momofuku seiōbo

I've read about momofuku quite a while ago. Been wanting to go since then and finally got my "excuse" to make a booking. My 2nd wedding anniversay :) Told Robin I'd take him to a restaurant that he's never been and kept it a surprise till we're there. Good to have nice sister in law who didn't mind babysitting the little guy for us that night. We really enjoyed our night out. 

We got there early that day, so we sat at the bar for a little while. If you like coffee and if you like beer, here's something to try! Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout Japan - $14. I'm neither a coffee drinker nor a big fan of beer, so I didn't even try. Robin didn't really like it though. He said it was weird to combine the 2 drinks together. After a while when our table was ready, we were shown to our seats which were at the counter looking directly into their kitchen. 

First course, Snacks - nori, smoked potato, shiitake chip, mochi (clockwise from the top). This plate were for the both of us. How I wish I could have 2 pieces of everything. The plate did look a bit sparse, I wish they would fill it up. All of them would make great tv snacks :) Here are the zoomed in photos. 

Now, the main momofuku attraction for me. Steamed bun - pork belly, cucumber, boisin sauce. Sorry about the picture. It did not do the bun justice. I just couldn't wait to bite into it. The bun was so soft and fluffy. The pork was oh so tender. Together with the crunchy cucumber that added some bite to it and the sweet hoisin sauce, it was like the best bun ever!! All looked like very common ingredients, but together there was some magic that made it so incredible. I saw how they store the bun in a container in the kitchen, very very tempted to ask the chef to put a few in a doggy bag for me to bring home :p

Here's the Sea mullet with blood orange. Again, the chef had worked wonders here. I don't really know my fish market, but Robin said sea mullet is a very cheap fish. The chef had made it so amazing with the creativity to serve it with blood orange. 

Marron with fennel and dill. Very fresh marron nicely cooked. See the black blob of stuff at the back? Absolutely no idea what that blob of black stuff was but it was AWESOME. Didn't look very nice, but that was the BEST part on the plate. 

A very pretty looking dish of Beef with radish and fermented black bean. Can't see much of the beef here because it was covered under the vibrant slices of radish. I quite like this dish but Robin thought the combination didn't quite make sense. 

This was the Smoked eel with jerusalem artichoke and pink grapefruit. Again, combination of seafood with citrus. This was served with a bowl of eel broth. The intense flavour of the broth just made us wanted more. It didn't have a tiny bit of the seafood fishy taste in it. 

Mud crab with yorkshire pudding. Hmm.. babybrain strikes again! Can't remember much about the taste of this dish anymore. Only remember seeing the yorkshire puddings being made in the kitchen and wondering when would I get served these cute looking thingy. 

Egg with toasted rice and brown butter. Wobble wobble wobble~~~ Perfectly wobbly egg!! How awesome was that. Such simple ingredients yet such highly satisfying flavour. I was amazed how well the fragrant of the toasted rice go with the egg and butter. 

Pea agnolotti with parmesan and ham. I remember that white foam thingy. Again, funny looking component and absolutely no idea what it was. Creamy with a bit of spiciness in it. Very interesting foam. 

Mulloway with smoked roe and lettuce. Robin started eating his while I was still busy taking photos. He gave me a nudge n said "you better eat this now". Presentation wise it was rather ordinary, but the fish... so fresh so crispy. Even the lettuce was good. Nicely charred. For some reason the best part of all these dishes are those unknown components on the plate. There was some crispy crunchy stuff sprinkled all over the plate. I reckon those were the icing on the cake. Made the dish a whole level higher. 

Lamb neck with onions and mustard seeds. Lamb was nicely cooked. Very tender and juicy. Love those onions. They were actually very sweet. Great combination with the mustard for the lamb. 

This was a bit of a funny 1 for me. Pecorino with honey licorice and bee pollen. Never thought of eating cheese with honey. That's essentially what it was. I'm not sure to consider this a sweet or savoury. 

Now here's a funny looking dessert. Wattle seed, malt, crispy milk. No idea how they made the crispy milk skin, but it was so crispy it's like eating milk flavoured chips. 

Miso, cherries and black sesame. The only way I like my cherries is fresh. Not candied not poached, not anything. So I was a bit cautious about this. I tasted each component on its own and thought I didn't like it. So I decided to just gobble everything together and finish it since it's just tiny. Much to my surprise, everything suddenly just tasted so much better TOGETHER! Each component was vital. They just had to be there to complement each other to create this unique taste. It just wouldn't work without any of it. 

If I hadn't read about this restaurant before, I wouldn't be expecting this to end the meal - Pork Shoulder. While typically this would be a savoury dish, here, it was given the task of a dessert. Definitely sweet enough to qualify as a dessert, but not rich and heavy like a chocolate mud cake sort of thing. Kind of fun and messy though because no cutlery was given. EVERYONE had to use their hand for this haha.. What an experience :) 


Conclusion, very very very satisfied with this dinner. While the plating of the dishes wasn't as impressive as some other restaurants, it's definitely not a problem here because as soon as one tasted the dish, nobody would care how it looked like. Could also see that the chef got some very clever ideas with the dishes. 

Side note: Adriano Zumbo's dessert train was located right opposite and conveniently opens till 11pm. So what happened? I got myself 2 macarons from Zumbo haha.. Red was coke, green was mojito. Sorry about blurry photo again. I couldn't wait to bite into the macarons :p 


momofuku seiōbo
The Star
80 pyrmont street, level g ,
sydney, nsw 2009


PS. Reservations are to be made on their website and only 10 days in advance. Can't remember where I read about this, but I know new day is added at 10am each morning. So to make sure you get the day that you want, make sure you are in front of the computer 10 days prior and start hitting the refresh button from 9:59am (which was what I did). The seats do go out FAST.