Mandoon has a lot going on. The estate is a winery in the heart of the Swan Valley, and they have cellar door tastings, a brewery, an art gallery, a fine dining restaurant, an outdoor area where they sell pizza, craft beer, and hot dogs, and a deli where they sell exceptional sausage rolls. They also have a hotel called The Colony, rooms which look out onto the Swan River, some with balconies and mezzanine bedrooms.
Having sampled a glass of wine earlier, I decided to start with a cocktail and chose a cosmopolitan. This was nicely made with lovely cranberry tones.
My partner chose a ginger apple mocktail. He said that it was a lovely blend.
I chose the marron to start served with watermelon, lime and papaya. It wasn’t a
particularly flavoursome dish and I imagine that it had been prepared in advance and refrigerated. I couldn’t really detect the lovely marron and papaya flavours that I expected.
My partner chose the Geraldton kingfish with young coconut, umibudo, daikon and lime. It was a good blend of flavours, bright clean and tasty.
The starters arrived fairly quickly, followed by our bread, which I think was a bit of a mistake, but the bread was a very welcome arrival to help mop up some of the leftover sauces, and was served with whipped butter and a very moreish fennel salt.
For main I chose the blue fin tuna with cauliflower, green raisin, pinenut and olive. This was delicious, served medium rare, good quality fish with really good accompanying flavours.
My partner chose the Moojepin mutton with canneloni, borlotti, lettuce and raspberry. Mutton is generally tougher than lamb, and he expected it to be slow roast to make the most of the cut, but it came seared like a steak and was a bit chewier than he would have liked although it was very tasty. All of the accompaniments were rich, hearty and comforting and he enjoyed the dish.
We also chose side dishes of broccoli, snow peas and beans, and zucchini fries. Both sides were beautifully cooked and we ate them hungrily.
We somehow found room for dessert, but before that I sampled a glass of Mandoon Estate sparkling, which put me in mind of a good prosecco.
I chose the matcha, lychee, yuzu and caramel, a nice combination of matcha cake with lychee sorbet and dried lychees with blobs of caramel and oblong shaped yuzu cream.
My partner chose the peach, pistachio, vanilla and sorbet, a beautifully balanced combination of textures and tastes. A vanilla panacotta with blobs of pistachio paste and peach puree.
All in all, Wild Swan was a good experience – good modern Australian cooking with friendly unobtrusive service, and wines made on the premises. An excellent choice if you want to stay somewhere in the Swan Valley that has everything at your fingertips.
Click here to find out more about Wild Swan
Visit Date: May 2018
Truly Scrumptious 
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