Monday, March 07, 2005

Mercer's Restaurant


Introduction: Situated in an old weatherboard house on Main road Eltham
Ambience: A sort of countrified laid back colonial elegance.

Service: Uniformed waiters astonished me on two occasions - when we said we would pour the wine ourselves the waiter said that's all right and continued and emptied the bottle and secondly when an opinion on the food was offered it was met with the remark "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion".

Rather sedate but otherwise satisfactory.
Food: All dishes were very attractively presented. The rabbit sauternes and wild mushroom pie served with a small nicoise salad was surprisingly bland as was the salmon terrine while the blue cheese souffle was excellent.
Mains included something for everyone fish fowl meat or vegetarian.
The duck was rather tough, the free range chicken very good the potato canneloni wrapped wild mushrooms on a bed of beans excellent but the best of all was the fillet, cooked as requested, on well cooked ox cheek on a bed of potatoes.
Desserts were uniformly excellent with top billing for the Grand dessert for two - a sample of all the desserts available.
Wine: An excellent list to suit all pockets
Price: $47 for two courses $60 for three. Tasters menu $72 or $100 with wine.
Comments: With the mandatory dozen or so certificates around the walls, the excellent home made bread, the gratis appetiser (a really fine tomato capachino or a salmon pate topped with a thin layer of ?jelly and fruit mousse) Mercer's has the accoutrements of the fine restaurant that it is. Well worth a visit
Score: 16/20


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