Lunch at Vue de Monde

As I waited for my lunch companion and sipped on my dry sherry, I felt completely at home. Aaahh...Vue de Monde. A view of the world. Yes indeed. I make sure I go there everytime I am in Melbourne for more than a couple of days. I am always reccomending this to people as the one restaurant in Australia you must visit. So, this being my 5th or is it 6th time that I have been , I felt excited and yet at ease. But unfortunately, I was to walk out of there rethinking it as my first choice in Melbourne. 


Before the waiter offered us any lunch options, my lunch companion offered him his decision - "5+1". Five courses plus one dessert that is. Great value for lunch at $120/pp. The interesting thing at Vue de Monde is that you don't get a menu and don't get told what you are getting until it arrives. Wonderfully mysterious unless you are a control freak - luckily I am not. Well, at least not that much! You just simply say what sort of ingredients or dishes you don't like and "wallah", the dishes arrive. We also choose  to do the wine match per course which we were told would be about $10-$15 per tasting of a measly 60ml. 

1. Kangaroo charcuteri on a wooden bread plate. The tartare with nashi pear had wonderful gaminess of the meet and some sweetness that connected nicely with that of the pear. The pear texture contrasted nicely. The sausage was ok. Would not mind again. 5/10.
2. Truite  Fumee(Ocean trout with horseradish and baby beetroot, smoked at the table). The dish comes out covered. Once opened, a not too heavy smokiness drifts out. After the spectacle of the smoke on the table which entices the palate as the smokiness drifts into the nose a juicy trout of sashimi consistency is to be found. The sweetness of which went went nicely with a foam. The smokiness of the foam contrasted nicely the sweetness of the beetroot elements. The sweetness of the beetroot especially went with the trout.  Texture added with the horseradish (which tasted more like apples!) 7/10
3. Risotto aux truffes -  This is a Vue classic. Wow! This is no doubt still their star dish. Amazingly perfumed dish which should be eaten hot - 8+/10.
4. Écrrvisse Rotie - Roased marron with bisque glaze served on hot river stone.  This dish had potential, but the Marron really came out at a consistency which was too soft and not juicy enough. I really couldn't get the flavour of the marron despite being told that the cooking method enhanced the flavour! The glaze and other elements (cucumber etc) went well adding texture and flavour. This dish however never made it. Almost famous. Probably wouldn't go far to eat it again.  5.5/10
5. Trou Perigourdin. Palate cleanser. Vanilla yogurt with elderflower graninte. Unbelievably good pallate cleanser; I could have another few bowls of this. Perhaps Vue Du Monde could start a Yougart chain??!! 
6. Porc Aux  Saveurs  De La  Terre  - Western plains pork with flavours of the earth -Pork neck, loin and rib - We were explained that they were using some techniques that kept the flavour in.  As far as the neck and ? was concerned however,  they definitely kept  kept the flavour out for the most part! The neck was particularly disappointing considering how juicy and wonderful it can be (just go down the road to The Press Club and despite it not being to the standard of Vue, the Pork neck is ridiculously good - well was last year before Masterchef  started!). Most of this dish  was dry (except in the middle), two of the three cuts might as well not been there. The rib was juicy, tender and tasty. The skin was slimy  compared to the inside giving this part of the dish a good balance. 5/10 (saved by the leg?)
7. Wagyu Boeuf De Blackmore. Blackmore wagyu beef with dried berries & earl grey parsnip. Ok, well, yum! F1x, marble 9 beef cooked perfectly (that is to say rare), this maintaining the fat. The amazing flavours, especially sweetness (in a good way!) popping out through the meat went well with the ??(green sauce) accompaniment. The dried berries - i thought they were sultanas - also articulated well, while the parsnip(?- crunchy savourly/bland vegetable) contrasted well with the Beef. Really good dish 8-8.5/10
8. Pallate cleanser - Semi-frozen mango with lemonade (something ?). Another great pallate cleanser. I really think starting a pallate cleanser shop out front could be good business. Think about it - "Oh honey, I think we have just had too much of the KFC. Very oily stuff these aussie produce" -  "Yes dear, perhaps we could have a palate cleanser at Vue de Cleanser"! lol
9. Deconstructed carrot cake (Carrot patch) - It did indeed look like a carrot patch. Not too sweet, a balanced desert with really nice textures and flavours. 7/10 
10. Chocolate Soufflé- Chocolate soufflé with chocolate mousse and crème anglaise. Well cooked, but too sweet for me. 5/10
11. Pistache Soufflé - Demoulded pistachio soufflé with crème anglaise.  light, creamy with lots of pistachoes. Very enjoyable. 6.5-7/10

Ok, so, you're thinking - it wasn't a bad meal, some average scores. So, why did it possibly drop of as the recommended choice in Melbourne ? Well, the reason came after the food in the form of the bill. As I said, I have been here many times before, but after being told the rough estimate for our wine, we certainly weren't expecting a wine bill of $220 per person. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, $220 per --person. We did not even drink much! I am sure that whatever they served was genuinely worth that much, but it is about choice. If we had simply been told that the matching wine was $x, we would have been able to choose whether we wanted that or not. Or order at least 3 very good bottles! As I was explained by another sommelier who worked previously at Vue, it gave him incredible flexibility to serve wines from the cellar that would never be served by the glass. He is probably right, we did have some good wine, but I would still like a choice. 

This left a bad taste in my mouth after a reasonable meal. You live, you learn...I guess ! If you do go and I still suggest you do, make sure you ask the sommelier to limit your wine bill or order by the bottle. 

Mr Chow's Peking Duck

Another day, another duck! Another Peking Duck Group of Sydney meeting organised & researched by the supreme quack himself Suren (sorry Suren, couldn’t help that joke!). The ambience and decor was better than most Peking duck restaurants we have been to. Being at Miller’s Point may explain it.

After some deliberation we decided to order the whole smoked tea duck and some other dishes. Unfortunately, there was no more whole smoked tea duck, so it was back to the Peking duck along with the boneless and deep fried tea smoked duck (yes, an inversion of name!). I had started to do the unwanted by  lining my stomach with Yering Station Pinot Noir we waited...and waited for to get any food on the table. Reminding the waitress that we did not necessarily want all the food at once did not help as she told us that it would come out a little bit at a time anyway. Hm...more waiting and we were starting to wonder if they were popping down the BBQ King to pick it up and had got stuck in traffic or we should pop down to BBQ King! Finally after 45 minutes, maybe an hour, our duck arrived – first as whole for a showing and then as the first course.

• Peking Duck – Passable, but likely not fresh duck whose second course reduced the rating. The skin in the first course was crisp(-ish), but the meat gave away the likely reason why it had taken so much time for it to come out – they were probably trying to defrost it. The meat was not particularly impressive - well cooked and tender, but not succulent and flavoursome. The second course was offered with vegetables or with noodles (unusual in my experience). We took the second option. I felt that the oiliness of the noodles really took away from the delicate nature of the duck, although I did like the softness of the noodles and tenderness of the meat as a textural experience. Overall maybe 4/10. Passable Peking Duck, but there’s plenty of other quacks in town!
• Duck webbing with chilli sauce – A few people at the table cringed at ordering this, especially when the waitress questioned “with or without feet” to which we answered encouragingly “with, definitely”. This is almost purely a textural dish, served cold to increase that sensation– the rough bumpiness of the outside, the cold yet almost squid like chewiness (when squid is cooked perfectly) of the inside is an interesting sensation. It was done well enough so as not to be very hard to chew through at all. The chilli sauce was just chopped chilli, garlic and shallots. I definitely needed to add soy sauce and that really gave some balance to the dish with saltiness and acid to the relative blandness of the actual webbing. It’s hard to rate something like this, but I would say 5/10. I would definitely have it again especially as almost a palate cleanser dishes like Peking duck.
• Tea smoked duck – Fried with crispy and tender elements. The smokiness drifted to our noses as soon as the dish arrived. Although the duck was smoky (or rather, the batter was), the fried nature of it meant that the tea flavour really did not come through. Being fried however added nice texture. It came with a good sauce. 5/10. May consider ordering again, but not as a first choice. 

We also had some other dishes which were quite good – maybe 6/10 dishes, but I am not quite sure what was ordered and didn’t eat enough of them, so I won’t rate them. The banana “soufflé” and Toffee banana were nice enough desserts. I am keen on going back and having the whole tea smoked duck and Sea Cucumber with Shrimp Roe in Shallot Sauce. I have just realised (as I look at their website) that they do Beggar’s chicken which has to be ordered 24 hrs in advance too. Definitely going back for that!

As I said with the Mamak review, it’s hard to know how to fit Asian food fits a pure out of 10 ratings system as it’s difficult to compare an incredibly good produce and technique at Aria with flavour explosions here. That’s why I have been trying to use my tentative qualitative ratings system as a comment just before or after the quantitative one. E.g. “Would definitely order again” or “Would be order as a first choice”. 

Aria

A last minute decision, finding out that the Sepia super degustation starts only next week and not getting a booking at Rockpool Bar and Grill resulted in a strange decision to go to Aria. I thought, well, I haven’t been for a few years and it was quite good last time. Stuff it. Don’t think about the money, let’s just go! In hindsight, it was not the greatest decision as it turned out to be a pretty average experience.

The problems started right at the beginning. I ordered my usual dry sherry. I think it is the sweetest *dry* sherry I have ever had. After questioning this, the sommelier eventually came out and told us that it had a dry finish with lots of fruit up front. Hm...Well, the problem for him was two part: our palates were a slick of sweetness by the time the first dish had arrived (the amuse bouche had arrived almost at the same time as the sherry) and after an initial discussion with us, he got busy with some other people and didn’t get around to even taking our wine order. Perhaps the sommelier was too slow or more likely the food came out too quickly. Disorganisation abound like 10 seconds before the first dish (Goose) came out in two plates (split in the kitchen for us), someone came with two empty plates for us. Small, but representative.

I initially didn’t want to eat the goose without any wine. After another 5 minutes of waiting and the partly hot dish getting cold, I decided to try it. It tasted pretty poor. After another 5 minutes the sommelier finally took our order – a bottle of Bindi composition and two glasses of the Albarino. We had ordered the later partly as a test to see whether the very textual grape would go with the dish as the sommelier thought (I wasn’t sure). It came out almost immediately and improved the taste of the goose. It took some time to clear the sweetness of the sherry and the texture worked a little. But it was not until the gorgeous pinot came out another 5 minutes later that I could really taste the goose dish. In fact, as time went by, the pinot was, as Hayden put it – a “continuation of the food”.

1. Cured goose breast with chicken liver parfait, poached rhubarb, black pepper and ginger bread –light and smokey. Its savouriness combined well with the saltiness of the chicken liver parfait which contrasted nicely to the sweetness of the poached rhubarb while articulating to the Goose meat itself. Good textures with small things like the crispy cabbage too. Would willingly eat again. 7/10
2. John Dory roasted with crushed kipfler potatoes, crab, peas, poached quail egg and minted hollandaise. The fish itself was tasty, crispy skin, perfectly cooked. Lots of flavour. When combined the peas, it was also very good. The rest of the dish did not really come together. It seemed all over the shop. The quail egg was average. Adding some salt improved it and the potates. Would eat if given. 5.5/10
3. Barramundi sourdough crusted fillet of barramundi with silverbeet, smoked eel and horseradish. Decent dish. The horseradish came in a hard pastry cylinder which you could break. That really added some texture and loved playing with the fish and horseradish combinations. The eel was a little bit disappointing and did not seem to sit perfectly with the dish. Everything well cooked. Would eat if given. 5.5-6/10
4. Spiced roast duck breast with smoked duck tortellini, turnips and figs. Maybe it wasn’t our day. The duck was very strangely gamey. If I had blind tasted it, I am sure I would have thought it was a gamey pigeon squab or something else. Something else, not duck. So, the turnips and the figs didn’t really complement the gaminess. The tortellini was very tasty and went well with the other ingredients, but too small part of the dish to bring the whole dish through. Would probably order something else. 5.5/10

Solid technical performance, but no wow factor. For the price ($400 for two people including a $100 bottle of wine), I would go elsewhere. 

Mamak

People have been raving about this restaurant and telling me in wild disbelief "I can't believe you haven't been". Why haven't I been? Well, firstly, I hate lines. Especially when they are long - like outside Mamak. Secondly, it's ideal when you have lots of people when you try Asian food. You can order lots of dishes and share them. This didn't seem to be happened, so, finally, I just decided to go with small groups twice! So, this is a combined review of both occasions.

The first time I went, we went late (9:30pm odd) - with the original plan of going to Golden Century. But, after finding out about the 30 min wait at Golden Century and turning the corner to Mamak to find no line, we were almost immediately let in. Luckily the restaurant closes at 2am. The second time involved lining up which I let my dining companions do while I took my time selecting some wine from the shop near by.

The food did not disappoint. The flavours at Mamak simply explode in your mouth. I am sorry I have not tried it before and I will be back more often - especially for the price. $5-10 for Rotis and $13-$18 for curries and BYO (although don't go pulling out your 1972 Burgundy, you get to drink in small tumblers!). It's a genuine experience with lots of soul.

1. Original Roti served with two curry dips and spicy sambal sauce. The Roti itself is delicious; the description on the menu gets it pretty right - "Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.". The spicy and sweet sauces are great to play with, combining a little of each or just one. It is such a simple dish, yet so, so yummy.  It is the equivalent to having great pizza. The topping adds flavour, but it's the bread that the star. 7.5-8/10
2. Roti Telur (egg Roti) and Roti Bawang (with red onion filling) served with the same sauces as #1- These were much less impressive. I found the outside soggy (curled up) and the inside barely tasty. The egg was well just plan egg. The onion just didn't do enough except add some crunchiness. The sauces needed to do the heavy lifting to make this dish work. Again, comparing to Pizza, it's like putting buckets of juicy topping which doesn't really cover the fact the base is not so hot. 3.5-4/10
3. Murtabak (chicken) Roti- This is quite a different looking Roti. It's filled with "spicy meat, cabbage, eggs and onions" and more than an inch thick. It's more like a Quiche in terms of consistency and even to an extent taste - although the Mutabak has much more meat. This was tasty and very filling, but did not blow me away. The sauces had to pick up the slack of the slightly overcooked egg and meat and the textures consisted of thick softness of egg and hardness of chicken, the cabbage kind of got lost in there. Still, would probably order it again. 5/10
4. Kari Ayam (chicken curry) - Curries in general seem to come out about 3 seconds after you order them! This does not make a difference to the taste however. Fantastic traditional malaysian curry dominated by sweet and spicy elements with grainy - at times thick- spices. The potatoes were not overcooked (a common problem I have found elsewhere and then they break up in the curry); the thickness of the curry was good allowing some spicy to sit on the chicken as you ate it. 6-7/10
5. Kari Kambing (slow cooked lamb curry) - This was a succulent and incredibly tasty dish. The lamb just perfectly cooked  - kind of like off the bone - with intense spices in a thick, dark curry. 7-8/10. 
6. Desserts - The Roti Pisang (with bananas) and Roti Kaya (with coconut and pandan) were both delicious. Served with ice-cream, they were like really amazing crepes. The Pisang was crispy on the outside, a bit of the soft fluffiness of the roti on the inside and then the squishiness of the not too sweet banana.  6.5-7/10.

One final comment I will make is that, some of these ratings using a /10 system were hard to pin down as it's hard to know how much emphasis to place on textures and balance when you just have a full flavour and yummy curry in front of you. This is where an alternative ratings system that I have developed (with the help of Imran) comes in. More on that later. For now, as part and parcel of that alternative system, maybe the question that needs to be asked is simply "would i pay for that dish again?". And the answer in many of these cases is a resonant yes! 

Bloodwood, Newtown

Five of us were given a table outside. Given the autumn weather was fantastically warm, this should have been fine. But, alas. With only one candle for light, we could barely see the menu. Another candle on request barely helped. Luckily we had looked at the menu inside while waiting for our table and many decisions had already been made. It did not however stop wine spillage or my suit sleeve having silken eggplant on it! Lol.

1. Vedai – A take on the Indian Wada. Fresh ingredients and well cooked, but relatively tasteless. Tamarind might be wrong sauce with it. 3/10. 

2. Chickpea pancake with zucchini, pumpkin & persian fetta – Very tasty, but as I first thought when ordering the dish, it lacked enough acid ingredients to drive the dish. It became one dimensional after a few bites. Adding lemon helped, but only a little. 4/10. 

3. Fried Salted Cod with oxheart tomato salad – Delicious dish where the tomatoes provided good acid to cut through the fish along with some cremier flavours. Lacked texture. 6/10

4. Mushrooms – Delicious 6.5/10. 

5. Lamb kibbeh with silken eggplant, kale and bullhorn capsicum sauce – The dish we had been waiting for. Very good freshly made Kibbeh, the eggplant nicely complimenting the compressed meat inside and crunchy fried outside of the Kibbeh. The Yogurt provided freshness. But, the pinenuts were outside the Kibbeh, and with the amount of light we had, it let the dish down. Still, 6.5-7/10.

Overall a decent restaurant with a very reasonable bill of $300 for 5 including a couple of ~$70 bottles of wine. Definitely one of the few quality restaurants in Newtown. 

Quick reviews: Glebe pt diner, Boathouse on Blackwattle, Danks St Depot

Glebe point Diner

Rabbit & Pork Terrine with pickled hairloom carrots served with Pistachio bread. Just delicious. Sweetness & pickled elements of carrots nicely articulated to sweet/savoury of terrine. Carrots, Pistachio add good texture. 7.5-8/10

Boathouse on Blackwattle

Ocean Trout /w Pine Mushrooms, Borlottli Beans & Horseradish. Lackluster dish. Fresh fish, not un-flavoursome, but didn't do much for me. 5/10.

Danks street depot

1. Fig blue cheese, walnuts and red wine reduction. Nice sweet/salty/savoury flavours albeit needed some more acid to cut through all the sweetness 6.5/10.
2. Pickled Beetroot salad with roasted Walnuts, Valencia Orange, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Baby Herbs and Cows Milk Feta. Great as usual. Great sweet/sour combinations, good textures. 7.5/10.

Rockpool

I have been to Rockpool once before. Sort of. I had been in the brief time when Neil Perry seemed to suffer a mid-life crisis due to not getting 3 hats. He decided to throw his restaurant and hats to the fishes and so briefly arose from the murky waters- Rockpool Fish. This was an excellent experience and I remember having a fish poached in Garam Masala. One of the tastiest fish meals I have ever had. Might even be right up there in the top 20-30 dishes ever.

But, the long fixed course menu with it's non 3 hatted status had held us (Hayden and I) back. No more I said, particularly as ratings systems seemed to be persistently wrong and favoured non-innovativeness in our opinion, we had to try. Someone had to do  it. Neil Perry has a ponytail -he looked creative and well...so did the menu!  So, we marched to the Rocks, but so no pool. (Yes, yes, the bad jokes will continue). By complete chance we had come in a week which was celebrating Rockpool's 21st birthday and were offered a free Sparkling wine. A nice surprise.

Besides the slightly austere service, the food was simply brilliant. I have to rate Rockpool above many better rated Sydney restaurants. I could almost dare to say that the food was as good as Quay (variable experience once amazing- better than Rockpool by a mile- and once probably not as good. New review soon). and probably marginally better than Est. (very consistent). The use of Asian flavours in subtle ways dominated the menu.

Some of the dishes included:

1. Fragrant crab broth with hand picked queensland mud crab, dashi custard, tapioca and wild bamboo pith. Subtle, well executed dish with excellent textures and a little bit of zing. Decent opener. 7/10
2. Western australian marron with three bean salad and almond cream. Subtle but amazing dish in which the beans were the star as much as the marron. Sweetness of the beans matched well with the juicy marron. Playing with various combinations was fun and added interesting textural elements. 8/10
3. Green lip abalone, red braised thirlmere goose, chicken crisps and fine noodles with xo dressing. Chef managed to balance off the subtleness of the abalone slices with the xo oil. Really liked what the crunchiness of the crisps at the top added texturally to the softness of the goose and abalone. 7.5-8/10
4. Macleay valley rabbit and sweetbread pie with frisée salad, cinnamon and “laphroaig” whisky sauce. Wow! If dish sounded amazing, it was! Slightly gamey & sweet meat of the rabbit articulated well to the sweetbread which articulated well to the sweetness in the whiskey while adding some smokiness (which went with the rabbit too) and acid to pull the dish through. More texture could have been good 8-8.5/10
5. Stir fried southern calamari, smoked “schulz” bacon, chilli, coriander and squid ink noodles. Didn't know what to expect. But with squid ink noodles, could you go wrong?! Flavours & textures just popping out at you. No more to say. 8.5-9/10
6. Chinese roast pigeon with prawn stuffed eggplant and black vinegar sauce.  Succulent pigeon with the sweetness beautifully lifted by the prawn & eggplant combo (which in itself added good texture). The zing of the vinegar brought the dish out of it's sweet but delicious death back to life. 8.5/10
7. Date tart (original since 1984). Gorgerous! 7.5-8/10

The rabbit (#4), Calamari (#5) and Pigeon (#6)