Archive for the ‘Modern Australian’ Category
V-Rating: VVV Not so long ago, Andy and I celebrated our first year wedding anniversary. We’d agreed to treat ourselves to a long Sunday lunch, but finding a nice restaurant that was a) open on a Sunday and b) served vegetarian food was harder than I expected. Luckily, a friend came to the rescue and recommended I try Pod.
Pod is set in the grounds of one of Pialligo’s many nurseries. The restaurant is in an old cottage, but the best seats are outside on the wooden deck and courtyard.
Pod serves Modern Australian food but it has an usually good range of vegetarian options. The menu immediately resonated with us because it included an entree of honey-baked figs with goats curd, apple balsamic and mustard seed oil. This was very similar to a grilled fig entree we had at our wedding (and this entree was so good it was the reason we chose the venue). The pod version didn’t disappoint - the fig was juicy and sweet and contrasted perfectly with the soft, tart cheese.
I thought I was being altruistic by insisting Andy started with the fig entree, but my roasted beetroot and feta tart was so nice I was reluctant to swap. The feta was incredibly smooth, the pastry was crisp and buttery, while the beetroot and balsamic dressing added just the right amount of sharpness.
There is only one vegetarian main, but the restaurant can get around this by upgrading a vegetarian pasta entree to a mains dish. I don’t know why this isn’t listed as a main in the first place because it seemed more suited to this part of the menu (although to leave room for dessert we stuck to the entree size). The sauceless penne pasta was served with liguarian olives, semi-dried tomato, pine nuts and parmesan. It had a lovely fresh, light taste, with just enough bite thanks to the olives.
The actual vegetarian main was pan seared, white truffle and lemon marinated field mushrooms topped with Persian feta mousse, roasted tomatoes, pine nuts, baby spinach and lemon salad. I’m sometimes wary of mushroom mains because they reek of carnivore panic at what to feed vegetarians. However, this dish was great and something I’d happily make at home (though probably not with such success!).
Sitting amongst such a beautiful nursery, it was hard to go past the simplicity of a summer stone fruit salad with vanilla gelati and berry coulis. It was as good as it looks - sweet with soft, melting fruit.
The creme brulee with biscotti and berries was also divine. The brulee crust was nicely carmelised and crunchy, while the filling was soft and smooth. As with all Pod dishes, it was beautifully presented. Pod’s food was some of the nicest I’ve eaten in Canberra. It was the perfect venue for an anniversary lunch, but being set in a garden it was also popular with casual Sunday lunchers. One of my criteria for a restaurant was that we could bring our own wine, as we had a special bottle we’d been given as a wedding present. Pod is BYO. Casual diners might baulk at the $8 corkage charge but scarily this is reasonable compared with other top notch restaurants. The Pialligo location is not super convenient as it’s only reachable by car. But if you’re not coming for a special occasion it’s a good excuse to linger and explore the great nurseries in the area. I couldn’t fault the service on the day we visited. We arrived late, and without the two guests we’d booked for, but the restaurant manager took it all in his stride despite the fact the restaurant was full. Pod was the perfect venue for our anniversary lunch, and it’s already top of my list for visiting family and friends to convince them that the nation’s capital is no slouch when it comes to great food.
V Rating: VVV I have a theory that there are some restaurants the universe prevents me from reviewing. I’ll visit them time after time, but scandal, bacchanalian excess, or forgetfulness always conspire to stop me from getting my thoughts in to a post. The problem is most acute for two of my mainstay restaurants in Bondi, Thai Terrific and Bondi Social. Determined not to fall victim to this curse again, I made a concerted effort to bring my camera and notebook last time we visited Bondi Social. Bondi Social is a stylish first floor restaurant and bar in the heritage listed (and oddly named) Cairo Mansions complex on Campbell Parade. It’s one of my favourite spots in Sydney to while away time. I liked it so much that Andy and I had our engagement party here in 2005. The interior designer of Bondi Social got that the restaurant’s biggest asset is its best on the beach-front view of Bondi Beach, and kept the stylings welcoming but minimalist. There are polished wooden floors, benches and tables that seem to flow into each other, and white walls. The room, which was formerly an apartment, is small but cleverly one side wall is lined with mirrors so that it reflects the view and create the illusion that you’re looking out of windows. About a year ago Bondi Social moved to a Modern Australian tasting menu concept. The dinner dishes are stil loosely themed as starters, entrees and mains, but you receive the dishes in smaller portions at the same time and are intended to share them with everyone at the table. There were three of us for dinner, and we ended up ordering five dishes. All the dishes are about the size of a tapas plate, so you’re better to err towards ordering more rather than fewer.
We started with the marinated olives (cutely served in a glass) and the beetroot, honey and lemon thyme dip with Turkish bread.
We shared sauteed green beans with macadamia nuts and spanish onion.
I liked the baked artichoke hearts with aged parmesan and sage. The artichoke flesh was soft and favourful, with each layer holding its shape.
The asparagus, haloumi, goats cheese, and fresh fig was also a hit. The fresh figs were the star of this dish, adding a lovely, soft pink colour, and a cool, sweet taste. It’s a pleasure to find a Modern Australian restaurant that provides a selection of vegetarian dishes. With such great, fresh produce in Australia, it’s a real bugbear of mine that Modern Australian chefs treat vegetables as no more than a garnish or an accompaniment to meat, poultry or seafood.
V Rating: V-ware A little while ago I wrote about how much time you can waste trying to find a nice Sydney restaurant for a vegetarian friendly work Christmas lunch. The answer, by the way, is a lot. After much agonising, we settled on the The Wharf restaurant at the Sydney Theatre Company. There were a few reasons for this choice. One was the menu on the Internet, which looked veggie friendly. Another was the recommendation from a fellow vegetarian. The third reason was the view. On this last count, the restaurant exceeded my expectations. It’s at the end of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) on pier 4 at Walsh Bay in a converted warehouse. To reach the restaurant, you walk over creaking railway sleeper floorboards, and posters reminiscing about the stellar stars and shows that have graced the STC boards. The restaurant is in three parts - a main indoor area with two outdoor verandahs on the wings. The large, glass windows that surround the open plan restaurant let the light come flooding in. They also happen to look out on a beautiful harbour vista taking in Luna Park and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The venue was a great choice for lunch, even on the stormy, overcast Friday that we visited. Unfortunately, the menu didn’t quite live up to our heightened expectations. Perhaps we misread the menu that fateful day when we booked. It turned out that there was only one vegetarian main on the menu. Out of ten options. It did not fill me with confidence that the option was a salad. We ended up asking the restaurant to modify the seafood pasta dish. Much like last year. The entrees were more promising. Two were vegetarian, and one was figs with goats cheese. It is hard to go wrong with this dish. The figs were fresh. The goats cheese was tart, and the sprigs of baby mizzuna added a touch of pepper. However, it wasn’t quite as special as the fig and goats cheese entree at Ravesi’s, maybe because the fig wasn’t caremelised. I loved the atmosphere at the Wharf restaurant but am a bit over having issues ordering a decent vegetarian dish for Christmas lunch. This year I’m not leaving anything to chance - I’m booking something in July!
V Rating: VV Bill Granger is the celebrity chef du jour in Sydney. He writes a weekly column in the Sydney Morning Herald, hosts a cooking show on pay TV, and publishes copious cookbooks filled with impossibly bright, light, airy photos and casually brilliant recipes. Oh, and he runs a few restaurants as well.
So, when a good friend of mine came to Sydney on the weekend I promised to take him to a special lunch spot - bills Surry Hills (formerly bills 2). Unfortunately, we arrived at 11.30am. Lunch didn’t start until 12.00pm. As a line was already starting to form for tables we didn’t like our chances of coming back in half an hour - so we had breakfast instead. I ordered the ricotta hot cakes with banana and honeycomb butter because every review I’ve read about bills make mention of them.
The hotcakes were thick, light and fluffy. The fairly meager slices of banana (bloody cyclone) were tucked cosily underneath the hotcakes. The slices of butter on top of the hot cakes looked surprisingly like slices of banana - making for a not so pleasant first mouthful. The hotcakes were good - don’t get me wrong. But not as good as the reams of glowing reviews suggested. Andy and our friend had the good sense to order sweet corn fritter, with tomato and spinach. On the menu it comes with bacon, but they had it with mushrooms instead.
The truly amazing thing about these babies was the succulent, whole pieces of corn. Even though the cakes were fried, the corn still retained a strong, fresh, sweet taste. And yes, I had food envy the whole meal. The thing about bills was that if it were a cafe I’d wandered into from the street I probably would have thought it was an amazing find. But because Bill Granger has such a mythic status in Sydney, by the time I tried it out it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The cafe is stylish and funky. The food was clearly made with high quality, fresh ingredients. There are some good vegetarian options on the menu… but maybe next time I’ll wait until 12pm and try lunch. V Rating: VV Back in September Andy and I had the pleasure of attending a wedding in the Margaret River region in WA. It was my first time in the area, and I was gobsmacked at the awesome scenery. There were surf beaches surrounded by low-lying hills, wild white lillies growing alongside gum trees, and bucolic wineries offering plenty of fine local wines for the tasting. Driving about half an hour down the road from our accommodation, we encountered the Evans and Tate, Leabrook Estate, and Madfish wineries and had a great time tasting wines, chatting to the winemakers and buying a few… souvernirs. After a lovely morning, we sought advice from the locals about our best bet for a vegetarian meal, and were told to head for Cullen Winery, a biodynamic, organic winery with a restaurant that served vegetarian food. Perfect. This was a particularly lucky find, as most wineries we visited still don’t serve food (unlike more established wine areas like the Barossa). As soon as we walked into the Cullen restaurant I knew we were in for a treat. The restaurant had slate floors, wooden tables, and large glass windows that soaked in the sun. The menu was fancy with a few vegetarian options indicated.
Andy and E. chose the potato, leek and asparagus soup. It was divine. The soup had the beautiful soft thickness of a traditional potato and leek soup with the asparagus adding an underlying sweet taste. I went with the artichoke and asparagus salad. And yes, it tasted as good as it looks.
For mains, we decide to share a vegetarian tasting plate. This was a master stroke.
It came with dahl, frittata, tofu in sesame seeds, marinated tempeh strips, hummus, and salad, and some semi-dried tomatoes and olives grown onsite. My favourites were the tempeh, and the creamy frittata. After a delightful time sitting on the verandah, watching frolicking children and animals, and eating fine food, we left to attend a wonderful wedding in the Wildwood valley. Congratulations Sarah and Michael!
V Rating: V-ware Altitude, on level 36 of Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel, was the venue for a dinner with overseas work colleagues. It was awarded the Australian Hotels Association (NSW) Best Restaurant of the Year in 2005. I naturally feared the worst and decided to check out the menu online. At least there were a couple of veggie options listed on menu. For entrée, Altitude offered a pressed terrine of heirloom plum tomatoes wrapped in basil served with Woodside goat’s cheese ($25) and for main, a “rice less cauliflower risotto” with blue cheese courgette flowers (at a hefty $35). A note on the menu suggested that the daily offerings could differ from those listed on the menu, so I took the precaution of emailing the restaurant. My email went something like this:
A few hours later, I had a somewhat concerning reply:
Hmmmm. This was not a good sign. While I would not expect the average Joe or Joanne to know what the term “ovo-lacto vegetarian” means, I do expect better things of people who make a living out of preparing and serving food. So I decided to chance it. On arrival, the view was spectacular – overlooking the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it’s one of the best in Sydney. I followed the lead of my dinner colleagues and ordered a mixed leaf salad with sherry dressing ($10) as a starter. Before it arrived we were served a small complimentary palate cleanser of apple jelly with small salmon chunks. It looked so carefully and delicately prepared I didn’t have the heart to send it back, but nor could I eat it. The salad was fair, and then came the intruiging “rice less cauliflower risotto”. Ha! This appeared to be little more than roughly pureed cauliflower, topped with the ubiquitous deep fried zucchini flower filled with (yawn) blue cheese. So there you have it. The wine list was excellent. Open up the V-ware files. There is still room for Altitude.
V Rating: VVV Verve enjoys a prime corner position in Canberra’s Manuka precinct. It is one of those trendy and sophisticated eateries where the prices are given to only one decimal place (eg. a long black is “3.5″, a Tiro is “4.0″). The atmosphere is very open and airy, and especially pleasant on a warm spring day when the accordion-style windows are open. Vegetarian options for entree include a winter Tuscan vegetable soup ($9.90 - I mean “9.9″), dips and bread (9.9), a warm vegetable salad or poached pear salad (14.9). The menu indicates that you can also request a vegetarian option of the antipasto plate for two (19.9), or the caesar salad (13.9). At lunch, there is also a vegetarian foccacia option (11.9). My choice was the warm vegetable salad. A selection of roast vegetables (sweet potato, baby eggplant and beetroot) was served on a bed of baby spinach leaves with a light but flavoursome dressing. It was delightful, and could easily be served as a main. My friend chose the Tuscan soup (in spite of the warm weather), which he described as “hearty”. For mains, the options are gnocchi in a creamy sauce involving muchrooms, semi-dried tomatoes, basil, ricotta and chilli (16.9), a stir-fry of hokkien noodles, cashew nuts and Asian greens (15.9). At dinner there is also an option of vegetable parcels (vegies wrapped in Kataiki pastry served on a sweet potato dhal) (21.9). On one of my visits, there was also a penne prima vera available as a special (16.9). I chose the gnocchi, as did one of my dining companions. It turned out to be home-made, which is just as well, given the price of the dish, and the size of the serving. My serve was quite small, especially compared to my companion’s. (I resisted the urge to suggest that, in the interests of fairness, he should donate to me four or so of his gnocchi dumplings…) The sauce was satisfying, if a bit lacking in depth - I couldn’t detect any chilli. Verve gets a VVV. It has a good selection of vegetarian entrees. The selection for mains is more limited (especially at lunch), but the entree salads are main-meal-sized. It also has a number of vegetarian side options (chat potatoes with rosemary, steamed vegetables, side salads) for between $6 and $11. Prices can be on the expensive side for what you get, in my view, but then you’re also paying for the location, and for a chance to watch the beautiful people strut past the window. - AC |
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