RESTAURANT: Momofuku Seiobo (lunch)

Been keen to try Sydney's Momofuku Seiobo, but scared off by the price tag of ~$170 for food and ~$90 for matching wine? Then maybe Momofuku Seiobo is a good alternative.

That's right. Starting last week, Seiobo launched a Friday and Saturday lunch menu, full of new dishes, that will only set you back $100 for food and either $60 for matching wines or $30 for a spectrum of matching juices (that's right, matching juices!) (other beverages of course are still on offer).

The pork bun? Yep, still there.

The meal is pretty similar to the normal, epic, dinner menu, but with a a few less dishes (you'll still get 8 dishes plus cheese plus dessert) and maybe with a slightly less intensive elements on the plate. So you won't get the crazy egg pudding, but you'll still get great produce like mud crab (with miso pudding and panko crumbs, excellent) and marron (in probably the dish of the day with tripe, deep fried tripe, orecchiette and szechuan chilli, though I hope they return to the earlier version where fried rice cakes replace the orecchiette and make for a classic, classic dish).

The main dish for the dinner menu has been either lamb neck or pork neck with various accompaniments, but the short rib main here may just take the pick of the bunch. The ultra fatty meat is slow cooked into submission, seared to give a great crust and put alongside some really awesome, complimentary flavours like burnt eggplant and pickled kohlrabi. It's stupid tender and a great reflection of Seiobo's main flavours of smoke and pickle.

Lunch is a lighter affair than dinner, with no pork petit four to be seen, and only one, lighter dessert. It leaves you ready to get on with your day, rather than head home and sleep.

I was expecting a much paler imitation of dinner for the price, but nearby every dish was a killer and nearly every dish was different to the dinner menu. Value is upped, time is dropped but standards remain.

I didn't have the matching wines or juices on this occasion, instead opting for an awesome bottle of orange wine, but I have no doubt that the matches are as good as they are with the dinner menu.

Service is, as usual, superb. Music is, as usual, an awesome and eclectic mix of the likes of Bright Eyes, Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, Prodigy (smack my bitch up at a fine-diner? yes!) and Built to Spill.


RATING: Will constantly return to [?] (unchanged)