wine

minoya1 — The Friday-night thousand-yard stare. The woman needs a beer.

On the Friday night of a strange, disjointed week, the weather was having its usual effect on Sydney’s transport. A couple of thunderstorms in the middle of the day meant that the trains would be stuffed until the following day, so Strop and I were going to be a bit late rather than the half an hour early that I had anticipated. No quiet beer beforehand this week.

The target for tonight, the first actual, on-Enmore-Road eatery of the Encore, was a Japanese restaurant. We had thought it was called Oganoya, but it seems to have mysteriously changed his name to Minoya, according the the sign outside. Luckily, it was still Japanese, so the bottle of Reisling I had bought at the bottle shop, wouldn’t go to waste.

Strop and I arrived within minutes of each other but there was no sign yet of Marie. Strop had warned her that we were running late, so she had no doubt adjusted her own travel plans. The room at Minoya is large and sparsely decorated. The main feature is a large and luridly autumnal, plastic Japanese Maple tree in the middle of the room. Like some sort of bento-based fairy tale, the room is frozen between summer and winter. We were directed to a table tucked behind the tree which I suspect may have contributed to some of the erratic service that followed.

Both Strop and I had been subjected to “interesting” work weeks, but now it was the weekend. We opted to save the wine for the moment and have a quick beer before Marie arrived. Strop decided she wanted an Asahi, so I took the other option and went Sapporo. Suffice it to say, I won the beer wars.

Marie arrived soon after we had determined which was the superior beer, and by inference the superior judge of a good ale. It turned out that Marie had been sitting in a bar on Enmore Road, having a pre-dinner drink of her own, and had seen both Strop and I hustling up the road, thinking we were late. Which we were, but as it turned out we needn’t have rushed. Marie had no sooner plonked herself down at the table, than her phone started ringing. She is a popular woman, obviously in demand, even by Strop’s standards.

When the phone calls had been dealt with, the conversation somehow flipped over to Marie’s arrival in Oz 37 years ago (she is originally a French-Canadian), and how she was disappointed when she arrived that no one spoke French. It does make you wonder about who teaches geography in Canadian schools though. As a 24-year-old world traveller, she ended up in Singapore with no money and no visa, so she did what all good travellers do. She married the first Australian she met. It seems to have worked out well for her though, she and her first husband are still good friends. Of course while Strop and I were taking all this in, we had been neglecting the menu. The waiter kept coming back, asking if we were ready to order yet. It was only when we decided to pay attention that we realised that they had only given us one menu. I thought maybe there was a global shortage of menus, but all the other tables seem to have plenty, so I think the maple tree is to blame. When we pointed this out to the waiter, he was very apologetic, but we still had to wait until he had seated a new table and taken their drink orders before we got any more menus.

When we finally made some decisions, we ordered prawn gyoza, grilled eggplant and chicken karaage, to start and for mains, a sashimi platter and sizzling pork. While we waited for the food I grilled Marie about her Air BnB experiences. This was by way of research, my new book has a character who hosts an Air BnB, funnily enough, in a quite similar situation to Marie. This discussion soon veered away from the amount of time that tourists spend in showers, and skipped lightly over vanity-publisher rip-offs, our first Japanese restaurant experience (the Fuji Tempura Bar, of revered memory), travel reminiscences, children’s relationships, tertiary education, and the important question of which is more important in a friendship, loyalty or honesty.

Luckily the food turned out to be better than the service. The gyoza were plump and tasty, the eggplant meltingly delicious, and the chicken sweet and crunchy. The sashimi platter was generous and all the fish very fresh. It even came with a side salad that featured a wedge of orange. Always a welcome bonus. The sizzling pork came with lots of veggies and a sweet soy sauce. It was excellent too.

By this time, the first bottle of wine had disappeared. We asked the waiter for a bottle of sauv blanc from the menu. He was very apologetic again, explaining that his staff had only put one bottle of each white in the fridge that afternoon, so basically we could have a warm sauv blanc, or a cold Chardonnay. We went with the Chardy, even though this goes against Strop’s religion, she had drunk enough by this time to be agnostic on the issue.

The disappearance of the second bottle of wine coincided neatly with the disappearance of the last of the food. We took this as a sign and made our way out onto the street, where we battled our way through hordes of scantily clad and sweaty youngsters outside the Enmore Theatre, and paused for a quick dance to a 70s revival band, playing up a storm outside the Hub. A great way to finish our first Enmore Road outing.

There are whispers of a new chef, overheard as the waitress ministers to the next table. Is she warning them off? Should we take heed too? Leave now, pausing only to chuck back the rest of the excellent Clare Valley riesling and Strop’s GSM, before bolting for the door? It does seem unusual that the staff would be warning the punters like that. Kind of like saying “We’ve got this new guy in – no idea how it’s going to work out.” We stayed. It was never in doubt really. What else are we going to do? Watch friday night football?

Later, as we waited for our food, it became apparent that the reference to the chef’s newness may have had more to do with speed in the kitchen rather than quality of the outcome, but by this time we were well into our second glasses, and had fully deployed our grandparently glows, as we admired a photo of the Pancetta sitting up in the cab of her father’s truck.

Graze is unusual. It bills itself as a cafe by day and a wine bar by night. We decided to try the night time option, but it would be fun to go back for lunch. The menu looks interesting. Which is not something that can really be said about the dining room. There is very little that could be labelled decor, which is fine if the place is full of people but looks a bit underwhelming when there aren’t too many punters as was the case when we arrived. At least inside. Outside on the street the seats were full of young people drinking, smoking and wrapping themselves around those little burgers that everyone insists on calling sliders. The smoke was a bit of a problem because the doors were wide open despite the winter cold, and the smoke wouldn’t stay outside. Again less of a problem if the place had been heaving, with lots of other nostrils to share around all the tobacco-y micro-particles.

The dinner menu is interesting. It ranges from oysters to sliders, and on to octopus and beef cheeks. It even includes an intriguing mention of shaved cauliflower. We simply had to know what this meant, so despite the inherent desirability of combining little hamburgers with slow-cooked lamb, we opted for pork belly and ocean trout, with the shaved cauliflower salad and chips on the side.

The pork belly was excellent, crunchy and soft, with plenty of flavour. The ocean trout was very good too. It came on a bed of toasted, finely sliced olives and almond flakes, which tasted better than it sounds really. Shaved cauliflower turned out to be finely sliced florets, rather than what I was imagining: a full head of cauli, shaved smooth. Unfortunately, the blue cheese tended to overpower everything else in the salad – just too much blueness really. The chips were very good, big, hand cut – crisp outside, creamy inside. Our waitress was young and friendly. Strop decided that she was probably new, and her bubbly-ness a sign of nerves. I just thought she was a student from the performing arts high school across the road. The service was pleasant, but it veered away from restaurant standard and into pub territory when they began clearing empty plates before we had finished eating. At one point the waitress tried to remove a wine glass that Strop hadn’t quite finished with. She nearly lost a finger.

We decided that it would be rude not to look over the dessert menu since the waitress had gone to all the trouble of bringing it over to our table, and our eyes immediately landed on the madeleines with passionfruit curd (really it was just the passionfruit curd, always a favourite). And, seeing as we are in a wine bar, why not have a dessert wine to go with that? Exactly!

The dessert wines arrived well before the madeleines, which was probably just as well because the glasses were very big. Certainly much bigger than I am used to for dessert wine, but we managed to make a fair dent in them before the dessert arrived. The madeleines were disappointing, more stodge than sponge, but the curd was very good, and so was the vanilla bean ice cream.

We enjoyed Graze, despite a few hiccups. It gradually filled up and had nice a buzz to it by the time we left. The wine was good and they are trying to do ambitious things with their food, and that should be encouraged. It is good to see a place trying to do something different and creative on a strip where too many places are happy to just do what all the others doing. Go and see for yourself.

212 Minoya – I blame the tree

377 – Graze on King – Long live ambition