Marque

This three hatted Sydney restaurant deserves an entry just by itself. Marque is in Surry Hills, with chefs Mark Best and Pasi Petanen. It received great reviews and I actually managed to find someone else who is as much as a foodie as myself, so Fabia and I tried it the second last day in Sydney. It was a divine experience. It was $95 for three courses which is all I can manage to stuff down. However I am sure that the degustation experience would be well worth the price. Since all the dishes are brilliant there is no clear favourites! Sorry I don't remember the exact ingredients of the dishes and due to the lighting these pictures are a bit dark.

Amuse with soft boiled egg

'Risotto' with calamari and prawns: the covering sheet is a flattened sheet of prawns and the 'risotto' is actually little chopped up bits of calamari.

Roast Muscovy duck with Jerusalem artichoke, Buckwheat, date and coffee: the duck was perfectly cooked and not too tough, the coffee sauce was brilliant, it almost seems like i'm eating a dessert!

A pretty strong palate cleanser, caramel with custard

'lemon tart': so this has all the ingredients of a lemon tart, the base is chocolate biscuit crumbles as the tart base, the lemon portion is a frozen sphere with lemon meringue, mandarin ice-cream and something else. It was an unexpected twist and very tasty

At the end of the meal, we get 4 little candies and good thing the server told us what it is before we tried it. It is supposed to represent the four tastes, bitter, savoury, sour and sweet. By telling us what the candies were, we were able to start at the bitter side and work our way up to the sweet. The bitter is the one on the left and it has licorice in it. The salty is chocolate with peanut in it, Sour is lemon candy with white chocolate and sweet is this gelatin candy with orange in it. Great ending to a great meal.