The location is an interesting one - it was my first time in Newtown, and I somehow wish I had spent more time in these areas than hanging around CBD, Potts Point and Paddo. Like where I live back in London, there appears to be real people living here. The restaurant is tucked into a little side street, and is absolutely minute. It seats 30 people at a stretch, and you have to walk through the kitchen to visit the loos. Exactly my kind of place!
Obviously it was packed full when we arrived, and there is no choice but experience the 8 course degustation menu. So, we have a lot to get through, let's begin:
To start: "Celeriac, Tonka, Brazil Nut, White Chocolate" - basically a celeriac soup with nut sprinkles. I was quite underwhelmed by this, there was a little sweetness at the bottom of the bowl (which I'm guessing is the chocolate), but ultimately I can make celeriac soup like this. Moving on to the second course:
This is where we get a little wanky and Heston Blumenthaly: "Tomato Snow, Cottage Cheese, Cucumber, Soil", basically a crushed tomato sorbet over a smear of cheese, with some grated beetroot as the "soil". Hmmm. It's one of those dishes which are very interesting but ultimately would you want to eat a big plate of it? Not really. Next...
This was the first star of the show: "Salmon, Grapefruit, Beetroot, Lavender, Liquorice Root", essentially cured salmon favoured with liquorice, with a beetroot sorbet and some lavender foam. Part of the reason I liked this dish so much was that individually, each of the elements were not really that good, particularly the lavender foam (definitely smelt and tasted of old ladies). But somehow, if you squeeze all the ingredients onto your fork in one go, the combination works. I could've eaten a very big plate of this one.
Next one was "Mulloway, Bacon, Onion, Parmesan Crust", mulloway also known as jewfish, but something I had never eaten before. I joked as we were tucking in that the Italians have a funny rule about never mixing cheese and fish, and having eaten this dish, there is an element of truth maybe. This was by far the most unsuccessful dish in my opinion, the parmesan crust just disturbed me. It was grainy, a bit overpowering, clashing with the already strong flavours of the bacon and onion.
Next was "Duck, Sassafras, Sweet Potato, Cinnamon", which boiled down to seared duck breast sitting on a cinnamon "doughnut" with a smear of sweet potato puree. I enjoyed the dish very much, but for some reason I am always underwhelmed by duck in restaurants. Maybe because doing a seared duck breast really isn't too difficult, and is so delicious it will always be the star of the show anway. I have no idea how the sassafras fits in here, or what it is, but according to wikipedia it is a prized in Europe as a cure of gonorrhea. Now I know!
Main meat dish of the day was "Lamb, Pistachio, Eggplant, Quince, Port", with an obviously Middle Eastern slant, accompanied by a filo pastry containing I'm not quite sure what. I like my meat pretty rare, but for me the cut here (rump) needed just a teeny bit more cooking, given my piece had a thick layer of fat at the bottom which was on the verge of being gristly. But very good flavours in the quince and port sauce.
By this point, I was already stuffed. The portions are not inconsiderable given that there are 8 courses. However, for once I was genuinely surprised and impressed by a dessert:
You may have noticed that I'm not a big dessert eater, but "Hibiscus, Long Pepper, Ginger, Coriander" has to be one of the best desserts I've eaten in a long long time. It was really a pannacotta flavoured with ginger and pepper, with hibiscus sorbet on top with a small scattering of baby coriander, what a tremendous combination. The coriander for once was the star here, it livened up the palette against the creaminess and the coldness. Genius. A shame I really was too full to enjoy this more.
Even more of a shame was that the meal didn't end with the pannacotta dish, because the second dessert was a real disappointment. The most simply named "Pumpkin Pie" tried to be a celebration of pumpkin, including a mousse and sorbet. I love pumpkin, but I left a lot of it untouched (as shown above!). Maybe I was just too full., but this felt very "mucked about with".
All in all, despite a few dishes that didn't quite work for me, I was super impressed. I'm still not convinced about this wave of "molecular gastronomy" that is sweeping the world right now, but I do like the idea of thinking about challenging combinations of flavours. Most refreshing though was the price - 8 courses at $95 is extremely good value, and includes free (what? free?!) tea/coffee and petit fours. Wine list also extremely reasonable, we were even offered a rioja by the glass at $4 each.
So who was the "Charming Man" in my post title? The owner/waiter Ross Godfrey was extremely charming throughout the meal, very patient given that one of us arrived very late. But it was his musical geekiness that I loved. The restaurant is named after an instrumental by the Smiths, and inside the restaurant, they played some very obscure British indie (Black Box Recorder's "England Made Me" accompanied my tremendous pannacotta). So lovely to see someone putting so much of their heart in their business. I really hope the big time doesn't become too much of an incentive, and this little, interesting place stays little, and interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment