Food: 3 stars
Service: 2 stars
Ambience: 5 stars
No business trip is complete without a food splurge at the end. After a week of intense discussions on profit and loss, balance sheets, tax and computer systems, I decided that some serious fine dining was required. With the recommendation of a colleague, I was lucky enough to secure a 6pm booking for 3 Wellingtonians, all far from home, head buzzing from trans-Tasman GST intricacies, ready for a big night out at the one and only revolving restaurant in Sydney – O Bar.
O-Bar is situated in the heart of the Sydney CBD, on the 47th floor of the prestigious Australia Square building. Now, being a revolving restaurant with the night view was enticing, but what really sealed the deal was the dessert Nitro frozen meringue, poached rhubarb, roasted strawberries, iced lemon cream. Now my son Michael and I are big time Heston fans. For the last 12 months we have been salivating for Heston’s famous nitro meringue at his British establishment, The Fat Duck. At The Fat Duck, nitro meringue is ceremoniously expressed from a syphon in front of the guests at their table and ‘poached’ in a bowl of liquid nitrogen for a few seconds. The result is an irregularly shaped fluffy pillow that makes the diner huff and puff smoke from their nostrils like an angry dragon. AUD$125 for a three course dinner? No problem. I looked forward to the restaurant’s promise of a fine dining experience that is ‘unique, unexpected food journey that never compromises on flavour, integrity and enjoyment.’
Upon arrival, the three of us were ushered to a table with sweeping views of Sydney by a dapper waiter, let’s call him Burton. It quickly turned out that Burton is much more interested in himself than his guests. He had an I-am-superior-than-thou mannerism that makes it very hard to warm to him. I am sure you have also experienced one of those at one time or another. I asked Burton to explain to me the difference in styles for the two entrée dishes – Seared Scallops & Dry Aged Beef Tataki. Instead of trying to sell the sell the dishes or explain the flavour notes, his response was “Well, one is scallop and one is beef, isn’t it?” Didn’t’ he think I knew that? In the end I ordered a third option, Crab Salad – Fraser Island spanner crab, horseradish, savoury macadamia, pickled celery, smoked milk skin, aloe vera. When the dish came, it looked like this.
It looked pretty but that was about it. The crab was tasteless and it took me a long time to chomp through the vertical brown sheets. The sheets didn’t have much of a taste so I asked my friend Burton what it was. Burton didn’t know. Burton asked the chef, came back and told me it was smoked milk skin. For the main I had Rangers Valley Dry Aged Beef -Amsterdam carrots & radish, fermented wheatberries, roasted pecan miso. It was nicely executed, well season, the beef medium-rare and the pecan miso was an interesting touch.
Now comes the dessert, which deserves its own paragraph. At this stage I have drunk about half a bottle of wine and was eagerly awaiting the highlight of my dinner, the Nitro Frozen Meringue, poached rhubarb, roasted strawberries, iced lemon cream. When Burton came to remove the plates for the mains, I asked him about the nitro meringue to see instead of getting one large meringue, whether I can have three small ones so that I could share it with my fellow diners. You see, I wanted to have three fire-breathing dragons at the table instead of just the one. Perhaps we could have re-enacted a scene from The Game of Thrones. That would have been very timely as I am sure that the dragons are about to return to the latest season any time now. Tick tock. Burton was very confused by my question even though I didn’t even bring up the dragons. He promised me that the nitro is only used as a cooking method in the kitchen and that no smoke shall be coming out of my nostrils. Damn. There goes the YouTube video. When the dessert came, I was totally confused. It looked like a bowl of frozen milk squeezed through a straw with three to four pieces of meringue the size of my fingernails. It looked very underwhelming.
Unwilling to be totally deflated, I closely examined the meringues by prodding, poking, sniffing and shaking to see how they are different to the ones that come out of my oven. I found none. They were not cold, as they should be if they were cooked at minus 196 degrees Celsius, or minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit. The little jollies even came with flat bottoms which indicates to me that they were cooked on a flat surface, instead of being poached in liquid nitrogen. The taste test affirmed my suspicion – there was nothing nitro about the meringues. Barely recovered from my bewilderment, I waved Burton over as he was walking past my table, unlucky for him, and asked him whether the meringues were actually cooked in nitrogen. He said yes. I asked him if he was sure, perhaps it was the frozen milk tubes that were cooked in nitrogen instead? Burton walked off, without answering, obviously disgusted by my questions and challenges. I wonder if the judges on MasterChef felt the same way? My fellow diners found all this very entertaining and while I was at the ladies, one of them proceeded to tell Burton that I am a food reviewer and am related to the MasterChef production, which happened to be heavily promoted in Australia at the time. It was reported to me afterwards that Burton’s face dropped, couldn’t believe his bad luck, and proceeded to try to impressed my friend with the amazing credentials of the headchef, who wasn’t working at the restaurant. To Burton’s credit, he promptly came to talk to me after I returned from the ladies. Burton said that he was very frustrated with himself that he couldn’t answer my questions and admitted that he has become complacent with his food knowledge for the menu, or the lack thereof. He said that the bread and butter for the restaurant are the views, not the food. Now that says a lot for the restaurant. Perhaps they should put that on their website, next to the food philosophy section.
Fine dining is hard to get right. It is easy to fall into the trap of all of the gimmicks and techniques without giving proper thought to the integrity of the ingredients or flavour combinations. I would choose a good honest meal over a pretentious one any day.