I posted this question from my wife’s new account, but it disappeared into la-la land. Trying again…
We’re off to our big Australia trip in less than seven weeks, and we want to have a nice big dinner in Sydney, our first stop. We’ve looked into the usual suspects - Rockpool, Tetsuya’s - but they all have one thing in common: a menu heavily dominated by seafood. The wife’s not too keen on sea creatures, see.
So assuming seafood’s out, do any Aussie SDMBers have another Really Nice Dinner suggestion?
It’s been a few years since I visited, but several of the restaurants were good enough for me to remember their names:
Zafran (?) on Darling Harbour - excellent Indian
Bluebird Cafe also on Darling Harbour - Australian and very cheap
GPO (well something to do with a post office) in the CBD - lovely steak and lovely cheese board
I was there 4 years ago, and had a lovely simple Thai meal in Thai Tha Pho takeout restaurant, which is at 666 Crown St, corner of Crown St and Cleveland St in Surry Hills. It’s not really a restaurant, more a takeaway shop with a couple of tables you can eat at, and a BYO policy, but it was excellent food. I remember having some Barrimundi that was fantastic, but there was a lamb dish that was out of this world.
My friends lived in a house on Nickson St around the corner, and they ate there all the time, which is the only reason I went there with them.
I know it’s not really what you’re after, but it was probably the best meal I have ever eaten, so I have to mention it.
Even if an Australian restaurant’s menu is dominated by seafood, unless it advertises itself as being exclusively a seafood restaurant, it will have other items on the menu.
I don’t have any specific restaurants in mind, but Australian restaurants are getting very good at a fusion style of food, which incorporates a mixture of Asian and European elements in dishes. That’s on top of a wide range of ethnic restaurants: Sydney is the only place where I’ve eaten Kazakhstani food, and that was at an extremely cheap place in Sydney’s Chinatown.
There’s a nice French place that I went to a few weeks ago, called La Guillotine, on Kent St. It’s just across the road from an equally nice Spanish place called Don Quixote, and just a stone’s throw away from Tetsuyas (which I saw you mention, so you may have some idea where that is).
You could do a lot worse than checking out Eatability.com.au. It was my standard go to for a leaping off point for restaurant reviews.
I second the idea of Zaafran. That happens to be our standard restaurant when the wife and I want to go somewhere nice. She has several food intolerances that make lots of places unwise decisions
If you do not want to make a booking, just about every shop in the Darling Harbour/King St Wharf/Cockle Bay area is a restaurant, and many of them are very good. Zaafran is in this area, as well as the Blackbird Cafe, and what used to be our favourite place, the Chinta Ria. It is now unused because of said food intolerances, not because the place is no good.
It really does depend on what sort of food you want, the budget you have and atmosphere you’re after.
