My Sunday Lunch at Nobu

I love all things food. I cook, I bake, I read cookbooks and cooking magazines for fun, I love eating out at new places and commenting on Urban Spoon about them. Whilst The Boy is very encouraging of my cooking and baking, he is not a big fan of eating out at different places. I can take him to places where the food is not too expensive or extremely different, but anything out of his comfort zone and he really doesn't enjoy himself.

Enter my future sister in law, J. We recently discovered we are both passionate about trying new places and have decided to starting ticking restaurants off our food bucket lists. It is even better now because she is going to be one of my bridesmaids, so we have plenty to talk about over our lunch and dinners.

Our first restaurant off our list was Chin Chin which we both fell in love with. I have since returned to Chin Chin and it still delivered. My friend as organised a get-together at Chin Chin next weekend so I am looking forward to their menu once again.

Last Thursday, J told me she had managed to score some tickets to The Producers at the Arts Centre. We decided to make a bit of a day of it and cross off another restaurant from our list. After realising we would need to book something to ensure we made the show, we ended up choosing Nobu in Southbank.

One thing I have to say is I love the decor of Nobu. I love the Japanese panels and the open space of the restaurant. We both decided to order cocktails to begin with. I chose the Passionfruit White Chocolate Martini. I ended up having three of these over lunch.

The wait staff at Nobu are very attentive, I actually felt in some cases too attentive. The number of times we were asked to order was extreme. However, I am guessing this was because it was not that busy when we got there. We decided to order the three course lunch special for $57 each.

For entrees we chose Sashimi Tacos with Yellowtail, Salmon, Lobster and Snow Crab. These little bite size bursts of flavour were my favourite things I tried at Nobu. There were so fresh and had the slightest tang to them. The tomato to put on top was the perfect condiment.

The other entree was Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna. This was also nice and I found the rice to be quite interesting as I have never tried rice like this before.

For mains we chose Smoked Duck with Balsamic Teriyaki Sauce and Beef Tenderloin with Anti-Cucho sauce. At this point the waitress slowed down the speed at which the food was coming out. We ate the duck quite slowly. I thought the duck lacked flavour. Whilst I could tell it was smoked, I am used to duck having a sauce with it. This dish was a let down.

The final dish came out at about 2pm. It was at this point (and perhaps because we were slightly tipsy) that we realised we needed to leave in 30 minutes or risk missing the show. We hadn't even ordered desserts at this point! We asked the waitress to downgrade out meal to the $46 entree and main lunch special. She admitted she had slowed down with our food as we looked like we wanted to have a long lunch. I wish she had mentioned this to us though as I really did want to try dessert. We ate the beef tenderloin which was cooked to perfection (medium) and the spice mix on it reminded me of a Portuguese Spice. I forgot to take a picture of the beef (because I had already had three cocktails!) but you can see the beef in the background of my first cocktail picture.

So I guess the question is after a dent in my credit card, would I return to Nobu again?
Sadly, I think not. Whilst there was nothing wrong with the food, it did not have that WOW factor that I would have expected from a restaurant with such a strong reputation. The final bill was $150 for two people (this included five cocktails) but this did include a 25% discount because I used my gold entertainment card. I will also add that we had the lunch special so we were restricted in the dishes we could choose but did get them much cheaper. If I did return I would do so with the entertainment card (so I guess I am waiting until next year) or at least when the lunch special is one because the menu at full price is quite expensive.