Attica (Ripponlea) 11/2013

* Click on the pic's if you want to enlarge them.
Sometimes it seems that some of us are completely out of step with the rest of the army of Melbourne restaurant patrons. There is a lot of subtle pressure to get right back into step quickly, before too many people notice but we're prepared to resist the temptation to conform. 
Despite my irritation at having been compelled to pay a 10% gratuity last time I was at Attica a few weeks ago we decided to try it once more. Many dishes were the same and some of them have been on the menu for years. There were a number of small dishes before the eight course tasting menu ($180 per person) began. Two of these were old timers, the walnut purée which is delightful, served in the walnut shells and decorated with tiny flowers,
 
and the crumbed fried mussels served on a plate decorated with a hand painted muscle shell, which looks much better on the plate than this pic suggests. Apart from the shell this is very ordinary.

A bunch of edible leaves was greatly enhanced by a corn purée which was so good it did not really need the leaves.

Another taste delight was produced with, what I presumed was a pickled, Jerusalem artichoke.

Snow crab and Sorrell was the first course of the main meal. The crab meat was delicate and sweet under the sorrel leaves. A simple but very nice dish.

Meat from the Pearl Oyster is another product which was on the menu last year. It is a chewy textured meat, actually slices of the muscle with which the oyster closes its shell. It is reminiscent of abalone and most notable because it is so unusual.

Marron and ground greens was a very simple dish. Lightly cooked fresh marrons are always a delicacy and need only the lightest of saurces, even butter alone, to make them memorable. Of course, if you can get the product, this hardly displays the finest of chefs skills.

A simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown has been a signature dish of Attica for many years now. It is a great dish the first time you have it and a very good dish for quite a while after that but eventually I feel it should be replaced.

Cucumber, Holy flax, sauce of Burnet is a dish that I have not had before. It is nicely presented flavoursome and shows nice variety it tastes colour and texture. For all that it still seemed to lack some finesse.

Wallaby with herbs tended by the hands of our cooks seems a little odd since presumably everything on the menu has been tended by the hands of their cooks. This was served with a quandong fruit and a bunch of green leaves and small flowers which, to me, tasted a little like eating grass. As Sandra is reluctant to eat Skippy she was given a lamb dish. With my eyes closed I could not really tell the difference between these two meats although ordinarily I find lamb to have a most distinctive taste.

Blueberries, vinegar and a fresh cheese was a colourful presentation with a mass of white chrysanthemum leaves. This was quite an interesting and origional desert and I liked it but if it was on a regular desert menu I doubt that I would order it.
 
The final offering, raw strawberry jam was very sweet and acidic, I could not finish it.

At one point during the meal we were invited to visit the herb garden at the back of the restaurant. There chef Ben's Shewry was serving licorice ice cream which he dipped in chocolate and crushed rasberries. This was accompanied by a glass of cider which had been spiced and seasoned. It was a nice opportunity to talk about the restaurant which is now so very popular that it is largely booked out for the next three months. This is a remarkable turnaround as they struggled to survive in their early years.
I do not know why it is that I and the people with me felt so dissatisfied with this evening. There was nothing wrong with it and plenty right with it but it failed to ring those bells that chime when one experiences a truly excellent meal. It lacked excitement.
Although the staff did their very best to please the service was quite slow. After I requested the bill I had to wait so long that eventually I took my credit card down to the cash register myself.
 Score:15 /20

Gold Class at The Rivoli (Camberwell) 10/2013

Designed to be the ultimate in comfort for viewing movies these are small theatres seating 32 or 40 patrons. They have seating in paired Jason recliner type lounge chairs. They have a cavity for handbags in the side arm and a large tray for food or drinks between each pair of seats. There is a call button so that waiters can serve during the movies.
There is also a bar and the lounge area with seating where patrons can, in theory, enjoy a meal and drinks before their film starts.
 
We came early so as to relax and have something to eat. The menu is quite limited. We ordered champagne. A piccolo Moet and Chandon was $34 and a glass of the local Moet was $12.Fish and chips, which we ordered was trifling $20 per serve with an additional serve of shoestring chips ($5) which turned out to be rather soft. The fish and chips was very ordinarily and a miserable serve for the price. Two very small battered fillets of fish, I suspect frozen, with a few chips, a wedge of lemon  and a little dipping sauce would have been reasonable at half the price or a bit less. 
 
 Any pub would be far superior to this.
Whilst there were plenty of waiters the service was quite slow. They originally mistook our order and had to prepare a second serve. I had to smile to myself when the waiter said that "chef" would cook another one. If there is a distinction between a chef and a cook I felt it should have been applied here if anywhere.
The theatre itself is a pleasure BUT if you are going to Gold class I would strongly recommend that you eat before you get to the theatre. I hesitate to give it a mark, it would not reach double figures!

Champion's Grill (Clayton) 10/2013

 
 
After reading about this remarkable place at which, almost legless, former Vue de Monde sous chef Clinton McIver has taken the reins we booked asap. 

Just as well, next day Nina Rousseau gave it such a great rap in Epicure that getting a table on a Saturday night has become almost impossible. 
McIver has taken a movement which began gradually as top chef's  began to expand into pubs developing the gastro-pub, bringing modern French influenced cuisine to a most basic cafeteria style venue. This schizophrenic endeavour deserves a new name. Something like HiLow dining!
This place is a bowls club with a restaurant facing on to the bowling green.  

It's plain, pleasant and utilitarian. 
Of course we came for the food. 
They have five course degustation menu for $50 on Saturday night. On week nights a more traditional menu is divided into Smaller, ($14)  Bigger, ($25) Meaty ($29-$49) and Sweeter ($9).
The menu looked quite attractive. Dishes such as Spanish Iberica Ham, organic hen's egg, smoked almond and salt and pepper soft shell crab, sweet herbs, kimchi Mayo looked especially interesting.
Among the bigger dishes free range pork cheek glazed and pickled pear, mustard oil and Spring Lamb muesli bar raisin purée Ortiz anchovy, which also appears on the degustation menu, seemed attractive. There were a variety of steaks and the desserts also looked appealing but we were here for the degustation menu.

Spanner crab, charred corn juice, créam fraiche was a very simple first course of not great distinction it was a tasty nibble. 

 This was followed by another very small course Auschovy chicken wing, Mizo oil. Auschovy actually referred to anchovies of Australian origin. This was also a tasty dish with nice variety of textures however it was also only a couple of bites.

Flinders Island the lamb, "muesli bar" and Ortiz anchovies was quite unusual and I could have done with a much bigger serve. The anchovies were represented by two tiny bits of anchovy.

Peppered steak with smoked and dried blueberry was the last main course. It was a lovely piece of meat and the smokiness of the blueberry carried across and accompanied by a baby leek. This was another nice dish but somehow lacked any thing to make it truly outstanding.


Deserts of toasted lemon curd, yoghurt sorbet, ash meringue was distinguished mostly by its sweetness.

Sandra was feeling quite unwell and could not eat anything. As a result I ended up eating all of her meal as well as my own. At the end of this I was only just satisfied and would have been on the way to McDonald's with out the extra courses!
For some reason they have a policy of no bread on Saturday which I think is a sad mistake.
Service was exceptionally amateurish although very willing and as helpful as possible. Our first waiter, Tony, was there for the first time but he has worked at other clubs. He was unable to answer any question without referring to the kitchen. He poured our bottle of wine without giving us the opportunity to first taste it. It happened to be very pleasant. A Heathcote Shiraz ($48). They have a small, inexpensive list of quite presentable wines.
In all it is distinguished by above average food at very reasonable prices, although the serves are too small, in a plain venue with no pretensions.
Score: 13.75/20
Clinton with his partner Eli

Pei Modern (Melbourne CBD) 09/2013

This relatively newcomer to the restaurant scene has a fine reputation after being selected by The Age Good Food Guide as the best new restaurant last year.
It's a big place with a large area for outside dining in the forecourt of the Sofitel on Collins St. 

They have a large basically decorated bar. The inside dining area is austere with white unclothed tables, and  good quality very comfortable white plastic chairs.

 Lighting, which is dim, is supplied by attractive simple overhead lamps.

The place is very open and very noisy. 
The menu is quite small but includes meat, fish and poultry. The dessert menu was particularly unusual and interesting. Pries are on the high side of average. They have a very modest range of beers wines by the glass or carafe. House made sordough bread was very moorish. Our waitress told us that their business manager said they should stop making it but we were glad they ignored the advice!
I love sweetbreads but rarely see them on the menu so I was happy to have the lamb sweetbreads for entree. It was a very good dish served with well cooked carrot and and what I took to be a white radish in a tasty vadouvan sauce the crumbed sweetbreads were excellent.

Sandra's chicken livers served with smoked pui lentils , onion and rocket were also in a pleasing sauce and were cooked excellently, just beyond rare. The lentils were exceptional.

For mains I chose the Hanger steak which was served with beetroot two ways, boiled as usual and strips of pickled beetroot, onion and caramelized youghurt. Cooked rare the steak was surprisingly tender, in a little light sauce and the beet a very good accompaniment.
 
Sandra chose John Dory was delicate with mushroom anda light dashi consomme. With a bit more broth it might have been a fish soup, and a very tasty one at that.

Two side dishes were also extremely good. Unpeeled chips were crisp and nicely seasoned. They were further improved with some aoli we requested as a dipping sauce.

A serve of brussel sprouts was also excellent. the outer leaves had been stripped off and fried until crisp giving the dish additional taste and crunchy texture.


Desserts were unusual and unusually good.
A sauterne custard, unique in my experience, was very light with that special flavour of sauterne, covered with a sweet sauce and accompanied by crostolii. It reminded us of the sauterne apple jelly that Tetsuya produced many years ago.

A candied brioche with Valrhona chocolate and cognac cream was also quite excellent. The brioche, sweet and moist, the chocolate dark and bitter and the cream fluffy and lightly flavoured all combined to make an apparently simple but fine display of technical skill that tasted great.

The whole meal was distinguished by a simplicity the obscured the excellent quality of the design of the dishes and the excellence of their preparation. Flavours and textures were varied and well matched. They were deceptively good, indeed very good.
The cafeteria style furnishing, the rather slow service and the noise were negatives but it was a very fine meal. 

Score:15 /20

Munch Time

 *Click on the pic to enlarge it
 Something for the pizza loving chocoholic!



 

Quaff (Toorak) 09/2013

Quaff: to drink copiously and with hearty enjoyment.   (The FreeDictionary)

It is strange how words, having more or less the same literal meaning, have such different effects. Quaff, a bistro style cafe/ bar/restaurant, at 436 Toorak Rd could have been called Scoll and that would be OK but try Slurp or Belt Down and it drops a level or two.
 I had a brief experience of their food yesterday.
It's a pleasant place with pleasant staff. Tables are double linen clothed and comfortable size.

Walls are decorated with plaques
 
 and there is a well stocked bar.

I had only two courses. A serve of smoked salmon with rocket on a bed of polenta which was good although rather pedestrian and hardly demonstrated any serious cooking skills.

For mains I had crispy skin barramundi on mashed potato. I requested that the fish be 'seriously' undercooked which I was promised would be achievable - it wasn't! For most people this was a very nicely, not overcooked filet, quite moist and flavoursome but it was not what I asked for. The crispy skin was perfect.

Twice cooked chicken was also on the menu . Again this was a good but rather ordinary dish.

In all a decent suburban eatery, average prices, pleasant in every way but without distinction.

 Score:13.25 /20

Chatter 51 Tipping Point

The Oxford dictionary provides this definition of tipping point:
 
the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.
 
A few weeks ago we came across something new to us in Australian restaurants. A compulsory gratuity. Perhaps it was not really compulsory but that was the way it was presented to us. For parties of seven or more a 10% gratuity is added to the bill. This applies both to the food and the wine. My wife was ill and we cancelled during the afternoon. They not only charged me $100 for the no show but also charged an extra 10% gratuity!
At the end of the meal we forgot that we had already paid an extra 10% and left additional tips. One of the party had, inadvertently left $50 cash on the table! On discovering this 'double dip' she was very put out.
I thought about this for some time and spoke to a lot of people about it. No one thought this a reasonable practice for restaurants in Australia. Some thought it so unreasonable that they declared they would not go there. 
It certainly left me with a bad taste after what should have been an excellent meal not only for myself but also everyone else involved. Even my wife was furious.
I commonly give tips of about 10% in Australia and about 20% in America where the whole waiter pay structure is awful. I don't give tips to display my generosity, to big note myself or to make myself feel good. I do it because I'm pleased with the service and how I've been treated. That is something which happens at the end of a meal not before it starts.
The more I think about it the more I resent it. I see no reason why waiters should share $100's, perhaps $1000's each week from customers who may not have wished to give it to them. Why levy this extra fee only on parties of seven or more? It certainly is not harder to serve one table of seven than three tables of two, two and three, especially for a set menu.
Attica it's time to change your policy.