Quay, Circular Quay

There is a reason Quay has won Restaurant of the Year two years in a row in both The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and the Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide. It is impeccable. The moment you step into the restaurant you are greeted by THAT view, and you think there's not much that can top it. But it only gets better from there.

As one of A's many birthday meals, he agreed to be spoilt rotten and taken for an extravagant lunch at Quay. I was surprised and so excited I could pee my pants, since Quay has been at the top of my wishlist for a while. And we don't get to splurge like this very often. Lunch was always going to be the better option for us, a slightly smaller dent on the wallet at $95 for three courses (or $75 for two). Also, when you have the Opera House on one side of you and the Harbour Bridge on the other, it seems like a waste to miss the daytime view. And of course, it makes all the photos look better!

Let me start by saying that the service was flawless, from start to finish. I booked online through their website, had an email confirmation by the end of the day and a follow up confirmation phone call the day before my booking. They were very thoughtful and helpful with working around my nut allergies, letting me know if there was even a trace of anything in any of the dishes. (Though I was willing to push it a little bit, I didn't want to miss out on a thing! A little almond meal doesn't bother me. Not that I recommend this to other allergy sufferers.) We started off with some lovely sunflower seed and polenta bread, and though I've gotten over taking photos of the bread, I had to put it up so I could reminisce about the absolutely lovely Riesling we had.

Amuse Bouche - Tuna tartare with smoked eel tapioca & horseradish cream

The amuse bouche was the perfect teaser for the meal to come. Firm cubes of beautifully fresh tuna, matched wonderfully with the smokiness of the tapioca pearls and a very light & fluffy horseradish cream. It had my mouth watering.

Crisp confit of pig belly, gentle braise of abalone and cuttlefish, handmade silken tofu, Japanese mushrooms, chive flowers ($10 supplement)

A's entree was a delightful mixture of textures and flavours and I had to resist leaping over the table to steal his dish for myself. The pork belly was just right, with that extremely satisfying crunch as you bit through the crackling. The tofu was the best tofu I think I've ever had in my entire life. The flavour of soy beans was much more intense and pure, and it melted smoothly over your tongue. That was sexy tofu.

Sea Pearls - Sea scallop, abalone, smoked eel & octopus, sashimi tuna

There was little doubt about which entree I would choose. The signature sea pearls sat in front of me, just as gorgeous as expected, so pretty that I kept taking photos even after I had enough, just because it was nearly too pretty to eat. Though you miss out on an extra pearl when you have this dish at lunch, there is nothing to complain about. I thoroughly expected the sweet, fresh sea scallop to be my favourite of the pearls, (and it definitely lived up to expectations) but I found that all of them were outstanding. The tuna pearl was very similar to the amuse bouche and the octopus pearl had a fabulous texture. If I had to choose, I think I was most enamoured with the abalone pearl, which was actually a pearl of dashi jelly that was so rich in flavour. But the scallop was a very close second. Let's just admire them again...

Confit of Riverina lamb loin, young vegetables, comté-infused fresh milk curd, roasted quinoa, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, hazelnuts

A's lamb came sans hazelnuts, so that I could share :) Though he was a little surprised that his main was quite small in size, he quickly got over it once he tasted it. The lamb was amazing, pink and so tender it almost melted in your mouth and made your eyes roll into the back of your head. The quinoa added a great bite to the dish, and I resisted stealing too much of his main since he was already wishing his portion was bigger.

Crisp pressed duck confit, kabu turnips, winter melon, hasuimo, garlic chive buds, sea scallops, duck juices

It probably would have worked out better if A had ordered my main instead, because he loved it so much that ended up eating half of it. I gave it away reluctantly, because it was SO GOOD. The duck confit was golden and crisp on the outside, but yielded easily under my knife and fork to reveal the juiciest, most flavoursome duck meat underneath. Paired with the lusciously rich duck juices at the bottom of the plate, it was so incredibly satisfying. The wintermelon was a curious vegetable that I haven't seen used very much outside of the usual Asian dishes, but was a bit of a revelation. I particularly enjoyed the sweet garlic chive buds but found that the delicate flavour of the sea scallops was a little lost amongst all the other intense flavours of this dish.

Strawberry guava and custard apple snow egg

On to dessert, the part I was most excited about, no surprises there. Unfortunately for me, the praline in the infamous eight texture chocolate cake had hazelnuts in it, but even though it wasn't an option for me, there was no way we were missing out on it. A got the chocolate cake while I chose the snow egg. This dessert completely stole my heart, it was so pretty and delicate. A light meringue sphere holding custard in the middle was encased by a paper-thin crisp toffee biscuit, dusted with icing sugar and sitting in a bed of granita and guava fool.

I'm not completely certain which parts were the strawberry guava or custard apple bits, but I'm guessing the smooth, silky custard in the centre of the meringue egg was custard apple flavoured and the granita was guava flavoured? Either way, it was so so so lovely. I was incredibly full from my rich main but there was no way I was missing out on a single morsel of it. The crisp shell was my favourite part, it cracked very easily which I hadn't expected, and was so nice with the meringue and custard. It just made me sigh and wish I could make desserts this beautiful.

Eight texture chocolate cake (Featuring Amedei ‘Chuao’ Chocolate)

And finally, the eight texture chocolate cake. Everyone has probably seen it before, on countless blogs, so I will save you the long description and let you enjoy the show.

Stunning isn't it? I had the small taste of some of the non-nutty textures and it the chocolate incredibly smooth and intense, I only really tasted the lighter mousse, the thin tempered chocolate top and the warm melted chocolate on top. The staff noted that A licked the plate clean, which I think was the highest compliment he could give. In fact, I think every single one of our dishes was licked clean, even the tiny amuse bouche glasses. There were definitely no complaints from A about the portion sizes after his rich dessert. We spent a good long time sitting back in our seats and drinking in the view, which was spectacular even on a grey, slightly drizzly day that only offered us a small peek of sunshine. And then we wondered home, and all I could say the entire way back was, "It was SO GOOD!". Possibly my favourite lunch ever. I wish I could go back!

Quay
Upper Level Overseas Passengers Terminal,
Circular Quay West,
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9251 5600

Krabi, Thailand

I spent 5 fantastic days in the small main town centre of Krabi, Thailand. It was unexpectedly devoid of tourists, as most of them cluster around the beach-side area of Aonang or the nearby islands like Phi Phi and Phuket. This made it so much more fun for us, since it was less tourist-oriented. Hardly anyone spoke English and there were plenty of small local food stalls and restaurants to try!

There was a large amount of stress amongst my friends and family when they heard I was visiting Thailand. The general reaction was something like: "But...isn't everything full of peanuts? Won't you...like, die?" Yes there were a lot of things that had nuts in them, but there are always other options!

My Dad organised the whole thing for us and booked us into a tiny family run hotel in the middle of Krabi Town called @Krabi Pura. It was a really wonderful little place, immaculately clean and the owner, Atchara was so helpful-she even wrote a little note in Thai saying that I was allergic to nuts so that I could show it to people wherever I went to eat :)

One of the places Atchara recommended was the outdoor night stalls that were just around the corner from the hotel. We visited these stalls several times, it was a great little place to grab all sorts of nibbles. The first day we went pretty safe and tried a green curry and tom yum soup.

Tom yum soup and green curry

Both are wonderfully fragrant and super spicy, just the way we like it. The desserts at the stalls were fantastic and extremely unhealthy! There were a lot of super sweet desserts such as Nutella pancakes drenched in butter, condensed milk and sugar. My favourite were these super thin, crepe-like pancakes smeared with coconut cream and sweetened shaved coconut.

Fried mussels & pad thai

Making crispy sweet pancakes

Crispy coconut pancakes

The best thing about Krabi Town was the fresh seafood. Everything was straight off the fishing boats and ridonkulously cheap. I pretty much ate nothing but seafood for a week. Oh, and corn ice cream. YES!

Coconut and corn ice cream

Handmade coconut and chocolate icecream with corn, bread & palm seeds

KFC Corn Sundae!

*sigh* Hallelujah, a whole country that shares my love for this dessert! The handmade icecream at the night stalls was so great, somehow the random mixture of corn, palm seeds and chunks of white bread combined perfectly! I stumbled upon the corn sundae one particularly scorching hot day when we burst into the only airconditioned store on the whole street, KFC. WHEEEE it was the best!

A tried a burger from KFC while we were there, a roast chicken burger...it had broccolli in it! It didn't taste too bad for KFC though.

Deep fried crap!

Heehee, yep their English was not the best.

Thai ice lemon tea

Oh my...how I miss these ice lemon teas! Super strong black tea made ultra refreshing with tons of ice and lemon. Perfect for those really hot days. These were had at the touristy area of Aonang beach, which we travelled to on our last day by hiring a motorcycle. It was A's first time riding one and I hung on to the back, scared for my life. We got hit by an ENORMOUS thunderstorm on the way home, the rain was insane! I remember holding on for dear life, yelling in A's ear "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Haha, it was great fun in the end though.

The motorcycle ride around Krabi was one of the many things recommended by Atchara from @Krabi Pura. Her suggestions were always spot on and I am so grateful because it made the holiday completely stress-free and memorable. The restaurant that got her highest recommendation was seafood restaurant around the corner, right opposite the night markets. They served an amazing catfish curry and fresh lobster omelette.

Catfish curry and seafood salad

Lobster omelette

My mouth is watering from the memory of the sweet juicy chunks of lobster meat that were generously dispersed amongst the crispy, golden egg which we drowned in chilli sauce. So. Good.

View from the top of tiger cave temple

I would recommend Krabi to anyone looking for a budget beach holiday with hardly any planning involved. The accommodation only cost us 1000 baht a night (less than 50 bucks) for an airconditioned room facing the river with cable TV and a complimentary breakfast. The only downside was the crazy Thai aerobics class that woke us up at 5 in the morning everyday with it's booming Thai techno music. Will be bringing earplugs next time! The best part is you can organise day trips around Krabi and surrounding islands by booking them as late as the afternoon before. So we would get back to the hotel after an awesome day out and decide what we fancied doing the next day and that was it! We did sea kayaking, snorkelling, elephant riding and swimming in natural pools and hot springs. It was the best relaxing, fun holiday.

Our tour guide at Hong Island after snorkelling

Young monk kite flying outside temple

Emerald pool

Kuala Lumpur Part 6

The Seafood Parade

I can never stop marvelling at the price of the enormous, extravagant seafood feasts you can have in Malaysia. The food is just SO cheap, I am pretty sure that some of them cost as much as my fried chicken dinner in Epping last night. So I could not complain one teensy tiny bit that for my last five nights, and for many other nights during my visit, we were treated to ginormous seafood dinners with various family members.

1. King Crab

Steamed fish, stir fried veges, butter crab with mantou

Dad's side of the family love King Crab, so we come together for a birthday celebration. This is the first time I've gotten to try the butter crab. King Crab serves a variety of sauces with their crabs, and this particular sauce is a creamy butter sauce. The sauce is a mixture of butter, condensed milk, bird's eye chillis and curry leaves. It's wonderfully rich and every trace of the sauce is greedily mopped up with the freshly fried mantou bread. King Crab really know their mantou, it's always perfectly crisp and warm. We try a variety of other meat, vegetable and seafood dinners but none of them come to mind easily so they were not spectacular, but not terrible either.

2. King Crab Take 2
We return to King Crab right at the end of our holiday for the purpose of having some Singapore Style Chilli Crab. Because of some family issues, our planned trip to Singapore was cancelled and I had not had a chance to fulfill my promise to A's Dad that I would stuff A full of chilli crab (it was his Dad's absolute favourite dish when he visited Singapore years ago). This time I have full reign over the menu since it is just a small group of us.

King noodles, sweet and sour fish and kangkung belacan

I insist on ordering the king noodles, which I adored on my last trip. When the noodles come out it all makes sense, it is laden with crispy pork fat. Every dish from Malaysia that engraved itself in my memory from my last short trip seems to have been pork fatted to the max! Mum gets the fried fish for herself since she is skipping the crab. The kangkung was a disappointment, it was very oily that night, even though it was fragrant and spicy, the whole thing just oozed and dripped with the leftover oil.

Chilli crab with mantou

The chilli crab is probably not the best you can find but it is always enjoyable. The spicy tomato and egg sauce is mouth watering and all you can hear from our table for the first 20 minutes is the quiet slurping and sucking of sauce off the shells of the crab. I always selfishly grab my favourite part of the crab, the head and scrape all the tastiest morsels out of this section. The meat is wonderfully fresh.

3. Eric Deli Paradise

Steamed fish in spicy clear soup

We choose this dinner location hastily, in an attempt to find somewhere that is close to home since Dad is not feeling 100%. I came here on my last trip and enjoyed fresh steamed fish and crispy fried pigeon. The pigeon has been taken of the menu, rather disturbingly because the bird has been banned because it came from China. It's definitely not the best of our seafood dinners, my cousin's nose is wrinkled up in disapproval from the time the decision is made to go here until the time the enormously expensive bill is delivered by the smarmy idiot of a waiter. We also figure out later in the evening that they overcharged us for one of the dishes. The food is okay but none of us were particularly hungry so we ended up with way to much food and it felt like a waste.

Crispy skin chicken

The chicken is well-cooked, with a super crispy skin but this is the offending dish which we are charged for a full serve when we only receive a half serve. We order some prawns that are cooked in a creamy curry sauce just so that I can try out their mantou. It is served steamed and deep fried with a small dish of condensed milk in the middle. I cannot stop eating the mantou and eat more of it with the sweetened condensed milk than the actual prawn dish.

Curry prawns and mantou!

4. Lala Chong Seafood Restaurant

Lala chong. Lala chong. Lala chong. This is something I keep randomly hearing from my parents mouth's every now and then. It is their favourite place to bring a big group of family for a celebration dinner, because my parents are the ultimate cheapskates and this is the ultimate value for money seafood dinner.

Salted egg yolk crab, steamed vegetables with garlic, fried paku with tuna and chilli, siong tong lala (fresh lala cooked in a soup with garlic and cili padi) and butter prawns fried with black beans

I've gotta say, this was a fantastic meal. Totally worth the drive out past the old Subang Airport to the middle of nowhere. The crabs fried with salted egg is requested by my Malay cousins and it is so much better than the version I tried at king crab but the crab meat is not very fresh, almost mushy. The paku vegetables fried with tuna was a surprising hit, it turned out to be a great combination. And my god. The LALA. I DIE.

Assam fish and honey fried baby squid

...now that I have gotten my Rachel Zoe moment out of the way, the siong tong lala was just so damn good. The soup was multi-dimensional, that's the only way I can think to describe it, an explosion of flavour in your mouth packed with garlic, ginger and chilli . I drink it up greedily. The assam fish is great, and comes with heaps of vegetables in the sauce. I love the crispy pieces of deep fried honey squid. The tiny little baby tentacles of the squid are super crunchy with their sweet honey batter. Love it.

5. Port Klang

Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of this restaurant, which is a real pity. It is one of the huge restaurants that competes along this waterfront strip. A narrow, dark bridge on stilts leads you to the open restaurants which has a specular view of the water. And the water is conveniently close to your table, so you can happily fling your empty crab shells over your shoulder into the water.

Marmite chicken, two types of fried noodles, siong tong fish, praying mantis fried prawns and steamed veges

Every single dish is fantastic. I am in heaven. The siong tong with anything is fast becoming one of my favourite dishes. I can't resist that spicy soup. The funny looking pink fish is flattened out with its eyes bugging out rather comically. The marmite chicken is sticky and delicious. We get two types of crabs - singapore style chilli and the pepper crab. The chilli crab is a million times better than the king crab version - extremely tomatoey and dense with chilli padi. The pepper crab is very strong, almost eye wateringly peppered. I'm not sure I am a fan of it but I still love my crab. A insists on taking a photo of the table at the end of our meal to show his family - I guess it's a bit of the culture shock hehe.

The aftermath