skip to main |
skip to sidebar
We don't often go to Indian restaurants because Sandra has a sensitivity to chili, perhaps even an allergy, but arriving in Newcastle alone at dinner time after only a scanty snack on the plane I was happy to take the opportunity to try Newcastle's reputedly best home style Indian cuisine.
Sapphire, a precious gemstone, often worn by Royalty, especially the brilliant blue as seen in Kate Middleton's wedding ring, found in Eastern Australia, Sri Lanka, North Africa, Madagascar and a few other places including Thailand Vietnam, China but rarely does India get a mention! Did you notice it's spelt with two p's?
On a corner with windows looking out onto the street,
there was no problem getting a table. The place is simply furnished,
tables have, easy to clean, plastic cloths and comfortable soft high backed chairs.
There is a bar as you enter but
BYO is fine too.
Before anything crisp papadams were served with a mint sauce.
If there was a problem it was due to the extensive menu.Chicken 65 looked intriguing - supposedly chicken in 65 spices. Not too hot that looked like the place to start.
Probably there were eight or even 10 spices but they were indistinguishable and unidentifiable. (I might add that the average reader probably knows more about Indian food than I do!) Regardless it was very pleasing, quite a big serve and hard to stop eating but there were other things I wanted to try.
They had a lot of vegan, vegetarian and gluten free meals but the goat dishes (with bones) looked appealing and I settled on Khadai goat.
It was full of ribs, surely cooked for hours to make the meat so tender. It was a fine dish, quite mild and, with a great bowl of Basmati rice,
and more mint sauce. I loved it.
I had a mango khulfi for dessert at a ridiculous price $4.50
Comments: Would I come back again? You betcha
Score: 14.5/20
When someone spends $50 million on a sculpture park, an winery and an architect designed modern restaurant and then engages a bevy of chefs with pedigrees that include Rockpool in Sydney, Attica in Melbourne and other excellent restaurants you must expect something pretty special. That is what John Gandel, of shopping centre fame, has done at Point Leo Estate, some 85 Km out of Melbourne.
From the outside the place is gorgeous with a stunning entrance leading into an attractive 110 seat restaurant.
After passing reception, and an impressive sculpture, (This pic is from their website),
seating is arranged around a curved venue with floor to ceiling glass walls looking out over a sculpture garden featuring over 50 works by modern Australian and International artists.
The room itself is attractive
although the bare wood tables do not suggest fine dining. At present it is also very popular so it's always crowded and noisy.
We started with a Goat cheese tart ($19). The menu is set out as "To Start" basically small dishes from $5 to $9.5, "Entrees" $19 "Pasta" (only one) $26 Mains" $36 to $49 and "Sides" $9 to $15.
This was very mild and rather characterless.
We followed this sharing the pasta dish.
This looked a bit meagre. Three small smoked Flinders mussels for each of us on a bed of hand cut al dente linguini. There was so little sauce that the spoon provided proved totally unnecessary. There was a lemony tasting succulent in the dish which did not appeal to me but Sandra loved the whole dish. She felt the thick sauce enriched the dish.
Our next course, Tempura whiting with eggplant, smoked fennel and cashews. ($36)
was a very good size serve. The batter was excellent though it still had a lot of fat in it. The smoked fennel was a nice addition though the smoke was not obvious to me. What made it really good was the combination of the fish with the eggplant which almost melted in the mouth and cut down the fat in the batter.
The side of shoe string chips ($9)
came with no mayo, aioli or tomato sauce. When requested it took so long to come it was barely needed.
Our last course, pork belly with glace citrus and nettle gremolata, ($37)
was another extremely good dish, imaginative and technically excellent. The small squares of glace citrus was brilliant - looked good, tasted good and blended well with the pork. A great advance on apple sauce. Although I got little taste from the nettles the gremolata garnish it did help keep the dish more moist and palatable.
A glass of 2016 Point Leo Shiraz was extravagantly expensive at $18. Twelve dollars would have been reasonable.
We were too full for cheese or desserts.
On the negative side it's noisy +, it's expensive and the service is slow and the tables reminiscent of a cafeteria. On the positive side the cutlery and glassware are excellent, the food is very interesting, locally sourced, super fresh, cooked with imagination, in unusual combinations and nicely presented combined. Lastly, service was very friendly.
Score: 15/20
For more information about the sculptures go to the Pt. Leo Sculpture app.
When I called to reserve a table for one they told me that there was only one table for one and it was already reserved. I said OK I'll be happy to sit at a table for two. They did not laugh. Anyway I called when I arrived in Bendigo and, although fully booked they had a place at the bar which was fine with me. It occupies a simply furnished long room with a bar and open kitchen taking up most of one side, where chef's work really hard to get food out on time,
and ceiling high shelves offering a range of high end products.
I was particularly struck by Persian Fairy Floss imported from Persia. Stuff that would have sold for the equivalent of, perhaps, 50 cents when I was a child now sells for over $24 here. It's clearly a free market. The identical product sell at the upmarket supermarket Leo's in Kew for less than $11!! They're proud of their achievements, featuring a Tourism award at the end of the bar.
The menu at Mason's is extensive, with "Savoury Bites" and larger dishes described very fully with a range of fairly exotic ingredients, many with Japanese emphasis such as green sicho salad, sichimi mayonnaise, soy bean butter, smoked miso butter and other Asian specialties.
Bread and butter, which were both delicious, as is so often the case, came early.
My first course, out of a selection of 15 very interesting looking offerings, was hand dived Port Phillip bay scallops, cauliflower,Goulburn trout, Yarra Valley salmon pearls, saltbush.
Artistically presented it was an extremely pleasing start to the meal giving a wide range of flavours and textures on the one plate. The scallops were a little small and not really the hero of the dish with so many excellent competing ingredients.
From the 10 larger dishes I selected the spit roasted Camboer goat shoulder, smoked hommus, freekah tabouleh, wild figs, tzatziki.
Another piece of art on a plate the shoulder sat on a bed of freekah and hommus and was guarded by a couple of crisp maple leaves on each side. A bit hard and dry on the outside the goat was succulent and very tender under that hard exterior. This came about because it had been slow cooked overnight and then roasted "on demand". The down side of this style of cooking is the loss of texture during the slow cooking process. The richness of the dish was slightly relieved by the figs but I felt it needed more of them, there were only two, or perhaps something like pomegranate. Close to being a fine dish, for me it just missed the mark.
It would be unfair to judge this restaurant too much on the basis of a look at the menu and two dishes and I hope to come back to it to try something else before too long. It looks like it has serious potential as an excellent restaurant.
I also supported the local industry, just a little, with a pleasing glass of Shiraz from the Heathcote area!
Score: 14/20
