Akiba

A friend of mine had his farewell lunch at Akiba, and I was very excited to go back for the first time in a long time. For $34 per person (food only), we were treated to a feast of delicious plates. I started out with the strawberry and mint ‘Akipop’, which was as refreshing and sweet as I remember. First course was the kingfish sashimi, topped with spicy sauce and mayonnaise – the fish wasn’t melt in your mouth tender, but the flavours packed a punch. We all adored course two – the pork belly buns. Yum. Yum. Yum. The pork was sweet and sticky and the Asian slaw was really fresh. They were much bigger than I was expecting too. Next up were a couple of plates of prawn dumplings with lovely thin skins, but the highlight of the meal was the Japanese fried chicken, topped with parmesan and served with Sriracha and Japanese mayonnaise. The pieces were so crispy and moreish = perfection. The beef short rib was incredibly tender (easy to eat with chopsticks), and had a really rich flavour that left us fighting over the last pieces. We ended the feast with a couple of noodle dishes, although I didn’t love these like I did the share plates. Until next time, Akiba.

Akiba, 40 Bunda Street, Civic ACT    http://www.akiba.com.au/

Africola

Part one is here. Finally the main game – the peri peri 1/2 chicken. Oh my. Next time I’d skip the entree and just have this baby. Hello spice, hello flavour! The chicken was perfectly cooked and the (boom) chakalaka spicy leaves on top were so tasty. I loved the little pickled root vegetables and the crunch from the toasted pepitas. The chicken livers and hearts were deliciously rich and there was a fabulously spicy sauce coating the whole lot. A pot of polenta-like something came out with a lovely tomato sauce through it, which meant there was no way we were leaving hungry. We’d also ordered a plate of the yoghurt-baked carrots (also served with goat’s curd) and these were to die for. They were perfectly roasted and the flavours were so well-balanced! They also helped to cool down the spice from the chicken. Whilst the entrees felt ‘chefy’, the main was exactly what you would imagine South African food to be – hearty, jam-packed full of flavour and perfect for sharing. The wait staff were amazing, getting us fed in the one hour we had and regularly checking on the gas heaters and refilling our water. I’ll book for inside next time, because the vibe was amazing, but I’m glad I got to experience that chicken. I will be back for sure.

Africola, 4 East Terrace, Adelaide, SA                                     http://africola.com.au/

Africola

I finally made it to Africola! I was super excited to try South African food for the first time! We booked on a Friday night and were allocated outdoor seating, but we certainly weren’t neglected despite seating in front of Botanic Bar. I started with the Bluna cocktail – gin, orange wine, gooseberry and Rooibos cola combined into a light and lolly-sweet mix (yum!). Meals come with a complimentary serve of house-made flatbread and smoky goat’s curd – a perfect way to whet the appetite. Dish one was the charcoal marron served with a seaweed dressing. The marron was tender and soft and I mopped up all of the seaweed dressing – it was like the best nori in oil with a great salty hit. This dish was a real winner for flavour, but when they say entree size, they mean it. Entree two was the raw kingfish with mandarin segments, mandarin gel and goat’s curd. For me, the kingfish was the only thing that didn’t work – when I order fish I want to taste it, instead all I got was mandarin with the texture of fish, which was a bit odd. Overall I felt like the entrees were trying a bit too hard to be ‘chefy’. Part two to follow.

Africola, 4 East Terrace, Adelaide, SA                                     http://africola.com.au/

The Butcher’s Apprentice

Sometimes a meal just blows you away, and that’s exactly what happened at our shared dinner at the Butcher’s Apprentice. I started with the Butcher’s Mistress cocktail – gin, lychee, basil, citrus – it was well-balanced and very refreshing. We were offered the ‘dry chips’ as a snack while deciding on the rest of the menu (very classy upselling!) and enjoyed every bite of the crisp potato, sweet potato and taro, salted delightfully with paprika. Next was the ‘crackle and pop’ – pork and chicken crackling with popcorn and more paprika. The skins were served cold and crispy, in perfect bite-sized pieces. The chacuterie plate had a very generous serve of cured meat, with a creative tomato jam and slightly charred, oiled bread. Next came the main – pork cheek served with rainbow chard, pickle, watermelon rind and a mound of orange blossom floss. The sweetness of the floss went so perfectly with the melt-in-your-mouth pork cheek! The star dish had to be the ‘chocolate’ dessert – a chocolate panna cotta lined the base of the bowl, topped with dark chocolate pearls, white chocolate flakes, chocolate floss and marmalade. Heaven! The Butcher’s Apprentice offers just the right pitch of fine dining with friendly, welcoming staff and truly exciting, creative food.

The Butcher’s Apprentice, 17 Redleaf Avenue, Wahroonga, NSW, no website

Eightysix

Part one of this review is here. My dish of the night would have to be the next plate – if you’re going over the next couple of days, please be brave and try the sichuan wallaby tartare! The meat was out-of-this-world good, tender and coated in a complex dressing that was elevated to a whole new level with the crisp garlic flakes. The garlic actually created a creamy coating in the inside of your mouth, which made each mouthful of meat just that bit better. Our last savoury plate was the sweet & sour lamb, which we ordered because we kept getting wafts of as it was plated in front of us! The flavour packed into the masterstock was really something else. I told Christine how much we were enjoying it and she summed it up perfectly with a knowing smile -“finger licking good!”. The lamb was amazingly tender and the perfect note to finish on. Well, until dessert! We picked the ‘sugar daddy’ – a chocolate praline mousse and candied cumquats. The mousse was inside a chocolate pastry tart shell, and overall the chocolate part of the dessert wasn’t as sweet as I expected, but that was ideal as the cumquats, both syrup and freeze-dried versions, added a great tart-sweetness. It was a real privelige not only to enjoy such a diverse yet complementary meal, but also to watch a real master at work in the kitchen. I stick by our comment in the guest book – “make her stay!!!”.

eightysix, 11 Elouera Street, Braddon ACT                                       http://eightysix.com.au/

Eightysix

#icecreamthurs will resume next week; eightysix will be a double post today. You may have heard the buzz – Christine Manfield is in town, taking over the kitchen at eightysix. My friend and I booked bar seats with a kitchen view on her first night and here’s what happened. We started out with cocktails whilst scouring the rather long pop up menu full of Asian-inspired dishes. I picked the ‘Jessica Rabbit’, a lovely concoction of gin, strawberry, pickled ginger and prosecco that started out sweet on the front palate and grew into a warm gin flavour at the back. Our first dish was the prawn toast. This take was sophisticated and plentiful – the toast was deep fried but remained fluffy, and there was plenty of crispy prawn meat on top along with a delightful mayonnaise and sesame seeds. I am now wrecked for packet prawn toast! Our next dish was the enticingly named ‘strange flavour chicken noodles’ – this was an exciting mix of spice and flavour, definitely not for the faint-hearted. The chicken was delightfully tender and the somen noodles were cooked to perfection. The best mouthfuls were the ones with the micro corriander – absolutely perfect. Next up was the bulgogi beef steamed bun with kimchi pickle – we shared one, and found the bao to be light and springy and the beef to be nicely balanced with the kimchi. Part two to follow.

eightysix, 11 Elouera Street, Braddon ACT                                       http://eightysix.com.au/

The Botanist

I will find pretty much any excuse to go to The Botanist, and staying in Kirribilli for a week gave me the perfect one to go back. We went for dinner and I started with the Strawberry Mule, which was a perfect blend of gin, ginger beer, frangelico, strawberry and lime. It was served in a tall glass and was incredibly smooth and beautifully sweet. To eat, we started with a serve of marinated olives, which were a mix of black kalamatas and green sicilians, both of which had really intense flavours. Next up was the beetroot cured salmon, which was served with avocado puree, radish and croutons – the presentation was perfection and each element worked so well together, bringing out the best in the salmon. The crispy duck with pear chutney and sesame caramel was not crispy as advertised, but the duck was moist and the pear went so well with it that we didn’t mind. Finally we had one each of the steak and chicken tacos – the steak was smokey and went beautifully with the corn and spicy sauce. The chicken was equally delicious and well-matched with the avocado and tomato. The Botanist never fails to impress.

The Botanist: 17 Willoughby St, Kirribilli NSW              http://thebotanist.com.au/

Hammer & Tong

Whilst visiting Melbourne I mentioned that I was keen to visit Hammer & Tong – luckily my friends were keen too, so off we went to try their adventurous menu. There is definitely an industrial/Soviet-style feel about the cafe, with plenty of unpolished metal and bare walls, which is also reflected in their communist flag-inspired logo. The menu draws mostly on Asian cuisines, with the unusual option of ‘breakfast ramen’ offered – I was so tempted but it was just too early. Instead, I picked the spanner crab egg crepe served with cucumber ketchup and charocal brioche, and the mango, passionfruit and pineapple juice. The juice menu said fresh but when the juice came out it had none of the hallmarks of a fresh juice (there was no froth and it had a watery texture), but was nonetheless delicious – the passionfruit’s tart flavour was a great wake-up aid! The crepe was heavenly – light and fluffy with plenty of crab inside, each mouthful was delightful with the cucumber ketchup, which tasted more like a cucumber pickle in liquid form. It matched perfectly with the charcoal brioche which was also quite light. The flavours and textures worked together so well – next time maybe I’ll be brave and try the ramen!

Hammer & Tong, 412a Brunswick Street, Fitzroy VIC       http://www.hammerandtong.com.au

Sean’s Kitchen

One thing Adelaide’s newest restaurants seem to be getting right is social media. When I asked Twitter where I should try in Adelaide, and Sean’s Kitchen was an option, the restaurant tweeted me back offering to make a reservation. How’s that for service? So I booked in for lunch, and arrived to find an impressive set up, with the restaurant’s space designed to mirror Adelaide railway station, which it is attached to. The staff were attentive without being intrusive, and my king crab legs came out after a short wait. There were two legs, split, on the plate with fresh lemon and warmed lemon butter, which was a decadent but perfect accompaniment to the tender crab meat. I enjoyed the challenge of scraping every last morsel from inside the shell. We also had a serve of asparagus and the duck fat chips, both of which were delicious and I would definitely recommend. The chips were perfectly seasoned and the potato had a fabulous flavour – no sauce needed. We were impressed by the range on the wine list too, and we’re already planning to come back for the pork hock. A table is just a tweet away!

Sean’s Kitchen, Station Road, Adelaide SA                      http://www.seanskitchen.com.au/

Supernormal

My friend and I visited Supernormal for a Friday night dinner and waited for about 45 mins for a table – while we waited we devoured the Supernormal Smash cocktail with gin, tonic and seasonal syrup – it was a perfectly balanced cocktail with the right amount of sweet and bitter. We were told that the dishes are best to share, so started with the sesame cucumber (2 pieces included), which had a lovely pickled flavour and came served on a stick, followed by the raw bar tuna dish. As our lobster rolls arrived we asked the kitchen to slow the service down, as the plates were piling up. The roll was a highlight, with tender strips of lobster meat and a sweet brioche bun. My overall favourite, though, was the duck bao – cooked in Peking duck-style, the meat was cooked to perfection with a thin crispy shell, and served with hot, soft bao. So, so good. We finished off with the miso and pink lady soft serve, which had a fascinating flavour combination that just worked. We added the snack petipas given at the start of the meal on top to make it even better. Five hours later, we left full, happy and wishing we had a second stomach for more!

Supernormal, 180 Flinders Lane, Melbourne VIC                   http://www.supernormal.net.au