There is the “normal” way that one usually visits a restaurant. That is, to make a dinner booking for say 7:30pm or 8pm, arrive and sit down and have a meal. I think it’s safe to say that normal is not a word I hear to describe myself and when Cafe Sydney asked me if Christie and I would like to have a Behind The Scenes view of the Cafe Sydney where we’d get to explore every nook and cranny of the restaurant and the kitchen we instantly said yes.

It had been years and years since I last visited there. I used to go there for corporate lunches and would always order the tandoori salmon (this was way B.B. aka Before Blog ) . One time I dined in the private dining room for a friend’s birthday and had some of the most enormous prawns I’ve ever laid eyes on.

The view

More view

Christie and I front up at Cafe Sydney at 4:45pm. We’re doing an evening shift starting with the staff meal. Around us some staff are busy setting up while others eat their staff meals. Jan the Operations Director whose idea this was, greets us and gives us a tour of the premises. We have free reign to go anywhere at any time. The restaurant all looks very familiar and I am instantly transported to my advertising days and I wonder whether the tandoori salmon dish still features on the menu (it does but in a different version!).

“How many people do we have tonight?” Jan asks.

“240″ answers the front of house staff as we learn out of a possible 300 diners.

Christie and I are amazed. It’s a Tuesday night and restaurants usually are much quieter at the beginning of the week but they are operating at 80% capacity on this cold, Wintry Tuesday night. As it is a chilly evening the outdoor terrace area is reduced so that diners don’t feel the chill too much. There are outdoor heaters as well as  but nothing can distract us from the view. Ah that view. The Harbour Bridge on the left and East Circular Quay on the right with the Opera House peeking out from behind it.

The bar

Staff eating their staff meals

Staff meal: Penne bolognese

Staff meal: rocket and cucumber salad

Back to the staff meal. I’ve always been interested in staff meals ever since I got my copy of the Buon Ricordo cookbook where there is a section on the staff meals. Tonight it’s a penne pasta bake with a meat sauce and cheese as well as a vegetarian option which is baked polenta. There is a large rocket salad with pear as well. Each night has a different type of meal but the same staff meal is served for lunch and dinner that day. Monday nights are curry night as the Tandoori chef Ram cooks.

Ram the tandoori chef

Kitchen preparation sheet

Jan is handed a kitchen preparation sheet. On it are the number of diners (pax), special requests (like birthdays) and there is also a number for “amuses”. Each evening Cafe Sydney holds a table for 2 and a table for 4 (a “2 top” and a “4 top” in restaurant speak) for each of the 5 star hotel concierges in the area. These are held until around 7:30pm and each table is also given an amuse bouche with “compliments of the hotel” . There is no percentage of the meal or fee for this for either party and twice a year they host the concierges for dinner. Their clientele is mostly corporate and repeat customers and they can get up to 50 walk ins an evening and they usually try and accommodate them as best as possible. Seating is done on a first come first served basis and your seat depends on the date that you booked.  Seating arrangements are done at 3pm each day.

Staff meeting

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Many years ago, my friend Teena was always late for dinners. She’d be 30 minutes to about an hour late and Gina and I got so tired of it we hatched a plot to ensure that she never did it again. We knew that she wasn’t deliberately doing it, she was a considerate friend apart from this but we felt like she didn’t know how inconvenient it was. So one day we asked her to meet us an hour earlier than we would get there. It did the trick and after that she realised how annoying it was to have to wait for people and since then she has more or less been on time to places.

Now I realise that I am probably in danger of being this person myself. Case in point, I am supposed to be at Flying Fish at 12:30pm for a lunch with Peter Kuruvita and Jodie Wallace (the head chef of Flying Fish) and I was early. Until I realised I had no idea which wharf Flying Fish was on and proceeded to walk up and down each finger wharf in high heeled boots my feet pleading with me to get a taxi and my brain telling me that I taxi wouldn’t take me a  few hundred metres.

After trying in vain to call them  (the Telstra SMS arrived four hours later with their phone number) I finally got there, hot and panting and probably quite dishevelled. Set at the end of Jones Bay Wharf, it’s a stunning glass fronted building with dark timber slatted ironwood walls and floors completely renovated by Kuruvita. There is no doubt that it is an expensive restaurant with mains edging towards the high $40s. During the month of June all mains are $29 Monday to Thursday.

Peter Kuruvita

Father of three sons Kuruvita is famous for his fish of course, hence the name and location, and his Sri Lankan heritage (Kuruvita is half Sri Lankan, half Austrian) pops up in certain dishes which I’m eager to try. He has his Head Chef Blue Mountains born 26 year old Jodie Wallace. Dining with us is last year’s Masterchef contestant Michelle Darlington who now manages The Essential Ingredient store. Michelle and I are undecided as to what to order so we decide that the easiest thing to do is share!

Seared yellow fin tuna with ruby red grapefruit and sweet pork crackling $33

This is the dish we tried at this years Taste of Sydney, the absolutely ambrosial seared yellow fin tuna with red grapefruit and roast pork crackling. It is drizzled with their Flying Fish black pepper caramel (my favourite item from their new range) and accented with their chilli salt. It is the only dish that has been on the menu for six years and they are never allowed to remove it for fear of customers protests.

Smoked Rainbow trout served on Himalayan salt, fennel cream, celery heart salad $32

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It was that moment of panic. You know the one – where you need to find a place to eat in the immediate vicinity and there are no seemingly viable options. The place that I was taking my mother for her birthday lunch was closed, unexpectedly so and we were driving around Kirribilli trying to figure out where to go. My mum was flexible, anywhere was fine. It was just me that wanted to make it somewhere nice.

“Why don’t we just go to Yum Cha?” Mr NQN says. The only problem was that the Yum Cha I knew was in North Sydney and I had already written about it so I wasn’t in the mood to reblog it.

“Fine but I can’t blog it” I whispered to him.

Mr NQN thought about it and realised that a meal eaten and paid for and not blogged is a missed opportunity so we kept driving. Until we reached Broughton Street. I suggested Garfish guardedly. You see Mr NQN, Queen Viv and Miss America had dined at the Crows Nest branch years ago (B.B.=Before Blog) and had a highly unimpressive meal there. The waiter was rude, the servings were tiny and we left hungry and poorer. But figuring that lightening the wallet in aid of a birthday was probably the best excuse and besides, these people were hungry we decided to go back.

We choose an outdoor table. Our male waiter is friendly and explains the menu. There is the paper fold out menu that sits on the napkin and then there’s the daily specials menu with fresh fish of the day as well as specials. He recommends the Singapore Chilli Crab which at $70 for two including bread and salad is actually not a bad price at all. We choose the crumbed garfish with a coleslaw with apple, pomegranate and dill mayonnaise as well as a salt and pepper squid. The prices thankfully haven’t seemed to risen from our visit the years before.

Salt & Pepper Squid $16

While waiting for out entree, we ask three times for the side flap to be pulled down as the sun is shining directly on us. We’re on the brink of doing it ourselves when the tall waitress does so. Our salt and pepper squid arrives and true to the warning, it’s small. Ahh yes a reminder of our last visit. It is quite good though and the chilli and ginger sauce is moreish. My mum loves it so she asks the waitress if she can keep the chilli sauce and the waitress says that she’ll bring out a fresh one for our mains. She never does and we have to ask for it later when our main arrive. Then the waitress takes my knife and plate but places my used fork back on the left hand side of my setting. She takes my mum’s fork and knife but leaves my father’s fork and knife. Odd.

Crumbed Garfish with apple, pomegranate and dill mayonnaise salad $30

The wait for mains is a little longer than we’d like but it looks to be a small kitchen. The crumbed garfish is quite good although I don’t often go for crumbed fish when dining out (my mum’s choice, she loves crunchy deep fried things). The accompanying salad is very good and we try it with the chilli sauce.

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