Wasabi Restaurant & Bar

For our fifth wedding anniversary, Jen had a weekend away on the Sunshine Coast at Noosa.  For the uninitiated, Noosa Heads is a relaxing, sun-soaked holiday destination that is spoiled with pristine beaches and lush green hinterlands.  Noosa Heads also has more than its fair share of excellent dining destinations too.  When it comes to fine dining in this region, Ricky’s, Berardo’s and Wasabi all regularly feature in the annual Queensland Good Food Guide.

For our anniversary dinner we went to Danielle Gjestland’s Wasabi – a celebrated two hat restaurant that mixes high quality local produce with traditional Japanese dishes.

We had the nine course omakase menu.  It was absolutely sublime.  Each course was beautifully presented and full of flavour.  The dishes were complimented by ‘matching beverages’ that extended the normal wine pairing to include sake, soju, whisky and cocktails.  It was an interesting creative wrinkle to the normal proceedings and it also lead to Jen and I getting pretty hammered by the time the dessert course rolled around.

All in all, a memorable evening of top quality food and drink.

house–made raspberry shochu, tiffin tea liqueur, suishin sake

Tasmanian oyster

tsukidashi

spanner crab, nagaima potato, dashi, radish

fresh wasabi that you grated yourself was made available with each course

bar cod, Osaka mustard leaf, nasturtium vinegar, cumquat

yellowfin tuna, mitsuba, shima wasabi

ocean trout, ikura, ayu shoyu

organic soba noodles, legumes, kinoko mushroom, mushroom tea, tonburi seeds

sakana, seri leaf, satsuma potato, yuzu emulsion

bincho-tain quail, carrot tops, watermelon radish, persimmon

wagyu, miso glazed carrots, bunya nut, mustard seed

cumquat sorbet palette cleanser

chocolate parfait, pear, ice cream