I cannot believe that the last underground dinner was all the way back in December! After that, it was traveling to Australia and wrestling season which put my bartender out of commission...until now! As a tribute to our wonderful Australian honeymoon and 2 lovely meals at Tetsuya's and Guru, we are going to do an Australian / Asian theme for this next dinner. All the recipes are actually from Tetsuya Wakudo or Opel Khan (and one throw-in from Nobu Matsuhisa (from New York's famous Nobu). And since I have been neglecting all of you, my culinary friends, fear not, I will make it up to you with our 1st ever 5-course meal. So yay! Let's get started...
Tetsuya's was our fantastic New Year's Eve meal in Darling Harbour, Sydney. Matt made reservations in July 2009 for dinner on December 31, 2009. Ridiculous! Tetsuya's was voted the #1 restaurant in Australia/Asia and #17 in the world in 2009. To put this in perspective, Alinea was Chicago's highest ranked restaurant on the list (and #2 in the U.S.) and it was #10.* 2 of the courses that we will have were very similar to what we experienced as part of our meal, including the oysters and tuna tartare (although they had a ocean perch tartare with a frozen and subsequently thawed egg yolk on top with a goat cheese puree).
Tetsuya's
Guru was a random find that we stumbled across during an afternoon stroll in Surry Hills, Sydney. It was actually an Indian French restaurant but we had the pleasure of meeting the chef/owner Opel Khan and his lovely wife Julie. We got to chatting at the end of our evening with them, and he gave us an autographed copy of his award-winning book Sex in the Kitchen cookbook which has won several awards for the photography as well as best cookbook cover (which is actually of his wife). He could not stop talking about Table 52 in Chicago. He and his wife are friends with Art Smith (Oprah's former? personal chef). We will be utilizing 3 recipes from his cookbook which highlights the sensuality of food. It draws the parallel between sex and food - both rely heavily on our ability to see, smell, touch, taste, and who knows, these days, sometimes even hear...thank you molecular gastonomy! Hope the recipes are as inviting as the photos!
Opel Khan
Lastly, the black cod has nothing to do with Australia however I've been wanting to try this Nobu recipe forever. If any of you have had the pleasure to go to Nobu (I've only been to the one in Las Vegas), it is amazing! The miso-marinated black cod made it famous. The black cod has to marinate in the miso sauce for 3 days! And opefully I can get the black code, otherwise, I will find an equally lovely substitute for you all, never fear!
Nobu
Anyway, hope you are are excited about this 5-course treat as we are. And as always, we all pray for the best as the whole purpose for underground dinner is to try new recipes each time!
Menu:
oysters with rice wine vinegar, mirin, & grapeseed oil with chives
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marinated tuna tartare with asian-spiced goat cheese
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vanilla mango coconut milk & rum puree (palate cleanser)
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miso-marinated black cod
garlic baby bok choy
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vanilla rice pudding with caramlized lychees
Room for: 6
Cost: $50 (cash or paypal)
Wine pairings: TBD
* According to S. Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants 2009:
Sunday, March 28, 2010
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