Welcome to the Neil Perry and Rockpool blog! Enjoy fossicking through recipes, news, restaurant updates and random stories on all that we do and love. The 4 restaurants in Australia are roaring along and we are now looking forward to a couple of openings in LA, the city of angels, in late 2010. In the meantime…have fun with this and let us know if there is anything further you’d like to hear about. Happy reading till then.
Cheers,
Neil
On our last night in Hirafu we decided to venture into Kutchan and go to the highly recommended Torimatsu yakitori restaurant. This is a real local joint and as soon as we walked in were the talk of the restaurant – we even got sent a few sakes just for amusing the crowd!
There is a menu in English which really helps but it is best to communicate with the love of food. The grill is the hero here, and there is a list of all the fish that has been picked up at the local market that morning.
Our dry chilled sake arrived and was poured into a large cup filled to the top and overflowed into a saucer, it is the way the local drink it and tonight we are in for a lot of fun as well as good food and drink.
Seated at the counter, I can’t take my eyes of the grill master. It is great thing to watch as the room fills with smoke and he twirls and moves sticks up and down the grill, at one stage a whole bunch of small whole fish in cages are cooked for a large table of local business guys. Everyone at the counter is amused and bewildered at us being there and enjoying the food so much. We start with a complimentary dashi soup with shredded egg. It is delicate and delicious, the salmon and local mackerel is beautiful sashimi with the freshness of the fish screaming out. The tofu with shaved bonito and horseradish with slices of spring onion and a little soy is wonderful – I love the silky, creamy taste of the tofu made on the premises.
The Maitake mushrooms are a favourite of Sam and mine, just sautéed they taste so pure and balanced and once finished I longed for another plate, but we had ordered heaps of food. I loved the small chunks of delicate cucumber with a sweet taste and amazing crunch, paired beautifully with nutty and salty miso. The chicken and pork yakitori were good and smoky but the stand out for me was the local sausage, this was the best I had tried on the trip. The chicken wings were great to pick up and chew with your fingers dripping with juice, smoky, crisp and melting flesh between the bones, I love it! The grilled onions with shaved bonito were so sweet, a local specialty here and I would love a salad of them just dressed with extra virgin olive oil and Fourm vinegar to go with any summer BBQ. The skate wing was our last dish and by this stage about three cups of sake had gone down, we were really into the smoky roar of the local crowd drinking eating and having fun. We shredded the sweet delicate fish off the cartilage, and although our tummies were bulging, we were having such a great time and wanted more. Luckily sanity prevailed and we arranged a taxi and the bill, it was crazy cheap. All that food and sake for less than $100, it was so much fun, we will be back for sure.
Calling all Waiters and Waitresses…
Rockpool Bar and Grill is seeking a career focused individual, who is passionate about food, wine and the challenge of working in a high profile establishment.
The successful applicant will be rewarded with our on going training program that connects them to leading Australian suppliers and their invaluable knowledge.
Please e-mail CV to Vanessa@rockpoolmelbourne.com or fax 03 8648 1919.
Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne
Just outside the ski town of Annupuri is the Rakuichi Soba restaurant. This quaint chalet is home to a fantastic noodle experience. You enter and remove your shoes and don slippers before entering the dining room and sitting at the counter with the menu in Japanese cut into a timber plank. With us speaking no Japanese and them having very little English it is a challenge, but a fun one that ends with you having an amazing meal, worth the effort I would say.
The charming and gracious Midori Rai helps you with your selection, Sam ordered soba with Broth, I the Duck Soba, we split a vegetable tempura to start, a beer for me and a jug of chilled sake for Sam. Once you place your order chef and master Soba maker Tatsuru Rai takes a small amount of dough out of a large bowl and begins to roll the dough at first like you would pastry and then he wraps it around the timber Dahl and rolls it continuing changing the direction until he has a perfect thin square, then he rolls it and with the knife cuts it into perfect soba nobles, the noodles are placed in a sieve and shaken to remover extra flour.
We then had our tempura of chestnut, eggplant, snow pea, shitake, lotus root, sweet potato and green bean, it was light and delicious and every vegetable had a different texture and taste. The noodles and their broth were both exquisite, soft and tender yet with a biet you only get from fresh made noodles. This is a place where the owners put their charm and skill into every experience. Sam and I will be dreaming of this place until next year, when we will be back without a doubt!!
The recipe for Rockpool Bar & Grill’s sultry dark and stormy with house-made ginger beer as featured in our March newsletter.
Dark and Stormy
50ml aged dark rum
10ml fresh lime juice
60ml house ginger beer
Build the ingredients in a high ball without ice. Be aware, the carbonated ginger beer has a lot of fizz when mixed with ice. Add ice and garnish with a lime cheek and mint sprig. The kick of the fresh ginger combined with the honey and rum is one of the great beverage pairings.
Ginger beer
600g peeled baby ginger root
4 litres water
600g honey
100g sugar
Add the finely sliced ginger to the water in a pot and bring to the boil. Blend the ginger water with a hand blender and return to the heat. Shut off the heat. Add the honey and sugar. Stir well and cover for 1 hour. Strain through a fine chinois or cheesecloth and allow to cool. Transfer into bottles and refrigerate.
Dark & Stormy with house made ginger beer
How lucky are you when you can find great snow, fantastic conditions and amazing food, right there on the mountain.
Boyo-so is a little hut 400 metres up from the base of the gondola at Hirafu, this quaint little place is definitely not run by any large catering organisation employed by the village operator like so many of the places on the mountain. No this is a tiny little place that feels like it has been doing the same thing for the last 50 years and it probably has. The food is simple and really tasty just what you want after a hard morning skiing. Soups come in miso or soy based broth and you can have ramen, soba or udon. Sam had a classic with tempura prawn and it was mighty tasty, I had a special of freshly seared thin pork strips with rice and egg. There’s big bowls of pickles next to the counter and a large spoonful on my egg made this the most delicious and satisfying lunch one could have. Choices include, curry, salmon roe, salmon, chicken and crumbed pork cutlet with rice, all these dishes are served with miso, so with a big bottle of Sapporo black label and your toes warming….what could be better than that???
Hirafu, not happy with having the best snow on earth, has to have the best produce and amazing restaurants to serve it too. We have had great food this week and Kaminura is a terrific meal in any place but amazing in a small ski village.
Then we had dinner at Sekka Dining, with very good wines, and loved that too! What they both have in common is great respect for the wonderful produce that Hokkaido is famous for and serious craft in cooking.
We had a fabulous dinner with very good wines the stand out being 97 Rockford basket press shiraz, love that wine . For starters we had a plate of different locally cured hams with local monviso cheese the Barnabas Parma style from Chitose and Gen farm Proscuitto from Tokachi were really delicious but the stand out was the Topen farm Coppa from Akaigawa – this was rich and smoky and I would love to eat it every day.
Another great starter was the Hidaka mozzarella with roasted chillies and semi dried roma tomatoes from Niseko Green farm, local produce creating a lovely light and tasty dish, I think I remember the cheese maker from Will Studd’s Cheese Slices and the taste of the cheese certainly shows the quality of the milk and care in making.
We followed with a signature dish of the Hokkaido dived scallops, with Otaru cherry wood smoked bacon, roast cauliflower, raisins, pine nuts and Pedro Ximenez vinegar , this was complex and the quality of the scallops and the perfect cooking shone through, I could eat the bacon for breakfast every day, and, note to self, I must eat these amazing scallops raw before I leave town.
Our mains were local wild venison with Jerusalem artichokes three ways another great dish and another example of fab produce, the venison deep flavoured and a beautiful tender texture that showed perfect cooking. We also shared the Braised Tokachi beef cheek with potato puree, this is comfort food at its very best. The puree having the great flavour of the local famous potatoes and the beef melting in your mouth, was the perfect pairing with the Rockford. We also shared a bowl of winter greens with garlic, lemon and chilli, this was so yummy i could have eaten ten bowls. Broccoli, shallots, garlic stems all cooked with the perfect amount of chilli.
Dessert was a shared Organic Nikki berries roasted with Japanese honey and thyme with lemon marshmallow and pistachio made in a tart. The meal ended the way it started with amazing produce beautifully cooked. Kim Wejendorp’s brilliant cooking is backed up by Katherine Bont’s caring service.
Sekka Dining, along with Kaminura, are the two stand outs. It is amazing to see two young Australians in a ski field in Japan totally focussed on bring the best local produce to the table and in Hokkaido you have a land of plenty!
Took a few hours off the slops today as it was pissing down with snow, tomorrow should be a cracker.
We decided to get a taxi to Niseko and go to the Hilton’s Rera sushi bar . Rumour is its the best Sushi bar in the area, it is true. We sat down at the counter for a very entertaining hour and ate great sushi.
When they pull out a block of toro it is really hard to say no, this fish was amazing - fatt and lush with a great flavour all melting in your mouth as you bit into it. The tuna was great as were the other fish. King salmon around here eats beautifully raw and the squid was no slouch either. The cook Hokkaido crab was awesome too.
I love sushi when you feel every grain of rice, but it all hangs together as you use your hands to eat all the great fish, washed down with a little Kokushi Retsu dry sake. What a great lunch. I thoroughly recommend it.
Last night was great at Bang Bang, Hirafu’s best yakitori place. You can sit at the counter and watch the master at work over the grill. The seafood is amazing and we had the best tuna sashimi to start – the fish sang with freshness and flavour.
It is a cosy place with a great jazz sound track in the background, friendly service and too much quality sake; I remember the taste, but cant for the life of me remember the name of that beautiful drop.
Well best have one more meal before we go. We had king crab and prawn and then launched into chicken, beef and pork skewers – one of each, salt and soy dressed.
The radish salad was delicious and I loved the Hokkaido sausage, a local specialty that is like a frankfurter, but in a really good way. Not the cheapest place in Hirafu, but one of the best and you get the quality of ingredients shining through.
It’s our birthday this week!!!!
On Sunday February 28th, Rockpool will officially come of age.
Turning 21 has made Trish and I reflect on what the future holds for our flagship restaurant.
When we turned 20 last year, we were immensely proud of how far we had come, and to still be standing strong over two decades later feels like quite the achievement. Rockpool certainly seems to be standing the test of time.
Moving forward, the future direction of the restaurant will be largely in the hands of our executive chef, Phil Wood. We have had the pleasure of working with Phil for the past 12 months and with his experience in our kitchens as well as The French Laundry and Tetsuya’s, he is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best young chefs this country has to offer.
Since joining us in March last year, Phil has taken over the reins of the kitchen and thrived on the responsibility. He was recently promoted from Head Chef to Executive Chef and constantly amazes us with his skill and creativity. We have complete confidence in Phil’s ability and while I will continue to be very involved in the menu and as a mentor to him and the team, Phil now has complete creative control of the food side of things.
Phil Wood (1st left) in the kitchen after a recent function in NZ
We continue to offer a choice of two menus at Rockpool – the four course a la carte menu and the eight course Grand Tasting menu – and we have recently launched our exclusive ‘Chef’s Table’. Situated in front of the kitchen, it offers private groups a bird’s eye view of all the action and our guests are loving it!
To celebrate our 21st Birthday, Rockpool will be offering all customers who dine at the restaurant during the week following our birthday, Tuesday March 2nd to Saturday March 6th, a glass of Champagne on us!
Happy birthday from us,
Neil, Trish and the crew at Rockpool
Great Wines of the World Dinner
Sunday 21 March, from 6pm at Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne
A unique opportunity to join David Doyle, owner of Rockpool Bar & Grill, Andrew Caillard MW, Langton’s Fine Wine Auctions, James Halliday, wine writer and judge, and David Lawler, Sommelier Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne for this dinner.
Neil Perry will craft an exclusive menu using the finest produce to complement a mythical selection of the world’s best wines. These wines, now finalized, have been hand picked from David Doyle’s $40 million wine collection:
1995 Veuve Cliquot La Grand Dame
1998 Albert Mann Schlossberg Riesling
2004 Domaine Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne
2004 Domaine Leflaive Batard Montrachet
2004 Maison Camille Giroud Latricieres Chambertin
2000 Domaine Claude Dugat Charmes Chambertin
1997 Guigal La Turque Cote Rotie
1996 Château Haut Brion
1988 Château d’Yquem
$700 per person with only a handful of tickets remaining. For bookings please telephone Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne on 03 8648 1900.
