The Moveable Feast that is, Good Food Month

Get your good food face on – Good Food Month officially starts on Wednesday this week. From Sydney's favourite Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park to young chefs featured in the Omnivore World Tour; from Let's Do Lunches to Hats Off Dinners through to Sugar Hits – it's all back for the entire month of October for our eating and drinking pleasures.

Last year's Citi VIP tent at Night Noodle Markets, Hyde Park, Sydney

Presenting sponsor partner Citi also returns for its seventh consecutive year, and I for one am glad they're again offering the #CitiVIP area with concierge service at the Night Noodle Markets – which this year is opening on weekend nights too.

Citi VIP concierge service at the Night Noodle Markets, this year from 10-26 October 2014

As part of a progressive dinner through the city last week previewing Citi-friendly Good Food Month offerings, it showed that our city is indeed a Moveable Feast and Sydney's venues are turning it on for October.

Freshly shucked oysters from The Morrison, George Street, Sydney

We started at CBD favourite The Morrison for entrées and wine that's featured in the Citibank Dining Program, where Citi cardholders get a free bottle of wine at selected partner restaurants when paying with their card.

Delightfully and as I was hoping for, we started with a range of freshly-shucked oysters including a sample that's not yet on the menu.

The Gold Band Pacific oyster from Tasmania apparently features a gold band colour across the bottom of the shell, but I was too busy immersed in its stunning creaminess and full flavour to notice.

With as much, if not more flavour than a rock oyster, this spring season-only mollusc may be the one that turns me from my long-favoured Sydney rocks. But that's not to say that the Wagonga Inlet and Pambula Sydney rock oysters weren't briney and great as well, but they're just not the ones I'm currently dreaming of.

Crab and lettuce taco with salmon caviar and chardonnay vinaigrette from The Morrison

For Good Food Month, The Morrison is jumping into the Bar Hop with a Tanqueray gin based cocktail and a crab and lettuce taco for $20, as well as Let's Do Lunch featuring oysters then crab linguine (or mushroom gnocchi) with a Yalumba wine, Coopers beer or Schweppes mineral water.

We followed up our sensational oysters with the cos lettuce 'taco shell' filled with shredded crab meat, salmon roe, chives, chardonnay vinaigrette and a fresh chilli slice that, on this occasion, was bitingly hot.

Duck fat chips from The Morrison

And they wouldn't have us leave without sampling cones of Sean Connolly's signature duck fat chips which, served with a house tomato sauce, are about as good a beer snack as there is.

Thin hand-pulled noodles from Chefs Gallery Jamison, Margaret Street, Sydney

We toddled on over to our next venue, Chefs Gallery Jamison, for our mains with an interactive component. Head noodle Chef JPL, aka Chef Panda, was on hand for noodle stretching demonstrations as well as lesser seen knife-sliced and piped noodles.

Noodle making demonstration at Chefs Gallery Jamison
(Hi, Simon!)

Seasoned wonton crisps from Chefs Gallery Jamison

Starting with moreishly seasoned wonton skin crisps and my favourite Macanese pork chop buns, we were treated to a degustation of noodles with accompanying interactive demonstrations.

Macanese pork buns from Chefs Gallery Jamison

Pumpkin soup tureens

We also got a sneak-peek at other seasonal specials, like the pumpkin-contained tom yum soup designed as a special offering in time for Halloween.

Pumpkin tom yum soup

Pumpkin seafood tom yum soup serving

The sour, spicy tom yum soup with a variety of seafood and vegetables is served in a whole steamed pumpkin with its flesh softened for scooping out with the thin soup which is both novel and unique.

Zha jiang hand pulled noodles

The hand-pulled wheat noodles became zha jiang noodles in a tasty pork mince sauce that many likened to an Asian version of bolognaise.

Chef Panda knife-cutting sorghum noodles

Meanwhile, I was taken by the thick salmon-pink hued knife-sliced sorghum noodles that Chef Panda essentially shaved from a huge block of dough, straight into a pot of boiling water.

Sorghum knife-cut noodles

Served with a spicy Shanghainese chilli and soy sauce, it was all about the texture and al dente chew of the thick noodles, as well as the grainy flavour of the sorghum flour.

Piping fish noodles
(Hi, jeroxie!)

Lastly, the fish noodles squeezed out in single noodle formation from a piping bag into boiling soupwere completely new to me. A moussey dough of minced fish and flour, the piped noodles were served in a clean chicken soup, allowing the airy textured and delicately fish flavoured noodles to shine.

Fish noodles in chicken soup

For Good Food Month Chefs Gallery, and Chef Panda, will make nightly appearances at the Night Noodle Markets; demonstrating his craft, as well as a Chinese Food & Art night with an eight-course banquet at Chefs Gallery Jamison.

The private dining room at Sokyo, The Star, Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont
Image courtesy of ChopinandMysaucepan

We hightailed it to our final destination of the night, Sokyo at The Star for desserts. Graced with a private dining room which I've never seen before, we were laden with sweet, sweet gifts from the pastry kitchen.

Mochi ice cream from Sokyo

The sweet bounty included my favourite mochi ice cream: a thin sheet of softly chewy and glutinous, green-tinted Yatsuhashi Kyoto mochi encasing a nugget of strawberry milkshake ice cream. This is Sokyo's go-to desert for non-sweet tooths and something smaller and lighter.

Goma Street from Sokyo

My other favourite, Goma Street, goes to the other end of the richness scale. Black sesame ice cream is the sesame in the translated ‘Sesame Street’ dessert while the tower of tempered chocolate rounds, caramelised white chocolate mousse and black sesame candy take the dessert way beyond child's play.

Tofu cheesecake from Sokyo

I adored the playfulness of the tofu cheesecake which incorporates cream cheese and tofu in an airy filling that's then re-moulded into tofu cartons with a biscuit base. Highlighting the kitchen's creativity, the thyme sugar and strawberry consommé could well have been superfluous afterthoughts to the excellent cheesecake.

Strawberry meringue

I couldn't manage the rich-looking dark chocolate and peanut butter fondant served with vanilla ice cream, nor the lighter strawberry meringue option with sheep’s milk yoghurt sorbet with a veritable 'salad' of garnishes

But I did not refuse the award-winning McWilliam's Morning Light Botrytis Semillon which was well suited to the richer, sweeter desserts.

Peanut butter and chocolate fondant

Sokyo joins Good Food Month’s Bar Hop with a choice of Tanqueray gin cocktails and their delicious seafood offerings. Chef Chase Kojima is also taking small groups through the Sydney Fish Markets in the Instant Expert sessions while their Let’s Do Lunch offering is a varied bento box.

See the full Good Food Month program for details on all associated events and activities, and I’ll see you out and about this great eating town throughout October.

Food, Booze & Shoes attended the Citibank Moveable Feast preview of Good Food Month as a guest, with thanks to Haystac.

Noodle your way to dinner at Chefs Gallery Jamison

There remains a dearth of mid-priced dinner options in the CBD, cheap and casual Japanese and pasta aside. Attempting to fill that gaping hole is the second venue from the wildly successful Chefs Gallery, snuggled into a ground floor corner of Metcentre on George Street – best accessed through Jamison Street.

Noodle master in action at Chefs Gallery Jamison, Metcentre, George Street, Sydney

Launched in 2013, Chefs Gallery Jamison is a lite version of the original Bathurst Street restaurant. It has the suits lapping up hand-stretched noodles, dumplings and other elaborate pan-Chinese dishes through the week for lunch and now weeknights for dinner until 9.00pm.

Noodle dough

The eat-in space has been recently spruced up for more of a restaurant feel, although takeaway is still available.

At a (re)launch event in July we were treated to noodle making demonstrations and even allowed to try our own hands at it, alongside the master noodle chef with more than 20 years of experience spent honing their noodle craft. Suffice to say, it's not as easy as it looks - but it is good fun.

Rolling noodle dough

Stretching noodle dough

Stretching and pulling dough into noodles

Hand stretched noodles

Kingfish sashimi Chau Zhou style

Now a fully licensed venue with cocktail and wine lists, at the relaunch event we were treated to drinks and canapé versions of some of the cold dishes on the menu, including tataki wagyu beef and kingfish sashimi.

Prawn and pork wontons in Shanghainese spicy sauce

One of the favourites of the night were the particularly plump pork and prawn wonton dumplings: bouncy meat-flled delights in a chewy wrapper, coated in that spicy, roasted chilli oil that I adore. Several of these with dry noodles really is a meal sorted.

Vegetarian spring rolls

I skipped the vegetarian steamed buns in favour for the vegetable spring rolls; which are unlike any other you'll see around town. Jam-packed with an interesting, not-cabbage-dominated vegetarian filling, I enjoyed the unorthodox, lacy-batter wrapper but the pale but crisp rolls can be a little too oily.

Macanese style pork burger

The star of the night was the mini pork buns which take inspiration from a sort-of street food in Macau. There were (big call ahead) just about the best thing between two slices of bread I've eaten all year.

Basically a particularly unhealthy Asian burger, the buns comprised two miniature deep-fried mantou bread buns sandwiching a seriously seasoned and tenderised pork fillet, doused with a spiced mayonnaise and served with some perfunctory shredded iceberg lettuce.

I'm not even a burger/slider person but these were so messily good that I had to have seconds, and maybe thirds.

Wagyu beef cubes with black pepper sauce

More substantial dishes like thick hand-stretched noodles with prawns and thin, green spinach noodles with mussels also made the rounds that night, but I kept going back for the delectable cubes of grilled wagyu beef, served with an umami-rich black pepper sauce that had me thinking good old pub steaks.

Salt and pepper house-made egg and spinach tofu

The fried cubes of the house-made spinach tofu were outstanding – the tofu being eggy, silky and so satisfying. In a salt and pepper seasoning, the crisply battered cubes on tofu topped with a layer of spinach understatedly demonstrated the extreme techniques and effort that go into Chefs Gallery's dishes for a humble meal.

House-made egg and spinach tofu with preserved vegetables

I came back for that tofu when returning for a quiet weeknight dinner. Once the thoroughfare through to Wynyard station is closed off, Metcentre is pretty quiet and only accessible from Jamison Street and clearly, only for those in the know.

The tofu, this time served with a dice of pickled mustard vegetables, was just as impressive as at the launch with a crisp surface and wobbly innards, making for a great starter to share.

Beef in spicy Sichuan soup with handmade spinach noodles 

We went with soup noodles for the cool night, and especially having seen the experts make it with such ease and finesse. The hand-stretching gives the noodles a fantastic, chewier texture and you end up with noodles of varying width and not machine-made uniformity.

The spicy beef soup noodles featured the thin green spinach noodles in a Sichuan chilli spiked soup, topped with thin sheets of tender beef, spinach and juliennes of carrot and bamboo shoot. The richly coloured umami-rich soup had that distinctive heat tingle from the chilli and pepper, and made for a huge serving.

Handmade noodles in chicken soup

Equally large was the chicken soup based plain noodles, served with spinach, carrot, fried shallots and omelette strips, and fried salt and pepper pork chops on the side.

Clearly forgetting my newfound penchant for spicy and flavour-packed dishes, I found the plain noodles – which are meant to be pure, clean and cleansing – a little bland; helped along by the super hot chilli oil from the condiments selection on every table.

Fried pork rib with five spice salt and lemon

While the pork chop should have been the highlight and redeeming flavour addition, the tender pieces were sadly lukewarm although tasty with a five spice, salt and pepper mix for dipping or sprinkling on top, alongside lemon.

The noodle soup servings are actually quite huge, more than enough for a well-priced dinner, while the a la carte menu is probably a step up in pricing. Nonetheless, Chefs Gallery has noodled its way into the CBD for lunch and now, dinner.

Food, Booze & Shoes attended the launch party as a guest and dined with vouchers, with thanks to Chefs Gallery Jamison and Whiteworks Public Relations.

A Chinese treasure at the gallery

The First Emperor: China's entombed warriors exhibition at the Art Gallery
of New South Wales, Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney

Following a busy Sunday at the Art Gallery of NSW for The First Emperor exhibition (seriously impressive terracotta warriors and other previously entombed treasures – ends 13 March 2011), we marched down south towards Chinatown in search of more treasures – this time to fill our stomachs rather than rampant imaginations of Chinese history and narcissistic emperors.

One of the bronze treasures upstairs that you are allowed to photograph

Most the paint and decorations have worn away - but still amazing bronzework

From one gallery to another. Chefs Gallery is fast becoming a regular favourite of mine, helped by the fact that I haven’t yet had to wait for a table there. Service is also highly efficient with drinks and food at the table before grumbling stomachs start to eat themselves.

Chinese beer Tsing Tao is available by the bottle and goes down easily, helping along any excessive addition of the fiery chilli oil.

Handmade noodles with prawn and pork wontons in a double-boiled chicken soup
from Chefs Gallery, Bathurst Street, Sydney

The lai mien soup comes in a very large bowl, steaming hot and threatening to burn even the waitress who precariously lowers the bowl to the table. The chicken soup is completely clear, making for a very clean dish of white noodles and tortellini-like wonton, folded in a traditional manner.

The wonton dumplings consisted of a big piece of sweet prawn with a pork mince mixture, while the noodles were satisfyingly consistent in width, albeit very long given the double-arms length stretch of the noodle chef.

Wok fried medium-grain rice with prawn and diced Chinese olive

My first fried rice at Chefs Gallery was fun to watch being made, though it underwhelmed somewhat at the table. Watching the dedicated fried rice chef toss his wok to try to separate every grain of rice, I should have expected the dish to be a little oily, but thankfully not in a pooling way.

Whole prawns were the highlight of the dish, which had lots of egg and just a sprinkling of finely diced “Chinese olive”. The latter looked like normal black olives but there just wasn’t enough of it to make any impact on the dish.

Guo tie – lightly pan fried dumplings with cabbage and pork

One of my favourite dishes for its chewy, crisp, pan-fried skin, the guo tie of cabbage and pork appear open-ended with dumpling filling poking out the sides.

The filling is lightly flavoured with ginger, and together with the cabbage, makes for a lighter option than straight pork filling.

Jian bao zi – lightly pan fired pork buns

Lastly and most fillingly, the gorgeously fluffy jian bao zi arrive with our selected pork filling. I should have remembered from last time that these don’t have soup within as these buns from other places often do, so it was disappointment yet again when I really should have known better.

Nonetheless, the ball of pork filling was nicely seasoned as it sat in its oversized home of the soft, white dough, enhanced with a mix of vinegar sauce and chilli oil.

Too stuffed to explore the dessert menu, we happily left that unearthing of treasures to the others still having their late Sunday lunch.