Jacqui's Food Fetish

I often get asked ‘What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever been to?’  In Australia, this is it.  Ok – I won’t lie – this place was hard to get into.  You can only book online, and you can’t book too far in advance – which makes it a little difficult when you’re trying to make travel plans around it.  It’s even harder when you’re wanting a table for 1 or 2 people.  At the time I was trying to book, they were releasing tables for 4 people first, and smaller tables were only made available a couple of days prior (not sure if this is still the case).  I tried and tried and tried – I even attempted emailing to plead my case (to no avail), and I almost gave up.  I’m glad I didn’t.

This restaurant hails from David Chang’s Momofuku in New York City.  It was 2013 when I dined at Momofuku Seiobo, well before I started writing my reviews (‘Seiobo’ is the Japanese goddess of the west).  After finally scoring a booking, I was really excited, but also a little worried that after my frustrating booking experience, perhaps there’d be an air of arrogance about the place.   On the contrary!  The staff were gracious, friendly and accommodating – which is just what you want when you’re dining alone.  I was thankfully sat up at the bench that surrounds the kitchen so I had an excellent view of the cooking and plating up and it also made it easy to chat with the chefs.

What an experience this was.  I am happy to say that my dinner at Momofuku currently rates as my NUMBER ONE dining experience of all time in Australia.  Yes – out of all of the restaurants I’ve been to over the years, I rank this as the best and most memorable.  I won’t write too much about the food as my memory for the finer details from two years ago are a bit sketchy, but the tasting menu of the day consisted of:

• Smoked eel roll with apple sauce
• David Chang’s famous Pork bun with sriracha (I was so excited to finally have one of these in front of me!)
• Pink snapper with celery and mustard
• Potato in beef fat with parsons nose and trout roe
• Seared Wagyu beef with watermelon, radish and salted black bean
• Wagyu beef tongue with shaved fennel and watercress
• Congee with Serrano ham and earl grey tea
• Broccoli, marron and seaweed butter
• Roasted squab w eggplant and onions
• Goats curd yoghurt with cucumber and raspberry sorbet
• Roasted pineapple, white chocolate and sesame seeds
• Caramelised pork shoulder

Everything was excellent, and I had the matched wines.  And, just when I thought my evening couldn’t get any better, who was sitting just a few seats down from me also enjoying a meal?  None other than well-known Melbourne restaurateur Andrew McConnell!  (Of course, I had to go and say hello and take advantage of the photo opportunity!) He was lovely and very humble.

It was a perfect evening in every way.

Potato in beef fat with parsons nose and trout roe

David Chang’s famous Pork buns with sriracha

Seared Wagyu beef with watermelon, radish and salted black bean

Congee with Serrano ham and earl grey tea

Broccoli, marron and seaweed butter

Me with the famous Andrew McConnell

Roasted squab with eggplant and onions