Matteo's

Matteo's
Chef Brendan McQueen's Tasting Menu, $110 or $170 with 100ml of six selected wines plus a Botrytis Semillon has never failed to please. He consistently produces good standard interesting food. The menu changes changes slowly, often with variations on what had been on previous menus. the menu currently is made up of a first dish of Carpachio of Hiramisa Kingfish, a great favourite here, Yabby tail in sweet dashi sauce and teryaki glazed baby squid sushi roll. This was followed with an interesting watermelon, radish and coriander salad, tamarind vinaigrette with fetta stuffed zuchini flowers. Despite the strange mixture of ingredients this salad worked surprisingly well. McQueens cooking has both Thai and Japanese influences as illustrated in the next dishes. a miso baked Japanese black cod fillet, daikon linguine and wakame seaweed salad, Yarra Valley salmon roe, pickled ginger sauce, which i forgot to photograph, was superb. Certainly encourages further visits. Thai style braised oxtail wrapped in zucchini, green curry sauce, "kimchi" spiced tomato relish and a baked Asian pie of minced pork chicken, eggplant soya bean pureemade up the last main courses. Each dish was a small example of masterful design and fine cooking.
the dessert a coconut milk gelato and Kaffir lime splice, mango puree and a dark chocolate fondant pudding failed slightly because the pudding was over cooked and the chocolate did not ooze out of its centre giving both the visual stimulus as well as the textural variation that makes this dish so irresistible.
Matteos is a comfortable restaurant. everything is better than good. I would have liked a bit more to eat. The meal amounts to nine very small very tasty but tiny entrees.
Score: 15.5/20