It Just Has To Be Delicious

Posts tagged ‘Fine dining’

Twenty Seats, Highgate

To those who know me, it’s no secret that Petite Mort used to be my favourite Perth fine dining restaurant, and I was lucky enough to be there on the closing night in December 2021. Chef Todd Stuart has now opened a new intimate restaurant in Highgate, which unsurprisingly has twenty seats. He has retained his charismatic wait staff Remy and Adrian (although Adrian will be leaving soon to start a new venture in Pemberton), and Todd’s lovely partner Sue also joins in, presenting the dishes to diners with knowledge and care.

We asked for a slight variation to the degustation – minimal dairy – and Todd happily obliged, which we really appreciated, as it can’t be easy to make exceptions when you only have twenty diners.

We chose a bottle of Maude sauvignon blanc to accompany the meal, from Marlborough NZ, with a soft fruit flavour rather than acidic. Lots of passionfruit and gooseberries on the nose, and served in beautiful delicate stemmed glasses.

Starters were framed as ‘finger food’, lobster on potato, an amazing mini croque monsieur, and a cylinder of snapper and mash with oyster mayonnaise.

Every item tasted delicious, the lobster was my favourite, but the croque monsieur was incredibly good too.

The next dish really blew me away. I had a tomato dish at Wildflower in February and it was nice, but not amazing. Todd presented a tomato consomme that was so tomatoey that I just don’t know how he introduced such an intense flavour into the broth and the cherry tomatoes. Accompanied by bocconcini and tomato sorbet, it was incredibly good – definitely a tomato lover’s dream.

The next dish should have been roasted cauliflower with parmesan and whipped brie, but Todd created an alternative dairy free dish just for us.

Artichoke and aubergine with black garlic sauce and purple potato. Very tasty, the black garlic was a real revelation.

Next came my favourite dish of the meal, cured scallop, coconut broth, coriander oil and chilli. This dish was absolute perfection, soft scallops, intense coriander oil, just a wonderful sensation in every mouthful.

Then another incredibly good dish, ocean trout wrapped in sublimely soft seaweed, with tempura trout skin, umeboshi (sour plum) and a foam of ginger, red onion, and lemongrass.

This set us up nicely for the meat dishes – first a sublime +5 wagyu beef dish with cheek and bacon ragout and horseradish. More excellence.

Followed by another favourite – Wagin duck breast, confit leg, black vinegar butter and XO sauce.

The next dish consisted of raclette, jamon and pickles with some cute bread buns. As raclette is molten cheese, Remy checked if we were okay with it. I knew that it would make me sneeze but decided to throw caution to the wind and have a half portion of cheese, my partner did the same. It was a really good quality raclette and tasted superb with the pickles.

The next dish was a substitution for the standard menu item of coffee custard, white chocolate and banana with caramel. Todd presented figs with caramel and an intense raspberry sorbet. A beautiful combination.

I chose a cocktail to drink with the petit fours – Hazelnut spritz – frangelico, sparkling wine, blackcurrant and lime.

Petit fours were a fitting end to a fabulous meal – nougat, macaron, chocolate truffle, raspberry jelly.

That was a memorable meal, and one that I will be talking about for time to come. Every dish was perfect, and I can’t wait to go back and eat it all again. Todd has really hit the mark with his new venture, and if you are lucky enough to get a table, you won’t regret this experience. Totally 100% recommended and right now, the best fine dining restaurant in Perth.

Last Visit Date – May 2022

Click here to find out more

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Wildflower, Perth CBD

For a long time now Wildflower has been one of Perth’s most talked about fine dining venues. Chef Matthew Sartori is famed for his skilful use of native ingredients and in-season ingredients to create a gastronomic journey for the diner. The restaurant is situated in the distinctive Treasury buildings and the lighting was quite subdued on our visit so please excuse the dim photos.

This venue had been booked for quite a while for a big birthday meal, but the pandemic rules changed just before our visit, so with short-notice, we were downgraded from a 6 course menu to a 4 course version with a shorter sitting time, but we decided to continue with the plan as it was too late to book anywhere else. The waiter enthusiastically showed us to our table and promised us an amazing meal. I chose a sparkling rose from Voyager Estate to start with.

The amuse bouche was a light bun with eggplant and nasturtium leaf, quite pleasant.

We asked for a dairy free menu and WIldflower were very accommodating with this, bringing olive oil and balsamic instead of butter for the bread.

The first course consisted of marinated heirloom tomatoes with fresh curd, anise myrtle and miso. The lovely intense tomato flavours danced on the tongue, and I happily finished the plate.

The second course was cured line caught snapper with Geraldton wax, finger lime and ginger. The waiter explained that it usually came with creme fraiche, but as we were having dairy free, they’d leave off the creme fraiche. To be honest this annoys me. In this day and age it’s easy to find suitable dairy alternatives, and I would much have preferred a substitute rather than leaving it off altogether. It was a nice dish, but it did need another element.

For the third and main course we could choose between duck and lamb, and we both chose the Wagin duck with gem lettuce, fig, liquorice root and anise myrtle. A nice dish, and good flavours, but it didn’t blow my mind.

Dairy free dessert was an off-menu special. Marinated strawberries, strawberry sorbet and strawberry gum mousse. Again, nice, but not memorable.

Birthday petit fours were served with a candle, a jelly and a fudge.

It was a nice meal, a good example of fine dining, and a great use of native ingredients which have quite a unique flavour. The waiter kept telling us how magnificent everything was, but really, honestly, I don’t think it lived up to the hype. I’ve had better fine dining in Perth at several other venues, and at $139 per head it really needed to blow me away. It wasn’t the gastronomic journey that I was hoping for.

Last visit date – February 2022

Click here to find out more

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Fleur, Perth CBD

Fleur is a superb fine dining restaurant inside the Royal Hotel on the corner of WIlliam Street and Wellington Street near Raine Square in the heart of Perth central. We booked a Saturday night table and the vibe outside was buzzing with people heading out for drinks, food and parties. The Royal is a traditional pub and the restaurant is in a separate section but still has the dark pub atmosphere, hence the poor quality of my photos.

The inside is lovely, cosy and intimate with walls of attractive drink bottles that make you want to try them all.

The staff are lovely and knowledgeable, the barman was very helpful with cocktail choices, and there really is something for everybody. My partner was on antibiotics and not drinking, but there was a whole page of appealing alcohol free cocktails to choose from and he couldn’t go past the rhubarb sour. So he had a rhubarb sour and I had a citrus martini.

The menu is a degustation, but you can add to it. There are a few extra dishes you can add, you can have the whole menu ‘truffled’ if truffles are your thing, and you can also add some caviar dishes, ranging from the expensive polanco oscietra grand reserve sturgeon ($120 for 30g) to a $12 10g portion of yarra valley salmon smoked roe in a brik pastry tart. There’s also a bar snack menu for those who want to pop in for cocktails and a sophisticated bite of oysters, lobster toast, and a cheese board.

We decided to stick with the main degustation, no additions and were delighted with the amuse bouche selection of salted orange soda, spicy togorashi popcorn and pickled daikon. The popcorn was addictive and has inspired me to make some spicy popcorn at home. The menu has a Japanese twist, and we knew that we were in for a treat.

The starters consisted of: Skull Island king prawn tartlet with green apple and Geraldton wax – a really yummy mouthful with light crispy pastry, fresh prawns and crisp apple.

Kangaroo tsukune, salted egg, tare (a thick soy sauce) and native dukkah, another gorgeous light bite with great flavour:

Shiromi (white fish), sushi rice, nori (seaweed), garum (Roman fish sauce) and sesame – this is the dish that we’ll be talking about for years to come. It doesn’t look much but oh boy it delivered on umami, umami tenfold! Such amazing savoury, moreish flavours with beautiful fresh fish hidden inside. I could have eaten ten of these little bowls of goodness:

Next came a fish course of ocean trout, native saline, sudachi (a citrus fruit), ancient grains and a smoked mussel broth. Another sublime dish, fresh quality fish, an incredibly tasty broth and the great crunch of the ancient grains – more perfection from chef.

The main course was aged duck breast with five spice, apricot, cabbage and umbles (a little offal – ‘umble pie). The picture doesn’t show it well, but the skin was crisped to perfection, and the duck beautifully cooked. Every little item was meant to be on this plate, and it was a triumph of menu design.

Next came a pre-dessert jasmine tea and fennel granita with lemon myrtle – a great palate cleanser.

Last but certainly not least was the main dessert 64% single origin dark chocolate with a Davidson plum mousse (they made this version especially for us to avoid the usual dairy version) and coconut. What a supreme dessert with so many good textures and flavours, and a super moist sponge, I scraped every last spoonful from the bowl.

I managed to squeeze in a second cocktail – a delicious floral prosecco spritz with cherry bitters.

I also loved the Fleur cutlery:

So wow. Fleur definitely has the wow factor and a menu brimming with umami. If you don’t do anything else this winter, please visit Fleur – you won’t regret your visit because this treasure of a venue has so much to offer.

Click here to find out more.

Last visit date – July 2021

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Andly Private Kitchen, West Leederville

Andly Private Kitchen is in West Leederville, a bit away from the main eating and drinking areas of Leederville and Subiaco, but quite close to a few local breweries. Parking is fairly easy, but it’s not a place that you can just drop in. you have to book in advance, convey your dietary requirements and pay a deposit as well as choosing a price per head starting at $100 and increasing in $50 increments.

When you arrive it really is like walking into a treasure trove of a room, rich with artworks, oriental furniture and ornaments, it has a cosy feel like dining in somebody’s home lounge. We were seated on a long shared table sitting opposite each other, but far away enough from the next couple to maintain intimacy. We chose the $150 per head menu and looking around the room as dishes arrived it seemed that most had chosen either $100 or $150. We also asked for ours to be dairy free and minimal meat. The restaurant is ‘bring your own;’ for a small corkage charge, but we chose to stick with water on this occasion.

The kitchen is fairly open and you can see chef preparing everything. He clearly loves what he does, and when we arrived he was making the most perfect looking dumplings.

Our first dish to arrive was a scallop in crispy thin noodles with an apple salad. The scallop was perfectly cooked and nice and thick (not a half scallop that some chefs slice horizontally). The apple salad delicate and crisp with some tiny tomatoes and corn. This was a great start to the feast.

The next dish is where the dumplings came into play. Patagonian toothfish dumplings in a chicken broth – excellent intense broth, beautifully soft dumplings. Another really excellent dish, I just needed a tiny bread roll to scoop out the remnants of the broth from the bowl.

If you know me you will know that crispy aromatic duck is one of my favourite meals. In Australia, it tends to be Peking duck which is similar, but the duck is roast and not deep fried. We watched chef roll the pancakes, and they arrived in a perfect bamboo basket with a wonderful portion of sliced duck breast, some hoisin sauce and mango, cucumber and spring onion. To prepare the pancake you just put a little of everything in the pancake, roll it up and eat. This didn’t disappoint, and every item was perfectly prepared.

Fourth was probably my favourite dish (although finding a particular favourite among such a high standard was hard) – pork spare ribs with vinegar sauce, fig and pineapple. I can’t remember better ribs than this, soft and sticky and cooked just right.

Next came a whole lobster cooked in crispy floss with herbs and we were given some disposable gloves so that we could eat the lobster without getting messy fingers. I noticed that some other diners had prawns rather then lobster, so maybe this was one of the differences with the price point of the menu. The lobster was beautifully fresh and we really enjoyed the dish bit were beginning to feel quite full.

Finally dessert was fresh fruits with mango sorbet, again perfectly presented, and really refreshing. We noticed that other diners (the ones eating dairy) received a luscious looking slice of cake type dessert, and so this was the only course where I felt a little short-changed. Although the fruit was lovely, it was very simple and I know it’s not difficult to make a dairy free cake. Anyhow, the mango sorbet was intense and soft, and I did enjoy the jewel like appearance of the dessert.

So what did we think? Yes it was an amazing meal, where the ingredients were the star. Nothing seemed overly fussy, it was all simple food, well constructed and presented. The chef has an eye for menu creation and he certainly has access to some good produce. I wouldn’t be visiting Andly every week, but it is definitely a good venue for a special treat and a unique experience.

Last Visit Date – March 2021

Click here find out more

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Hearth, Ritz Carlton, Perth

hearth1

Hearth is the new kid in town to the Perth fine dining scene. Situated in the super luxe, brand new Ritz Carlton and headed up by Jed Gerrard, the chef with a pedigree including Wildflower, Post, and Bilson’s, I was looking forward to a delicious experience.

Please excuse the photo quality, the lighting in the restaurant is subdued, which is cool because it enhances the beautiful views of the lights around Elizabeth Quay.

The menu is brief but well considered, and there is a set price for three courses, with a choice of 3 entrees, 3 mains and 3 desserts. The staff are also helpful and accommodating with dietary requirements.

We chose a glass of WA Pedestal chardonnay to start proceedings, a peachy, citrus and smooth drop that certainly hit all of the right notes.

hearth5

Cutlery is cute, and the fish knives look mildly scalpel like, which was different!

hearth2

My starter was Fremantle octopus with  fennel and nduja dressing, Nice chunks of meaty octopus on a plate where every flavour worked well and a very good start to the Hearth journey.

hearth3

My partner chose the smoked pink snapper with sesame custard, apple, and fig, served ceviche style and again a beautiful plate of food.

hearth4

For main my partner chose the duck with onion, rhubarb and duck jus. The duck was perfectly cooked and matched well with the rhubarb, great flavours and well presented.

hearth8

I chose the Rankin Cod which turned out to be one of the most memorable plates of food I have ever eaten. The cod was flavoursome with a slight char, enoki mushrooms, and a lovely sauce with squid ink crumb. Absolutely superb.

hearth6

The mains were accompanied by a simple but good gem lettuce salad.

hearth7

Desserts were all a bit dairy-heavy, so the waiter suggested an off-menu vegan blueberry cheesecake. This came with a candle for the birthday boy:

hearth9

Slices of the cheesecake were covered in poached pear slices and macthed with a sublime raspberry sorbet and Davidson plum gel.

hearth10

All in all a wonderful birthday meal, great views, lovely staff, and excellent quality food, perfectly executed. Hearth also serve breakfast and afternoon tea. We’ll be returning for sure.

Last Visit Date – August 2020

Click here to find out more

hearth0

 

 

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Petite Mort, Shenton Park

Petite Mort opened in 2011 on the site of the old favourite Star Anise in Onslow Road, Shenton Park. Run by New Zealander Todd Stuart, Petite Mort is renowned as one of Perth’s finest fine dining establishments.
I don’t know why it took me so long to visit, maybe it was the restriction of only having a degustation menu at the weekend, but as it was our anniversary we decided to celebrate in style and the degustation seemed perfect. As we are now both intolerant to too much dairy, I emailed ahead to ask about the dairy
content of the menu and Todd was most helpful in his reply giving me an approximate percentage of dairy in each course, he offered suitable alternatives, and gave me the heads up about which items we might want to go easy on.
When we arrived the restaurant was buzzing with conversation. It’s a classy establishment with interesting artwork mounted on rough brick walls. Unlimited still and sparkling water is included in the price of the degustation menu, and there’s an option where you can have wine matching. We chose to have glass of wine to start, but in future I will definitely try the wine matched menu – looking at neighbouring diners, the matched wines seemed generous and varied.
We chose a cremant wine to start, not too different from a champagne, a little less effervescent but still with the biscuity edge and dry fruit that champagnes carry – we really enjoyed it.

pm 1

Bread was lovingly prepared and tasty – we had a French baguette slice and sun dried tomato bread. The waitress exchanged our butter for olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

pm 2

The first course of the degustation soon arrived – a butternut pumpkin veloute poured over coconut, squid and nam jim. Wow what a start. Who knew that soup could be so special. Every element added value to the dish – the heat from the nam jim, the sweetness of the pumpkin, the soft coconut cream, the texture of the squid. It truly was a great dish, and the bread came in handy to soak up every last morsel of the veloute.

pm 3

Next came another triumph – Cured salmon, wasabi sorbet, wakame (seaweed) and ponzu, served with a rice cracker. Again every taste and texture added something and the wasabi sorbet was a standout item – not too hot but intense enough to know that it was wasabi. We now knew that this meal was going to be something special.

pm 4

The next dish was a palate cleanser – a pineapple sorbet with pineapple pieces, tapioca and a dash of Angostura bitters. There was nothing plain about this palate cleanser, it was exquisite – everything had been well thought out, and it was a lovely refresher.

pm 5

The first of the main courses was pork belly with pomelo, avocado and corn. The pork was presented as a slice of crispy roast pork belly – one of my favourites plus an amazing croquette of pork that had a wonderful intense and rich flavour. Corn was presented in 3 ways – as a mini cob, as char grilled kernels and as popcorn, and everything was set on a bed of avocado puree with a gorgeous blob of pomelo reduction.

pm 6

The next main course consisted of beef, potato pave, quail egg and onion jam. I asked for my quail egg to be left off (because I am very allergic to quail eggs), so the photo is of my partner’s dish. The beef came as a succulent round fillet and piece of rich slow cooked brisket. The potato pave was small, but packed a punch with its intense earthy flavour (potatoes are my favourite vegetable), and definitely brought a dreamy smile to my face. It was topped with a delicate lacy tuile and accompanied by bearnaise sauce. Wow yet another stunning dish.

pm 7

For the next main dish we had a choice of fish or duck and I chose the fish – barramundi with olive, witlof, beetroot an dill. The braised witlof was the most delicious form of witlof that I have ever tried, sitting atop the fresh sweet barramundi, with blobs of beetroot and dill, pieces of olive, and a wonderful radish pickle. A lovely symphony of flavours.

pm 8

My partner chose the duck with fig, buttermilk and pumpkin. This included a delicious confit and a juicy tender breast fillet on top of pumpkin and fig pieces and a pumpkin puree. He thoroughly enjoyed the dish.

pm 9

Next came a pre-dessert palate cleanser – a hazelnut sorbet with other seeds and nuts and some puffed rice. Simple and smooth, this was a good palate reset before the main dessert.

pm 10

The main dessert was Todd’s signature dish – death by chocolate – consisting of chocolate macaron, a white chocolate coated truffle, a dark chocolate truffle, a brownie, chocolate mousse, raspberry sorbet and aerated chocolate sitting atop chocolate soil and butterscotch sauce. This dessert was special and memorable and finished off a wonderful meal, or so we thought – there was still more to come….

pm 11

We didn’t choose to have tea or coffee, but the wait staff brought box of petit fours – a cookie, a madeleine and a macaron. More exquisite goodies that we polished off despite being very full.

pm 12

It’s not often that we eat a meal where every course is perfectly constructed for texture and flavour, but this meal was faultless from start to finish. The staff were knowledgeable and helpful, and the evening was well paced. I will definitely return for more of this outstanding food finery. Absolutely amazing.

We have revisited several times and found that Todd will happily adapt menus to include vegan and vegetarian options.

The last visit in March 2021 was absolutely outstanding – fantastic crab bisque with lobster and cured fish with wasabi sorbet just a few of the highlights. Consistency is a key feature of this excellent restaurant.

Last Visit Date – March 2021

Click here to find out more

Category:

Restaurant review, Vegan/Vegetarian

Tagged with:

Rockpool, Crown

I like Rockpool Bar and Grill. It’s classy, it’s big but feels intimate, the waiters are nice, and the menu is varied. It has a reputation for the best steaks in town, and I must say that the steaks here are exceptional, however, there is so much more to the menu. There’s seafood, caviar, salads, sashimi, garlic prawns, calamari, fish and chips, pasta, fish from the charcoal oven,
chicken, tagine, sweetbreads, meat from the wood fired grill including short ribs, lamb, chicken and partridge as well as the famous steak.
It’s one of those menus that you look through, and think “I’d like to try that” to 90% of the items on the menu, so then you have the task of whittling it down to your favourites. One of my very favourite locations for special occasion dining – the drinks menu is also impressive and has some amazingly good cocktails.

The first time I visited, I had ‘Four raw tastes of the sea’ to start, a lovely sashimi style dish, and I had the grass-fed rib eye for main.
Last time I had the grain-fed fillet. The grass-fed tastes more ‘meaty’ and the grain-fed tastes silkier and more subtly beefy. The grass-fed is cheaper, but I think that I prefer it. If you want to, you can go the whole hog and pay $119 for a wagyu rib-eye. The desserts are amazing, I have tasted the most wonderful lemon curd doughnuts and peanut butter and chocolate tart. Mmm – what a dilemma – have starter or dessert ? Maybe pace yourself and have all three courses.

Starter – leek tart with onions and caramelised walnuts and aioli:

rp 1

Yellow fin tuna tartare with Moroccan eggplant and cumin mayonnaise:

rp 2

Grain fed fillet steak:

rp 3

Grass fed T-Bone:

rp 4

Potato and cabbage gratin:

rp 5

Mushroom medley:

rp 6

Last Visit Date – September 2018

Click here to find out more

rp 7
rp 8

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Nobu, Perth

nobu 1

Nobu in Perth is one of two branches in Australia (the other one is in Melbourne), a cool sophisticated restaurant located in the Crown Casino complex at Burswood. Sleek and stylish it is similar to other Nobu branches around the world, and this one has the advantage of overlooking the hotel pool, and has an interesting ceiling centrepiece of glass coloured baubles.

nobu 13

The menu is quite varied with nibbles, oysters, sashimi, salad, tempura, wagyu, lobster, gyoza, sushi, and various signature hot and cold dishes.
We chose mocktails to drink.
A Nobu sunrise – Pineapple, Orange, Passionfruit Juice, Sugar Syrup & Grenadine – with a wonderful dehydrated slice of orange on top – yum.

nobu 3

A Berry Mule – Fresh Lemon, Raspberries, Grenadine & Ginger Beer – with a mountain peach.

nobu 4

Our first dish to arrive was a special of the day. Salmon sashimi with nashi pear, truffle oil, yuzu and chives. It was quite nice but the truffle was a little overpowering for the delicate salmon.

nobu 5

Next came sashimi salad with matsuhisa dressing – a favourite of ours. The dressing is made from finely chopped onion, rice vinegar, mustard powder, sesame oil and soy. The seared tuna went beautifully with the leaves and dressing.

nobu 6

Next came the best dish of the night. Tempura soft shell crab harumaki – beautifully cooked crab inside a crispy tempura batter served with a reduction and a wasabi mayonnaise. The mayo was just right, just enough wasabi to taste it without dominating the dish. Every mouthful was a delight, and the dish was served with some very addictive pickled vegetables.

nobu 7

Next came Pepper Crusted Seabass with Balsamic Teriyaki. A beautiful seabass portion sitting on the sauce with lotus root chips, spring onion and pak choy. The crust was nice and crispy, and the fish really fresh and just flaking apart nicely. Another really good dish with the flavour of the crust being a nice contrast to the soft flesh.

nobu 8

Next was Pork Belly Spicy Miso Caramel. Melt in the mouth pork belly with a delicious sticky sauce – another great choice.

nobu 9

The last main dish consisted of two maki rolls and some miso soup. If you thought that all miso soups were the same, then I urge you to try Nobu’s miso soup. Such a wonderful umami flavour with beautiful silken tofu and seaweed.

nobu 10

Maki rolls are fairly standard Japanese fare, and I didn’t really expect them to blow me away, but they really delivered at Nobu. I loved how they were very tightly rolled so that they didn’t fall apart on dipping, and the ingredients were top quality. The salmon skin rolls contained lovely crunchy salmon skin and flesh with some veggies to contrast the seasoning of the salmon. Then the little spicy tuna rolls wrapped in seaweed were explosions of flavour, great quality tuna with a nice chilli hit.

nobu 11

For dessert we chose Nobu alfajores (South American cornstarch cookies with dulce de leche), and a Nobu cheesecake. The alfajores were a yuzu flavoured shortbread with yuzu curd, chocolate ganache, dulce de leche ice cream and candied puffed buckwheat.
The cheesecake was small but perfectly formed, baked (our preference to whipped) with passionfruit sorbet and raspberry sauce. A really wonderful selection of desserts to complete the meal, with a ‘Happy Anniversary’ thrown in.

nobu 12

Everything at Nobu is made well with quality ingredients. This comes at a premium price, but it really is the perfect location for a special occasion.

Last Visit Date – November 2018

Click here to find out more

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Candlenut, Tanglin, Singapore

Candlenut Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Up on Dempsey Hill in Singapore, there’s a nice little hub of restaurants and a gourmet grocery store – it’s a really chilled place to spend an evening.
In amongst them is Candlenut, a one Michelin star establishment specialising in Peranakan cuisine. It’s a place that although sophisticated, feels comfortable – not too stuffy like some of the other cheffy restaurants.
We started with a glass of Chilean sauvignon blanc while we perused the menu.

candlenut 1

We were also given some yummy crispy nibbles and dipping sauce:

candlenut 2

It was really hard to choose with lots of tempting options like swimmer crab and chicken balls, crab curry, and beef rib rendang, but we eventually opted for ngoh hiang and pork neck satay to start.
The pork neck satay came first and it was sublime – there was so much flavour in the tender melting pork, and the satay sauce coating was perfect.

candlenut 3

I did wonder how good ngoh hiang could be, but this version was amazingly good. The combination of pork, prawn, shiitake mushroom and water chestnut was just right, and I would have been in heaven with several plates of these and nothing else.

candlenut 4

For mains we chose the chef’s mum’s chicken curry, “four heavenly kings”, and a king prawn gula melaka. Sorry the pictures are not great – the lighting was dim, and I must have been keen to eat!
The curry was lovely, warm, and rich with potato and kaffir lime, very nice with the brown rice that we ordered.

candlenut 5
candlenut 6

The four heavenly kings was a combination of eggplant, wing beans, okra and taro, garnished with crispy whitebait. Absolutely wonderful. I could have again eaten several plates of this dish – the perfect vegetable accompaniment.

candlenut 7

The king prawn gula melaka was where curry meets dessert – a sweet coconut based curry with beautiful fresh prawns – again a perfect dish.

candlenut 8

We didn’t have room for dessert, but this meal was every thing we could have wished for. When we are back in Singapore we will definitely return for more goodies in this sophisticated dining room. A great meal, great service and wonderful atmosphere.

Visit Date – April 2019

Click here to find out more

candlenut 9
candlenut 10

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Wild Swan, Mandoon Estate, Caversham

Mandoon Estate Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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.

1Having 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.

2

My partner chose a ginger apple mocktail. He said that it was a lovely blend.

3

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.4

My partner chose the Geraldton kingfish with young coconut, umibudo, daikon and lime. It was a good blend of flavours, bright clean and tasty.5

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.6

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.7

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.8

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.

11

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.

12

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.13

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

14

Visit Date: May 2018

Category:

Restaurant review

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud