Royal Treasure Seafood Restaurant, Sydney

It is a testament to the quality of food at Royal Treasure Seafood Restaurant that I went back. My first yum cha experience there was chaos of the Faulty Towers variety.

My friend Dash recommended it highly: loads of dumplings packed with fresh seafood and greens, sweet and sticky pork buns, great salt and pepper squid and plenty of other hot, crispy delights. Sold.

As we were walking up to the restaurant Dash warned me:

“There is always a queue, but don’t worry, it always moves quickly. 10 mins max.”

Famous last words.

We pushed through the 20 plus people crowding the little desk where the maître de assigns tickets for the waiting list. They had all been assigned their numbers but were still looking very stressed, waving their tickets and barking in Chinese at the poor young girl. I did not envy her job.

We got to the front of the queue and were told it would be a 30 minute wait. We decided to sit it out. We’d driven 45 minutes to eat there so we might as well, right? Wrong.

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Automata, Sydney

I can always rely on the Meat and 2 Veg to be brutally honest when it comes to food. Fine dining is not really his bag – he’s more of a, well, meat and 2 veg kind of guy. The problem, he readily admits, is that he can’t help letting the price influence his opinion.  In his words: “if it’s expensive, it has to really make my balls tingle”. Which is why I can be completely objective when I say that Automata, where one of my best mates is restaurant manager, was by far the best meal we had in Sydney when we visited over Christmas and New Year. His balls were tingling from beginning to end.

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Short & Sweet: The Four Horsemen, Brooklyn

Style: Modern European

Budget: Mid-range, though it would be very easy to spend a lot on wine.

Venue and atmosphere: Stylish, minimalist interior, that still manages to retain a cosy, neighbourhood feel via warm lighting and a lived in feel that probably comes from the many empty wine bottles that line the shelves and windows. 

Service: A little curt and not overly friendly, but my server may have been having a bad day. I got the sense that it is the kind of place where they get to know their regulars.

Food:

When Kate Galassi, former Director of Purchasing and Farm Partnerships at Natoora NYC, told me this is “Hands down one of my favorite places to eat” I knew I had to try it.

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Short & Sweet: Momofuku Noodle Bar, NYC

Style: Pan-Asian restaurant, specialising in ramen.

Budget: Mid-range.

Venue and atmosphere: Deceptively casual. The long wooden bar and communal tables and benches have the feel of a traditional Japanese ramen-ya, but the food will soon remind you that this is a destination restaurant (if the queue hasn’t already).

Service: Efficient and knowledgeable, but a little rushed and brusque; a common theme in my experience of New York City hospitality. 

Food: This is what you are here for and, despite more than 10 years of hype, it doesn’t fail to impress.

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Hometown Bar-B-Que, Brooklyn

Next year I’m doing a road trip in the USA with the Meat & 2 Veg. It is fast becoming a tour of the South’s best BBQ joints. Believe it or not, it was his idea. If I could, I would base my entire travels on what I am eating and where, and often do when I travel alone, so I jumped at the chance when the M&2V suggested it.

We are still working out a route, but it looks like Texas, Tennessee and Kansas  are top of the leader board. I have been using Johnny Fugitt’s book, The 100 Best Barbecue Restaurants in America, as a guide. He visited 365 barbecue restaurants across 48 states in a year to come up with the list.

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