36 Levels Above

Yay for the long awaited food blog. I've always wanted to start one but I never brought myself to do it but here it is now! Yay!

There is no better way to start my first post than with a hatted restaurant. :)

For Jason's birthday we decided to celebrate it at Altitude Restaurant (well originally we wanted to go Sepia - unfortunately a Saturday booking was all booked out until March). I made a booking for 6pm. However what I didn't like was that all bookings from 6 - 6:30pm had a time restriction of just over two hours so that the table could be vacated for a later booking. Although in the end we went over by our time restriction by 15 minutes and we weren't hurried out which was quite nice.

First thing's first - once we arrived, we were amazed by the view from the five-metre high floor to ceiling windows overlooking the harbour.

The amazing view from our table

Now on to the food! We decided to order their degustation menu which they call Epi-curious. It was $135 per person for 7 courses.

Course 1 - Cured Hiramasa Kingfish

I loved the colours on this plate, however the flavour ended up being quite bland and tasteless - it lacked the WOW factor.

Course 2 - Rock lobster and baby mackerel

This dish was also quite boring and bland. The delicious and interesting part of it was the Saffron sorbet on top. Other than that the dish in itself was quite fishy (well duh it's fish - but you know that fishy smell, is there a word for it?). The crispy skin of the mackerel was quite nice though.

Course 3 - Roasted and braised Glenoth chicken terrin

We both agreed that this was the best dish of the night. The flavours were fantastic, the apple slices went really well with the chicken and foigras.

Course 4 - Crispy skin Suzuki Mulloway

I have no idea what type of fish the Suzuki Mulloway is but this tasted a lot better than the mackerel. However it was still a let down because we were told by the waitress that seafood was Altitude's specialty. The squid on top was too chewy and the rice on the bottom was bland. Overall this dish was just okay. It was quite interesting how they used squid ink to decorate the dish, I was a bit afraid to eat it even though it doesn't have much of a taste.

For the main course we had 2 choices, so we decided to get one of each and do a switcheroo of plates :)

Course 5 - Roasted Riverina Lamb Rack

Jason asked for the lamb to be cooked medium, and it was cooked just right. It wasn't chewy at all.

Course 5 - Confit duckleg

I must say the lamb was A LOT better. The duck was cooked way too dry, but the salad thing on the bottom which was made with raisins and some nuts was delish :)

Course 6 - Pineapple jelly and sorbet

I could have eaten a whole tub of that pineapple sorbet. It was sweet and very pineapple-y. It went well with the custard on top and the pineapple jelly on the bottom. If you're a sweet-tooth like me you'd love this dish!

Course 7 - Warm dark chocolate fondant

This was our final dessert for the night. The chef even personally took the time to write "Happy Birthday" on Jason's dish and the waitress wished him a Happy Birthday too :) Dark chocolate is actually not one of my favourites. The chocolate was too rich and bitter for my liking but that's just my personal preference, the pudding was lovely.

Overall our experience was quite pleasant. The waitress, Alicia, who served us for the night was just lovely and made sure we had a memorable evening. However I am sure you can get much better food with the same price.

Ratings

Food: 7/10

Service: 10/10

Ambience: 10/10

Value for money: 7/10

Altitude Restaurant

Shangri-la Hotel
Level 36, 176 Cumberland St
The Rocks NSW 2000

PS. Have you guys seen the latest Domino's ad. My dearest friend Jason is the star of the ad :)

Best face at 6 seconds.