having been imparted a tempting yellow hue from the wood and the marinade. The meat of the fish was firm and flaky, with a light layer of caramelization on top. Some would say that the fish might be somewhat overcooked, since it's not as tender as it could be. However, I believe this is meant to be the meat dish of the meal. The slightly overcooked, firm texture of the fish, coupled with the ethereal smoke still giving off by the cedar, every bite I took confirmed satisfaction. White miso was used beautifully here, as it's subtle taste complements the fish's almost oily texture perfectly. This is the climax of the meal.


Sushi
What more can I say about this? It's well done. Everything offered was incredibly fresh(I do mean incredible). Rice was done properly, the mild acidity was very palatable. it's a nice, familiar complement to the last course.

Brown Sugar Ice Cream

Yoshii is a properly good restaurant. It's offerings have a comtemporary flare aside from the traditional corner stones of Japanese dining. It was a very enjoyable lunch. Friends, visit here, say hi to the friendly staff, and stay for the meal. You will delighted that you did.

Oh, I found this outside the toilet in the back.