Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [33]
While we’re eating, Liz asks how we’ve liked Sydney. “Most important, what did you think about Tetsuya and est.?”
“Wonderful restaurants,” Cheryl says, “truly terrific. The striking thing about their food and the other fine meals we’ve had in Australia is the willingness of the chefs to be adventuresome with flavor combinations. They take risks and challenge expectations without falling into the trap of silly mishmash dishes.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I guess they’re literally changing the tastes of Australia, moving us beyond a stale, inherited food tradition to a wide-open frontier. It’s an exciting time here.”
“Sure seems like it,” Bill says. “I doubt that the best Australian chefs are more talented and creative than the best American chefs, but they push the boundaries much more. A lot of our top chefs are satisfied with putting a good, standard dinner on the table, because that’s what sells, even though the food is seldom much better or different than a skilled home cook can make. These guys act like they should be culinary leaders, blazing new trails rather than catering to conventional tastes. I’m impressed—in a big way.”
Liz drops us at the nearest ferry stop for a leisurely boat trip back across the water as she zips off to work. These outlying ferry piers are pleasantly civilized, with little shops offering coffee, dry cleaning, shoe repairs, key cutting, and other same-day services. Out on the harbor, the boat passes some of the suburban inlets that make up the area, where all the residences face the water and enjoy some kind of access to it. Many of the homes along the shore have docks for boats, usually sailboats, and even some high on the hills flaunt funiculars to get down to a berth. Sidneysiders obviously love their harbor.
At Circular Quay we switch ferries to go to the Darling Harbour development, a huge complex of shops, restaurants, and other attractions geared to locals and tourists alike. Our interest is the Sydney Aquarium, which disappoints us a little given its international reputation. It’s so cramped in its space, and so crowded even on a weekday, we don’t get a good look at the tanks featuring sharks and giant rays or at the display about the Great Barrier Reef. “At least we saw some of Nemo’s family,” Cheryl says, sighing, as she puts stamps on postcards of the orange clown fish to send to our grandkids.
To conclude our sightseeing, we do another full circuit on the downtown tourist bus, stopping only at the Sydney Opera House for a closer peek. After walking around the marvelous structure, it becomes clear the building shows its best face from a greater distance, like on the harbor, where you can catch the full sweep of the cantilevered, soaring rooflines. Curiously, the Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, has never seen it from any perspective. He quit the project before its completion in a dispute about cost overruns and refused to return to the city.
Back again at Circular Quay, we walk down the waterfront a short way to make dinner reservations at Wildfire, owned in part by American chef Mark Miller, who also consults with the kitchen. The Good Food Guide calls the restaurant “a party girl.” It’s certainly big, boisterous, and flamboyant, more so than we usually like, but we’re curious about Miller’s take on Down Under dining and find parts of the menu appealing, especially the wood-oven-roasted fish with bouillabaisse sauce, the Asian fish preparations, and the various chilled seafood platters with combinations such as lobster, crayfish, crabs, king prawns, bay bugs, and scallops. Unfortunately, we have to cancel our date later with the party girl. By dinnertime,