This event was organised by Time Out and it is the final event where the winner for the young apprentice chef will be announced. Each contestant will present a dish each - there are 4 contestants overall. We were then given a card to rate which of the dishes we liked from 1 - 4, 1 being the most liked dish. Although there were 4 contestants, the organisers also invited 2 of the previous contestants back to present their dish as the results were so close. However, these 2 dishes were non competing.
This Time Out event was sold out in 25 minutes!! Awesome. My friend, Iolanda, was one of the lucky ones to get the ticket - she is always very lucky with competitions. It costs $60 per head and there were about 100 diners there. We were seated with two other couples, one also a food blogger but the other just loves their food.
Each young apprentice had to persuade their head chef to nominate them. The other event was last week and tonight was the final night for the young chefs to present their dish. It was hard for the est. head chef to reshuffle the roster as 3 of the 6 apprentices were from est.
Upon arrival, we were served either a Cointreau Blush (Cointreau, Fresh Lime, pink grapefruit juice and soda water) or a champagne. I opted for the Cointreau Blush which was really refreshing.
First up was Stephanie Coupland from est. Her dish was Sashimi of yellowfin tuna, wasabi sorbet, coriander and shiso pearls. Shiso pearls? What are those? It turns out that Shiso pearls are Japanese Basil leaves where Stephanie pounded up, then added milk, thereafter straining it and adding agar agar to it to set. The little droplets formed by pouring this mixture over frozen oil. Stephanie also served her sashimi with Wasabi sorbet which was really refreshing. It took her 7 attempts to get the consistency right and the sorbet was served on a bed of finely cut chives. She must have used a really sharp knife as they were really fine! Her dish was a real taste sensation and nicely decorated with fine pansies.
It was Ryka Johnson's (Rockpool) turn next. Ryka initially wanted to do a desert dish but felt that he was not very good at it. So, he decided to serve a vegetarian dish instead as most of the restaurants do not do justice to vegetarians. This dish is a Pumpkin and Celery salad with sweet, salty and sour dressing. He also served it with pomegranate. I was not sure about this dish...to be honest but am sure the vegetarians in the room would have liked it. It had a soury taste probably from a fish sauce blend to go with the sweet pumpkin. In addition to the pomegranate, he also included some nashi pear and coconut as a garnishing.
Daniel Sturman from est. was next with his Grilled white scallops and cuttlefish, apple, witlof, hazelnuts, mache. This dish is currently on the menu at est. The consensus from our table was that we did not really like this dish as some thought the scallops were overcooked and the cuttlefish was a bit chewy. Must say the mache didn't really do much for this dish. Nevertheless, maybe should go to est. for another go at this dish.
The next two dishes were non competing. Firstly Alex Keene from Ormeggio presented a Sultana and thyme infused poached rabbit, potato and parsnip puree, marsala reduction. It is a pity this was non competing as it was lovely - the rabbit had a nice texture and was moist and the taste blended well together.
This was then followed by a dessert selection from Zen Jay Ong from Aqua Dining. He presented it well, as you can see. His dish - a compressed fruit salad, cinnamon sand, raspberry caramel, vanilla creme fraiche, micro basil. A pleasant enough dessert although we could not really taste the cinnamon in the "sand".
The final dish came from Michael Mu Sung from est. It was a Chocolate and raspberry cake, white chocolate mousse, almond soil , blueberry sorbet, lemon espuma. Michael hoped that we would enjoy this "simple" dessert. It was not simple by any means judjing from the various combinations. I was a bit skeptical at first as I thought the chocolate and raspberry cake would be dry but I was proven wrong. It was really nice and moist and again, had the right combination of tastes which he had brought together.
It was time to cast our votes...boy, was it hard to decide between no 1 and no 2. They were both equally as good. They had to count the votes twice as the results were so close!
Anyway, Stephanie Coupland was the clear favourite (which coincided with my choice!). She deserved it as her dish was very well thought out and took a lot of work.
What a night - so enjoyable. There are clearly some talented young chefs in Sydney. Would be interesting to follow them and see what they get up to next.
For more information, check out:
http://simonfoodfavourites.blogspot.com/2010/03/time-out-sydney-taste-test-final-winner.html (Simon Leong took a quite a few photos, much better than mine which was taken from my blackberry. Also check out the video of the kitchen pass too!)
http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/time-out-taste-test-2010--results.aspx
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