Telephone: (02) 9247 2937
Trading hours: 8am til late, 7 days
Website: http://www.sydneycoveoysterbar.com/
Situated in one of Sydney's prime locations and tourist attractions, this is a venue best enjoyed in summer. I have heard a lot of things about Oyster Bar, and since I walked past it I thought might as well give it a whirl.
For Entree:
Kilpatrick Oysters grilled with julienne bacon & worcestershire sauce (pictured above): The restaurant is advertised as an "oyster bar" so it seemed reasonable to order their featured dish. I've never been a fan of oysters myself, until I tried Kilpatrick oysters. These were substantially sized, yet I feel that I was still tasting that metallic zing, and shell more than the bacon & worcestershire sauce. Might have something to do with the larger size of the oyster and having more metals, and needing to be supplemented with extra flavour to mask the unpleasantness usually associated with oysters. I managed to convince a non-oyster eater to eat this - who seemed to enjoy it more than me, so that was a feat in itself.
Below: Wagyu Beef seared in wasabi & sake with soba noodles, green papaya, asian herbs & ponzu dressing. This sounded way exotic and tantalising on the tastebud so naturally I had to try it. The wasabi and sake was hardly recognisable in this dish, the Wagyu very thinly sliced and hidden through the soba noodles but otherwise an interesting dish.
For Mains:
Above: Kecap Manis Duck breast with sautéed Chinese cabbage, water chestnuts & shitake mushrooms. This was my main, and the duck breast was fantastic. They left the skin on, but it was a breast fillet (quite substantially sized) sliced on its width. Meat was juicy and tender and the sauce was very tasty - pity it went cold so quickly because of the weather and harbour wind!
Noodles were a great compliment, absorbed all the sauce which gave it extra flavour.
Below: New York Cut Certified Angus Sirloin with roasted French eschallot (onion), stuffed tomato on garlic & thyme mash. This steak was fairly well cooked. It was ordered medium and came out medium so I was quite impressed! It was quite nice, but I was too busy focussing on my duck I didn't give this dish much attention at all.
Unfortunately I had the pleasure of dining in the middle of winter in this open, alfresco dining restaurant situated in the middle of the harbour so despite being kept warm by the outdoor gas heaters, our food went cold very rapidly. I would suggest that it would be more popular in the summertime to enjoy a nice glass of wine, and sample some of Sydney's best oysters.
