Glass Brasserie, Sydney CBD

My first visit to Glass occurred a couple of years ago, a little before it received a hat in 2011. It left me starry-eyed from the marvellous experience, with charming waitstaff, delicious food and generous portions. By generous, I mean that to have an entree and a main was too much to stomach, as the entree was the size of a small main, and a main was larger than average, distinguishing Glass from  other fine dining restaurants. This meant that my expectations were, unfortunately, pretty high when I decided to revisit more recently. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time, but it just wasn't the same.

Summary:

• Ambience was perfectly romantic - dimmed lighting and neutral hotel-type music to complement the easy flow of chatter.
• Service is attentive - water glasses were kept full and the staff made sure to ask about how we found the food each time our plates were cleared.
• Comprehensive wine list
• Food was good, though portions were on the small side...

The detail:

It was a weeknight, so all diners were sectioned off to one half of the room. The menu contained a nice selection of red meats (lamb, venison, a number of steak dishes) and fish, but SO was appalled to find that there were no chicken mains.

View from our table

Orders were placed and the waiter returned with a dish of olive oil and raisin/ white bread - probably made on the premises as the above photo indicates. That bread is so scrumptious I would buy a whole loaf if I could.

Bread :)

I had two scallops from the tapas menu, which were seared and adorned with lemon curd, leek, crispy bacon and horseradish. That curd was really sweet and didn't mesh as well with the scallops as I thought it would. The scallops were seared indeed, but I think I prefer mine to be cooked a bit more - it didn't offer much resistance when I bit into it. That mix of vegetable topping tasted lovely, however.

Scallops ($8/ piece)

SO had an entree of chorizo, octopus, piquillo (some sort of chilli pepper) and romesco (pepper based sauce). The chorizo was one of the best I've had - pretty much a gourmet sausage which was full of flavour from the herbs. It was a pity it wasn't spicy, though the romesco sauce more than made up for it. The octopus was a little rubbery but overall tender enough. Definitely had food envy here.

Chorizo and octopus ($29.00)

My main was the dry-aged lamb rump with eggplant, spaetzle (some sort of German egg noodle), Tuscan cabbage, and Tasmanian mountain mustard. The Tuscan cabbage was crunchy and crisp (imagine seaweed snacks but more crackly) in contrast with the chewiness of the lamb. Pretty good comfort food!

Lamb rump ($46.00)

SO ordered a steak - Beef City grain-fed Black Angus eye fillet. It was kind of lonely looking, even with the asparagus alongside it. We weren't sure whether it was actually 250g looking at it, but that's probably due to the cut, since eye fillets are typically, tall, round and smaller in diameter. He seemed to enjoy it...

250g eye fillet ($49.00)

We each decided on a glass of fortified wine to sip alongside dessert. The tawny was considerably stronger and heavier than the sweet, light All Saints topaque, which I guess I should have known (though in my defence I'm not accustomed to port/ tawny). The tawny smelt like golden syrup and tasted a little bit like those red dates that the Chinese throw into soup.

Settetsfield DP90 Tawny ($15.00)

All Saints Topaque ($16.00)

For dessert, we shared the toffee souffle with pecan butter ice-cream. The toffee souffle had the texture of a moist pudding. Best eaten with the ice cream rather than separately, as the ice-cream had more flavour.

Souffle ($22.00)

It was thus that our meal was concluded.