Saturday, March 21, 2009
Ouuu, well I've been busy doing my two dissertations. One of which i haven't even started yet. I suppose panic will set in soon. But not before this.
Anyways, there are a few things i want to blog about today. Mostly the restaurants i've been to and what i've been doing. MY SOCIAL LIFE HAS BECOME PRACTICALLY NON-EXISTENT. Ahhh! can't wait till easter and i get to study even more yay! but no more dissertations =)
ASo for the past few weeks, i've been to Ikeda, Muranos, Sake No Hana, Fifteen , Marcus Wareing and Makan among others. I think there are a few more but i just can't remember. But today will be dedicated to Fifteen and Marcus. The former is an absolute travesty of a 'fine dining' restaurant whilst the other was totally and utterly magnificent. Omg, i can still taste the foie gras in my mouth. Perfectly cooked foi gras that tastes like the siew yoke fat melting in your mouth. Omg omg heavenly..
Ooops, got a little bit carried away.
Fifteen = the first time A said we were going my face kinda feel. Honestly,nothing impresses me more than food cooked my a bunch of supposedly improvished youths. Anyone can cook right? WRONG. seriously WRONG. To start of with, the table they gave us, i ended up sitting in front of a five foot wide pig face painted on the wall. And for the next three hours...THREE HOURS I SWEAR the pig was staring at me! But anyways, horrible distracting decor coupled with graffiti paint. Plus the wine choices were mediocre to say the least. The first thing i look for in the restaurant is the wine list. The prices and choices give the place away. Anyways, the wine i choose, the Katnook Cab Sauv was so not worth to price I paid. Suffice to say the wines there were pretty unreasonable. Oh i haven't got to the food yet. The highlight of the my night!! The best part were the appetisers : The salami. Yea alright, i suppose it's impossible to screw up salami.
Then can the starters which were pretty strange. I've never tasted so many different flavours on a scallop before. One thing those chefs in Fifteen like to do is to overpower the food with herbs. I have no idea why but my lamb so so horrible i just stared at the gooey green excuse of sauce. I think it was supposed to be some minty parsley sauce thing? Anyawys, i was pretty disgusted after the first bite, whined a bit and in the end got it exchanged to the scallops for mains. The scallops were perfectly cooked, but i couldn't say the same for the garnishes. THE VEGETABLES WERE BLACK. This is how the conversation went:
'I think my vegetables are black'
'Oh it's just cos it's caramelised. Those are caramelised vegetable'
To which i was pretty shocked. Yea i know, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEB CARAMELISED AND BURNT VEGETABLES. Which is why people get it wrong all the time. It is an art to caramelise vegetables.
By then, the fight had gone out in me. I could see from this place, my complaints would be compensated by more lacklustre food.
So we just got dessert : Chocolate mousse which texture and taste was more like chocolate brownies. Heavy and dreary. But then i guess there's nothing much i could expect. Everytime i turned around the head chef was doing everything but checking the food.
Oh well, at least we saw the creator himself Jamie O dining there. But then again, the food is so not worth 60 pounds.
On the other hand, Marcus was absolutely delightful. From the appetisers, the foie gras with this really amazing crunchy mini biscuit/baguette cross thing. It came with two sauces, some cavier/sundried tomato sauce with this unidentified spice which made me think of curry. Sounds weird but i was sooo good. I ate it all.
The sommelier was really friendly. Since we took the tasting menu, i couldn't decide on which wine to go with all the dishes. So we asked him and he said he would pair each dish with a wine.
Anywways, will try to remember which dish went with which wine. It was an 8 course meal so here goes!
Pre starters :
Some mushroom soup served in a shot glass with truffle oil : Awesome awesome awesome. A bit too salty and the chef's advice to 'drink it like an expresso' which had me sipping cos THAT'S HOW PEOPLE DRINK EXPRESSO RIGHT? but nooo stupid A drank it all in one go. I tried it and my throat got SCALDED. Maybe it was cos i was sick. Anyways, all in all, amazing.
Starters :
Foie gras with rhubarbs and lamb reduction. Alright it sounds more interesting than it actually is. It was exquisite. Salty, melt in your mouth goodness. When eaten with the rhubarb, the sweetness of it totally brought out the flavour.
It was paired with this italian sweet wine which whilst i could see the rationale, i wasn't too crazy about. Too strong and too sweet for my likes. But then i am pretty fond of salty stuff.
Scallops with cucumber and caviar : It was an alright dish. The cucmbers gave it a bit of a fresh taste. Not one of my favourite dishes of the night.
It was paired with a Chardonnay from Yarra Valley. It was an awesome pairing, after eating the scallops, the slight fizz from sipping the wine gives it a bang!
Roasted quail : I'm not too sure about the garnishes, but it was without doubt one of my favourite dishes of the night! The quail was perfectly cooked and succulent. After eating it i could taste the blood in my mouth. In a good way of course.
It was paired with a red from if i'm not wrong a french bordeaux. I've never been good with french wines but still an pretty good combination. Tho personally i would have preferred a stronger wine. More full bodied.
Monkfish with truffles : This was one of the specialities. By then i was getting really really full. The thing with truffles is, if you feel really full the smell of it makes one feel nauseous. But i soldiered on!Not really into monkfish. The meat is too tough but the garnishes was fantastic. But then the secret to cooking a good monkfish is the sauce and the garnished. Monkfish has an interesting texture to it tho.
It was paired with a Riesling from Austria : Delcately sweet and just the right kind of fruity. I think for this dish the wine impressed me more.
Mains : FINALLY RIGHT????!! Honestly i felt so bloated by then it was all i could take from crying when the dish arrived. It was venision. Pretty well cooked i would say but i could barely finish. I think i ate two slices and gave the rest to A. I think A's lamb was perfectly cooked. Tasted like siew yoke actually. Melt in your mouth grilled goodness.
Cheeses : We got to taste a few cheeses with figs. I love it when they push their trolley around full of all that cheesy goodness. Yummy yummy!! We took a few strong cheeses so it was pretty good. Usually i'm a camembert woman mnyself, but those strong cheese made me rethink for a bit. I don't really remember the names of the cheese cos it was all in FRENCH SPOKEN IN A FRENCH ACCENT. =.= i so want to know!!
Pre-dessert (omg amazing right. I have no idea how i was still alive . Thank god i wore a dress) : Well there was vanilla ice cream with sorbet. Fantastic palatte cleanser. Sour and sweet with a slight fizz
Dessert : Choco moleoux with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. It was ok. I would say perfectly made? But then i am not a dessert person. The one thing i look for is that it is not too sweet and you can just taste how chocolate is supposed to taste like. So it wasn't too sweet.
Oh and then we told them it was A's birthday and they got us peanut butter parfait with caramel on top and a birthday candle too. Personally I love peanut butter so it think i prefered that to my original dessert.
Aperitif and chocolates : FINALLY DONE!! They pushed this aperitif cart with cognac andn whisky etc. Lovely choices but mostly from France and Scotland. And they had an amazing chocolate cart. Imagine bowls and bowls of choclate hung on a coat hanger-ish looking thing. I think the waiters saw we were pretty much struggling by then.(Well i think they realised at the monkfish when i only finished half of it) But we gamely tried some chocos. They were ok but a bit too sweet. I thought it was cos my taste buds were dying on me. SO anways, they very kindly offered to pack some chocos for us. We got two bags. YUMMY!!
It is an amazing place. The service was excellent and the food simply..alright too many superlatives. Something I wouldn't do every week. Too much rich food. However, i do understand why the nobles in Victorian times were fat. =)
Definately a place i would go again. But then one has to book a month in advance o.O
Did i mention the wine list was a hundred pages long?? Oh and to top it all off, we saw one of the ex-James Bond (the one before the blond one) my dream guy Pierce Brosnan sitting by the bar havin drinks. AHHHH i got pretty starstruck. HELLO MY DREAM GUY!! Tall dark and handsome. *sigh*
My point was, the contrast between how people define 'fine dining'. The utopia of fine dining and the hell of 'fine dining'. Good god how it is in the same category defies explanation.
Anyways, the other thing i want to blog about is B Button. ISn't it an awesome show!! I don't think i've cried that much in a long time. It comes pretty close in the top three of shows i've cried the most for. That, windstruck and that andy lau show where he grows old and dies. Oh well..time to do worksies!!
Anyways, there are a few things i want to blog about today. Mostly the restaurants i've been to and what i've been doing. MY SOCIAL LIFE HAS BECOME PRACTICALLY NON-EXISTENT. Ahhh! can't wait till easter and i get to study even more yay! but no more dissertations =)
ASo for the past few weeks, i've been to Ikeda, Muranos, Sake No Hana, Fifteen , Marcus Wareing and Makan among others. I think there are a few more but i just can't remember. But today will be dedicated to Fifteen and Marcus. The former is an absolute travesty of a 'fine dining' restaurant whilst the other was totally and utterly magnificent. Omg, i can still taste the foie gras in my mouth. Perfectly cooked foi gras that tastes like the siew yoke fat melting in your mouth. Omg omg heavenly..
Ooops, got a little bit carried away.
Fifteen = the first time A said we were going my face kinda feel. Honestly,nothing impresses me more than food cooked my a bunch of supposedly improvished youths. Anyone can cook right? WRONG. seriously WRONG. To start of with, the table they gave us, i ended up sitting in front of a five foot wide pig face painted on the wall. And for the next three hours...THREE HOURS I SWEAR the pig was staring at me! But anyways, horrible distracting decor coupled with graffiti paint. Plus the wine choices were mediocre to say the least. The first thing i look for in the restaurant is the wine list. The prices and choices give the place away. Anyways, the wine i choose, the Katnook Cab Sauv was so not worth to price I paid. Suffice to say the wines there were pretty unreasonable. Oh i haven't got to the food yet. The highlight of the my night!! The best part were the appetisers : The salami. Yea alright, i suppose it's impossible to screw up salami.
Then can the starters which were pretty strange. I've never tasted so many different flavours on a scallop before. One thing those chefs in Fifteen like to do is to overpower the food with herbs. I have no idea why but my lamb so so horrible i just stared at the gooey green excuse of sauce. I think it was supposed to be some minty parsley sauce thing? Anyawys, i was pretty disgusted after the first bite, whined a bit and in the end got it exchanged to the scallops for mains. The scallops were perfectly cooked, but i couldn't say the same for the garnishes. THE VEGETABLES WERE BLACK. This is how the conversation went:
'I think my vegetables are black'
'Oh it's just cos it's caramelised. Those are caramelised vegetable'
To which i was pretty shocked. Yea i know, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEB CARAMELISED AND BURNT VEGETABLES. Which is why people get it wrong all the time. It is an art to caramelise vegetables.
By then, the fight had gone out in me. I could see from this place, my complaints would be compensated by more lacklustre food.
So we just got dessert : Chocolate mousse which texture and taste was more like chocolate brownies. Heavy and dreary. But then i guess there's nothing much i could expect. Everytime i turned around the head chef was doing everything but checking the food.
Oh well, at least we saw the creator himself Jamie O dining there. But then again, the food is so not worth 60 pounds.
On the other hand, Marcus was absolutely delightful. From the appetisers, the foie gras with this really amazing crunchy mini biscuit/baguette cross thing. It came with two sauces, some cavier/sundried tomato sauce with this unidentified spice which made me think of curry. Sounds weird but i was sooo good. I ate it all.
The sommelier was really friendly. Since we took the tasting menu, i couldn't decide on which wine to go with all the dishes. So we asked him and he said he would pair each dish with a wine.
Anywways, will try to remember which dish went with which wine. It was an 8 course meal so here goes!
Pre starters :
Some mushroom soup served in a shot glass with truffle oil : Awesome awesome awesome. A bit too salty and the chef's advice to 'drink it like an expresso' which had me sipping cos THAT'S HOW PEOPLE DRINK EXPRESSO RIGHT? but nooo stupid A drank it all in one go. I tried it and my throat got SCALDED. Maybe it was cos i was sick. Anyways, all in all, amazing.
Starters :
Foie gras with rhubarbs and lamb reduction. Alright it sounds more interesting than it actually is. It was exquisite. Salty, melt in your mouth goodness. When eaten with the rhubarb, the sweetness of it totally brought out the flavour.
It was paired with this italian sweet wine which whilst i could see the rationale, i wasn't too crazy about. Too strong and too sweet for my likes. But then i am pretty fond of salty stuff.
Scallops with cucumber and caviar : It was an alright dish. The cucmbers gave it a bit of a fresh taste. Not one of my favourite dishes of the night.
It was paired with a Chardonnay from Yarra Valley. It was an awesome pairing, after eating the scallops, the slight fizz from sipping the wine gives it a bang!
Roasted quail : I'm not too sure about the garnishes, but it was without doubt one of my favourite dishes of the night! The quail was perfectly cooked and succulent. After eating it i could taste the blood in my mouth. In a good way of course.
It was paired with a red from if i'm not wrong a french bordeaux. I've never been good with french wines but still an pretty good combination. Tho personally i would have preferred a stronger wine. More full bodied.
Monkfish with truffles : This was one of the specialities. By then i was getting really really full. The thing with truffles is, if you feel really full the smell of it makes one feel nauseous. But i soldiered on!Not really into monkfish. The meat is too tough but the garnishes was fantastic. But then the secret to cooking a good monkfish is the sauce and the garnished. Monkfish has an interesting texture to it tho.
It was paired with a Riesling from Austria : Delcately sweet and just the right kind of fruity. I think for this dish the wine impressed me more.
Mains : FINALLY RIGHT????!! Honestly i felt so bloated by then it was all i could take from crying when the dish arrived. It was venision. Pretty well cooked i would say but i could barely finish. I think i ate two slices and gave the rest to A. I think A's lamb was perfectly cooked. Tasted like siew yoke actually. Melt in your mouth grilled goodness.
Cheeses : We got to taste a few cheeses with figs. I love it when they push their trolley around full of all that cheesy goodness. Yummy yummy!! We took a few strong cheeses so it was pretty good. Usually i'm a camembert woman mnyself, but those strong cheese made me rethink for a bit. I don't really remember the names of the cheese cos it was all in FRENCH SPOKEN IN A FRENCH ACCENT. =.= i so want to know!!
Pre-dessert (omg amazing right. I have no idea how i was still alive . Thank god i wore a dress) : Well there was vanilla ice cream with sorbet. Fantastic palatte cleanser. Sour and sweet with a slight fizz
Dessert : Choco moleoux with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. It was ok. I would say perfectly made? But then i am not a dessert person. The one thing i look for is that it is not too sweet and you can just taste how chocolate is supposed to taste like. So it wasn't too sweet.
Oh and then we told them it was A's birthday and they got us peanut butter parfait with caramel on top and a birthday candle too. Personally I love peanut butter so it think i prefered that to my original dessert.
Aperitif and chocolates : FINALLY DONE!! They pushed this aperitif cart with cognac andn whisky etc. Lovely choices but mostly from France and Scotland. And they had an amazing chocolate cart. Imagine bowls and bowls of choclate hung on a coat hanger-ish looking thing. I think the waiters saw we were pretty much struggling by then.(Well i think they realised at the monkfish when i only finished half of it) But we gamely tried some chocos. They were ok but a bit too sweet. I thought it was cos my taste buds were dying on me. SO anways, they very kindly offered to pack some chocos for us. We got two bags. YUMMY!!
It is an amazing place. The service was excellent and the food simply..alright too many superlatives. Something I wouldn't do every week. Too much rich food. However, i do understand why the nobles in Victorian times were fat. =)
Definately a place i would go again. But then one has to book a month in advance o.O
Did i mention the wine list was a hundred pages long?? Oh and to top it all off, we saw one of the ex-James Bond (the one before the blond one) my dream guy Pierce Brosnan sitting by the bar havin drinks. AHHHH i got pretty starstruck. HELLO MY DREAM GUY!! Tall dark and handsome. *sigh*
My point was, the contrast between how people define 'fine dining'. The utopia of fine dining and the hell of 'fine dining'. Good god how it is in the same category defies explanation.
Anyways, the other thing i want to blog about is B Button. ISn't it an awesome show!! I don't think i've cried that much in a long time. It comes pretty close in the top three of shows i've cried the most for. That, windstruck and that andy lau show where he grows old and dies. Oh well..time to do worksies!!
# posted by Addie @ 9:10 PM 
