Provenance (Beechworth) 01/2019

The entrance to this highly regarded regional restaurant, which has featured in the AGFG for almost a decade, and is currently rated 30th by Gourmet Magazine in Australia's top 100 restaurant, is through an impressive very large wooden door down the side of this former bank building.

Spread over a number of rooms it retains something of the grandeur of the original building with  a combination of wide square doorways,

20 ft ceilings, with rosettes 

and large arched windows.

 Table are bare with simple settings.
The chef offers á la carte or a tasting menu. $125 for six courses with some extras available. Matched wines add $75 or $125 for premium wines. They have an extensive wine list with a good range of sake which fits their Japanese influenced menu.
I was pleased to see a glossary of sake terms included in the wine menu.

The wine menu is extensive with some concentration on the region but I elected to have sake which was beautifully presented.

 A very much to my taste house made sourdough bread was served early with a cold smoked creamed butter. If you like that sort of thing this was out of this world. My mouth waters thinking of it.

 I skipped the optional starter of home made silken tofu dish with cucumber, ginger and kiriboshi but added a garfish with its grilled bones.

 Just a mouth full, full of taste and crunch.
First course was slow cooked carrots, lavender infused buttermilk, pumpkin seed crumble, pumpkin seed oil.

 The carrots were firm, the pumpkin seeds crunchy but it was hard to distinguish the lavender flavour.
Sashimi, ponzu, wasabi leaf pickle, cold pressed sunflower oil followed.

 The kingfish was as it always is with an interesting contrast with the citrus tasting sauce and the sweetish pickles.
Smoked wallaby tartar, Japanese fish sauce and egg yolk dressing, cured mullet roe

was a benign sort of dish, pleasant and inoffensive as long as you find raw meat to your taste. It was well balances so nothing dominated.
 Free range duck, beetroot, pickled cherry (which had then been dehydrated), umeboshi

was another very appealing dish however a small fly managed to get into the sauce. I moved it to the side of the plate and called the waiter. He quickly removed it and offered to replate the dish. I said it was Ok so he didn't do anything more. I believe that, in any quality establishment that would have been unacceptable and the dish would have been removed without allowing the customer to continue with it.
Tri Tip, silverbeet, Café de Tokyo butter, presumably the chef's joke, a variation on Café de Paris butter

 

was exceptionally tasty although it had quite a lot of gristle in the meat.

I skipped the optional cheese dish and went on to dessert.
Leaves from the garden, raspberries on a cream base behind sheets of meringue.

 A pleasant dessert.
This was another of those unique meals. I suppose in a way every meal is unique but some are more so. As such the are hard to compare to other unique meals. The dishes were very interesting. They were not over the top with a myriad of ingredients. The hero of each dish was made more interesting by its accompaniments, never dominated by them. I very much doubt, as good as it was, that it belongs in the top 100 restaurants in Australia but it certainly is a very good restaurant.

Score: 17.25 /20

Rump and Ribs (Townsville and Rockhampton) 12/2018

This franchise restaurant has about half a dozen venues, almost all in Queensland. Almost by accident I tried two of them on two successive days, the first in Rockhampton and the second, apparently the most successful one, in Townsville. They have some variations but work to a pretty good formula.They both offer inside and outside dining.

 

They both have bars 

and minimal decoration.

I had a half side of lamb ribs at Rockhampton. It was late in the evening and I suspect they gave me a bit extra because they were closing soon. Anyway it was a handsome serve and I loved every bit of it. 

Tender, succulent and sweet it was as promised with a choice of potatoes - mash, wedges or roast with herbs, a little coleslaw and a creamy sauce.
At Townsville I had the beef ribs. A much smaller serve

They were also tender and tasty. The accoutrements were a bit fancier here. I was offered a plastic bib,

a branded serviette,

and slightly more attractive table settings.

They do have a full menu. 

Score: 14/20

Camden Hotel (Caulfield) 11/2018

All this signage might give one the idea that this is a drinking place, which, of course, it is but it's also a place that serves fairly decent food at quite modest prices.

 It's unpretentious with basic table settings

 in a large open room with a central bar.
We'd heard that their large flounder was particularly good so that had to be top of our choices. 
What sort of soup do you have we asked. Surprisingly soup is not available, it's not on the menu but there's enough to chose from.
So, first the flounder. It comes with chips 

or mash and a small salad on top of it.

It was not very big but it was plump moist and very tasty.  

I decided on a porterhouse steak. As usual I requested it be served 'blue' that is seared on the outside and just warm in the centre. 

Not as usual that was exactly how I did get it!! Served with mash and a mushroom sauce it was as good as it gets. 

 We were not sure they could do this well again but we thought it well worth a try. Sandra had the flounder again which was pretty well identical to the first one and I chose a veal cutlet with potato Gratin.

I have a particular aversion to eating charcoal and sent the gratin back to be replaced by chips.The veal was excellent. This time we tried the desserts.

The lava cake 

was overcooked, slightly burned and dry. Very disappointing. 

The apple and rhubarb crumble was a bit sour 

but quite acceptable. 

As the famous Greek philosopher rightly said 'You can't step into the same river twice" and that proved right here.

Will we go there again? Sure we will. 

Score:13.75/20

Sapphire (Newcastle, NSW) 08/10/2018

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 

Montrachet (Bowen Hills - Brisbane) 09/2018

It's four years since I last visited Montrachet and things have changed a bit. It's been sold and it's moved from a slightly isolated spot in Paddington to a busy restaurant strip and now also have outside dining. In other ways it's very much the same. A seven course degustation ($110) or a four course degustation ($90) with matched wines if you wish. A very French a la carte menu, uniformed wait staff and at least one French waiter.
Table settings are simple

with half a dozen places along the bar

for those who might wish to sit there.
Time for the food.
I find a few dishes that are a good test of a chef, one of them being French onion soup.

They did it very well. Well balanced, not too sweet, enough onion and the crouton covered with just enough cheese remained crisp.
I had been seated outside looking in!

After the first course I accepted a seat at the bar. Fish? lamb? fillet? quail? duck?
Lockyer Valley Quail won the guernsey .

This quite large bird, pan roasted, was served with preserved lemon farce on a bed of baked rhubarb accompanied by a 'baby' potato, parsnip and Juniper scented pan juices was a little bland but the accompaniments made up for everything. The light lemon flavour, the extremely tasty pan juices and the rhubarb were incredible.
As good as ever
Score:16.5 /20