Ten Acre Block is located in the Pan Pacific where Uma Bar used to be. The tables are nicely spaced out and romantic, and the menu is a vegan degustation. The bar menu includes vegan and vegetable based cocktails as well as non alcoholic spirits. Wait staff are enthusiastic and pleasant to deal with, our waitress explained the menu and advised that we could slow it down or speed it up as we wished.
I started proceedings with a lovely Lemon Drop cocktail and waited for the procession of dishes to arrive.
The first dish to arrive was sweet potato tartines with macadamia labneh and heirloom radish. These were lovely, with nicely matched flavours, and very good start to the meal.
The second dish was the star of the show – chargrilled apricots, heirloom tomatoes and asparagus in Romesco sauce – absolutely delicious. The only problem was that there was a lot of sauce left and we could really have done with a hunk of bread to soak it all up. I mentioned this to the waitress who said “Yes, we’re looking into it” and whisked the plates away. Why not just bring a bread basket??
After the success of dish two the next course was a little disappointing – roast parsnips with kumquats and tera-miso and ginger. The central filling was a little stodgy, but the crispy outside was nice.
Next came a palate cleanser – camomile kombucha. It was a bit of an odd taste and not something that I would order.
The ‘main’ of the degustation came next – eggplant, demi-glace, leek confit and legume sprouts. The eggplant was just underdone, and the leek sauce a little bland. The whole dish really needed some seasoning.
I was really looking forward to the pear and chocolate tart dessert – it’s one of my favourite combinations, but again this was a disappointment – the tart was dense and hard to eat, the pears were undercooked, and the core was an unpleasant thing to manoeuvre, I wish they had removed it before serving.
Petit fours were nice, the grapefruit tart was light and lovely and would have made a much better main dessert. The chocolate cup was just peanut butter in a cup and I would have preferred a lighter whipped filling – maybe with peanut butter and cashew cream.
We gave feedback on leaving and found out that they were still ‘trying dishes out’ and tweaking the menu. Surely the menu should be piloted before giving it to the general public. This is an expensive way to be somebody’s food experiment!
Will I return? Probably not until they refine the menu – it’s nice to have a vegan degustation, but it also has to deliver with every dish, not just a few of them.
Last visit date – January 2021
Truly Scrumptious 
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