It’s been a while since the last fine dining experience but tonight was a good excuse to go out, especially with my brother picking up the tab. hehe! Of course there was an occasion, it was my mum’s birthday so we had to do something special. Jeff’s choice of venue is Spice Temple located at 10 Bligh Street Sydney. This restaurant is owned by Sydney’s darling Chef Neil Perry who also operates Rockpool which is one of the world’s top restaurant, that reputation in its own raised my expectations. Entrance to this restaurant is discreet, the door is an LCD which displays an ancient chinese silk curtain which looks like it’s flowing in the wind. The ambience was definitely sexy with it’s dark interiors, red leather chairs and low hanging lights. The food has been described as a unique mix of the cuisine found in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Xinjiang. According to Perry the food, with its mix of dried, fresh, salted, pickled, preserved and fermented ingredients, is designed to excite the palate.
Between the five of us we ordered a total of four entrees, five mains and one vegetable dish which totalled to $280 which I thought was quite reasonable. The mains are quite generous in sizes as the theme of the restaurant is to share the mains. I must admit I probably didn’t pay as much attention to the food as I should have, since I was too busy yapping away about Plasma & LCD’s with my dad. Anyway, one comment that I did agree with regarding the food was – “Salty” according to my dad and not to mention spicy, hence the name Spice Temple. I didn’t like the Abalone Mushrooms which made me a little bit ill for about 10 seconds, not sure if it was the texture or the taste but I definitely did not enjoy that dish. Overall the food was nice but the chefs need to go easy on the salt, while the food was far from mindblowing it can only get better.
Service was quick and there were probably a total of 5 service staff that attended to us during the 2 hours that we spent there. Would I go back? Yes, but only if I was invited to.
I still don’t believe Chinese food is meant for fine dining.