seared yellow fin tuna, pork belly, pink grapefruit, black pepper caramel

I’ve had a preeeetty quite silly season this year. Working nights really cramps the party style and aside from a couple of Christmas lunches, I’ve missed most of the fancy-dressing alcohol-swilling gigs that have been happening across town the past month. But luckily, I am always free on weekends. Last Saturday, Panu’s dad treated us to lunch at Flying Fish, sort of as an early Christmas thing because we’re off on our trip this Friday (THREE SLEEPS TO GO!).

Well, I tell you what. I would happily sacrifice all the drinks in the world for another meal at Flying Fish*.

* Sure, fine, it helps that I am not a big drinker and well, I do love my food. Just a bit.

I’d heard lots of great things about Flying Fish and even meandered past on many an occasion (after brunch at the delectable Cafe Morso, which is just down the same pier) and peered at its innards, wondering when I’d get to eat there. The menu at Flying Fish isn’t huge, but the selection is top notch with unique flavour combinations and a few signature dishes.

One such signature dish, which has been on the menu for years, is the seared yellow fin tuna with pork belly, pink grapefruit and black pepper caramel (top). It completely deserves its accolade as the signature dish of the restaurant, the tuna lightly seared, sweet and fresh; the pork belly and pink grapefruit matched in sweet and tangy harmony; the tiny strip of the most crackly crackling and the black pepper caramel… oooof. Just perfect.

roasted buffalo mozzarella, pecorino, broad beans, asparagus, mushroom toast

line caught snapper, white curry sauce, coconut, date & tamarind, condiments

Dutton Park duck, beetroot, nectarine, ashed leek, szechuan

Flying Fish hand cut chips with chilli salt

Oh these chips. I just wanted to lick the chilli salt off, and the chips themselves were pretty good too 😉

passionfruit soufflé with soft whipped cream and passionfruit ripple ice cream

I had a hankering for soufflé on the weekend and I’m sooooo glad I tried this. I’ve only ever had soufflé in two other places which I loved: Bob Bob Ricard in London, and Felix here in Sydney. But this now adds a third mind-blowingly awesome soufflé to my list and I would SO eat this again. And again. And a few more times after that. Big. Thick. Velvety. Cloud. Fluff.

petit fours

For someone who doesn’t want (or need) any “thing”, a great meal like this is the perfect Christmas present for me. I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to blog again this week before we leave on Friday, so I’ll see you on the other side. I’ll try and blog a little from the road, but stay in touch on Twitter or Instagram!

Remember, if you have any new tips for London, New York or Whistler, I would love to hear from you here.

Flying Fish
Jones Bay Wharf
19-21 Pirrama Road
Pyrmont, NSW, 2009
(02) 9518 6677
website

Flying Fish Restaurant & Bar on Urbanspoon

9 Thoughts on “early Christmas lunch @ Flying Fish, Pyrmont

  1. All that food looks wonderful! The desserts especially!

  2. Richard Madison on December 18, 2012 at 9:21 am said:

    I can now safely say ,Autralia must be awesome.Great post again.

  3. Clare: Yes, the dessert was probably the best, followed closely by the tuna 🙂

    Richard: Australia rocks! Where are you from?

  4. Richard Madison on December 18, 2012 at 9:39 am said:

    The beaches of West central Florida USA

  5. Adam Murray on December 19, 2012 at 2:59 pm said:

    Great review Cat. Starting to really like the descriptive lengths menu writers are going to nowadays. “Line caught snapper” and “Asked leek”. So the chef quizzed the leek on whether it would like to be gobbled up? And can you really taste the diff between a fish caught on a line, caught in a net or one that just jumped into the boat?

    • My typo!! That was meant to say ashed leek (oh dear and as I typed it just then, I typed asked again!). Anyway, yes dish names can get rather creative when what you want is for it to just say what it is! Re the line caught thing, I think it’s more of an ethical and sustainability issue – line caught being ethical versus like.. a trawler for example. A fish which hops into your boat voluntarily would be THE most ethical solution 🙂

  6. My gasssh. I keep staring at the first pic….best of both worlds and yes, definitely deserved the accolades. I want crackling!

    Merry Christmas

  7. That duck…..zomg. And those are the neatest large hand cut chips I’ve ever seen.

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