Spain Meets Japan @ Japaz, Neutral Bay

I've always been fascinated by fusion food and how you can take two seemingly distant cuisines and merge them together into one. Japaz is a place that cleverly fuses Spanish and Japanese cuisines by creating small tapas or izakaya style dishes using both Japanese and Spanish ingredients and techniques. Tonight we're dining at the SIFF Drink and Dine event held at Japaz (at a discounted rate thanks to a hungry.digital.elf!)

It seems like we were not the only ones to take up the offer since we see other tables taking photos of their food too, including the awesome Mademoiselle Delicièuse and Monsieur Poisson from spoon, fork and chopsticks. The dinner consists of eight courses paired with matching sake. As soon as we're seated, we're given the first sake of the night which is served as a sangria with lemonade and little cubes of apple and orange.

Gaspacho with Soumen Noodle

The cloudy sake sangria is paired with the first course of the night, a gaspacho with soumen noodles. The dish is cool and refreshing, with the acidity of the gaspacho and soft slipperyness of the soumen noodles. There are a few drops of herb oil on top of the gaspacho as well as a clove of black garlic, which is surprisingly mild and doesn't have the bite of normal garlic.

Sashimi of Lobster with Crushed Spanish Gordal Olives and Tomato Seed Dressing

Japaz, Neutral Bay

Japaz is a restaurant which combines both the Japanese Izakaya style and Spanish tapas style of serving small plates, often accompanied by drinks. The idea of Japanese-Spanish fusion intrigues me, so we make a booking for 8pm and a bunch of us venture out to see what Japaz has to offer.

Sir D and I are fashionably 15 minutes late (since we got caught up in Masterchef!) but the others arrive on time. When we arrive, Queen Chu tells us that the waiter has asked about our order several times already so we quickly make some selections. Midway taking our order, the waiter excuses himself to serve another table which BLT in particular finds very rude. We end up ordering about 12 dishes between 7 of us, since none of us are big eaters, and the waiter insists that this will not be enough and recommends that we order fewer selections but double up on them. However, we decide that we prefer to sample more of the menu so we stick with our order - to which the waiter again insists on ordering more dishes. This overattentiveness continues throughout our meal, and whilst his concern for our appetites was genuine, many of us find it quite unpleasant (as though he was trying to milk more money out of us!). Apart from this, the service is otherwise impeccable with dishes being removed promptly after they are finished and water being topped up regularly.

Fried eggplant with honey and balsamic - $11.00

The first dish to arrive is the fried eggplant, which is crumbed on the outside with soft, juicy eggplant on the inside. The honey balsamic dressing tastes sweet at first, but then the flavour of the balsamic takes over. I'm not usually a big fan of eggplant but I actually quite like this dish.

Crumbed portobello mushroom - $9.00

The portobello mushrooms are also crumbed in the same way as the eggplant with the mushroom juices oozing out with each bite. I enjoy this dish but it could probably do with a bit of sauce to give it a bit more flavour.

Scallops with a sweet soy and onion butter - $5.50 each