First Annual Asia Pacific Best Restaurants List

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Snickers revisited at Circa, the Prince

Chubby Hubby in Singapore is pulling together a list of the best restaurants in Asia/Pacific. Here’s Tomato’s contribution to the chubster:

Best restaurants my home city: Melbourne

Circa, The Prince 2 Acland Street St Kilda Victoria, 3182 Australia +61 3 9536 112
Perfect room. Perfect service. Perfect food. And then there is the reinterpretation of a Snickers bar with Valhrona Manjari. It’s simply the most decadent, outrageous thing I’ve ever eaten. We’re still planning a group visit where we eat three each but fear we’d be sick.

Mini Basement 141 Flinders La Melbourne +61 3 9650 88300
Throw out your preconceptions of Greek food. Based in a funky basement in one of Melbourne’s laneways Mini is what the City is all about. It avoids the usual clichés with a short menu of simple, fresh dishes.

Favourite restaurant in home city: Melbourne

Café di Stasio 31A Fitzroy St St Kilda 3182 +61 3 9525 3999
Whether it is the perfect set lunch menu or a full-blown I find this place comforting. I’ve never had bad service or a bad meal here. If only I could say similar for other restaurants. This is very refined Italian, at a cost.

There best restaurants outside home city/country

Tetsuya’s Restaurant, 
529 Kent Street, 
Sydney NSW 2000 +61 2 9267 2900
At a time when degustation is becoming just a little tired, Tetsuya’s is still fresh. This is simply the best fusion food you will ever eat, perfectly cooked, presented, served and matched with wines. The sort of place everyone should try at least once. Poor old Tetsuya was once cornered by my Mother: “Mr Tissue…blather, blather…Rick Stein…”

Peppermint Bay 3435, Channel Highway, Woodbridge, +61 3 6267 4088 Tasmania
A modern room with a view – of Bruny Island. Peppermint Bay takes advantage of the pristine ingredients that only Tasmanian has – scallops, oysters, ocean trout and the usual red meat. Try the local wines too. They better match food than those boisterous Aussie drops.

Cha Ca La Vong 14 Pho Cha ca, Hanoi, Vietnam 825 3929
Where to eat after a morning viewing pickled former communist leaders. Fried fish with fennel and local herbs is the only dish served at the eponymously named restaurant. You don’t visit here for service or linen but the nose of turmeric and fresh herbs washed down with local Vietnamese beer in a charming old building. Warning: go light on the beer, the staircase is steep.

Two favourite restaurants outside my home city

Tetsuya’s Restaurant, 
529 Kent Street, 
Sydney NSW 2000 +61 2 9267 2900
The next day I laid a perfect, fragrant quenelle.

Bistrot Moncur, The Woollahra Hotel 116 Queen Street, Woolahra + 61 2 9363 2519
For chef Damien Pignolet’s steak with Béarnaise sauce and frites. The best I have ever eaten.

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