Kobe Jones - New Winter Romance Menu

Mrs Shanks and I were lucky enough to be invited to try out Kobe Jones new Winter Romance menu which was just perfect as we missed out on a date for our wedding anniversary back in April.  It was a much need distraction from the everyday business plus being cooped in the house the past few weekends due to the excess rain we've been having in Sydney.

Kobe Jones is located in the heart of the dining district of King Street Wharf.  A stylish restaurant with modern Japanese influenced decor and I've noticed the glass bi-fold doors that open up the dining area to panoramic waterfront views of Darling Harbour.  Well known for it's Japanese-Californian fusion style of eastern cuisine matched with western sauces and their famous Volcano Roll, Kobe Jones now has a new head chef Hong Sub Lee (Edan) running the show. It's been a while since we've been to KJ so it was great to come back and see what has changed.

Kobe Jones Sunset and LLB

On their website I have noticed that the menu structure has changed focusing on sharing-style banquet meals that range from $55-$180pp.  Their a la carte menu ranges from rolls, sushi & sashimi, tobonayki, hot rocks, and everything in between.  I like the vast variety of the banquet menus so that you're not restricted based on budget or the number of courses.  The variety also showcases the chef's specialties and we got to try dishes that we would not generally consider ordering off the menu.

Number One Special

A great start to the banquet was KJ's Number One Special Roll.  Crab salad with avocado is always a win for me, but when it's wrapped with kingfish and baked in secret sauce makes it all the better.  KJ's secret sauce sweet, sticky, caramelized, hoisin flavoured goodness that balances well with the cream topping.  I'm not a big fan of alfalfa but thought this added some freshness to the dish and an additional dimension to the overall taste.

Tantalising Tasting Plate: Spicy Ebi Nigri, Wagyu Tataki, Salmon&Seafood Poke, Lollipop Sushi, and Spider Roll

The Tasting plate is elegantly plated on a long slate tile (hard to photograph though) highlighting the level of detail into each bite sized morsel.  As sushi and sashimi are chef Edan's first love, this platter truly displays his passion.  Each mouthful had distinct textures and flavors.  My favourite would have to be the Seafood and Salmon Poke, Hawaiian style marinated sashimi cubes served with poke sauce which I think had a dash of sesame oil which just brought the dish together.  This also reminded me of a similar dish we had on our honeymoon, the Fijian Kokoda - which we dubbed "fish in a cup".

Pacific Calamari Fritto

The Calamari Fritto was a highlight.  Crisp light panko crumbs encasing pillow soft calamari drizzled with roast shallot mayonnaise.  Mrs Shanks and I also couldn't get enough of the marinated yellow radish which had a smokey flavour and we both agreed we could have a whole bowl of this stuff with an ice cold beer.

Jalapeno Salmon Tataki

The salmon had a wonderful texture, lightly flamed slithers of salmon with briney pops from the salmon roe and hint of heat from the jalapenos.  The dish was a bit on the oily side to my liking and could have been lifted with some citrus.

Spicy Seafood Tabonyaki

IT'S ALIVE!!  is what Mrs Shanks said upon witnessing the air-dried tuna shavings wriggling on top of this warm hearty dish.  A seafood medally of prawns, scallops, squid and mussels with wild mushrooms tossed in KJ's seaweed butter and baked Tabonyaki style in cream sauce.   This was a welcomed hearty dish but we both feared the carb-overload as we were only halfway through the banquet.

Volcano Roll

KJ's infamous Volcano Roll oven-baked scallops layered with crab and avocado roll covered in a molten cream sauce, roasted sesame seed, smelt roe, and shallots with lashings of bitter sweet soy glaze - enough said.  It's a great dish with a good combination of flavours and textures.  If I were to be really picky I would have to say that having this straight after the seafood tabonyaki was border line cream sauce overload, and it may have been better served before the calamari ... but seriously, who can ever get enough cream sauce!?!

Alaskan Crab - Before and After

The dish I'd been waiting for had come.  The Alaskan crab legs were as long as my arm and surprisingly quite thorny.  KJ's menu describes that the crab leg is grilled robata style to highlight the crabs sweetness and I'd have to highly agree with this cooking method.  Not only was the crab meat succulent and sweet, the grilling also gave smokey tones that enhanced the crab's natural seafood flavor.  The separate soy/lime dressing was not required in my mind as the taste was already complete.

Lobster Hot Rock

Fresh sweet slipper lobster meat served on a hot rock at the table - what's not to love?  The initial searing of the lobster gave an amazing aroma as well as a smokey charred flavor to compliment the lobster's natural sweetness.  The lobster was served with three sauces garlic seaweed butter, ponzu and motoyaki sauce.  Out of the three sauces the garlic seaweed butter was the winner for me.

KJ's  Tiramisu + Flaming Green tea Anko

Not that we weren't spoilt (and full to the brim) enough already with an awesome array of dishes, but then our waiter did not ask us which dessert (a choice of two) we wanted.  Instead he came out with the flaming lot - literally.  The green tea and Anko (red bean paste) brulee arrived alight, infusing the vanilla liqueur to the brittley sugar coated top.  I was surprised to find the brulee still retained a crack-worthy toffee crust.

The tiramisu consisted of a green tea and sake infused sponge served semifreddo topped with chocolate shards and strawberries.  A refreshing dessert with good contrast in flavours. 

One the way out I also noticed that KJ is not only for fine banqueting, but they also do lunch and dinner specials for those wanting a quick meal.  $32 (at time of review) for a mixed plate lunch and they are still doing $29pp all you can eat sushi platters (min 2 persons).  Time to get your Volcano Roll fix!!

Anyway, we enjoyed a fantastic winter-romance date, with the atmosphere, seating arrangements, heaters (which were very welcome on a particularly wet and cold night), great service and the sharing-style menu providing a warm and intimate dining experience, with a hint of luxury thrown in.

Till next time ... we eat.

Shanks

Yaya's Yum Yums dined as guests of Kobe Jones.

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi

Calling all sushi lovers!

Ever since seeing the trailer on iTunes trailers I've been hankering to see this film.  This quiet little film invites us into the world of Jiro Ono, who happens to be the world's oldest 3-starred Michelin chef.  He was also declared a living national treasure by the Japanese Government.

Jiro runs Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seater sushi restaurant that is inside the Ginza subway station.  At 85 years of age, he has been working at his sushi craft for most of his life.  He talks about his dedication to his craft and how it occupies most of his thoughts - he literally dreams of making sushi.

Shhh...it's a sush sush secret...

Dredging through all the email in my inbox the other day I stumbled across one that I thought had sneaked past my usually reliable spam filter. The filter hadn't blocked the picture contained in the email, which it usually does if there's a chance of virus or trojan, but it still looked like spam mail to me. Unlike the usual spam mail I've grown accustomed to, this one didn't try to convince me that I needed a replica rolex, or to last longer in bed. What it did offer was something that most certainly was too good to be real. As much as my common sense said to steer clear, it hit me in my weak spot. It was suggesting cheap, quality food so I had to investigate further.

The picture in the email was a little cartoon sketch of a caterpillar, a dragon, a stick of dynamite, and a spider ordering sushi from a sumo. The location was a reputable place, well known to many in Sydney so I booked a table for lunch with a few work colleagues. I figured if the email wasn't true, I would end up paying a heck of a lot more for lunch, but at least I could cross the restaurant off my 'things to do before I die' list.

We arrived at King Street Wharf 5 minutes before our booking and were promptly shown to a table. On the cab ride to the restaurant, I practiced and practiced the secret handshake which would show the maitre d' I was one of the privileged few that knew of this secret deal. The handshake didn't seem to work, and plan B which was a slight inclination of my head followed by a slow wink was only acknowledge with a quizzical look. Plan C was to sheepishly pull out a copy of the email to show the maitre d' that I wasn't just making this up, but fortunately I didn't have to go that far. When we were seated, there was a nicely bound menu on the table that read wonderfully like the email I had scrunched up in my pocket.

It read: Kobe Jones All you can eat sushi. $25 Lunch Mon-Fri.

It's like Christmas in July, and as we sit back and wait for the feed, we are able to soak in the view, giddy with anticipation. Although a little cluttered, it's still an harbour view and it's a glorious winter day.

We perused the extensive drinks list and hoped that the sun would set unusually early so that we could try some of their tempting cocktails, but alas it was only midday and there was still work to get back to afterwards. Another temptation was the $940 bottle of 1988 Penfolds Grange Hermitage but after much debate it was decided that it didn't go with the theme of the day. (Hopefully next time, save me a bottle Kobe!). In the end it was a round of still water (impressively at no charge) and a couple of sparkling minerals ($8 a bottle).

The food arrives promptly and it's all that we could hope for and more. I swipe savagely at eager hands with my wooden chopsticks, delaying the inevitable demolishing of the plate just long enough to grab a quick photo.
So let's try to break this down:










The salmon, kingfish and tuna Nigiri was soft and velvety, wonderfully fresh and served at a perfect room temperature. Next up was the Dragon roll, a combination of tempura prawn and crab salad, topped with a sliver of avocado. The Caterpillar contains my favourite unagi and is simply delectable.











Dynamite rolls were made up of salmon today and induced with fiery sauce. The Spider Rolls (soft shell crab) seemed to be all crunchy legs and lacking the crab flavour but the winner of the day had to be the Volcano roll. Oven baked scallops in an amazing creamy sauce, this sucker couldn't be simply contained in a roll, it needed a porcelain fortress to contain all the goodness.

For the vegetarian who sacrifices for his beliefs, there was a vegetarian bento box for $30. It comes out as a three course meal, the first course being sake. Yes I consider the sake a entree, look at it. It's was about four shots of hot liquid. Comments on the bento box were not particularly favourable, but there's only so much you can do about flavour without meat. Plus the dessert of pannacotta more than made up for any short comings of the main.





















So this is the end of an epic lunch. The whole event took 2 hours so if you are going, be sure to have a good excuse ready to give the boss when you get back to work.