The Butcher's Apprentice, Wahroonga

Growing up in leafy Suburban Sydney, eating out at a local restaurant often meant a quick pad thai, chinese stir-fry noodles or a curry from the local Indian. It was rare to find high quality, creative restaurant options without venturing into the city. Times have changed.  C and I recently visited The Butcher's Apprentice in Wahroonga and were blown away by the delicious and interesting food on offer, casual but modern setting and top notch service.

(Note: The Butcher's Block is actually the 'day time' restaurant - serving breakfast and lunch. The restaurant also serves dinner at the same location but under the name The Butcher's Apprentice. Not really sure why the two names but in case you're wondering - it's the same restaurant!)

I actually first visited with two friends from church for a Friday catch up but after telling C about the candied bacon, he was adamant we had to go back with him and the camera.

Candied Bacon

I'm not as big of a fan of bacon as C, but even I thought this snack was worth re-ordering. Candied with Canadian maple syrup, the taste is very similar to Asian jerky or bak gwa as it is called in Singapore/Malaysia - but with a less chewy texture, more crunch and not as sweet.  

Open kitchen plan

All of the dishes at The Butcher's Apprentice are designed to be shared.  A group of 3-4 is probably ideal to get a diversity of dishes without everyone's portions getting too small.  As our share entree, we picked the Octopus - 2 tentacles sou vide and dressed with fennel, preserved lemon and tomatoes. The octopus was very tender, and had a deep citrus flavour. I personally found the flavour of the octopus could have been more accentuated but overall, a delicious and creative way of serving octopus. 

Octopus - Tentacle, Fennel, Preserved Lemon, Tomato

Next up, C and I ordered 2 mains and a vegetable side.  We picked the Pork Cheek and the Not Corned Beef.  The Pork Cheek was my favourite dish - tender, good depth of flavour and had nice sweet elements (such as the orange blossom floss) to cut through the savoury flavours. This would be perfect on a cold winter night!

Pork Cheek - Five Spice, Rainbow Chards, Watermelon Rind, Orange blossom Floss

Typical C, he could not go pass the Not Corned Beef - sticky smoked short rib and corn 3 ways - on a cob, fried and popped. Again, the beef is tender and breaks apart easily, the smoky barbecue sauce is moreish and caramelised. The charred corn cob cuts through the heaviness of the meat and I wish there was more of it!  Definitely a dish to be shared; we struggled to finish the food and took it home for lunch the next day!

Not Corned Beef - Stick Smoked Short Rib, Rainbow Cards, Watermelon Rind, Corn Cob, Fried Corn, Popcorn

In the spirit of having a balanced diet, we opted for the Caprese as a side.  Actually, we were just tempted by the buffalo mozzarella and curious about the basil jelly.

Caprese - Tomato, Buffalo Mozzarella, Basil Jelly, Balsamic, Creme Fraiche

It's always nice to see different varieties of tomatoes being served at a restaurant as it's not something I would otherwise buy and use myself. The buffalo mozzarella was delicious - fluffy, light and creamy, I was pleased there was one for each of us and we didn't have to share. Personally I thought the flavour of the basil jelly could have been stronger, but overall, this was a really refreshing, light side that was perfect given the heavy mains we had picked.

For the sake of the blog (and not our waistlines), we had to order a dessert.  We chose the Chocolate which was a chocolate pannacotta base, with crunchy chocolate peals, chocolate floss, white chocolate, chocolate soil and marmalade. This is the go to dish for any chocolate lover and the marmalade give a fresh, citrus edge to the dish to balance out all the chocolatey goodness.

Chocolate - Chocolate Panna Cotta, Chocolate Pearls, Chocolate Floss, Marmalade

If you're in the North and after a local restaurant that's a little more special and a big step up from all the other local options, I highly recommend The Butcher's Apprentice. It's the perfect place to wind down and catch up with friends over a glass of wine. The service is also worth mentioning - friendly, accommodating and attentive but not in your face. When C asked about one of their new wines on the menu, he was offered a taster to help him decide and the waiters were also very enthusiastic to explain the dishes to us.

Can't wait to go back and try their breakfast and lunch menus!

Tokyo Eats - Akasaka Tsutsui

One thing I love about Japan is that you have amazing food at every price point - from the art and mastery of high end sushiya to the smokey buzz of street side yakitori. One of the my favourite types of dishes and the one I probably eat the most often is donburi.

Donburi is a simple bowl of rice with meat, fish or vegetables simmered with sauce on top of rice. There are many forms of donburi in Japan such as Kaisen-don (mixed sashimi on rice), katsu-don (deep fried pork cutlet simmered with egg on rice), una-don (grilled eel on rice), but today's post is on a place that specialises in beef steak don - Akasaka Tsutsui.

Akasaka Tsutsui is a restaurant hidden away in quiet part of Akasaka, a short distance away from Roppongi. It is a yoshoku restaurant, meaning it serves Western-influenced Japanese dishes, a style of cooking which originated from the Meiji Restoration period. The restaurant itself has been in operation for over 65 years, serving its speciality beef steak bowl.

The restaurant has beautiful dining room with rice paper walls, overlooking an artificial waterfall and garden. It was raining the day we visited and it was so relaxing to sit by the window, looking outside and listening to the sound of the waterfall and rain.

The restaurant has a variety of yoshoku dishes on the menu, such as hashed beef on rice, omu-rice, beef curry, katsu-sando; but knowing that the restaurant specialised in beef bowls, that was our main priority.

We ended up ordering:

• Deluxe beef steak bowl
• Black Berkshire pork teriyaki bowl
• Seafood fried rice

The beef steak bowl was every bit as good as it was hyped up to be - Juicy, succulent pieces of steak, perfectly cooked and thinly sliced. Soft rice drenched in sauce. A small lump of butter that melted on top of the beef - this dish is simple yet so good. I can understand exactly how this place has survived 65 years on the strength of this dish.

The other dishes we tried were also very good, but a bit more pedestrian. The pork teriyaki bowl had a similar sauce to the beef. The pork was tender with a nice char, but it couldn't match the tender, luxurious taste and feel of the beef.

The seafood fried rice was very moist and was packed with seafood. If I had this in Sydney, I would have been extremely happy. Yet, once again, after having the beef bowl, I just wished I ordered another one of those instead.

Deluxe beef steak bowl

Black Berkshire pork teriyaki bowl

Seafood fried rice

If you visit Tokyo, you should visit Akasaka Tsutsui and have the beef steak bowl. Its tastes amazing and the prices are very reasonable. I wish I ate two bowls when I visited and I'll have to make up for it the next time I have a few days in Tokyo!

If you can think of anywhere in Sydney that does a decent beef steak bowl (or any sort of beef steak bowl), please let me know because I'm dying to have another one. Sakana-ya in Crows Nest used to do beef steak bowl a number of years ago but they took it off the menu, so the search continues.

Tokyo Eats - Ten-Ichi Ginza Honten

If you ask someone to name Japanese food, chances are after mentioning sushi and sashimi, they will say tempura.

Tempura is a Japanese dish of seafood or vegetables dipped in batter then deep fried. Although now synonymous with Japanese cuisine, it was actually introduced into Japan by Portuguese traders in the 1500s and then took off from there.

Past guests of the restaurant

While doing research for tempura-ya in Tokyo to visit, Ten-ichi Ginza was one of the few names that were consistently mentioned as having top quality tempura. The restaurant has been around for a very long time and has an A-list of past guests, including Clinton, Chirac, Gorbachev, Rockefeller and Sinatra, so I figured it couldn't be too far wrong.

The main branch of Ten-ichi Ginza is located just off the main strip in Ginza in a non-descript building. Stepping inside, you feel like you've been transported to the Edo period. Everything looks like it was from another era, with old wooden paneling on the walls, rough cut stone paving and traditional booths.

The restaurant is built around a number of small rooms, each with a large, red, U-shaped bar-table surrounding a tempura fryer. There are three options for the meal, being one of the set menus (basically a tempura degustation), a tempura lunch box or ordering tempura a la carte. Given I had traveled all the way to Tokyo, the only reasonable option was a tempura degustation!

Instead of commenting on each dish separately, I'll give some broad comments about the meal and dishes before we get to the photos:

• The tempura chef batters, fries and presents each dish in front of you one at a time (as opposed to cooking and giving you everything all at once). This lets you fully appreciate each piece of tempura without it going soggy while you are eating something else.
• They were very generous with their daikon and tempura sauce!
• As you can imagine, each piece of tempura was excellent and far better than any tempura I've tried in Australia. The batter was very delicate, crispy and did not feeling at all oily. 
• The seafood/vegetables were very fresh and were perfectly cooked on the inside (a lot of tempura I've had in Sydney, particularly prawn tempura, has been overcooked). 
• I loved the prawn heads! They were so crispy and light, and had more intense prawn flavour than normal prawns! If only they served this in packets like prawn crackers.
• The prawn tempura and shrimp kakiage at Ten-Ichi have now completely ruined Sydney's tempura and kakiage for me. We liked it so much we had seconds!
• The scallop tempura was still slightly raw and translucent on the inside - brilliantly cooked.
• When you are done with your tempura, the staff take you to a little Japanese both for hot tea and dessert. For dessert, you have your choice of Japanese melon, papaya or mango. I picked the melon, having heard so much about Japanese melons (and seeing the price of said melons at Takashimaya).
• The slice of melon was huge but still incredibly sweet and juicy. It was so good it was actually one of the highlight of the meals!

It can be hard to imagine a menu comprising deep fried food to be fine dining, but Ten-ichi definitely meets those standards. The produce was fresh, tempura was superb and the overall experience at Ten-chi was excellent. It was definitely one of my favourite meals in Tokyo. Thanks for the recommendation Gorbachev!

Tempura sauce with shredded daikon

Prawn heads

Prawns

Shiitake mushroom

Fish

Asparagus

Hotate (scallop)

Ginkgo nuts

Eel

Pickles

Shrimp kakiage

Inside the kakiage

Extra prawns

Melon

Tokyo Eats - Yurakucho, Yakitori Alley

One of life's simple pleasures is grilled meat on a stick; with burnt crunchy bits for that extra special treat. No matter where you go in the world, you can probably get some form of this.

Japan's version  is called yakitori (which technically means grilled ("yaki") chicken ("tori"), but is used to described grilled skewered food more generally) and consists of meat or vegetables grilled over charcoal and then served with sauce and many glasses of beer.

If you are at all a fan of grilled meat on a stick and beer, you need to visit Yakitori Alley in Yurakucho.

Yakitori Alley

Just off from the districts of Ginza and Nihonbashi is Yurakucho. Its rather nondescript and is much more down to earth than its more luxurious neighbours. Yurakucho is home to Yakitori Alley, which is a pedestrian street lined with yakitori restaurants. The street runs along a railway line and many of the restaurants are actually underneath the track tracks.

If you go at night, the restaurants are packed to the gills with Japanese salary men who have got off work and are winding down. The air is filled with charcoal smoke and the smell of grilling meat. The street has a buzz which I associate more with a late night hawker centre in KL than futuristic Tokyo.

We went to one of the restaurants underneath the bridge which no English name (the one on the right in the photo above). Being underneath the bridge with limited airflow, it was even smokier than in the alley and we were lucky we didn't turn up in our Sunday best after wandering around Ginza that day.

I loved the vibe in the restaurant! The space was extremely narrow and crowded, with a low sloping ceiling (due to the arch for the bridge) and the walls were covered in Japanese posters and signage. What it lacked in elbow room and clean air to breath, it made up for in character and food!

We ordered several sticks of yakitori (photos below):

• Garlic skewers with miso paste
• Tsukune (chicken meatballs)
• Roast chicken skewers
• Sunagimo (gizzard skewer)
• Torikawa (chicken skin)
• Beef skewer
• Shiro (intestine skewer)

Each stick cost 160 yen and was pretty sizable. They were all cooked very well; juicy and moist but with char, crust and caramelisation from the charcoal. The yakitori sauce they were served with was also extremely more-ish. The perfect accompaniment for beer!

If you are in Tokyo and don't mind the smoke, I highly recommend Yakitori Alley. It has tons of character, great food and is incredibly cheap. You'll see another side of Tokyo and its a great place to go for late night feed!

Garlic skewers

Tsukune (chicken meatballs)

Roast chicken skewers
Sunagimo (gizzard skewer)

Torikawa (chicken skin)
Beef skewer
Shiro (intestine skewer)