Celebration at Quay Restaurant for my dad!

We were very excited today when my dad received his OAM at Government House. Go Dad!!

Afterwards we had a celebratory lunch at Quay Restaurant. In case you have been living under a rock, it is now the best restaurant in Australia and number 27 in the world!! Fancy...and a great view! I have to say, the hype is all completely justified. We had such an amazing lunch and it's definitely a perfect place for a celebration.

When we arrived we were given a little taster dish of some salmon sashimi and horseradish cream, with micro greens on top.

mmm delicious. We then moved on to the entrees. To tell you a bit about Quay, they are really into heirloom and rare plants and animals with the idea that you can protect them by growing and eating them. There are lots of organic food and the flavours are amazing.

Sarah and I had the heirloom tomato and goats curd salad. Looks too good to eat really. They are really into micro veg/salad and edible flowers, also this had some roasted quinoa. Amazing.

Everyone else had the sea pearls, and really this is just artistry on the plate! It's all different types of sashimi, one of them is a jelly and you just have to wonder how they do it! Apparently it was delicious but no-one offered me a taste so I can't confirm...

For the mains Chris and I had the mulloway roasted with baby leeks, currants, flowers and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was beautiful. I haven't eaten many flowers before, they add such a great flavour to the meal. Although I don't think I am going to be out in the garden picking flowers for my evening meal, I think you have to make sure they are eating ones :)

Cathy, Mum and Sarah had the lamb, which they were all raving about. It has little baby onions and quinoa, sunflowers and hazelnuts.

Dad had the angus beef with spinach and wasabi butter. Apparently the meat was like butter. Looks amazing!

I left all the bits I didn't like!

For dessert Sarah and I had the 8-texture chocolate cake. The 8th texture was ganache which was poured on at the table for a bit of theatrics. This cake was seriously amazing. It had some sponge cake, some other cake with nuts in it, some different types of mousse, and I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff. I am ashamed to say I couldn't finish it but Chris nobly stepped in to finish it off for me!! I can't say enough how good this cake was.

Chris had the snow egg. It's a meringe that's filled with ice cream, on top of some ice stuff with custard apple and something. Apparently the chef's signature dessert. Chris seemed happy!

Everyone else had the Fraises des bois, berries with strawberry & cream jelly, Edible silver, and maybe some berry ice cream? I don't know they didn't offer me a bite :(

We had some nice wines with the meal as well.

Verdict: Yep it was pretty good. I'm happy with the rating as best restaurant in Australia! I thought it was also excellent value, of course it was expensive but not as much as you might think for lunch and really you wouldn't be coming here for a bargain meal.

Congratulations again Dad!! I wish we had reasons to celebrate at Quay Restaurant more often!

It's a little bit fancy!

Recently I had a spontaneous girls night out with Natalie (and her lovely friend from work). It's great being spontaneous...I think you end up sometimes at better places than when you plan weeks in advance.

Anyway being the guru of all things Japanese Natalie suggested a place she had recently found. I've been to a lot of Japanese restaurants.

Mostly, they're pretty much the same. Tasty, but nothing fancy. So I was delighted with Sake.

It's a gem of a restaurant tucked away in the Rocks next to the Argyle. It's very stylish and fitted out with the classy end of Japanese design. There is a main area with lots of tables but also plenty of private rooms for those who feel like hiding away from the plebs.

I was a bit nervous when we were seated next to a table full of kids but they were remarkably well behaved - perhaps the classy ambiance was rubbing off on them. The menu is packed full of amazing sounding dishes. We started with the spicy miso chips with diced tuna and salmon sashimi, coriander and kogichun miso, which came displayed like a work of art, as well as the salt and pepper tofu and nasu miso (grilled eggplant). Yum! Really it was a shame to eat any of the food as it looked so good, but then it was also very very tasty.

Ok so I didn't take any of these photos but look how nice!! Cathy you have to go here.

For mains we had some zucchini kushiyaki skewers with teriyaki sauce, popcorn shrimp (which was pretty much how it sounds, small pieces of fried up prawns that looked just like popcorn!), the tuna tataki - seared tuna with garlic chips, snowpea sprouts and dressing, and spicy salmon salad. And also miso soup.

Waddling out afterwards I regretted ordering so much food but it was all so delightful it was definitely worth it.

We decided to top off the night by visiting the Blu Bar at the Shangri-la, to see the views from the 36th floor. Noice. Such a classy bunch.

After that Natalie & co headed off to the Ivy while I pulled the old my shoes hurt-and I have to drive home-and I had French this morning really early-and there's stacks of bogans in the Ivy and headed on home.

Verdict: What a great night!! Thanks Natalie for spontaneous inspiration. Definitely one to visit again.

Best brekkie ever

I know it's a big call but I had the best brunch ever on Sunday. We went to Kasbah in Balmain for Magda's birthday. It's a Moroccan/North African/fusion style place - ie pretty much everyone will be happy. I highly recommend it!

I'm not the hugest fan of brunch because generally my body gets very confused. I usually eat breakfast at 7.00 and then all of a sudden I am not eating until after 11. Is it lunch or brekky?? Am I supposed to be able to fit two meals worth into my stomach? It doesn't really work that way. But anyway having said that there is something lovely about a leisurely Sunday brunch with your friends :)

So anyway on to the details...

Food: We had the set menu - you need more than 8 people. We were directed not to eat beforehand even though we weren't starting until 11 which was a very wise tip from Magda. The portions are more than generous!! It is three courses. The first course I would describe as the grain course. The star of the brunch is in here - rice pudding with cinnamon and some kind of orange blossom water and pear. YUM!!! It is the best rice pudding I have ever had. So creamy and warm and delicious...drool. Needless to say it was a massive bowl and we ate the lot. There was also a delicious porridge with banana and warm milk and a sweet couscous with nuts and dried fruit and cardamon milk, which were both delicious but overshadowed by the rice pudding of course.

The second course was the hot cooked brekky - eggs done three ways (scrambled, fried, poached) on turkish, a breakfast tagine (half lamb and half vegie) and bacon, sausages, haloumi (which was YUM!), beans, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns, and a big bowl of bread - turkish and pita.

Just when we thought we couldn't possibly eat any more and I was personally very glad I was wearing loose pants, when out came the third course - dessert. Two massive pancakes which were more like big flat cakes really, with all sorts of delicious toppings like icecream, caramel sauce and cream. It's unfortunate that you can't really do this course justice as there are two different pancakes, one banana and one chocolate and berry. I just really couldn't squeeze any more in!

They also have some really good teas, I had the Egyptian hibiscus tea (Carcade), and the Moroccan mint tea was also going down well.

Verdict: Awesome. You will not need to eat again until dinner. To me it was pretty much just all about the rice pudding. For those of you who don't like rice pudding (and really I am not being judgmental here but you need to take a good hard look at yourself) there are plenty of other great options on the menu .

Not so great bits: It's just been renovated so it looks great but it was very noisy which was the main downside. Well also we were crammed into a table that was a bit hard to get in and out of. It was a bit hard for those of us who wanted to have a go holding Wendy's baby! You really should book as there were lots of people waiting around outside for a table for quite a long time. A few of the waiters could be a bit friendlier too...

When: Sunday 11 April
Cost: $25 pp for set menu (can you believe it!?!)
Rating: 4 stars
Website: http://www.kasbah.com.au/