Simon Food Favourites: Time Out Sydney Taste Test

23 March 2010

Time Out Sydney Taste Test: Final winner announced, CBD Bistro, Sydney (22 Mar 2010)

52 King Street, Sydney NSW 2000

http://www.marchintomerivale.com

New chefs in the kitchen

The kitchen was buzzing tonight with young apprentice chefs passionately cooking their own signature dishes for a full house of hungry diners who in turn voted for their favourite dish of the night.

From the start Stephanie Coupland from est. set the bar high with an artfully arranged dish of Sashimi of yellowfin tuna, wasabi sorbet, coriander and shiso pearls which also delivered on taste for me. All the ingredients were well balanced and the bits of finger lime provided a wonderful highlight on the taste buds. Ryka Johnson from Rockpool was next with his vegetarian inspired Pumpkin and celery salad with sweet, salty and sour dressing which was well presented with lots of different textures throughout but I found it just a bit too overly pumpkin in taste. Daniel Sturman from est. created the Grilled white scallops and cuttlefish, apple, witlof, hazelnuts and mache. I had the privilege of trying this recently at est when I visited for the March in Merivale $33 Menu. Scallops were beautifully cooked again but I was hoping the cuttlefish was going to be more tender to the bite and wished cauliflower puree would have somehow made it's way on the plate too. Alex Keen from Ormeggio prepared the Sultana and thyme infused poached rabbit, potato and parsnip puree with marsala reduction — this was a non-judged dish although a bit of a crowd pleaser nevertheless.

Another non-judged dish came next by Zen Jay Ong from Aqua Dining whose Compressed fruit salad, cinnamon sand, raspberry caramel, vanilla creme fraiche and micro basil looking delightful on the glass plate and you could easily smell the wonderful fruits used. I enjoyed the flavours but I'm not a fan of glass plates as they tend to make too much noise with the slightest touch of cutlery. The cinnamon sand was perhaps a bit too sandy tasty for me though. Finally Michael Mu Sung from est. brought out his Chocolate and raspberry cake, white chocolate mousse, almond soil, blueberry sorbet and lemon espuma. Perhaps one of the more substantial sized dishes of the night it certainly delivered on his wish of 'simple flavours made from common ingredients'. I think presentation could be tightened up a bit but it was really hard for me to choose between this one and Stephanie's Sashimi dish as the winner — I think it's a little unfair to judge savoury against sweet dishes.

A big thanks to Frank Roberts from Merivale who invited me along as a guest at this $60/head event. Front of house Maître d' Howard and Chef Simun Dragicevich were great in keeping everything on track both in the dining area and kitchen.

Other visits to Bistro CBD:

• 22 March 2010 - Time Out Sydney Taste Test final

• 28 July 2009 - Tasting Night 15 Years of Dining Excellence

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Reasonable price for 6 well thought out and presented dishes from up and coming chefs

CONS: Books out really quickly

MUST TRY: Keeping an eye on where these young chefs end up

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