Paul Wilson
designed a particularly good menu for about 35 guests last week. Five courses and dessert accompanied by interesting wines from the old and new world made a taxi home mandatory.
In place of bread we had a lovely creamy, smoky egg plant concoction with sea weed crisps, like a dip. It looked interesting and the sea weed and the smoky tastes combining well.
A nicely presented dish, warm Rotnest Island scallops 'En Croute', smoked sea weed butter and Yarra Valley salmon caviar was an excellent start to accompany a NV Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin which tasted all the better from lovely, fine Veuve Cliquot glasses.
Next came a signature dish of Manjimup truffles with slow cooked organic farm eggs, aged Reggiano & Piedmontese polenta With or with out the 1967 Domaine Leflaive 'Les Folatieres', Poligny-Montrachat, which was excellent and the New Zealand 2006 Kumen River 'Hunting Hill' Chardonnay, which I found had too much bitterness, this is a fantastic dish
Crispy soft shell Sichuan peppered blue swimmer crab, nameko mushrooms and caramelized suffered from the very strong tastes of the accompaniments making it impossible to appreciate the delicacy of the crab. The 2008 Willi Schaefer 'Graacher Domprobst' Mosel Reisling and the 2012 Best's Great Western Reisling were a good distraction from the spicy dish and well matched.
Crispy rare breed McIvor suckling pig with native quandong marmalade, fragrant salad and steamed bun was superb. Quandong is a native Australian bush fruit with a slightly acidic tangy flavour and an interesting addition to this dish. Here a French Beaujolais 2011 Thivin 'Les Sept Vignes' Cote de Brouilly was offered with a 2012 Circe Yarra Valley Pinot Noir.
Mayura Station lost no friends with an outstanding cote de boeuf bordelaise, porcini, truffles & faro risotto. This was a dish to die for. Superb texture, wonderfully tender ans rich it was waghu at it's very best. The sauce was also excellent and truffles added that little bit extra to make it very very special.
Two reds a 2000 Edo Altare Barolo, La Morra from Piedmont and a 2009 SC Pannell Nebbiolo from the Adelaide Hills came with the waghu. Nebbiolo is a grape the originally came from Piedmont so we could be said to be drinking two Italian wines.
Dessert, quince Queen of puddings, rhubarb, elderflower sorbet was very sweet and needed a sauterne for company. A 2010 Michelton 'Blackwood Park' botrytis reisling did well enough and I preferred it to the German 2010 Keller 'Westhofen Morstein' Auslese from Rheinhessen.
Score:16.5 /20
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