Nicholas Seafood Traders, Sydney Fish Market, NSW, Australia

We, that is my wife and I, have ventured south to Sydney on our trip to Australia, where we are at Sydney Fish Market for lunch (continuing the seafood theme from my previous entry).

This place is on the tourist trail and does actually have fish for sale to the trade, as well as a separate food court type area of restaurants that we were concentrating on today.

Whilst my wife was wanting more crustaceans and molluscs, I decided to have some fish and chips.

There was a restaurant called Nicholas Seafood Traders that had it on their bilingual menu (English and Simplified Chinese as shown in the photograph below) and so I ordered from them, choosing a Battered Flathead fish and chips. Cash was exchanged and I was told to wait about ten minutes for my order.

The reason for the second language is that most of their customers were probably from Mainland China from the amount of Mandarin I heard being spoken. In terms of menu choice there are a lot of seafood items cooked hot in a Chinese style, along with the Western style chilled seafood. Also, all the staff there were Oriental in appearance, which gives you some insight into the influence of China over this region in terms of tourism and commerce.

The Menu

Anyway, I digress. Ten minutes came and went and my food arrived served on a plastic plate. The only condiments that were free were salt, pepper and vinegar so I had to make do with the latter to put on my chips.

Presentation wise the fish did not look that big and the batter looked quite thin. I then made my way to the tables placed outside restaurants where people can take their food to eat. This al fresco dining would seem pleasant enough in the sunshine but you are joined with a lot of seagulls and another long beaked birds that I do not know the name of pestering you for food. This resulted in our table having some seagull droppings on it, therefore not so pleasant.

My Order

Taste wise the fish could have done with more batter and I am more used to having cod or other fish that has more meat to it, which this Flathead fish lacked a little. The chips were not too great either and looked pre-cut.

So overall my meal was a little disappointing given the place we were at and compared to the fish suppers that I have had in my life. It is more of a tick in the box to say I have visited this place being the tourist I am but I could not return here for deep-fried fish meal. My wife went for chilled items such as oysters, prawns and lobster, which looked better and tasted better from the sample she gave me.

Scores
Food: 2/5
Presentation 2/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 3/5

Total: 10/20

Total bill: AUD$14.00 about GBP£10.

I ate: Fish and Chips.

I drank: A coke, bought separately.

I wore: Sunglasses.

Gambaro, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

We are in Brisbane this time and my wife was wanting a seafood fix for lunch. We therefore made our way to Gambaro, an Italian restaurant recommended by the hotel concierge, which is a restaurant that has been established for over fifty years in this city. It is a short drive from our hotel, just outside the central business district.

As we walked in we were greeted by a friendly member of staff. Apart from an office lunch being held there, there were ample seats available. The tables were all laid out neatly ready for us and for further customers, as shown below. We were shown our table and asked if we wanted the bottle of water on it to drink, but we requested for tap water only, which they duly provided.

The Interior

We knew what we wanted and asked for their seafood platter. We were informed that it was meant for one but we still went for it to share, which turned out to be sufficient for both of us. As we were waiting for our food the waitress set up our table with the appropriate eating implements and scraps bowl. The platter arrived and is pictured below. The contents of the platter were arranged neatly on a bed of lettuce and consisted of: sand crab; mooloolaba prawns; Moreton Bay bugs; oysters and half a lobster.

The bugs (or flathead lobster) and half lobster were lovely and fresh, and not too cumbersome to extract the meat. The crabs had a decent amount of meat on them and a slight salty taste, underling their freshness from the sea. Oysters numbered five small ones and were sweet. There were about five prawns as well, which were a decent size (tiger size probably) and very good. We were also given lemon and cocktail sauce to garnish as well.

Seafood Platter

Both of us finished the platter and were fairly full but still had room for dessert. We chose a Creme Brûlée, to share as well. It arrived in a ramekin accompanied with with fresh berries, hazelnut ice cream and a toffee type biscuit, all well presented. The brulee could have been a bit more viscous but was nice anyway. The berries were nicer due to their freshness and ice cream had a great flavour.

Creme Brûlée

The food, in short was great. The seafood platter was enough for two, especially at lunch time. The service was of high quality, with the waiters being friendly, professional and attentive. It has been recently renovated and has a new look to it, along with the fresh paint smell. The concierge gave us a very good steer and I would recommend Gambaro to other visitors (and residents for that matter) of the city.

Scores
Food: 4/5
Presentation 4/5
Service: 4/5
Setting: 4/5

Total: 16/20

Total bill: AUD$88.50 about GBP£60.

I ate: Gambaro's Famous Chilled Seafood Platter, Creme Brûlée.

I drank: Lemonade, tap water.

I wore: Plain Jane Homme polo shirt.

Bistro on 3, Sofitel Gold Coast, Australia

Hello from the Sunshine State of Queensland, Australia. I am in Gold Coast for this blog and staying at the Sofitel Hotel.

My wife and I had checked in earlier during the day and decided to have some lunch by their pool, which was provided by the adjoining restaurant Bistro on 3.

We found a couple of seats by the pool and we ordered from inside. The food took quite some time to arrive as they were cooking from fresh.

Whilst waiting for the food our drinks arrived first, in plastic glasses for safety reasons as shown below. My wife actually ordered a sparkling wine but what came was only a standard white wine. This was rectified quickly though after notification, which still came in a plastic flute. My coke was too syrupy and not enough ice on this hot day.

Our Drinks (the wine is the incorrect one)

When the food did come the chips were very hot, confirming their freshness from the frier. They were thick and long and seasoned well before cooking. They were also served with sour cream and sweet and sour dips.

Fries

The pizza was worth the wait, which was served on a silver plate. It had a nice, thin base and the fresh ingredients of various meats (prosciutto ham, beef and salami), cherry tomato and jalapeño peppers worked really well together, with the latter giving the pizza a nice kick.

Pizza

It is not a cheap restaurant and this is expected being the only eatery by the pool, but the food is good and filling. The poolside area is in quite an open spot so it gets very sunny and bright; furniture is the usual wicker chairs and glass tables. The pool itself is not that large and gets busy, which perhaps is where the service is let down a bit. The waiters were friendly but perhaps a little overstretched that day.

Scores
Food: 4/5
Presentation 3/5
Service: 2/5
Setting: 3/5

Total: 12/20

Total bill: AUD$46, about GBP£30.

I ate: Meat Lovers Pizza, Fries.

I drank: Coca-cola.

I wore: A pair of Quiksilver shorts.

Mos Burger, North Point, Hong Kong

This entry is a back to the norm in terms of eating times after the last few quests being taken after the midday period. It was an unexpected visit to Mos Burger as I was intending to go home for lunch but got too hungry trying to get home whist waiting for the usually efficient public transport system.

I went into hamburger restaurant to get a quick food fix. They are Japanese chain that started out in the 1970s and have branched out to other areas in East Asia.

Like most fast food eateries, patrons go to the counter to order, which I duly did and the necessary cash was handed over. I then found a seat, without too much trouble and waited not too long for my order to arrive.

I went for their Mos Cheese Burger and supplemented it with some fries and a drink, which, similar to most restaurants was bundled in a meal to provide more value for your money. It arrived on a plastic tray and the burger and fries came in a basket as well for added presentation. I was also given a sachet of ketchup and a plastic dish to place it in. My coke came in a paper cup.

My Order

Their signature is the thcik slice of tomato that from the photograph below seems thciker than the burger patty. The burger was OK, if a touch on the cool side, so may not have been freshly cooked. There was also a sweet relish that came with it, which was quite nice and the bread was quite soft. I think they know that eating their burger products could cause a bit of a mess so I quite like the cone shaped open wrapper to try to keep things tidier.

The fries were not particularly hot either and fairly standard.

Cheese Burger

The restaurant is fairly new so has a modem, clean look to it and has friendly and efficient staff.

The price is comparable to other fast food restaurants making Mos Burger an alternative to its American counterparts, given the standard-ness of its food.

As a final note, I will be extending the boundaries of my questing to Asia-pacific soon so watch this space!

Total bill: HK$39.30, about £3.50.

I ate: Mos Cheese Burger, Fries.

I drank: Coca-cola.

I wore: A pair of Y3 Sprint trainers.

Harbourside, InterContinental Hotel, Hong Kong

Following on from the seafood feast I had the night before, I am at the Harbourside restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel for a buffet dinner. My wife was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to dine here.

This is probably Hong Kong's most famous buffet as it is the most expensive in town. It's situated at their basement but you still get good views of Hong Kong island past the harbour, as suggested by their name and from the photograph below.

View from our table

It was busy, being the weekend and we had reserved a table. We were shown are seats quickly, asked what we wanted for our welcome drink and then told to help ourselves.

From my first visit to the food counters I picked various cold seafoods and sashimi to start with. With the seafood platter, I decided not to take too much, given the amount of seafood I are the precious night. The lobster was good, squid was not too chewy and the nice seafood salad I picked had dry prawns and tomatoes in it. The salmon and tuna sashimi was fresh and raw.

Seafood Platter on left, Sashimi on right

For my next visit I chose some of the more extravagant dishes they had to offer such as Seafood Birds Nest Soup and Foie Gras. The soup was a thick broth, which did not have a great flavour and with stringy bits of 'nest' and nothing amazing. I liked the foie gras a lot more; it was pan fried and soft, which I placed on top of small toasted pieces of bread.

Seafood Bird's Nest Soup

Foie Gras

I moved onto the meats afterwards. Wagyu beef was overcooked for my liking. It was too well done as the chef at the cooking station had already fried several pieces before, which was a little disappointing. However, I think you can request for a slice to be cooked the way you want it if required. The lamb was better, as I did not mind the level of how well it was cooked too much.

Wagyu Beef and Lamb Chop

By contrast to the Wagyu, the roast beef was bloody but still edible, if a little chewy. I also took some sauteed vegetables and roast potatoes to compliment it and make it look more like a Sunday lunch, although they did not have Yorkshire pudding.

Roast Beef

A dish that was not pictured was Fried crab in garlic and ginger, which I felt was the nicest main dish I ate.

I then moved onto desserts. I shared a plate with my wife initially. She took a lot of macarons as show in the photograph, all of varying flavour, with the raspberry one being the one I like the most. There were also several cakes on that plate, which were all very nice, the standout one for me was the lemon cake, which had that sour and citrus taste to it.

A second visit to the dessert counter followed and I ordered a pancake to be cooked and also took a Portuguese Tart. The pancake was a thin crepe stuffed with a lot of blueberries and strawberries, probably a bit too much. The tart is very much like the Hong Kong Egg Tart except the pastry is a bit puffier and its a bit sweeter, which I really like.

Portuguese Tart & Pancake

Various Desserts

Background music was provided by the live band playing in the bar upstairs. Due to the open nature of the hotel building, the sound filtered downstairs to the restaurant so it was not too loud or distracting. They played an eclectic mix that included Gangnam Style!

Whilst the food here is good it is not exceptional and could do with fresh oysters perhaps to add more value for money? The dining hall is comfortable and stylish but at peak times it does get slightly crowded so one has to be careful when walking with a plateful of food. Waiters are friendly and are quick enough to clear your plate once finished to keep the table clear. Overall a pleasant experience, however given the price you pay I do not think I will be coming back in a hurry.

Scores
Food: 3/5
Presentation 3/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 4/5

Total Bill: Nothing due to the prize draw. However it's $790 (plus service charge) a head usually, so about £70.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: A glass of Merlot as a welcome drink and Darjeeling tea towards the end of the meal. Both were included in the price. Water was also served throughout our dinner.

I wore: A pair of Loake shoes for the first time in Hong Kong.

Sea King Garden, Lei Yue Mun, Hong Kong

This is the first proper entry of the New Year and for this we are having a late lunch quest at this seafood restaurant. It is located at Lei Yue Mun, a fishing village that has an area of seafood restaurants where their main 'ingredients' are displayed out by their front doors and are pretty much alive and kicking. You then pick the food you you want and it is cooked for you.

Live Lobster 

I was with my in-law family so we ordered a lot of dishes to share between all six of us for this dinner, which are described below.

The first dish that arrived was prawn on vermicelli, shown on the left. The prawns were big and fried well and the vermicelli was fried to give it a crunchy texture. They were all draped with a buttery sauce.

Abalone is shown on the right, which came next. The whole mollusc was steamed and served with  a soy sauce dressing and not too jaw-achingly chewy.

A lobster with noodles dish was served as the third dish. I do like lobster and this was baked well and was meaty. With the melted cheese covering the lobster and noodles there was a kind of had a macaroni cheese feel to it, which was nice.










We also chose Razor clam, shown right. These were stir fried in black bean sauce with peppers and presented back with their shell. They were a little spicy in flavour but I felt they were a bit too chewy.











Oysters were on the menu and this variant were cooked in red wine with onions. They were foil wrapped and baked so did not look that great. Baked and sweet but nothing great and in all honesty I preferred the onions.

We also ate Steamed garoupa, shown on the right. The fish meat was lovely and flaky and covered in the classic hot soy sauce oil dressing and spring onion.

We also ordered a couple of non marine type dishes. First of these dishes was Sweet & Sour pork. This classic for UK Chinese takeaways was good, nice pieces of battered meat, not too sour with peppers and pineapple.

Kale was also ordered, which was stir fried with ginger. These were big pieces of the green vegetable, crunchy and fresh tasting.

The above is not all we ate as I have not photographed everything. We also had a Fish Soup served during the main course. As a dessert we were served a hot pumpkin soup and slices of papaya

The Courtyard

Sea King Garden left us all very full and satisfied after a large seafood feast. The food is very fresh and you get to choose them yourself, which is all part of the experience.

The restaurant has undergone a recent refurbishment and has a modern looking inside with clean furniture. Historically it was based around a courtyard and after it's renovation still holds a similar style as can be seen from the photograph above, where internal dining rooms are built next to the tree in the courtyard.

Waiting staff were friendly and probably too efficient at times and tried clearing our plates before we had actually finished the food.

Scores:

Food: 4/5

Presentation: 4/5

Service: 3/5

Setting: 3/5

Total: 14/20

Cost: Expect this seafood dinner to cost at least $800 a head (including drinks). I will have to be honest here and say that our total bill cost a lot less as we knew the staff.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: White wine, Heineken Beer, Chinese Tea.

I wore: Lyle & Scott Cardigan.

Kowloon Shangri-la, Hong Kong

I am here at the Kowloon branch of the Shangri-la chain on an afternoon tea sitting (back in December), which starts at 1.30pm so is a late lunch. The tea is held at their lobby, which although is on the ground floor, still overlooks the harbour.

The chairs are lounge type making them comfortable, if a little awkward to eat the amount of food on offer sometimes. The food is laid out buffet style so I managed to eat a variety of things.

They have Chinese dishes so initially I took some Congee and Dim Sum. The congee was OK texture wise but was bland in flavour and I needed to take more condiments from the offerings to make it more flavoursome. Dim sum of Har Gow, Beef Ball and Siu Mai were all fine. The Spring Rolls had a potato type filling in them, which was different but pleasant.

Left: Dim Sum; Right: Congee

The hotel had Red bean pudding on offer, which is a traditional Chinese dessert. I ladled myself a bowlful, which was warm and sweet and not too lumpy from the beans.

Red bean pudding

Their Western dishes numbered many so I tried as much as I could. There was a small (in terms of amount and the physical size) sandwich selection, from which I took Turkey pickle mustard variety. I also picked a green salad on this plate and placed thousand island dressing on it as well. Both items were fine, with the salad ingredients fresh and crisp.

Turkey, Salad

I did take a selection of hot items, of which a plate is pictured below. Starting from the bottom left and working clockwise I selected Cherry Butternut Squash; Turkey Pastry; Beef Medallion; Honey chicken and Cheese Cannelloni. The butternut squash is something that I do not each much in Hong Kong, it was less dense than a potato with the cherry giving it a sweet edge. The turkey pastry was more pastry than turkey and a little disappointing. The beef was cooked well, with a slight rareness in the middle. It was tender and came with a nice gravy sauce. The chicken was cooked well too, being moist and flavoursome. The cannelloni was good also, which had a spinach filling. Actually the best hot dish I took that afternoon were the Chicken Wings that are not pictured, which were oven roasted with some really nice spices but were not too hot.

Cherry butternut squash; turkey pastry, beef medallion, honey chicken; cannelloni

They also had mini haute cuisine dishes, all delicately prepared in their own little bowl. The treats on offer are probably the more expensive dishes, hence the smaller quantity (that's my cynical view). I took a Parma ham with melon piece, roast duck and fig and avocado salad. All three were good and are starters that one could probably choose at a fine restaurant. I am  quite partial to duck and found that to be the nicest of the trio.

Parma Ham; Duck; Avocado Salad

Finally, I did move onto some sweet dishes. The photograph below shows from 12 o'clock working clockwise: Pana cotta; Orange Jelly; Strawberry Meringue and Mince Pie. The pana cotta was creamy and not too sweet with a nice raspberry topping. The jelly had real pieces of fruit so was citrusy and not too sour. The meringue was light with a creamy, foamy filling inside still. My mince pie was small but very Christmasy.

Pannacotta, Jelly, strawberry; Mince Pie

My second dish of sweet treats is shown the photograph below. I chose a bread and butter pudding, and some non-descript cake, both were sweet and fine. I also took the classic Scone to finish off which was a warm temperature and fresh as there was no dryness to it. It was also square in shape but the hotel only had whipped cream not clotted (which was more disappointing from my wife's part).

Scone, pudding, tiramasu

This buffet afternoon tea is really good value as one can sit here for 4 hours eating as much as they like as it has a very large selection and the staff replenish the food quite frequently too. I had more than sufficient by the time we got the bill. The furniture and tableware in the lobby is to Shangri-la standards and lounge setting makes it very relaxing place too.

One final note. This is self service buffet to the extent that you take your own tea from a selection that they have. One point to take in is to mix some water into tea otherwise it will taste too strong as some of the leaves have been steeping for some time. I found that out to my taste detriment on the first cup I drank!

Scores:

Food: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 4/5

Overall: 14/20

Bill: HK$278 per person so GB£25.

I ate: all of the above

I drank: Varieties of tea, fresh apple juice and water.

I wore: Smart casual attire.