ChrisTaylor

I'm looking for the same thing: a quality book on sushi. I'm not happy with the quality of a lot of the books I've seen. I don't just want recipes--I want to understand the techniques.

I've heard of people freezing octopus (they bought it fresh) then thawing it to tenderise it before cooking it. Not sure how much of a difference it makes as I've never done it myself. That'd work with squid, right?

Amazon Canada will sell it to you, shipping included, for $540 AUD.

You'd lose weight too if you were faced with the choice of gluten free bread or nothing.

Buy it locally and you'll spend a lot of money. Can get it for half of that online--Amazon Canada is the cheapest for us at the moment.

9 eggs seems like a lot. Ever experimented at home with reducing the amount of eggs by half? i.e. roughly one egg to a kilogram of meat.

When my copy arrives I'll report back. I'd be shocked if it was ultra basic, a sort of el Bulli-themed '4 Ingredients or Less Easy Slow Cooker Recipes For Busy People'. Accessible, yes, but if it's based on el Bulli's staff meals I'm sure there's a bit more to it than 'here's how you dice an onion without losing a kidney or fingers.'

That's a sexy meal, Mr. Ross. Highlight of the past few days would've been, I don't know, the pork ribs glazed with mustard, honey and oregano. Or maybe last night's rack of lamb, which I hit with oregano and thyme, served with roast baby potatoes, roast pearl onions, roast cherry tomatoes and, because salty dairy fat is always a good idea, feta.

I don't think they are related. How well pasta adheres to sauce depends on how coarse or rough the surface of the pasta is.

A thread about soaking pork belly in Dr Pepper.

Comes out in the UK in a couple of days. Different release date in the US, maybe.

Just ordered my copy from Book Depository. Hope it isn't too basic but, at the asking price, I won't be too offended if I only find a relatively small amount of usable content.

Just ordered my copy from Book Depository. Hope it arrives before I have to go back to work.

Why don't you find the oppurtunity to test--or at least hold--the knives in question? All three companies make fine knives but all three feel different (due to handle design, weight, etc) in the hand. There's no point buying my favourite brand of knife--or some knife that many professionals prefer--if it causes you discomfort.

Heh ... sounds odd, but this one time I bought raspberries from the supermarket and they tasted kind of fishy. Suspect the berries. Always.

Decided to have a crack at LELMP@H too, given I felt like pizza but didn't feel like cleaning up flour. I looked in both the supermarket and Italian deli for pre-made dough but couldn't find it. I ended up opting for a pre-made base. The list of ingredients didn't sound too much like a shampoo bottle. Pork pizza: pork sausage, porketta, prosciutto and calabrese salami. Non-pork pizza: olives, semi-dried tomatoes, onion, capsicum and chilli.

From a differing cultural perspective and all--and coming from, yes, a country where waitstaff are paid a proper wage--I only tip when the service is great. If I'm visiting in a large group I'll tend to tip even if the service is merely good. I do not tip if the service is, for whatever reason, crap. That's how the system works here. A lot of people don't tip at all. A lot of people, rather than tipping some 10% or 20% or whatever%, will 'round up'--if a bill comes to $280, you hand over $300 and don't take the change. Even people I know who tip regularly balk at the idea of a restaurant that automatically includes an itemised 'x% service charge' on their bill. That's a line we don't want to cross. I have a problem with that, even though I may go there and feel that the service justifies me volunteering an extra 10%. I understand that if I was to visit the US I'd be expected to fork out extra money for service anywhere and everywhere. And I'd accept this--when in Rome and all--but only to a point. If I was to get truly terrible service or be ignored because, you know, I'm Australian (although good luck picking the accent) and less likely to tip, I'd, er, live down to expectations and not feel bad about it. Cooks and waitstaff are humans and make mistakes, yes, and that's just fine. It doesn't make for 'bad service' if there are one or two slip-ups along the way--so long as they're acknowledged or corrected or simply made up for by otherwise great service. But at the same time, if you're a paying customer--and this goes for McDonald's just as much as it goes for the French Laundry just as much as it goes for any business you give your hard-earned to--the staff member's Introduction to Java Programming assignment, credit card debt or relationship problems aren't your problem. You've paid for a certain about of professionalism--not a robot, to be sure, but it's totally reasonable to expect a person to do the job they're being paid to do. I can't be a crappy teacher for the day because life is hard or I'm exhausted. That's not how it works. I need to get my shit together and make it through until 3:30, at which point I can go collapse in the corner. There's that saying, after all: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. If the service is truly, truly, truly bad--and by bad I don't mean petty shit like 'they accidentally gave me my girlfriend's steak when I ordered the trout' or 'they took five minutes to give me a menu'--then I refuse to give it any more money than I have through whatever the amount on the bill was.

Talisker 10. Neat. Respect.

Carefully selecting and working from whole fish as opposed to pre-butchered fillets and steaks. And then all of those little things that make for a good sushi experience from a diner's point of view: the right amount of seasonings for both the rice and particular kind of fish, the presentation, the 'showmanship' (not that preparing sushi is or should be like mixing cocktails in a bar but there's something almost akin to a martial art going on when you see a very skilled sushi chef at work). A dedication to the art. I mean, not many amateurs are dedicated enough to spend years just getting the rice right.

Embrasse does some very nice things with vegetables.

Cheesburgers. The patties were made from no more than salt and freshly, coarsely ground chuck steak. The sauce was made from ketchup and Dijon mustard with a few drops of Maggi seasoning.

Where would I go back? Well, when I go back to Sydney next year I want to try other places first: Rockpool, Tetsuya's, Cotton Duck, District Dining, Bilson's. Heard good things about Balzac, Bistro Ortolan? Ortolon? Bistro Osomething. Head out to Berowra. Maybe Momofuku will be open by then: given I'm likely to get to Sydney again before New York and all. I'd return to Bentley and Etch purely because I enjoyed them so much. I'd maybe even go back to Quay and Marque if the menus had changed significantly. I'd probably leave a couple of days free (or at least with only a single meal booked) so I could go to other places I was recommended by waitstaff and try and get into restaurants that don't accept bookings (Billy Kwong). Next time I'll kick up my exact dates and times on eGullet and attempt to organise a dinner meet. It does get tiring: that's the reason we agreed to ditch Berorwa in favour of a pub. And why I'm making cheeseburgers right now. After a few degustations of carefully presented, carefully cooked food you want simple food. I think next time I'd leave, say, the Wednesday free of fine dining experiences and eat pub grub or Cantonese food.

epilogue--a summary Most of the restaurants were great. Most of the dishes were great. 13 out of 14 restaurants being nice was more than I expected--as I said earlier, I always figured I'd hit 2 or 3 duds. I was impressed with the consistently high quality food, presentation, service and flexibility. A nice trip. Overall Best overall experiences--fine dining: Marque, est. Best overall experiences--much bang for not much buck: Bentley, Etch Worst overall experience: Pier Best sense of balance (not too heavy, not too light): Sake, Bentley, Etch Right in my happy zone: est., Four in Hand Best red meat dishes (overall): Four in Hand Best poultry and game dishes: Marque Best seafood dishes: Sake (an honourable mention to est. for its lovely ocean trout entree) Best soup: Etch Best desserts: Bentley (honourable mentions to est., Becasse, Quay, Four in Hand--for the Snickers, not the rice pudding) Best petit-fours: Bentley, Guillaume, Marque Best 'simple' food: Local Tap House, Etch, Sake Best use of modernist techniques: Marque, Bentley Best service: Becasse, Marque, Quay, Four in Hand, Bentley (Quay and Becasse are probably ahead of the pack for responding well to difficult situations) Best view: Quay, Aria, Pier Biggest surprises: Bentley in general, Etch being superior to Becasse, Zumbo's cakes being bad(I figured it'd be at least okay), Pier's obvious decline, Quay sending out the beef dish in the first place Best beer lists: Local Tap House, Aria (I'll give Sepia a nod for its short-but-decent list) Best cider lists: Quay, Becasse (Etch, too--nothing special but good enough) Best spirits lists: Bentley, Sepia Best serviceware: Quay Best dining room: Becasse, est. Best up-sell: the cheese courses at Marque and Bentley Worst up-sell: Becasse's truffle risotto Specific ingredients and techniques Best sandwich: Marque Best beef dishes: Guillaume, Ormeggio, Four in Hand Best veal dish: est. (Ormeggio's had a great flavour but was let down by the connective tissue) Best lamb dishes: Four in Hand, Aria Best pork dishes: Four in Hand, Aria, Bentley, Etch Best crustacean: Sake's crab hand rolls Best shellfish: est.'s oysters, Guillaume's scallops Best vegetable dishes: Marque, Etch, Quay Best icecreams and sorbets: Bentley ... by far Best bread: Becasse Best realisation of a fun concept: Quay's chocolate cake, Sepia's scallop sushi Things I was very happy to see: flexibility, Vegemite, beer sorbet, savoury desserts, a lot of pork (interesting cuts, too), braised meats, Miles Davis on rotation, vegetarian courses Things that popped up everywhere: corn, crab, passionfruit, apple, a distinct lack of cider or drinkable beer Things I wanted to see more of: good beer, game, interesting petit-fours, Bentley-quality icecreams and sorbets, nice bread Things I tired of very quickly: wagyu, jarring jumps from very light courses to very heavy ones (take note, Sepia and Quay) Things I grew to like: crab and scallops Things I still don't care for: drinks lists that only show wine, truffles, caviar (the ocean trout roe, on the other hand, was always welcome), lobster Things I could do without: entire packets of sea salt poured on top of my food at seafood restaurants, stupidly noisy dining rooms (Ormeggio, Pier, Sepia)

Pier or the end. Last but most certainly least came Pier. There was a bit of fuss last year when owner Greg Doyle handed back a couple of the Sydney Morning Herald's hats. The menus. There was a degustation but it was basically the same as ordering a full meal off the a la carte menu. The knives looked interesting but were somewhat ungainly to use. Someone's squid ink risotto with calamari. I opted for the tartare cones purely because I remembered them from Doyle's excellent book, Pier. Here you see one cone each of yellowfin, kingfish, salmon and ocean trout. I understood that the fish was of an excellent quality but to me it was dominated by the salty wonton wrapper cones. The textural contrast was nice. My main course of crispy-skinned snapper arrived. The fish itself was beautifully cooked (the chef assumes everyone wants fish medium rare but will, if you insist, cook your fish to your liking) and was certainly of noble birth, but like the cones entree this dish was ruined by salt, salt, salt. The shredded kaffir lime leaves were nice but the spinach puree was bland. The baby onion and leeks were presented in a really odd way--hollowed out so you only got one layer. I really wanted vegetables on the plate. I'll happily purchase sides but I don't want to feel forced into it. It's just dodgy when a restaurant says hey, I'll charge you $40-50 for a piece of fish but won't give you a handful of buttery pearl onions or braised leeks to go with it. This dish was ruined by the sheer amount of salt applied to it. The skin was dusted with flakes of sea salt and that was okay--I brushed it off--but the flesh itself was also really salty. I tried a bit of someone's risotto and it too was very salty. Nich ordered dessert, dessert, dessert, dessert. Here you see the 'chocolate cremeux'--chocolate mousse, a dehydrated chocolate wafer, crushed macadamias, pear icecream, Earl Grey jelly, date and cinnamon puree, chocolate biscuit and, of course, salt. Next you can see the kiwifruit vacherin. The meringue shards are actually a yoghurt meringue. There's apple sorbet and various other bits and pieces related to kiwifruit. A very elaborate and busy presentation. Then the rhubarb cheesecake icecream. That is one seriously large serving of icecream. And, finally, the slow-poached quince with chestnut, warm malt milk, malt icecream and, maybe, popcorn. My dessert was a glass of 15-year-old Glenfiddich. The cheese platter was well-received. I knew, from the outset, that in visiting 14 restaurants I was sure to hit a dud. Maybe even two or three. We've had a good week so far--some restaurants being better than others, some being nice surprises--but we haven't struck a true dud. Until tonight, that is. Pier was a mediocre restaurant with mediocre food and mediocre service charging as if it was a nice restaurant with nice food and nice service. So many little things went wrong: sometimes dishes were given a full summary, sometimes it was a case of, 'Oh, here's your kiwifruit dessert.' Or sometimes they forgot to say anything at all. Questions and requests were forgotten about in what was a very small restaurant. We'd paid a lot of money for some of our meals and this was one of the 'cheapest'--but it offered the least bang for buck we've experienced. I seriously regret not going to, say, Cotton Duck or District Dining instead. Next time.

The Local Tap House Originally we were going to visit Berowra Waters Inn for lunch. The Bentley/Becasse day really took it out of us and we started to reconsider. We decided to drop Berowra and asked a couple of helpful waitstaff are Becasse for recommendations for where we could get simple, hearty, traditional pub food. Enter The Local Tap House. The Local Tap House is a pub for people who really like beer. They have what seems to be a large, ever-changing menu of lagers, pilsners, porters, stouts, Indian pale ales, sparkling ales, dubbels, tripels, gueuzes, lambics, saisons, hefeweizens. Along with our meals we ordered tasting 'paddles' of beers (90mL glasses of 5 beers from the 20 varieties avaliable on-tap). Nich went for: Bridge Road Brewers' Dog's Breakfast, Morington Brown Ale (infused with star anise), Mad Brewer's Noir Stout, Weihenstephan Hefeweizen and Lindeman's Gueuze. I also got the Gueuze and Dog's Breakfast but included samples of Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale, BrewDog's 'IPA is Dead Citra' and Weston's Stowford Press (a draught cider). Nich stuck with entrees and share plates. Here you see the grilled baby octopus (laced with chilli), beer-battered fries and pork floss. I went for the steak with peppercorn sauce, beer-battered fries and a watercress salad. At this point the whole world turned sideways. My girlfriend ordered fish and chips. The world went right-way-up again. Thankfully. A nice afternoon. A nice change from fine dining and nine courses of artfully presented food. A serious beer list. Nice to see there's a branch in Melbourne--shame they play rock and metal instead of the Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis I've got used of listening to this week. The M4 is hell on asphalt.