Everyone loves a good ham. Not the meat but a flamboyant showman, and Shiki offers fine dining with a splash of theatre.
FINE-DINING restaurants tend to play heavily on formality - fine food is serious business.
But dining out should also be entertainment. The Hyatt Regency's Shiki Japanese Restaurant gives us impeccable service and fine tableware, things that underpin a sense of occasion. Shiki also throws a welcome bit of fun into the mix.
Its teppanyaki-style dining is as entertaining as it is delicious. You can opt for a la carte, but a seat around the giant grill provides a feast of action as the chefs provide some theatre. The recent winner of Restaurant & Catering SA's award for best restaurant in a hotel, it offers an environment for guests to gather as groups of 10 at bar tables wrapped around these hotplates, presided over by flamboyant chefs.
In a large group, you can't help but have fun at the culinary show.
We recently joined a table made up of three unassociated parties who all enjoyed one chap's regular updates, courtesy of a discreet earpiece, on a Crows' run to victory. But there is a small risk that the food theatre is not ice-breaker enough. On the same visit, we endured one guest with no table manners, whose behaviour took the edge off our appetites. ). It's a chance you take.
The Shiki card offers four set menus with seven or eight courses, ranging from $80 to $140. Unlike the usual banquet, each guest can choose a different spread.
Catering for about eight courses for up to 10 different orders, and variations, while every move is scrutinised takes considerable skill. Our chef never faltered. And he was tested. My partner's dishes were to come from the kitchen rather than the shared grill because of an allergy to crustaceans (we feared the mix of juices). It wasn't a success. His seared Coffin Bay oysters were overcooked and flavourless, apart from the taste of a soy and butter sauce. Our chef picked up on his disappointment and offered to scrub a part of the grill, guard it from other juices and prepare them again. The new oysters, were given breakneck heat treatment on the grill so the result was a set of succulent, creamy numbers, as they should be at their height of season. They were just warm and delicately shrouded in the buttery soy. What a difference the grill makes. He carefully prepared the rest of this menu on his grill. Very good service. The oysters were part of the Mai set menu, $80.
Because of the allergy, a seafood broth was replaced with a chicken soup. It was a star of the night. Tender shaves of chicken soaked up the rich flavours of a masterful broth steeped with mushrooms and dotted with tiny vegetable slices, flavoursome and still crisp.
A thinly sliced beef sirloin seared on one side only and skilfully transformed into a roll around mushrooms and radish cress was fun to watch in the making, and so good.
We opted to take wine matches with each course. For him, it was a solid set of Generation Next wines described as "a taste of the modern Australian wine scene", for an extra $65.
Lovely big wine glasses were given generous pours with six of the courses. It was good value, and included an equally generous finale of 2006 d'Arenberg The Noble Riesling.
Even better was the selection matched with my Hinode menu, $130 for the food and $95 for the wine.
A 2008 Grosset Watervale Riesling melded perfectly with a Kangaroo Island lobster salad starter. Then crisp fried nori rolls and king prawn tempura with soba noodles was hard to leave alone, but amounted to way too much food for one, considering six courses were still to come.
Next came steamed Moreton Bay bugs with garlic and coriander, again very generous in portion, tasty but just a mite dry.
I loved the shiitake and abalone mushrooms with garlic chives. It was a simple touch to punctuate rich courses before and after, and nicely matched with a 2005 Parker Estate First Growth. But the standout on my menu was a wagyu beef strip loin with fried garlic. It was seared, deftly split and cut into cubes so that each morsel was toasty on the outer and pink within. Perfect. The same goes for its inspired wine match, a 2006 Rockford Basket Press Shiraz. My last savoury course failed to fill its shoes. The sweetness of crabmeat was completely lost in a shiitake mushroom soup with a very heavy hand on the miso base.
It was time to move to a regular table for dessert. Unfortunately, this practice interrupts the conversation and the mood. Our group's menus were staggered, so we went to dessert as a twosome. We had formed a chattering bond with our dinner partners, and felt a bit let down to be ending the night solo.
Our sweet choices also became a small struggle. The tempura ice cream was reportedly inappropriate for him because, very odd, the tempura prawns had been cooked in the same oil. We weren't keen on a sweet cooked in the same oil as seafood, anyway.
In the end, a panna cotta with citrus compote was enjoyed but not particularly noteworthy. The option of a dessert on the grill would avoid dispelling the mood created by Shiki's fine feast of food and fun.
THE RESTAURANT
Shiki
Hyatt Regency Adelaide, North Tce, city.
Phone 8238 2382.
www.adelaide.regency.hyatt.com
Dinner: From 6pm, Mon-Sat.
Seating: 55.
Functions available.
Wheelchair access and facilities.
Head chef: Kenny Trinh.
THE VERDICT
THE BILL
Set menus $80, $140.
Entrees $9-$33.
Mains (average) $21-$50.
Dessert $9-$13.
Corkage: $50.
Summary
Delicacies of Japan in formal, fine-dining style with a bit of fun at the teppanyaki grill. Great for groups and diners keen to socialise; otherwise a la carte is also available. Sharp service and generosity in the food and wine pours.
Score: 16/ 20
Score guide: Below 10: Awful. 11-12: Fair. 13-14: Good. 15-16: Special. 17-18: Outstanding. 19: Brilliant. 20: Perfect.
