16 August 2012
TASTING CLUB @ SIDART
If ever there was a perfect meal, this was it. Sid Sahrawat has been cooking a Tuesday test kitchen all year with eight experimental courses for $80, so that’s about 170 dishes to date. The clever girls from gather&hunt.co.nz asked Sid to choose his top eight dishes for their Tasting Club and that’s where I was last night.
Sidart restaurant is a little gem, dark and intimate with great views of the city from the Ponsonby Rd ridge. An ideal setting for a wonderful meal. Dominique and Courteney of Gather & Hunt commissioned a keepsake booklet for the menu with lovely hand drawings, yet still kept secrets to be revealed as the dishes arrived.
Each course was perfect; innovative, sometimes daring and perfectly balanced so the flavours and textures played out to create a feast for eyes and mouth. The first course, ‘cucumber olive and buttermilk’ was a brilliant start. Paper thin slices of crisp apple, cucumber ribbons, buttermilk sorbet and ever so slightly crunchy olive dust. With eight courses stretching ahead, every little mouthful refreshed and surprised. A tiny mound of ‘mushrooms, sago and almonds’ followed. Sago chips (!) shaved and purred Jerusalem artichokes, crunch almond and almond skin, three mushrooms; enoki, shiitake and oyster mushrooms topped with truffle foam. What a taste and texture sensation.
Then a little preserving jar. ‘snapper, lychee and nim jam.’ Coconut puree underneath, a chunk of nim jam marinated ocean fresh snapper in tempura, a tangle of bean sprouts and spring onion, all topped with a bright flavoured coriander and chilli sorbet. Who ever thought of putting snapper in a jar? This was a veritable masterpiece, and of me, the absolute standout dish of the night.
At this point my husband declared Sid is the Tetsuya of New Zealand, and he also thought the meal better than the degustation we’d had several years ago at El Bulli. He’s not often wrong, my husband.
‘Salmon, butternut and octopus’ came next; salmon skin chips, aloe vera foam, beet sprouts, pinenuts, crème fraiche, a tiny mound of grated fresh butternut and salmon confit. Everything was so intensely flavoured and so amazingly delicious. ‘Free range pork, walnut and leek’ was a knockout combination, and the pork and walnut sauce had me wondering if all those prize pigs in Spain that eat acorns might be better off munching on walnuts. Imagine that!
The final savoury course, ‘milk fed veal, oxtail and celeriac’ was a brilliant combination of puree of smoked celeriac, urenika potato chips, some hearty braised oxtail, tender veal and coriander puree. How does Sid think of all this? With every course we had thoughtfully matched wines, and took a wine trail around the world to Italy, France, Marlborough, Portugal, South Africa, Waipara and Perigord, France. What a trip.
To conclude, two refreshing and never cloying desserts. ‘White chocolate and raspberry’ is a divine experience, a white chocolate bavarois, orange segments drenched in sauternes, freeze dried raspberries and a little coil of snap frozen raspberry puree. We were still eager eaters at this stage as everything had been perfectly portioned so we loved the finale, ‘licorice, chamomile and five spice’ licorice in a frozen parfait with freeze dried rhubarb, Italian meringue, five spice marshmallow and ta daa! some amazing chamomile ‘spaghetti’.
One of the BEST meals of my life. Sid Sahrawat is one exceptional chef, innovative with a sense of amazing balance in every dish. Everything on the plate made perfect sense, making for magical and totally enchanting eating. I know there are a couple of places left for tonight’s repeat performance. I may even be tempted to return myself!
Sidart, Three Lamps Plaza, 283 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby T 09 360 2122