Tulum (Balaclava) 06/2018

Tulum occupies a very plain space in a popular strip shopping street which also has restaurants offering Shinese, Vietnamese, Italian and Japanese ethnic restaurants as well as fish and chips and numerous coffee lounges and hamburger joints.
Decor is minimal, 

there is a small bar near the entrance, tables are almost bare 

and chairs are not very comfortable.
There was a very friendly atmosphere, perhaps a little too familiar for some people. We were seated promptly and at my request the volume of the pleasant Western 90's music was turned down.
What is extremely interesting is the food. We've eaten at Turkish restaurants in Australia as well as Turkey and other countries such as Israel. No other place has served a meal to compare to this one. It's a banquet style five course ($70) meal currently from the SE Anatolia region. The menu changes again in about three months.
So here's what we ate.
SOGAN

Chestnut Mushrooms & Spiced Rice Stuffed Onion, Mushroom Puree & Turkish Apple Tea. A great start, the slightly vinegary apple tea was excellent in this dish.
BALIK

Barramundi, Tahini Baba Ganoush Soup, Leek Cigar Borek. Very modern with a little ?fennel foam, lightly cooked barramundi a super dish I could have it every day.
ANALI KIZLI

Lamb & Bulgar Meatballs, Lamb Fat Onion Puree, Chickpeas & Lamb Bones Corba. This is also known as mother and daughters, the meatball representing mother and the chickpeas the daughters!
KUZU

Lamb Neck, Tulum Cheese Custard, Sucuk Crumble, Tahini & Jerusalem Artichoke Puree, Smoked Date Jam. Slow cooked at 85 degrees left this overcooked but still less stringy than usual and tender and tasty
BILDIRCIN

Half Quail Salt Baked with Sumac, Quince Puree & Pickled Quince.
a supplement ($16)
The quail was very very small and also overcooked but nevertheless this was a dish not to be missed.

A surprise canteloupe palate cleanser
SEKERPARE,

Sekerpare, Hazelnut Mousse, Turkish Black Tea Ice Cream & Black Tea Syrup.
Not too sweet, this was a nice finish to the meal.
They have a small wine list and do not accept BYO.
It was also nice that chef Coskun Uysal, who was born in the Anatolian region, 

served some dishes and visited our table to chat.
Score: 16/20

Bayviews Restaurant and Lounge Bar (Burnie NW Tasmania) 08/2017

After a taste of a couple of entrees I was keen to come back for their 9 course degustation menu and was lucky to find someone to join me. I wrote about the venue on a previous blog and will not repeat that here.

I doubt there is anything like this between here and Melbourne and if there is it would not be as adventurous.

Here’s the menu, which is preceded by some small chef’s offerings

A small arancini ball of chicken and chorizo
Amuse bouche

The oyster was particularly tasty
Citrus, coriander seed pepper dusted Southern calamari, romesco sauce, roasted peanut, coriander, thai basil, bean shoots, nim jam dressing.

Perhaps a bit over complicated, nevertheless the elements melded well and it was very pleasing with it's great variety of tastes and textures.
Pan roasted Bannoch farm quail, celeriac and radish remoulade, sweet corn veloute,crispy chorizo, parsley oil.

A super dish. I could eat this everyday!
Wild mushroom risotto truffle oil, charred red peppers, spring onion oil

The truffle taste, and their special odour, got lost somewhere between the kitchen and the table.
Pan roasted Macquarrie Harbour Atlantic salmon, fragrant yellow coconut curry  sauce, crispy local cuttlefish, roasted pumpkin, lime leaf yoghurt, red mizuna, fresh herbs

I guess it's my fault I forgot to mention that I like my salmon just barely cooked. This was just a little over cooked for my taste which made it a bit ordinary instead of being an exquisite dish.. Once again it was a dish made more complicated than it needed to be to get the best from the salmon.
Sous vide poached chicken breast in Masterstock, sesame lemongrass broth, pickled ginger, organic noodles, pickled diacon, and fresh herb salad.

Sous vide is great for fish, interesting for red meat but really adds nothing to chicken breast. Indeed it is less moist and tasty than a good roast chicken. the accompaniments, without the chicken, made a very good broth. 
Sorbet tamarind ice cream, A super little palette cleanser.

Tasmanian Midlands venison shoulder slow cooked in red wine, juniper and pepperberries, braised red cabbage, roasted and pickled beetroot, white onion puree and water chestnuts.

This meat could have been cooked forever and I think it would still have been stringy. It was about as good as it could be cooked that way. I think it would have been better if it was just seared on the BBQ. There was no taste of venison left. The pickled beetroot and the puree made the dish.
Pre dessert

Kaffir lime pannacotta, lemon thyme jelly milk chocolate, rice crisps, wattle seed tuile.

Totally delicious!
Peanut praline semi freddo, caramel, almond crumb, chocolate mousse, flaked almonds, mocha soil.

A fitting end to a pretty good meal.

This menu was $130/person with matched wines for a further $45. At a good Melbourne restaurant it would be double or more and wines considerably more.

The menu is extremely extensive, perhaps with an excessive number of ingredients for many of the dishes, some of which were sometimes totally lost. or so subtle that their contribution to the dish was unrecognisable.

For all that I loved the variety. The quality of the produce was unquestionably excellent, presentation was attractive and the dishes were never boring.

It’s also a lot to eat so if you have that menu start early.

The matched wines would have left me dangerous to drive home and not at my best for work the next day so I settled for a glass of Josef Chomry Chardonnay and later a McLaren Vale Shiraz having tried and not cared for a Relbia Estate Pinot Noir.
Score:16.25 /20

Bayviews Restaurant and Lounge Bar (Burnie NW Tasmania) 07/201`7

 Burnie continues to surprise me. I had been told that Fish Frenzy had the best fish and chips but had no idea that there is a fine dining restaurant above it. Asking about restaurants had resulted in several recommendations but Bayviews had not been mentioned.
It's a fantastic site 

 overlooking Bass Straight, right at the waters edge.
The restaurant offers inside and out side dining in a spacious rather asceptic looking venue

I thought I might have an entree before going home to dinner and was surprised to be offered an amuse bouche of pear, prosciutto and goat cheese in a herb infused olive oil. 

Several entrees looked appealing and I settled for the quail.

 It was boned well and cooked perfectly, just a little pink. Served with celeriac and fine strips of daikon in a remoulade with crispy chorizo and parley. It was so good I decided to have a second entree of mussels.
Another surprise, a palate cleanser!
And then the mussels.

From the East coast these must have been the most enormous, plump and tasty mussels I have ever eaten. Served in a rich white wine broth with a touch of lemon, chili and garlic with linguini, and coriander which made what added up to a really fine dish.
The only thing I would have liked with both these dishes was a roll or a slice of good quality bread.
Not only do they have a very nice menu but they also offer a six or a nine course degustation menu with matched wines if desired for about 60% of what it would cost in Melbourne.
Next time. 
Score: 16/20

Ôter (Melbourne CBD) 032017

I don't much care for basement restaurants that rely on you knowing their address to find them without the aid of signage. The last one we went to, a few months ago, was the Michelin star Kyo Ya in Manhattan. ( http://1001dinners.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/kyo-ya-east-village-manhattan-012017.html ) I was very uncomfortable until I found the entrance there but it was well worth it. 
Ôter also has no signage. It is a French word with a general meaning to remove or take away although it can be used in many senses as can the English expression for example in arithmetic 10 take away six equals four or in making nonsense of something, taking away the sense of it and so on. In gastronomy I find it a bit of a stretch perhaps being used in the sense of getting down to the basics, taking away the unnecessary. Make of it what you will. Certainly the venue is pretty basic and so is the table setting

and furniture.

Menu's are very hard to interpret so, as usual we chose the chef's choice of five courses ($95)
Bread was excellent, served with radish, Murray river salt (I think)and butter. 

Our first course was mussels with leek and sea weed. A tiny serve, the mussels cut into small pieces, it was rather bland. $4 on the menu, as was the next dish.
Chicken wings and hot sauce. 

 

Another tiny serve, the mouthful of chicken, one per person, was succulent and the sauce not palate destroying hot but oh so little. 

This was followed by Red Emperor crudo, buttermilk in dill oil. Clearly Japanese influenced but failed to excite. The fish had not been sliced the way a Japanese chef would do it and the dill was almost undetectable in the oil. 

Next we were served braised eggplant, almond gaspaco, I always thought that was a Spanish soup, with espelette pepper. 

This was a truly boring dish with no almond taste at all and only saved a tiny bit by the crunchy texture of the little bits of sesame biscuit on top. 

The next dish was flounder with spinach, lemon puree and champagne cream.

This tiny fillet, you could easily get eight of them of one fish, was served belly up to two of us and belly down, black skin, to two of us. The texture of the fish is different on each side and we should have all had the same thing. It was nicely cooked but the champagne sauce did nothing for it. Just OK but again a small serve.

Korobuta pork neck, confit celariac, lardo

also came with an indifferent sauce. The neck was tasty and I enjoyed it although others at the table were indifferent.

The last course was an opera cake which we had to share, two slices for four of us! 

It was the best course of the meal but a mean serve.

Service was pleasant but our waitress could not make herself understood and we had to resort to looking at the menu so see what we were eating.

Tea and coffee, they only have espresso or long black! came in two parts - one coffee arrived 10 minutes after the other drinks!!

Wines are heavily marked up. We did enjoy a Dalwinnie 2013 shiraz ($120)

Comments. Unfortunately, for us Ôter left out a lot to be desired. There was no Wow factor to be found.
Score: 13.5/20