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

Jaques Reymond

Jaques Reymond
Despite its $x million refurbishment one feels, as before, that one is eating in the front room of a Victorian mansion. There are several new faces who have migrated from other leading establishments, such as Vue de Monde, bringing a high level of professionalism, understanding and attention with them.
Another plus is that Jaques is usually in the kitchen.
He claims to "have introduced a new approach to fine dining. The concept is designed to encourage you to sample a wider variety of dishes in a more dynamic and accessible way" They therefore offer only entree size dishes. Evidently he has not noticed what has been going on at fine dining restaurants around Melbourne for the last decade. He has a eight dish 'Menu Vegetarian' plus petit fours and tea/coffee $130 or $225 with six matched wines. Which looked extremely interesting. An eight course 'Taste of our Degustation Menu' including coffee and petit fours for $170 or $265 with six wines matched by "our sommelier 'Nathalie Reymond'''. and a sort of a Carte, a menu of quite different dishes, offering three, four or five courses for $98 $125 or $150 respectively. Finally he notes that the restaurant will not be responsible for any illness caused by the use of nuts and asks that the waiter be informed of any food allergies.
We opted for the one with the lot. As usual an outstanding bouchere arrived at the table first.

The first course, an odd conglomeration, Lemongrass, spinach and rock lobster soup, fragrant Tiger prawn, sweet potato and turmeric ice cream,

was interesting and I would have happily had more except for the ice cream which was a mismatch on this dish. A Tyrrell's 2004 Semillon was pleasant enough was pleasant.
Seven more courses.
Sandwich of spanner crab, mirin, fresh wasabi jelly, lacquered Petuna ocean trout, black bean and sweetcorn dressing, - everything on the plate gets a mention,

was a taste bud pleasure. The fish and the crab both contrasting in flavour and delicacy represented very fine cooking. The wild barramundi with pepper, yoghurt, black garlic Kafir lime hidden by lemongrass espuma

shows Jacques is moving far from classical French and this dish, for me, was over fussy and overcomplicated failing to achieve anything in the taste department. Many wines would have done here a 2008 Toolangi 'Jaques Reymond' selection Chardonnay served well enough.
There is even less French about the Peking duck and Hervey bay scallops, Peking juices, spiced marshnallow like a crepe (not very like one though), crispy rice, ginger sesame and pandan oil

bore no resemblance to any version we have ever seen of Peking duck. I suppose you can call anything whatever you like and it did have duck but I felt misled. It didn't taste that good either and 'Jaques Reymond' selection 2007 Bass Phillip Pinot Noir was far from his best. At least their bread is extremely appealing, looks like bread and tastes like bread.
Highland venison came next.
with a 'Jaques Reymond' selection 2005 Dalwhinnie Shiraz which I liked but why doesn't he tell us what it really is?
The last 'main' entree was suckling pig.
A rather ordinary Chateauneuf-du-Pape came with this. The food was very good but we were both getting a bit jaded by now.
The Pacific rim martini with liquorice ice cream and honeycomb was a nice palate reliever.
before the milleleuilles, plural you see, of chocolate, white chocolate mousse, Carribean chili ice cream dark chocolate mousse and praline ice cream.It was as rich and sweet as it sounded. The Seppelts Field Grand Tokay was an ideal accompaniment.
This was a very good meal regardless of my picky comments. It is expensive and the wine selection were not especially good.
Score 16.5/20

MoMO Restaurant

MoMo Restaurant at the Grand Hyatt is beautiful. It's elegance is emphasized by subdued lighting from tracks of crystal chandeliers
curving around the ceiling. Everything about the place is lovely. The service is well mannered, calm attentive and informed. Although they basically serve one of two set price menus ($100 or $140) depending on the number of dishes, for sharing when pushed they did offer an a la carte menu off the set menu, which turned out to be a more expensive option. Food is beautifully presented beginning with a colourful beaker of raw vegetables and a dipping sauce
followed by a fried oyster won ton, a main and ending with an eye catching dessert of small dishes.
There is only one problem - you have to like that sort of food and those spices. For me it was over seasoned. For example the fish which, I like just just cooked through to maintain as much succulent flavour as possible, was very well cooked and overwhelmed by the seasoning. The lamb suffered the same problem with the seasoning.
A fetta and tomato salad was excellent but hardly a challenge for a chef.We wanted to see what it was like and now we've seen it.
If you love sharing, and modern middle eastern cooking you would give high marks for everything except the bill. Somehow five of us managed $60 for bottled water and a less than astonishing Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir for $150.
Score: 15/20, otherwise 13.5/20

Academy Sofitel

Sofitel has a secret.
Buried in the basement is a huge kitchen at which 16 apprentice chefs hone their skills under the guiding hand of Chef de Cuisine Lea Atkinson. Wednesday and Thursday they open to the public for lunch and dinner cooked by the trainees, who work four days a week in Melbourne restaurants and one day each week here. For $30 they provide a three course meal, choice of one of three entrée’s, mains and desserts. They have a one page inexpensive and very reasonable wine list, mostly available by the glass for about $7.50. Seating about 50 patrons the tables of various sizes are well spaced and comfortable, set with white linen and good quality cutlery and glassware. A kitchen table, with a TV screen overhead, seats 12. Timothy Squires, currently working at Gingerboy, was in charge in the kitchen the day we ate there.

So how was it.

Frankly it was excellent.

From the seaweed, sesame seed, dashi sea salt to season the bread rolls to the final cheese plate we both loved it. Sandra started with a Jerusalem artichoke soup with a velvety, rich, creamy texture garnished with slightly sweet artichoke chips.
Its fine taste was enhanced by the great feeling in the mouth. It’s a personal thing but this was as good as it gets. My kangaroo carpachio with lemon aoli and a zesty petit herb salad was another fine entrée.
This low fat meat is ideal served raw with greens. A tempura smoked eel entrée was also on the menu.
It looked appealing and I was assured it tasted as good as it looked.

We both loved the crispy skin beautifully spiced pan fried red duck beast with wok tossed bok choy, spiced plum jus on a hot and sour salad. It was a little chewy and may have benefited from a little more rest before being served but it was a well balanced course that would be appreciated at Ezards or, indeed, any first class restauant.

There is also a vegetarian option, pureed polenta with sauteed wild mushrooms, and tatsoi salad. A third offering, which I would have loved to have had, was venison tenderloins with caramelized onions, mushrooms andred wine jus.

A small cheese platter
served with water biscuits and lavosh bread

had four local cheeses. Two particularly stood out a triple cream brie and the Jindi blue that beat all contenders to take out the worlds best blue in Canada last year. This beautifully balanced cheese made for a fine end to the meal.

Desserts included a chocolate fondant with white chocolate strawberries and a berry coulis, and a five spice panacotta, poached apple and star anise caramel
which should have been sweeter.

Prepared by the apprentices and served by students of the Academy Sofitel our lunch was extremely good and would have been fair value at a 50% higher fee. It was a culinary pleasure to experience the cooking of these apprentices.We happily recommend it.

Score: 14.5/20

S.Pelligrino and the World's Top 50 Restaurants

In their press release S.Pellegrino tell us that over the past nine years their awards have produced the most credible guide to the best places to eat on earth.
A restaurant’s ranking is decided purely on the votes of a large panel of well respected international judges collectively called the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy. The Academy comprises of over 800 international chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and restaurant critics.

If the their assessment of the world’s top restaurants is to be believed the best restaurant in Melbourne by a long way is Attica which ranks 73 in the world! Indeed there is no other Melbourne restaurant in the top 100. Evidently Jaques Reymond, Vue de Monde, Taxi, Rockpool and the rest of the high flyers here are not all that good after all. In trying to understand how these food critics have judged restaurants it seems that there is a strong emphasis on invention at the top end. Certainly it is a key feature of Noma, the new number one, of El Bulli, now number two, which is closing for good at the end of this year and The Fat Duck which has slipped one place to number three. A few other things which distinguish the best restaurants seem to be the ability of their executive chefs to publicize themselves, their respect for fresh local ingredients and their philosophies. They are prominent at international food and wine festivals, they are frequently seen on TV and they have well publicized cookbooks. I might add it is a challenge to prepare dishes from some of them like Tetsuya’s. Tetsuya has fallen 21 places to number 38 with Quay being rated 27 – Australia’s highest. Marque, the only other Australian restaurant to get a mention, gets in at 67.

It would be only fair to tell us just what the make up is of the marking system. Is there any form to it at all or is it just how the judges happened to feel on the occasion when they ate there. Is it one person’s opinion? What is the minimum number of visits? Can a wonderful restaurant make the top rank if only eight of the judges put in a rating or does it take a bigger percentage of the 800 to get there? Furthermore at how many of the other supposedly excellent restaurants in the country did they dine? Do they start at 100 and take marks off for faults in service, décor, ambience, presentation, taste consistency, matching of ingredients and dishes, the wine list, the view, restaurant design, space and noise? Or do they have a system of marking weighted for different aspects of the dining experience or does each judge make up his/her mind by their own system. When the final marks are discussed do the strong personalities dominate or is there a secret ballot. Is there any account of potential biases?

There are only three restaurants in the whole of South America, the first at number 18, D.O.M. in Brazil, Biko, at 46 and Pujol at 72 both in Mexico. Argentina, Peru and the rest of South America and many other countries don't get a mention. Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics are no place for gourmands.

I'd like to know a lot more about the judges, their relationship to each other and the marking system before giving them the sort of credibility they give themselves.

These ratings have to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

Score: 12/20

Bratwurst Rosleiin (Regensberg) 12/09

Looking through some pics from our recent over seas trip I noticed that there are quite a few places we did not get to writing about. They included a revisit to Le Bec Fin and Stella and an exceptional lunch at Lacroix as well as this popular Regensberg cafe beer house that seats 600!
There is a photo here that we just had to share.
Yes, that's the daily paper framed up there!

Hu Tong (Prahran 02/10

It surprised me that readers in a survey we did claimed to be little influenced by restaurant reviews. We are certainly inclined to avoid places that get bad reviews and want to go to those that reviewers favour. Without John Lethleans’ very positive remarks about Hu Tong I doubt we would have ever gone there. It’s a dim sum specialty Chinese restaurant, they also have a a la carte menu, opposite the Prahran Market on Commercial Rd. It occupies a very attractive space on the ground floor of the very new and very modern Cullen hotel. It is bright and open

with large glass windows facing an open entrance passageway and the street. They have two sessions for Sunday and we came, as requested, at 11.30 for the first sitting. It took some time before any food became available. It was presented by waiters moving about with trays of the usual things served at Yum Cha. Service was, to put it mildly, erratic. Requests were forgotten, they presented the same thing several times at some tables and missed other. Food was well prepared, the pastry for the steamed sea food dumplings finer than most but the Shanghai pork dumplings, large portion, which we had to order and waited over 40 minutes for was thicker and coarser than usual. The dumpling did contain a mouth wateringly flavour full soup encouraging us to eat more than we originally intended. Some of the other dumplings also had a heavy pastry. Another highly recommended dish was their tofu.
This silken loaf, bathed in a dark sauce had a velvety smooth texture delighted any tofu lover.We also tried several other very ordinary dishes. Drunken chicken cooked in rice wine,
battered crispy calamari
and large, very crisp Bankers purses
added nothing special to the lunch.Undeterred we kept trying more dishes. Scallops in a bread batter,

pot stickers and more steamed food.

Only a foodaholic would order another dish after that dinner so of course we did. Here it is. Can anyone guess what this dish was?

Comments: Everything was done wel, indeed very well,l but there was a lack of inspiration in the food. The variety was limited in that there were no offal dishes at all. No chicken feet or duck web,or duck tongue, no tripe, indeed nothing from inside an animal. A very pleasant venue but rarely rising above the very ordinary.

Score:13.75 /20

Brandon Hotel (Carlton Nth) 03/10

The distinction between various establishments serving both alcoholic beverages and food is somewhat blurred today. Pubs (an abbreviation of Public House), Taverns, Inns, Hotels, restaurants and gastropubs all may serve food and alcohol. They cannot be distinguished on criteria of level of service, elegance of facilities, range of foods or distinction of cooking. Some pub restaurants serve better food have better appearance and provide better service than some restaurants. Indeed we find that some 'gastropubs', which endeavour to serve better quality food, are better than most restaurants.

The Brandon Hotel falls into this category. Whilst the service might be a little amateurish, (To the question "Do you have a dessert menu?" the response was "Yes I will bring it out when the time comes") the place is attractive and the food excellent. It has a slightly old fashioned look with 50's style chairs.
Tables have white linen clothes and napkins and good weight cutlery.

There are a variety of starters including a vegetarian option, oysters, with lime and sherry. or salmon. Mains also include a vegetarian dish, fish or chicken as well as slow cooked lamb neck and steaks. Sides of Heirloom tomatoes, crushed Kipfler potaoes or green beans with fetta are all $8.

We began with a starter of free range pork with Yarra Valley pickled pear and crispy pigs ear ($15) Chef Nigel Cunningham, late of the award winning Healesville Hotel, started here a couple of months ago. He has introduced a lot of very good Yarra Valley products and wines. The thought of pigs ear might be off putting but it was similar to something between crispy bacon and crackling. The pork, a nice size piece of pork belly was superb and the colourful sweet poached pear a very good accompaniment. The boneless quail wrapped in prosciutto with white bean puree, roasted hazelnuts and Cafe de Paris butter ($16)
was a tasteful and tasty presentation and the bean puree excellent. For mains I had the special 120 day grain fed beef steak
and Sandra the char grilled 31 day dry aged grass fed Gippsland Black Angus beef with roasted bone marrow, gratin of colcannon potato and parsley with a caper and red onion salad ($36). Both steaks were cooked as requested and were reasonably tender. There was a distinct difference in the taste of the grass fed meat and the grain fed beef but I could not say I had a taste of fresh mown grass!

There is a small choice of desserts or a cheese platter. We had a Kennedy and Wilson chocolate brownie with Alexandria cherries poached in Pedro Ximenez sherry with a dollop of cream ($16).
This was a great end to the meal for a lover of sweet things, Coffee was served with chockies.

They have a fair range of wines - there are over four dozen on their list, mostly Australian, with half a dozen reds or whites by the glass and half a dozen fortified and dessert wines. The prices are extremely reasonable running from $22 for an 08 Rothbury Estate sav. blanc to $550 for an 01 Penfolds Grange. This turned out to be a very good meal at a reasonable cost.

We are happy to recommend the Brandon.

Score:14.25 /20