Sokyo - Bringing Tokyo in Sydney - Birthday Treats Part 2

Just one week ahead of my birthday I had a pleasurable problem to solve – to decide on a restaurant for the family birthday celebration dinner. After some vigorous research I found the perfect place to cater for the family’s love for Japanese food and my passion for trying something out of the ordinary.

The Star (aka former Star Casino) is shimmering with the addition of dazzling eateries such as Momofuku Seiobo, Black by ezard and Adriano Zumbo Patissier. After reading some exhilarating reviews, I set my eyes on Sokyo, where stylish Tokyo meets vibrant Sydney.

We surpassed the buzzing dining area on the top floor and headed to the more discrete dining area downstairs. The restaurant is fully occupied, the lighting is dim, the music is loud and food is ridiculously good! At a young age of 29, head chef Chase Kojim has led Nobu kitchens all over the world including Dubai, London, LA and Bahamas. With his experience and creativity, he’s changing the games for Japanese food in Sydney.

The menu is divided into several sections including sashimi, sushi, tempura, robata (meat, seafood and vegetables grilled on white charcoal) and “essential dishes”. Everything is beautiful but there are some exceptional standouts, like the enoki mushroom tempura (in fact all tempura items are brilliant – lightly battered so that they are crisp and flavoursome) and the beef short rib robata with caramelised eshallots that are so succulent, sweet and appetizing. They also serve fantastic cocktails - Miss J commented on her plum wine cocktail being the best she's ever had.

The waiting staffs are proficient and made good recommendations on what and how much to order. We ended up spending around $120 pp, which is how much it would be if we had gone for their degustation. Of course I much prefer having control of what will end up on our plates (ok, I'll admit again, yes I'm a picky eater :P) so I would encourage going in a big group so that you can try the variety of yummy dishes they have on offer. I won’t ramble on as I'm sure the pictures will speak for themselves.

Entrance to the bar-like restaurant

An extremely heavy teapot

Some good looking clay tea cups

Coffee Beer

Two-ended chopsticks – how ingenious! 

Sashimi Platter

24 pieces of mixed traditional sashimi

L Loves... Enoki Mushroom with Sokyo tempura sauce and

Pumpkin Tempura with Poblano, rocoto sauce

Tempura - Moreton Bay Bug with sambal mayo, grapefruit salsa, 

Sand Whiting with curry salt, apple aioli, layu and 

Cuttlefish with chilli de arbol, tarragon ponzu sauce

L Loves... Beef Robata

Short Rib, caramelized eshallots, BBQ teriyaki

L Loves... Beef Robata
A closer look at those delicious juicy beef short ribs

L Loves... Hokkaido Scallops

Wasabi shitake pepper sauce

L Loves... Baby Corn
Burnt sweet soy, shichimi pepper butter

King Prawn

Enoki, pancetta, green chili sauce

Crowd Pleaser: DengakuMan

Caramelised miso cod, Japanese salsa, celery croutons

Wagyu +5 T-BONE 610 grams

Sokyo dipping sauces

Wagyu +5 T-BONE 610 grams

Sokyo dipping sauces

Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice Nigiri

Crispy nigiri, truffle salt, spicy mayo

Crowd Pleaser: Salmon Belly Aburi, Ooma Maguro Toro (Premium Tuna Belly), 

Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice, Braised Sea Eel Nigiri

Goma Street

Caramelised white chocolate, sesame ice cream

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fondant

Vanilla ice cream 

Look at that gooey peanut butter centre!

Donatsu

Pineapple mascarpone filling, crème fraiche ice cream

Pouring that lovely berry sauce over the Donatsu

The discrete entrance inside The Darling
 in The Star - don't miss it!

L's Verdict:

·     Taste: 9/10

·     Ambience: 3.5/5 (trendy, but a bit too loud and dark for my liking)

·     Value: 3/5

·     Service: 3.5/5 (proficient, but had to ask repeatedly for our drinks order)

·     Creativity and other WOW factors: 4/5 

Overall rating: 23/30

Sokyo

Level G, The Darling, The Star

80 Pyrmont Street   

Pyrmont, NSW 2009

Ph: 1800 700 700

Lunch: Fri-Sat 12pm-2:30pm

Dinner: Mon-Thu 6pm-10:15pm

Fri & Sat 6pm-11:15pm

Visited June 2012

Friendly advice: Sokyo is all about the quality and not quantity, so expect to pay ~$100+ pp to walk away full. That being said the food is top notch. If you don’t want to overspend, after tasting some of those delicious food in Sokyo, you can hunt for more good food at Café Court inside The Star, including Flying Fish & Chips (inspired by Sydney’s iconic Flying Fish), Din Tai Fung (world famous dumplings from Taiwan), Adriano Zumbo Patissier (for yummy desserts & macarons) and Messina Gelato (for the ultimate gelato – believe me they are the best in Sydney!!). 








Updated photos from Din Tai Fung, Adriano Zumbo Pâtissier and Messina Gelato...

Entree, main and desserts from Din Tai Fung:
Xiao Long Bao (Steamed pork dumpling), Fried rice with shrimp,
Golden taro bread, golden red bean bread

Fried rice with egg topped with black pepper beef cubes

Shrimp & pork wonton tossed with spicy sauce

Xiao Long Bao (Steamed pork dumpling)

Din Tai Fung
Cafe Court 80 Pyrmont St   
Pyrmont, NSW 2009 
Ph: 02 9000 0000

L Loves... Delicious Zumbarons:  Watermelon & Orange, Salted Butter Caramel,
Peach Ice Tea, Popcorn, Pancake & Maple Syrup, Custard Crunch

L Loves... Delicious Zumbarons:  Watermelon & Orange, Salted Butter Caramel,
Peach Ice Tea, Popcorn, Pancake & Maple Syrup, Custard Crunch

  
Adriano Zumbo Pâtissier

Cafe Court 80 Pyrmont St   
Pyrmont, NSW 2009 

L Loves... Gelato takeaway tubs from Messina Gelato

Messina Gelato

Cafe Court 80 Pyrmont St   

Pyrmont, NSW 2009 

Monday to Thursday: 11am to 11pm
Friday and Saturday: 11am to 11.30pm
Sunday: 11am-11pm

Meat and Beer Lover Paradise @ Bazaar Beer Cafe

I seldom dine in St Leonards. When looking for good food around that area, I usually turn to its neighbouring sister, Crows Nest. This is until my British colleague recommended to me this cosy European-style beer café tucked away in the quiet street corner of St Leonards. Bazaar Beer Café offers a collection of imported beers (including the holy Bernard lager, Hoegaarden and Czech beers) on tap and wines by the glass. They also have a tempting range of traditional European comfort food in their a la carte menu. The dishes they serve are delicious, honest, generously portioned at a decent price range. 

To tip the scales, they even have a Monday to Thursday All Day Specials menu for $13.99:

Monday: Lamb Shanks - Braised lamb shanks, parsley mashed potatoes, confit honey roasted root vegetables

Tuesday: Hunter Schnitzel - Crumbed chicken breast fillet with wild mushroom and fresh herb sauce, potato mash and side salad

Wednesday: Pork Belly - Slowly cooked pork belly with crackling, served on potato mash, sauerkraut, apple chutney and grilled csabai

Thursday: Veal Parmigiana - Crumbed veal, grilled eggplant, zuchinni, basil, tomato, parmesan cheese and mash potato

And if you pay $3 extra, you can get a 300mL beer on tap (of your choice) or a glass of house wine. Bring it on!

A small, intimate setting

The duck salad is the dish to order if you want to savour all the good flavour and feel good after downing it all. The duck is so tasty and the sweet kumara, tangy beetroot and bean sprouts work well to bring together this wholesome salad. More for me please!

L Loves... Duck Salad
Mixed leaves, roasted kumara, roasted baby beetroot,
beans sprouts, sweet chili lime sesame dressing

A closer look at that yummy duck salad

Hoegaarden - normally $8.50, but only $3 with the all day special! 

For those of you who worry that the all day specials sounds too good to be true, let me assure you there is no comprising in the quality of the special dish that many of us ordered tonight – the glorious Pork Belly! With the ever so tasty cracking and the succulent belly, it was certainly a crowd pleaser. The apple chutney gives that extra sweetness to complete this well rounded dish. Yumm and I would happily pay full price for it!

L Loves... Pork Belly
Slowly roasted pork belly with crackling served on potato mash,
 sauerkraut, apple chutney and grilled csabai

Floris Griotte cherry beer

The five hour slow roasted free range duck is cooked to perfection and sits on top of a throne of red cabbage, braised with horseradish and apple. The recommended beer to go with the duck is a cherry foris fruit beer, which is probably not everyone’s drink, especially if you’re not used to combining “sweet” and “beer” together.

Five Hour Duck Slowly roasted free range duck on red cabbage
braised with horseradish and apple, served with dumplings

The staffs at this casual beer cafe are welcoming and served our drinks and food in no time. I would happily recommend this place to anyone who wants to enjoy a casual night out with friends over a beer and hearty food without breaking your budgets.

L's Verdict:

·                     Taste: 8.5/10 

·                      Ambience: 3.5/5

·                      Value: 5/5

·                      Service: 4/5

·                     Creativity and other WOW factors: 3/5  

Overall rating: 24/30

Bazaar Beer Cafe

1 Albany Street

St Leonards NSW 2065

Ph: (02) 9438 1999

Mon - Sat: 12 noon to 10pm

Sun: 12 noon to 9:30pm

Visited November 2011

Friendly advice: For those who are on a budget, go for the weekday specials. But honesty, everything is delicious and very well priced. If unsure of what to drink with your meal, they also offer beer pairing advice. Cheers :)

Bigger is better at Orto Trading Co.

Orto Trading Co... no, it’s not a second-hand car garage, but a charming, vibrant restaurant and bar in Surry Hills. The place has a quirky interior with brick walls and bottled flowers dangling down from the ceiling like chandeliers. On the table are candles in holders made out of jam jars and fresh flowers in bottle vases. 

Orto Trading Co's bar area

Bottled flowers chandeliers

The menu is dynamic and we are advised tonight is the first night of their new Spring menu. We note its one day too early but I guess they are like us in that we all couldn’t wait for Spring to arrive! Our waitress explained the menu to us. She mentioned the mains are served on wooden boards designed to be shared. She also said that we should order the starters and entrées as a group, and then order one main each… Wait, didn’t she just say the mains are to be shared? Once she left we are more confused than before she came, but that’s ok, we can work our own way around the interesting starters, MASSIVE mains, and surprising desserts :P

Orto's versatile Spring menu

They have a variety of fascinating British-inspired starters, including the Scotch egg that bring together soft gooey yolk with crusty crumbed sausage mince and curry spiced pear piccalilli. But I'd have to say the star of tonight goes to the cauliflower fritters that are lightly fried and packed with flavour!

Long red chilli stuffed
with herbed labna

Smoked eel and crispy

pork cheek witlof bites

NZ brewing icon Monteith's 

Crushed apple cider (4.5% abv)

Scotch egg with house-made pork sausage and pear piccalilli

L Loves… Cauliflower fritters with a curried pear sauce

Salmon ballotine with horseradish cream and a crispy caper salsa

The mains arrived on huge wooden serving boards and we are stroked by the massive serving size… Super size me! The dishes are nevertheless beautifully presented showcasing seasonal produce. The servings of duck are magnificently fatty it may as well take on the name of “The Fat Duck”. The accompanying mustard mandarins add a mild sweetness, reminiscent of orange soda, to cut through the fullness of the meat.

To balance the meatiness of our meal, we ordered the watercress and blood orange salad, which never made its way to our table. We only realised this after we have finished our mains with our bellies full to the max so we didn’t check with our waitress. When we received the bill, the watercress salad appeared on the bill but when we mentioned to the hospitable waiting staff, she took care of it with no fuss made :)

L Loves… Whole glazed duck with mustard mandarins, radicchio and hazelnuts

Beetroot carpaccio with minted quinoa, lime cured apples,

roasted mixed seeds and crispy goats curd

Lamb loin with a spring vegetable salad, 

shiraz reduction and fennel jam

Smoked kingfish wellington with nettle,
wild rice and buttered leeks, buckwheat crepe and beurre blanc

Orto is full of bright ideas and pleasurable surprises as demonstrated again in our desserts. They are so playful and I liked the idea of a miniature garden with yummy chocolate biscuit soil and cute lollipops of thinly sliced pineapple, slightly sour and tangy lavender marshmallow and lemon ice cream.

Spring desserts menu

Low-tea with scone layer cake and homemade lemon iced tea

Orto Spring Garden with lemon thyme cake and chocolate soil, 

planted with lavender marshmallow, pineapple and lemon ice cream

Chocolate Pudding with coffee and frangelico granita, 

coffee vanilla custard and hazelnut tuile

“Orto” literally means a small vegetable garden in Italian, and outside the restaurant we found a DIY herb garden with small buckets of parsley, oregano and basil... how cute!

Orto's DIY herb garden

L's Verdict:

·                     Taste: 7/10 

·                      Ambience: 4/5

·                      Value: 4/5 

·                      Service: 4/5

·                     Creativity and other WOW factors: 3/5  

Overall rating: 22/30

Orto Trading Co.

38 Waterloo Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010

Ph: 0431 212 453

Tues – Wed 5.30pm to 10pm

Thur – Sat Mid-day to 11pm

Visited August 2011

Friendly advice: They serve HUGE portions so make sure you share the love (and damage) around.