There's something new happening at Nobu Sydney: breakfast and brunch is now being served. Nobu Sydney at Crown Sydney is the first and only Nobu restaurant in Australia to offer a breakfast menu. This was created in collaboration with Nobu's founder Chef Nobu Matsuhisa. The Sunday breakfast can be booked ahead of time and is available to everyone, from in-house guests to the general public. So what is on the Nobu breakfast menu?
It's 10am when Mr NQN and I arrive at Crown Sydney and head up to the second floor to Nobu. Prior to this I had visited Nobu for lunch and were seated in the room with the sushi chefs at work but this time we are seated in the dining room with the bar. The Nobu Teishoku breakfast menu has 7 food options plus toast; teishoku are set meals served on trays and are generally composed of one main meal and several side dishes. To drink there are two cocktails, two juices and two signature hot beverages plus regular tea and coffee. Nobu Sydney Head Chef Harold Hurtada collaborated with Nobu's founder Chef Nobu Matsuhisa on the dishes during the Matsuhisa's recent visit to Sydney.
Today it looks like most of the other guests are hotel guests and it looks to be a fairly popular alternative to the buffet breakfast as you can order a la carte here. Service is friendly and helpful.
Our drinks arrive first and Mr NQN has a matcha latte which is very lightly sweetened while my black sesame iced tea is much sweeter and the pick of the two especially with the black sesame candy crisp on top. We sip on these as we wait our breakfast. The staff are apologetic for the wait which ends up being around 50 minutes for breakfast to arrive which is a long time if you're hungry. We end up ordering a couple of cocktails in the meantime.
I like the Oh My Kami with Veuve Clicquot Rosé Champagne, lychee, watermelon syrup, lemon and raspberry and also enjoy the Momo Mimosa with Domaine Chandon Vintage Brut, Peach Schnapps, passionfruit and vanilla.
Mr NQN has the scrambled egg donburi with a bed of rice topped with scrambled eggs, onion, grilled salmon, and salmon caviar on top. It's quite tasty although I do feel like there is perhaps something missing to make it a bit more moreish. Also side note: I find Nobu's chopsticks to be the easiest to use to pick up fine things like salmon roe. Has anyone else noticed this?
I always like to break poached eggs open to check on the yolk's runniness; it seems one egg yolk is firm while the other runny. But when I take a bite into the panko crumbed tofu which is take on the hash brown it is cold...stone-cold so I have to send the plate back (and I think I've only sent 1 or 2 plates back ever in my life). The replacement comes back 10 minutes later and I dig in. While the tofu isn't super hot it's not cold and it is crunchy and tasty. There's also wilted spinach, poached eggs (again one firm, one runny), a very nice shiso béarnaise sauce an a modest amount of crab leg meat, as well as the dish MVP: soy sauce marinated tomatoes. These small peeled tomatoes are amazing and bring together the dish perfectly. The shiso benedict ends up being the pick of all of the breakfasts that we tried.
With the issue with the shiso benedict I had actually cancelled it and ordered a different breakfast, the traditional Teishoku Japanese breakfast but they ended up sending out both because it wasn't cancelled in time. Guests can order the salmon either grilled or steamed and I opt for grilled. It is served with a bowl of rice, ohitashi vegetables (gomae spinach and carrots), tuna sashimi, miso soup and bircher muesli. This is a hearty, healthy breakfast and the salmon fillet is enormous at around 250g in size and I end up dipping it in the soy sauce for a bit of seasoning. My favourite part is the tuna sashimi that absolutely melts in the mouth. The miso soup has two squares of silken tofu in it and the bircher bowl is very lightly sweetened with fruit juice with blueberries, raspberry, sliced apple and crunchy sugared pecans.
Whenever we go out for brunch we tend to order one savoury each and then have a dessert dish and this banana miso was the "dessert". It's two roasted bananas in their half skins flavoured with vanilla miso, yuzu chantilly whipped cream, goma or sesame sponge and berries. The banana and miso by itself is complex and quite savoury but it is delicious with some of the yuzu chantilly cream. What the menu doesn't mention however is that the berries are actually a lovely box of cut fruit salad that it comes with which is a nice surprise. The menu doesn't actually have a fruit salad on offer so fruit salad lover Mr NQN is immeasurably happy with this development in his life.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you prefer a breakfast buffet or a la carte when staying at a hotel? Which breakfast dish is your pick?
NQN and Mr NQN were guests of Crown Sydney and Nobu but all opinions remain her own.
Nobu
Crown Sydney, Level 2/1 Barangaroo Ave, Barangaroo NSW 2000
Hours: Open 7 days 12–3 pm, 6–10 pm (10:30pm Friday and Saturday) Breakfast is available on Sundays only from 9am-12pm (last booking 11am)
Phone: (02) 8871 7171
https://www.crownsydney.com.au/indulge/nobu
Tip: Crown Sydney no longer does valet parking for restaurant guests.
Reader Comments
Loading comments...Add Comment