Sydney Eats Part 2: Celebrity chef sightings and the like...

On our final night in Sydney, I made us a reservation at Rockpool Bar & Grill, Neil Perry's restaurant in Sydney's CBD.  Our flight was at 9PM, so we arrived early at 6PM and were shown in to the magnificent dining area.  This place is like an incredibly chic medieval church, with high ceilings, marble pillars and, my personal favourite, an enormous wine glass chandelier.  As you do.  (I've taken these photos from other sites as I didn't have my camera with me - foolish.  You can access the sites at the links below.)

Rockpool Bar & Grill

We sat down in the front of the restaurant and began investigating the food and wine menus.  Our menu was printed with the date, as the restaurant changes its menu daily to serve the most seasonal produce, which I find charming.  I particularly enjoyed the "Rockpool Bar and Grill House Rules" printed inside the cocktail menu, which included such advice as:

Don't bring yourself into prominence before a crowd at the bar.  Be polite and approachable, but let them advance to you;

Gentlemen, don't interrupt or join any conversation, but if it is general you may seem interested;

Leave your attitude, with your hat at the door; and

Remember, nothing is on the house but the roof.

We skipped over the wine menu, after discovering numerous bottles upwards of $1000 and one particular drop from the 1940s priced at I think it was around $11,000.  No biggie, just a casual night out... Seriously, what?!  What if it didn't taste any good?!

Anyway, Sam had a beer and I settled for water.  After much deliberating, I decided on the Waygu Bolognse with Hand Cut Fettucine ($25) for my meal, with a side of green beans with creamy anchovy, toasted almonds and chilli and lemon dressing ($9).  Sam ordered Wood Fire Grilled Sausages with Grilled Peppers and a Warm Lentil Salad ($29, I think).  While we waited with anticipation, we were provided with sourdough bread and butter for the table.  This bread literally blew my mind.  This sounds ridiculous, but it was the best bread I've ever had.  It was crunchy on the outside and beautifully soft and full of yummy sourdough goodness on the inside, and it took all my willpower not to just fill up my belly with bread.

Our meals arrived at the perfect time after we had ordered them (not so quickly that we couldn't chat and enjoy the atmosphere, but not so long that we started looking around for them).  Mine was delightful - not that typical creamy, comfort food like most bolognse, but much richer and tastier, so the small serve seemed enormous.  The beans were also delicious - the almonds and the dressing matched them perfectly.  My favourite kind of food is just that - where you can taste every single ingredient and understand why all of them are there and together.

Wagyu Bolognse with Hand Cut Fettucine

Green beans

Sam's sausages were, again, the best I have ever tasted.  Really full of flavour in a way that you go "Oh!  That's what this food is supposed to taste like!".  He didn't love the lentil salad - I thought it was nice, but I guess it's hard to make lentils overly exciting.  

Wood Fire Grilled Pork Sausages with Red Peppers and Warm Lentil Salad

For dessert, we ordered Salted Caramel.  I'm going through a salted caramel phase at the moment - I made salted caramel semifreddo with salted praline recently (oh, clever me!) and I am hooked.  I anticipated in coming out as a little pudding, maybe coated in chocolate like the one they had on Conviction Kitchen - but when it arrived, it was a little glass full of lollies!  Like little wrapped up toffees.  They were nice enough, but not what we expected or really wanted as a dessert!  Next time I will go the Hazelnut Macaron Banana Ice-cream Sandwich. :)  

All in all it was an amazing meal though, and everything I wanted from a Neil Perry restaurant - including, to my upmost shock and excitement, an actual SIGHTING of actual Neil Perry himself!!!  I had calculated the likelihood of him being there as nil, considering all his other restaurants and important celebrity chef goings on, but we were talking about him/what he looks like and Sam goes "Yeah, I know, he's the one with the ponytail.  Isn't that him over there?"  I replied, not even turning around, "No don't be silly, you obviously have him mixed up with someone, he couldn't possibly be here."  But sure enough, there he was, Mr Neil Perry himself.  As an added bonus, he knew someone at the table just across from ours, so I could stare adoring at him for a full ten minutes.  The fact that he could have been in the restaurant and we not even see him just further intensified my delight at this whole situation.  Needless to say, I find celebrity sightings rather overwhelming.

This concludes our culinary adventure to Sydney!  I would highly recommend such an undertaking - we had a lovely time, tasted some incredible food and surprisingly didn't blow the bank. :)