Orto Trading Co

Orto Trading Co is a funky new restaurant in Surry Hills. Orto is Italian for vegie garden but there isn't particularly Italian about the menu. I'd call it Modern Australian. We sat outside at trestle tables made from the old SCG scoreboard. Very funky. Great food too.

Not a bad spot nestled in the smaller back streets of Surry Hills. Perfect for a mild August day.


Scotch Eggs with house made pork sausage and pear piccalilli.


Can't remember what this was. Pork on witlof with quail eggs and something... else. Quite delicious though.


Georgia enjoyed her little outing even if she was just eating blended up muck.


They had White Rabbit!


Another one I can't recall quite what it was but I think it was lamb done three ways including confit. Very rich.


Salad of radicchio, blood orange, beet root and goats cheese.


Chocolate and pear tart with walnuts.


Man, I should take notes. Here, I think, is their take on the classic trifle.


So this is where old score boards come to die. Neat way to re-cycle the old boards I my humble opinion.

Orto Trading Co is at 38 Waterloo Street Surry Hills.

Marque Restaurant

Georgia's grandparents flew up from Melbourne for a couple of days so we thought, fine, you can baby sit while we go out. So we did. To one of Australia's best restaurants - Marque. It has been a while since we've been here, 2009 I think, and it has been 7 months since just the two of us have been out for a meal. There was no way we weren't going to go he whole hog and not have the full degustation menu. Michelle took it easy on the wines but, hey, I'm not breast feeding so I went for the full complement of matching wines too.

Marque, according to Australian Gourmet Traveller, is the number one restaurant in Australia. It is indeed mighty fine. As fine as the delicate and totally scrummy dishes chef Mark Best dishes up. Starting with..

Bonito with Foie Gras & Potato


Almond Jelly with Blue Swimmer Crab, Almond Gazpacho, Sweet Corn & Avruga
2009 Niepoort 'Tiara' Codega/Rabigato/Donzelino, Douro, Portugal


Warm Oyster with Braised Abalone, Citrus Salad & Cocoa
2008 D. de Belliviere, Chenin Blanc, Jasnieres, Loire Valley, France


Poached Calamari with Lardo & Black Radish
Toro Albala, 'Olorosso Viejo' Pedro Ximenez, Montilla-Moriles, Spain


Duck Egg with Globe Artichoke, Mint & Radicchio
2010 Farr Rising 'Saignee' Pinot Noir, Geelong, Vic


Luscious isn't it.


Pigeon with Mullet Roe, Sauteed Lettuce, Cucumber & Dill
2009 Beatrice & Pascal Lambert 'Tradition Graves' Cabernet Franc, Chinon, France


Grain Fed Wagyu Sirloin with Onion, Black Tea & Stem Salad
2008 A.A. E. Piro & Figli, Barbara d'Alba Superiore, Piemont, Italy


We arrived for the final sitting so by the time we finished we were the last ones in the restaurant. It's kind of nice having a restaurant to yourself.


Pre dessert cocktail that for the life of me I can't remember what was in it.


Sauternes Custard served in an egg. One of Mark Best's signature dishes is an amuse bouche, Chaud-Froid Free Range Egg (Alain Passard 1998) - Egg, cream, sherry, maple syrup & grissini for dipping, but when it didn't appear this time I was slightly disappointed. But this custard egg almost made up for it.


Roast Pineapple with Szechuan Pepper & Manjimup Black Truffle
'Greedy Hunter'


Salted Caramel Chocolate, Lemon Drops & Bitter Bon Bons

According to Marque due to environmental concerns Marque no longer use bottled mineral water. They've installed a chilled, filtered, carbonated water system and, as far as water can be, it was delicious. A very light carbonation like the best Italian or French mineral waters. Five bucks a person is a small price to pay for this exquisite water.

Marque Restaurant is at 4/5 355 Crown Street Surry Hills and has been awarded 3 Hats by the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide.

Lovin' Ad Hoc At Home & Cuisine du Temps

We're slowly working our way through Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc At Home. Almost every recipe is easy enough to make at home... Oh.
The buttermilk fried chicken is pretty damn spot on. Best fried chicken I've made. Throw in a home-made coleslaw, a beetroot and orange salad and fried cavalo nero and we don't need to eat out again.

Fried chicken and salad

Jacques Reymond's Cuisine du Temps is also proving doable at home. Modern French Asian Australian fusion it is. Who'd have thought of glazing a lamb rack with oyster sauce and soy sauce? Throw in mint oil and celeriac puree and embeurree of cabbage we have haute cuisine at home. Yet, it was easy... ish. The mint oil was surprisingly easy and delicious.

Lamb rack with mint oil

Universal Restaurant for my birthday

We've come to Christine Mansfield's Universal Restaurant in Darlinghurst for my birthday. Universal offers a number of dishes inspired by Christine's travels around the world. It is a sort of build your own degustation from a selection of smallish dishes that are each intensely flavoured and yet still build to a crescendo that really wallops you in the mouth.

Geisha Girl - a cocktail of sake, plum wine, elderberry flower and cucumber.

Spice quail, roasted rice, pomelo and mint.

Hiramasa kingfish cerviche, pickled seaweed, heirloom tomato and green chilli salsa.
08 Naia Verdejo

Steamed whiting, squid and clams, seared sea scallop, black beans, ginger soy broth.

Tea smoke aoraki salmon and pacific oysters, morcilla and green apple salad.
Mukai 'Ine Mukai' Hiire Genshu Sake.

Seared venison, spiced beetroot, pearl barley and parsley walnut salsa.

Sichuan pepper spiced duck, asparagus, lychee and watercress salad.
07 Lost Valley Cortese.

Slow braised wagyu beef shin and bone marrow vol au vent, chestnut mushroom tempura, spinach.
08 Domaine Singla 'La Crinyane' Carignan.

Beautiful pregnant lady - 38 weeks.

Beautiful pregnant lady and birthday boy.

Gaytime goes nuts.
Honeycomb ice cream, caramel parfait, chocolate crunch, salted hazelnut caramel.
It looks a little messy because Michelle couldn't wait to get stuck into it. It was delicious after all. A quick rebuild and it was okay to photograph.

Piccolo latte and blueberry friands.


Universal has been awarded 2 Good Food Guide Hats and is at Republic 2 Courtyard Palmer Street Darlinghurst.

Provenance Restaurant

Provenance is the second of the two Good Food Guide hatted restaurants in Beechworth. Unlike Wardens' though this one has two hats. Or we thought it did until we found out that the most recent edition of the GFG has taken one hat away. Still, two hatted restaurants in the one small town is nothing short of a miracle. Provenance is situated in an old 19th century bank building so it has a certain amount of charm right from the get go. There isn't just one dining room but one main room with a couple of adjoining rooms. We were in one of the adjoining rooms. It was cosier that way. Apparently an older couple thought it was a bit too cosy because after we'd been there a little while, time enough for me to snap a couple of photos of us, the older couple asked to be moved to the main dining room. It kind of made us a little paranoid about what we'd done to offend the old dears. Funnily enough they weren't the only old dears I offended this evening. Earlier at our motel I had moved our car from across the car park to a spot closer to our room. A group of people were leaving the motel for the evening and one woman in particular had taken exception to the way and speed I'd apparently moved my car. Apparently I am an "arrogant fuck" and an " inconsiderate dickhead" and an "arsehole". That may well be but I don't have a potty mouth. Well I kind of do but I don't respond to older "ladies" spouting off at me. And she wasn't directing her diatribe directly at me she was talking VERY LOUDLY to her friends about the arsehole, but she wouldn't look directly at me while she was doing it.
Oops. That was a long aside. Back to Provenance.

An anchovy with its fried bones.
A local sherry

Shitake mushroom custard with fried chicken wings and wasabi.

Blue swimmer crab okonomiyaki, mayonnaise, salmon roe, cucumber salad.
2008 Smiths Chardonnay - Beechworth

Roast Nug Nug goat meatballs, chickpeas, baby carrots, silverbeet, egg and lemon sauce.

Snapper, fried silken tofu, shitake and konbu broth, lotus root, seaweed, fresh wasabi.

Sher Wagyu (marble score 7), dashi braised eggplant and daikon, soy beans, spring onions, ginger and miso sauces, konbu relish.
2006 Torbreck The Steading Grenache Mataro Shiraz - Barossa Valley, SA

Side - Baked fennel, parmesan, orange.

Bitter mandarin souffle, white chocolate and rosewater sauce, toffee mandarin.
Campbells Prince Rare Muscat - 20+ years old (Rutherglen)


I'm guessing the theme of the evening was Japanese. Many of the dishes had Japanese flavours, ingredients or style. Thankfully we didn't have to pay Japanese let alone big city prices. The most expensive main (the wagyu) was only $40 and the average was about $34. Not bad at all for a hatted restaurant and a pleasant change from the big city joints you have to take out a mortgage to pay for your meal.
Provenance Restaurant is at 86 Ford Street Beechworth. Don't follow Google Maps directions to get there from the Carriage Motor Inn though. It says you should turn right into Ford street from Camp street and walk for about 5 minutes when actually you should turn LEFT and cross the road and there it is. We decided to call that little detour our passeggiata through Beechworth.

Sepia 5

Pre-dessert of essentially a tiny apple crumble - apple sorbet on a crumble

Elements of Chocolate, Prune, Cocoa Bubbles

On the whole not bad. Some very pretty presentation but the cut of lamb we had was bit bland and Michelle found the Murry Cod to be bit meh too. Sepia is a new entry into the SMH Good Food Guide with 1 Chef's Hat and is on Sussex Street in Sydney.