Assiette

Bread and butter. Why did I take a photo? It was there. That's about it, really. Oh yes it was good bread, the crust giving the requisite crunch, my plate a mess of crumbs, and all the rest. Right, let's move on then.

Friday set lunch menu : $35

Prix fixe - there should be more of it, really. Two of us chose this option, but in the meantime, there was the amuse bouche, an not-always-expected but pleasant surprise for lunch.

Amuse bouche : pumpkin soup

An ideal sort of an amuse bouche for a light lunch and for a soup lover. Light of taste, comforting, and boding well for the courses to come.

Marque - the best value lunch in town

Marque

4/5 355 Crown St

Surry Hills

Ph : (02) 9332 2225

Lunch : Fri from noon
Dinner : Mon-Sat from 6.30pm

We'd been hanging out for this lunch, Reemski and I.  It had been booked a long time ago, and when the time came, we almost didn't make it, a sudden deluge leaving me ankle deep in rain in the city and unable to find a free cab (in the end it was just  pure dumb luck that someone alighted from a cab right in front of me), and Reem on crutches and without an umbrella, stuck a few agonising blocks away from Marque.

We were happy to have made it there at all.

Our choice?  The Prix Fixe, as tweeted by Chef Pasi Petanen the day before.

Prix Fixe ($45) : Menu for 21 May, 2010

1. Squid Soup with Egg Custard and Basil

2. Wagyu Minute Steak with Brussel Sprouts, Radish, Beurre Noisette

3. Lime Marshmallow with Coconut, Goat's Curd and Sorrel

Amuse Buche : Beetroot macarons with foie gras cream

The beginning of what turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable game of food seduction was Chef Mark Best's signature Beetroot Macarons.  My non scientific approach to such things lead to the conclusion that this is best eaten in two bites with one's eyes closed.

Amuse Buche : Chaud-froid egg (Chef Alain Passard, L'Arpege, 1998) 

A second amuse buche arrived in the form of a chaud-froid (meaning hot-cold i.e. it is cooked and then chilled, before eating) egg, without which a Marque experience would be incomplete. The lightly coddled egg, still quite runny, had sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream, a mix of spices, maple syrup (whose addition I particularly liked) and was topped with chives.

You dip the grissini into the egg, give it a bit of a swirl to get a bit of everything, and into your mouth it goes.  If you want, you can try to make it yourself; the recipe can be found here. 

I'd suggest that you just go to Marque. 

Squid Soup with Egg Custard and Basil

Yowza. I really wanted to recapture the first thoughts that went through my head after my first mouthful, but still cannot quite find the right words.

This was was pure squid, essence of squid that somehow seemed to bypass several steps and go straight to my head.  The taste was just insane.  The paper thin slivers of squid were tender, reminding Reemski of pasta. The little balls of custard ended up almost forgotten, as the soup was where it was all happening for me. 

The first taste hit me with some unidentifiable taste memory  from some vague point that I could only nail down to being a long time ago.  I guess that makes me old.  I was torn between wanting to eat it all as quickly as possible in a what would obviously be a failed attempt to work out what I couldn't quite remember, and wanting to just appreciate it slowly.  The latter won. 

Warm Crab custard with frozen shaved foie gras

We were urged to eat this quickly, so as not to lose the effect of the warm and the cold components of the two layers.  Covered with frozen foie gras shavings, the creaminess of the custard increased exponentially when combined with the intense richness of the foie gras shavings as they melted in my mouth. 

Wagyu Minute Steak with Brussel Sprouts, Radish, Beurre Noisette

By this point we were in happy state of delirium, and had almost forgotten what was on the actual Prix Fixe menu.  A steak thin and delicate yet still with a pink centre, it really only needed the Buerre Noisette to accompany it.  We both ate this slowly, again unwilling to let the course finish.  This may sound wrong, because I loved this steak, but the biggest smile I got was actually from eating the fried-to-a-crisp brussel sprouts.  I could have eaten a bowl full of them.

Wild Strawberries, milk biscuits, Camomile tea ice cream, Chambord Sabayon

I admit that I am not a fan of camomile tea, so when Dessert the First came out, this was the one element of the dish that I was unsure about.  The taste of the camomile was virtutally indiscernible to me, I loved the small wild strawberries (I can't remember the last time I ate any), and the milk biscuits were a lot of fun, but it was the Chambord Sabayon which made us want to lick the plate. 

I can't quite remember whether it was at this point that the very funny Mark Best arrived for a chat but this photo's for you, Chef :

   Reemski does her thing

Lime Marshmallow with Coconut, Goat's Curd sorbet, Merginue and Sorrel

Back to the regular programming with Dessert the Second.  I am happy for you to call me a philistine, but the savoury-sweet dessert combination, loved by so many, is something that I still need to develop my palate to appreciate, so the Sorrel worried me a bit, in spite of lime and coconut being two of my favourite flavours. 

I enjoyed just looking at the plate, I'm sure you can see what I mean.  Meditative.  It almost felt as though it was a shame to eat it, but it was starting to melt, so in I dove.  The sorrel was interesting, a sudden sharp fresh taste that I enjoyed more than I'd thought I would.  The goat's curd sorbet was more delicate than I had expected, the lime sweet and fragrant with the coconut, the marshmallow pillow-y soft.

Despite having had so many courses, and feeling replete, we weren't too full for some petit fours....

Petit fours : bons bons filled with bitter liqueurs, jellies, salted caramel chocolates

For me, it was a cross between the chocolates and jellies for first place. 

....

Damn, that was good, let's do it again. 

[AP]

The Burlington

The Burlington

6 Burlington St

Crows Nest NSW 2065
Ph : (02) 9439 7888

Monday to Friday for lunch from 12.00pm
Monday to Saturday for dinner from 6.00pm

For the dual reasons of proximity (time constraints) and for-some-unknown-reason-I've-not-made-it-there, we found ourselves finally at The Burlington.  I have absolutely no excuse for not having made it there until this late point. It also took me eons to get to Balzac, but my excuse there was that Randwick just seemed far away.

As is my wont, I'd been obsessing over the menu and wondering how many dishes I could persuade Himself to agree to sharing but when the time came, the dishes on the $35 three course lunch special (no choices) appealed to us.

Croquettes of King Salmon w Garlic Aioli

I am never sure whether I prefer the filling of my salmon croquettes to be smooth or still with some flaky texture. These were of the former variety, with the exterior beautifully thin and crunchy. I am a bit of a lemon fan so my personal preference was for lemon over the aioli to accompany the croquettes.  The aioli was mild, and I suspect that my lemon preference was partly because I wanted a bit of a kick to the delicacy of the salmon filling. 

Sweet Corn & Lemon Thyme Risotto with Sauteed Prawn Tails

Oh this was good....risotto as comfort food that made us both very happy indeed.  Soothing, creamy but light, the prawn sweet and firm, the lemon thyme a hint in the background. I could have eaten a double serve of this quite happily out of sheer desire for more.

Eton Mess

Eton mess, as its name indicates, is a dessert originating from Eton College.  Historically served at the College's annual prize giving picnic on "the Fourth of June" which is apparently actually the last Wednesday in May, it is traditionally made with strawberries or bananas and cream, with meringue being a relatively modern addition.  

This example, as can be seen, contained meringue, some raspberries and a nice bit of crunchy toffee. Summery, and somehow making perfect sense as a dessert to follow the risotto.  He, convinced that 3 courses would be too much for him, had initially asked me to help him eat his dessert.

Needless to say, my assistance as not required.

A final photo of an unexpected thing which though perhaps unimportant and small in the greater scheme of things, was nonetheless a pleasant surprise.

There are a lot of very good value lunch deals around town at the moment and I would definitely rate The Burlington's as one that is worth trying.

[AP]

Fix St James

Fix St James
111 Elizabeth St
Sydney
NSW 2000
Ph : (02) 9232 2767

Meal : 27 May 2009


P had been given several CBD options for a special lunch, the geographical restriction resulting from his work commitments. They were all restaurants which he had not yet visited, and he chose Fix St James. I had been hoping for the possibility of trying the “Quick Fix”, and hoped that ABC would be open to this suggestion. Happily, he was!

There are two options to the “Quick Fix” – the first is five dishes to share at $35pp, and the second, at $40pp, includes a glass of house wine and coffee. These two deals are prominently promoted via a blackboard outside the restaurant, and GFC or no GFC, they seemed to be doing fairly well on the day that we dined, as well as on a subsequent date when ABC and I did a coffee pitstop there.

One of the beauties of the “Quick Fix” and its more expensive sibling the “Long Fix”, which consists of the “Quick Fix” plus pasta, main and dessert ($65pp) is that you don’t know what you’re going to get until it arrives. Unfortunately, this also means that if you dine there twice within a short period of time, there’s a possibility that you may encounter a certain amount of meal duplication. We weren’t actually asked by the staff about whether we had any allergies etc so I guess that the assumption is that you don’t have any food restrictions if you’re going to put your stomach in the hands of the chef!

I suppose that the first dishes came out quickly because it is a “quick fix” after all, but the simultaneous arrival of

Heirloom Tomato Panzanella Salad

Flash Fried Calamari w/ Aioli

Stuffed Zucchini Flower

meant that space was at a premium, and the plates, bread, glasses etc had to be juggled a bit. The stuffed Zucchini flowers were crunchy and delicate and of the two non salad dishes, probably my preferred dish because the calamari was slightly more chewy than I had expected it would be. The Panzanella was a nice contrast to the other two dishes; I don’t know whether it was simply a case of ABC having taken all the nice crunchy bread and the anchovy, but at the end of it I was trying to unsuccessfully conjure up some more of both!

The wait between these three dishes and the next one was less rushed than the initial one, and it gave us time to simply enjoy yourselves and me to take photos of ABC’s two Longines, a photo which unfortunately didn’t turn out very well...

The one on the left is the Longines Sports Legends "Legends Diver" L3.674.4.56.2 and on the right, the Longines Master Collection L2.717.4.78.5 Quadruple Retrograde.

The next dish to appear was the Beef Carpaccio, normally not a dish I order, but one which I do enjoy on the rare occasion that I eat it.

I quite enjoyed having the radish there as well as the baby herbs, as the radish gave the tender beef a nice crunchy textural contrast.

The final dish, and by this time ABC was sufficiently full to have been happy to stop eating, was Quail with Bacon & Cabbage.

The quail was very slightly pink in the middle, which is how I like it, but love quail as I do, for some reason the part of this dish which rocked my boat the most was the bacon and cabbage. I could have eaten bowls of it!!!

By this time we were “well full”, as they say, and there was no room for dessert, but I felt compelled to have a small sugar hit so we ordered two truffles with our coffee.

Would I return? Yes. The QF deal was a good one, and the food to my liking. Next time perhaps I’ll try something else.




[AP]