dinner at quay

lunch at lucio's was followed in quick succession by dinner at quay. our reservation was a pleasant surprise, there was some initial misinformation and i was under the impression that we'd be eating at doyle's (ground floor) so you can imagine how my mood elevated once the hostess told us that we had been mistaken. if only we made mistakes like that everydaY! so quay was a real treat - had heard many good things about the restaurant and read much about it. it's been feted as the best restaurant in australia two years running and no. 27 on the san pelligrino restaurant list. lots of anticipation there and the reservation was truly a surprise.

so let me say this at the beginning - quay was disappointingly underwhelming. did not help that the waitstaff were brusque and had the cheek to bark at me to, 'move!' (my wine glass for an incoming plate). um, okaaay... and if they were having a bad night, fine, no quibble. but friends of mine (also young and asian) who'd dined there were treated with the same scathing disregard i experienced. so not cool.

plus the menu wasn't very good value. A$155 for a piddly 4 courses, none of which were substantial so after dinner i felt like crossing circular quay to maccas for some real food. in fact, i sort of had 8 courses because one of the other guests didn't eat much (and i ate up everything) yet even after my four courses and 3/4 of his four courses, i was still hungry. plus i had a huge lunch at lucio's so you can imagine how truly miniscule the servings were.

oh well. enough complaining and here are some photos. the food was o-k, and i comforted myself with the prospect of a 13 course degustation meal at tetsuya's the next night.

the amuse bouche of tuna tartare with white eggplant puree and dashi jelly

one

Mud crab congee

Hand shelled mud crab, palm hearts, Chinese inspired split rice porridge

also had the sea pearls (sashimi tuna, sea scallop, crab, smoked eel, octopus), courtesy of my finicky neighbour but didn't get a photo of that.

two

Crisp confit of pig belly, green lipped abalone and cuttlefish, handmade silken tofu, Japanese mushrooms, chive flowers

Western Australian fresh water marron, jamon and oloroso juices, young peas and broad beans, young garlic cream, almonds, pea flowers, rose and vanilla salt

three

Berkshire pig jowl, maltose crackling, prunes, cauliflower cream, perfumed with prune kernel oil

Slow cooked partridge stuffed with pumpernickel, morels and ethical Spanish foie gras butter, faro, hazelnuts, cinnamon, cloves, rye, white asparagus cream

four

Preserved wild cherry compote, coconut cream, chuao chocolate crumble, milk meringue crystals, cherry juice and chocolate sorbet

Jackfruit snow egg

so this jackfruit snow egg is quay's claim to fame. apparently on masterchef, the contestants were asked to recreate the dessert. ho hum. i'm from singapore and personally don't find jackfruit very exotic. don't get me wrong, i'm a jackfruit fan and like the fruit but this much-acclaimed dessert, like the rest of dinner, was sadly underwhelming.

mind you, the photos above are two x A$155 dinners so whilst i'd the benefit of eight courses, most other diners had only four.

the only thing good about dinner was the 2008 pierro we had. lovely bottle of oaked white from margaret river and sublime when chilled to perfection. crisp molten goodness. mhmmm :)

and after dinner we went for a long walk from quay to the opera house, to the rocks then rinse wash repeat.