Glass Brasserie

Many good restaurants in Sydney are closed during the weekend. It suits our itinerary for the jaunt anyway. Evenings are taken up at gigs and the theatre, leaving only lunch and the weekdays to sample a little of what Sydney has to offer.

Somehow, I didn't nose around for Japanese sushi here. We should have, right? I mean, any Sydney restaurant has access to really fresh seafood. Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn't have given up those seats at Tetsuya's. Although I don't think of Tetsuya's as a traditional Japanese restaurant.

So we trusted Time Out and were happy to have our cravings satisfied at Intermezzo Ristorante at GPO and enjoyed a fabulous degustation experience at Rockpool on George Street. A pity we don't have time to squeeze in another lunch at the Bar & Grill (Hunter Street).

I always make it a point to hop into one restaurant raved about by bloggers and friends. We had the opportunity to pop into one such venue. Thanks to Rebecca and the friends' high approval ratings, we sashayed over to Luke Mangan's Glass Brasserie at Hilton Hotel for lunch.

We felt a little bad because we were the only ones togged out so casually in sneakers and jeans (even if they're from Dsquared²). Everyone else was in ritzy suits. I tell you- I sorely missed my Chanel bags, chic dresses and stilettos for that 1.5 hours. Still, service was excellent. My requests of serving the salad dressing and vegetables, etc on separate plates were duly noted. There was no service charge on the bill. So we tagged on a tip. The service was absolutely worth that AS$30 tip.

Chef Joe Pavlovich's menu didn't disappoint. On account of those oysters at the fish market, we didn't have any at this lunch. I loved how the gnocchi had been pan-fried to bring out a little bit of that flavor and somehow lightened the taste of the cheese. The heirloom tomato salad was lovely, as was the roasted carrots with dukkah. Fish was fanbulous. The Rockdale fillet was decent, but not as good as others I've had. It wasn't at all surprising that we did not order dessert. There was simply no more stomach space! :)

Our meal went beautifully with glasses of a bottle of fruity Pinot Gris.

We almost fell into a food coma for the rest of the afternoon.