Bistrot 916, Potts Point, Sydney

You do not have to leave Sydney and go to France to have delicious French cuisine. We have a great selection of French restaurants in our city. This includes one of my favourites, Hubert. Speaking of Hubert, their ex-head chef Dan Pepperell has opened a new restaurant in Potts Point called Bistrot 916. Yep, it’s the same dude that created all those dishes we fell in love with when Hubert first opened. 

Bistrot 916 is named after the fact that it’s a Bistro and that the phone number of the restaurant starts with 916. It’s located in the heart of Potts Point right where Lotus and The Fish Shop by Merivale used to be. The space has a moody contemporary Parisian vibe. It’s a casual restaurant but in the higher end of the spectrum and food prices are quite decent for its category. I went to visit the restaurant a few weeks ago with one of my best homies, Chocolatesuze.

 

We started with the lamb’s brains with smoked eel mayo ($18). This sounded daunting at first as I’m not a brain kinda guy but if it’s chef Dan’s creation, then it has to be good right? As expected, it was so amazing. So the brain was cooked like a croquette where the inside was fluffy (I honestly can’t think of a better description haha) with a golden-crisped coating. The smoked eel mayonnaise was thick and bursting with umami! Hack: leave some mayo aside if you order any dishes with chips/fries.

 

Then came out the Tuna tartare & beef fat fried potato ($26). This was probably my favourite dish during our visit. There was so much umami from both the tuna and potatoes. The potato was soft inside and loved the crispy caramelised bits on the outer layer.

 

The duck frites ($44) was delicious. The skin was slightly crisped, and the meat was juicy. The meat didn’t taste gamey, but it could also be due to the sauce that if came with, which masked it. The chips were crisped and perfectly seasoned.

 

I do prefer the steak frites ($56) to the duck though. The well-seasoned steak was cooked medium rare and was also packed with umami especially around caramelised bits. I would have preferred a thicket cut steak but nonetheless, this was delicious.

 

We were quite full so we didn’t end up trying any dessert. I would definitely come back to have the tuna tartarte with beef fat fried potato and lamb brain with smoked eel mayo. The lobster frites sounds good too!

 

Bistrot 916

22 Challis Avenue

Potts Point NSW

Website: https://www.bistrot916.com/

 

Jung Sung Contemporary Korean, Chippendale, Sydney

Hey fam, I hope you are all doing well. I apologise for yet again another long hiatus. As usual, life gets in the way and I am still trying to break through the YouTube realm (oh, if you haven’t subscribed and hit that notification bell yet, please do so here). I also can’t believe that the blog has been around for over 10 years now and I feel like the blog still hasn’t reached its full potential just yet. Time surely does fly. I’m hoping that in 2021, I can do both writing for the blog and pumping out YouTube videos. It will be a challenge, but you know what they say: “No pain, no gain”. 

Anyway, my first review this year will be on a high-end Korean restaurant that has just recently opened in the Kensington Street Dining Precinct. The restaurant is called Jung Sung. It’s close by to famed restaurants like Koi and Automata. It sits near the top floor of building 2-10 Kensington Street. The space reminds of a bit of the famous Michelin restaurants in Seoul: Jungsik and Kwonsooksoo. The fittings and décor are indeed very contemporary and so is the food. Most of the dishes are pretty much contemporary interpretations of classic Korean dishes or Chef Insup Kim original creations. There are French dishes too with a Korean twist. I’m sure you get what I mean. We opted for the $70 course menu, which consists of 6 courses. The kitchen has also sent us some complimentary extras (which I will mention later on).

Complimentary scallops dish

The Red Snapper Hwe includes raw snapper, white soy crystal, perilla extract, seaweed, and karkalla. The dish was lightly dressed and flavoured to just bring out the freshness of the red snapper. This reminds of Hawaiian poke.

The kitchen has sent us a dish similar to bibimbap with 3 types of grains, which also includes quinoa. This was both beautiful and delicious and the addition of sesame oil takes the flavours to another level with added sweetness and nutty notes. This dish also had notes of umami.

I’ve had a lot of overcooked crustacean in my life and their Moreton Bay Bug is not one of them. These were perfectly cooked and seasoned well. The meat was soy marinated and poached in butter. The creamy gochujang aioili compliments the moreton bay bug well with its cream sweet chilli and light garlic notes.

The catch of the day I believe was also a Red Snapper but was cooked with sweet soy, prepared with glazed anchovy and served with black garlic and potato puree. The fish was cooked perfectly but I would have preferred more popping of flavours from the dish. I did like the potato too.

The Berkshire pork was amazing. It had beautiful crisped blistered crackling and flavoursome fatty tender meat. It also came with brussel sprout, peach & berry’s creek puree, macadamia and grilled lettuce. Nutty and sweet flavours always go well with pork.

For the MB 9+ Wagyu and short rib, I only have 2 amazing words to describe it:  “Buttery Goodness”.

At first, I thought the Sweet Corn was a savoury dish but in actual fact, it’s a dessert! It’s sweet corn custard that almost has the texture of ice cream. The soy sauce caramelised pistachio goes amazingly with the frozen custard. I honestly loved it.

At this point, I was super full. But I still crushed the cherry chocolate dessert, which had milk chocolate mousse, cherry sorbet and coconut meringue.

I enjoyed my visit at Jung Sung. Whenever I miss the Michelin restaurants of Seoul, I now have Jung Sung that I can go to here in Sydney. The food was great and so was the service. I would go back again.

Jung Sung Contemporary Korean Restaurant

A6/2-10 Kensington Street

Chippendale NSW 2008

Ph: 0400 991 011

Website: https://www.jungsung.com.au/

Totti's Bondi, Sydney

I knew I had to visit Totti’s after reading so many food blogs and raving reviews months prior to our visit. You can’t go wrong with restaurants under the Merivale group but what’s even more awesome is that this restaurant is run by celebrated chef Mike Eggert (ex Pinbone co-onwer). We finally made reservations and went on my birthday week.

The place had a very coastal vibe and some Italian influence in the interior. I mean, the menu is highly Italian inspired after all! We had amazing dishes from woodfire bread reminiscent of a Neopolitan pizza base to a massive umami-packed rib eye steak. Check out what I got up to in the video below. Enjoy!

Totti's Bondi

Cafe Paci, Newtown

Cafe Paci has been on my wishlist. I was so stoked that I finally got to visit it along with my good friend and fellow Sydney Food Blogger, Chocolatesuze. It’s located in Newtown and is easily accessible by public transport with lots of street parking in the area as well.

Click on thumbnail above or here for my Youtube video

Scallops, togarashi & sour cream

Tuna tartare

Sourdough pasta with pear and pecorino

Potato dumplings (gnocchi) with XO trout sauce

Fairy bread ice cream with brown butter custard

Chef Pasi Petanen has work at a lot of renowned restaurants in Sydney past such as Automata and ACME. He did a pop a few years back and has now found a permanent location on King Street, Newtown. The cuisine is bit of Finnish and Mexican with touches of Italian, Japanese and a lot more. The food is both innovative and delicious. They also have a wide range of wines to match with their signature dishes.

Click here for my video and more information about the dishes.

Cafe Paci

RaRa Ramen, Redfern

There’s a new ramen joint in town! Redfern is a growing culinary hub in Sydney and is the perfect gallery where the new RaRa ramen shop can showcase their art of ramen.

  

Scott Gault

Scott Gault is the man behind RaRa Redfern and a fellow ramen crusher like myself. Scott travelled different prefectures in Japan to train and get consultation to create the best possible noodles, tare, toppings and broth for Rara’s ramen. The space looks like a high end izakaya and I’m digging the ramen neon sign. The noodles they use is Hakata-style, which means it’s low hydration, thin and quick to whip up. All noodles are made in-house daily. You get a choice of three types of ramen: Tonkotsu ramen, pork shoyu and vegetarian ramen. We tried the tonkotsu and shoyu ramen.

First of all, I need to give a huge shout out to Scott for his insanely good Hakata-style noodles. Scott cooks the noodles legit katame (usual way Hakata noodles is cooked), which is a tad more firm than al dente. The noodles cooked further within the broth. The tonkotsu ramen’s ($16.90) pork bone broth is white in colour and creamy in consistency. Scott uses shio tare (salt) seasoning just to bring out the pork flavour goodness rather than giving it complexity. The umami factor is around medium level. Again, this is a typical Hakata-style practice to season the broth. Toppings include  kikurage, negi, menma, 1/2 hanjuku tamago and an insanely delicious aburi chashu. Although the menu says Ajitsuke egg, the tamago we got were not flavoured. Having said that, the eggs were perfectly cooked with a slightly runny yolk.

We also tried his pork shoyu ramen ($16.90). The pork soy broth had more umami than the tonkotsu and it also had peppery notes. It was topped with aburi chashu, bean sprouts, negi and 1/2 hanjuku tamago. It's definitely a refined bowl of ramen and also my favourite.

I’m glad to see a ramen joint that puts more emphasis on the noodles that they use. It is afterall a big part of ramen. Service is also quite fast. Go check them out guys!

Rara Redfern
60b Regent St
Redfern NSW

Hours:
Tuesday to Wednesday 12pm-2:30pm, 5pm-9:30pm

Thursday to Saturday
12pm-2:30pm, 5pm-10pm

Sunday 12pm-2:30pm, 5pm-8:30pm

Closed on Monday