Hursey's (Stanley - North West Tasmania) 02/2018

Tasmania is full of incredible scenery and gorgeous little 'villages' or towns mostly very close to the coast and offering outstanding sea and bush views. 

 

 They also have lots of history and many have plaques in front of some of their more important old buildings.

Stanley is one of those places. 
Thirty years ago the Hursey family, whose fleet fished the west coast of Tasmania, chose to set up a retail fishmongers and a cafe here. After a $1.5 million refurbishment including a second floor the restaurant now seats 100 and seems to be thriving. 

The entry foyer contains large tanks for live fish and lobsters and information about the life cycle of rock lobsters and of some of the fish they serve.

and has a take away food area and fish bar called Kermie's. 

Upstairs, there is also a small lift, there's a small comfortable lounge area 

and the restaurant proper in a large light high ceilinged room 

with views over the wharf

 and water.

A very short walk brings you to the water's edge, 

an aquarium and s heap of lobster pots past their use by date.

Tables, chairs, glassware and crockery are simple and unostentatious.

Decor is also simple with menu information both in hard copy and around the walls.

Lobsters are available, natural, with garlic butter or Mornay. Sashimi too but they need 48 hours notice.

The home made Mornay sauce is excellent and more impressive than the garlic and butter.
For the rest it is a better class of fish restaurant.
 Comments Score: 13.75/20

Kobe Jones (Docklands - Melbourne) 01/2018

This riverside Japanese restaurant 

is split between a Teppanyakii room and a separate room  where there are both several degustations and an a la carte menus available. 
We had no hesitation choosing "Perfect for 2" $115, with matched wines, $155, which were very generously provided.

2013 Hand picked Moscato D'AstiVallebelbo Italy

Number one Special Crab salad stuffed with avocado, then wrapped in kingfish and baked with Kobe Jones secret sauce.

Dragon Egg Tuna tartare sushi mixed with chipotle mayonaiseon a shiso leaf, topped with avocado and finished with ponzu sauce.

Waghu Tenderloin Tataki seared and chilled served with garlic, ginger and ponzu sauce.

Lovers Sashimi scallop and tuna roses finished at the table with yuzu spray and freshly shucked oysters with wasabi granita.

Salmon Moyashi Hand Roll glazed salmon moyashi, hand rolled in nori, topped with crispy salmon skin and fume sauce.
2016 Kirnhill Reisling, Clare Valley. SA.

Alaskan crab salad poached Alaskan crab meat mixed through a daicon and radish salad, dressed with sesame dressing.

Wafu Pork Pillow Japanese braised pork steamed in a light bun with cucumber and kewpie salad and a togorashi sprinkle.

2015 Fishbone Rose, Margaret River WA

Miso Citrus Lobster giant lobster tail (approx 350 gm), lightly cooked in a wafu thermidor sauce, drizzled with miso citrus and served with steamed vegetables.

Dessert was an odd collection of cheese cakes, a chocolate chop stick and a brulee with the top burnt at the table, which was a bit of fun.

Potentially an excellent Japanese restaurant KJ doesn't quite hit the mark. Service is rather quick and impersonal, whilst the setting is brilliant the place looks tired. Crockery and glassware are mundane and the dishes we ate, despite their fancy descriptions, and their attractive appearance, were not exciting. Except for the lobster, which was tough and stringy, the nori, which was hard and dry, and the dessert, which looked good but wasn't, everything else was quite good but not star quality.

It was also dissapointing that there was not one Japanese wine or saki included with the matched wines!

Score: 13.75/20

Hanging plants adorn the ceiling.

Doot Doot Doot (Merricks North - Mornington Peninsula) 01/2018

 This contemporary Australian restaurant is part of the Jackalope hotel, described in it's blurb as a "delicate interplay between the ideal and the surreal, delivered through boldly curated installations and collaborations with some of the world's principal designers." It is something quite special which is why they can charge $650 + per night. That does include breakfast!

They have two restaurants, The Rare Hare, a wine bar shared plate venue and Doot Doot Doot which is upmarket dining. 

This continues the designer theme with a 10,000 globe chandelier which represents fermenting fluid,  you can almost feel the bubbles,

only upside down. 

It took a week to put the globes in and only a small proportion of them are alight at any one time. They brighten and dim to add to that bubbllng atmosphere. It's hard to capture this with a small camera but a look at their web site will show something of its magnificence

 It is a dark space otherwise with contemporary black furniture and some tables barely large enough for two plates.

The menu here changes so often, every few days they tell us, that it's not worth expanding too much on particular dishes. It's a six course set menu with extras, oysters, cheese plate, if you like. You can have matched wines, or juices.

We started with Port Douglas oysters ($5) which were as good as they get, exceptionally tasty.

Vegetables 3.0

Not much to see but they tasted good

They go in for unintelligible , or at least incomprehendible, descriptions of the wines with these dishes

A Tasmanian treasure blending three unlikely grapes.

Spanner  Crab, Potato, Furikake, 

I got no instructions about eating the rather hardy leaf so I didn't try but the rest of it was a go to dish.

Bottatarga - Japanese grapes? A treat from high up in the mountains.

Evidently they have been growing grapes in Japan for centuries, and making wine. Duck, Strawberry, Rye

Cloudy rose wine from the border of Hungary and Austria

The last wine this legend made, his son is carrying on the family business.

The menu gave us a choice.

Beef XO

Barramundi, Pickles, Vermouthor

Sandra chose the fish - I should have too.

A serve of cheese.

Followed by a surprise, sweet as sugar black plum with an almond  (amoretto) filling.

And then dessert. 

Chocolate Cherries

And a classic Mclaren Vale Aussie blend.

A 10 year old Madeira which I enjoyed, but Sandra did not so they kindly gave her a Vouvray.

They do have an extremely interesting wine menu, prettily presented,

and it is not excessively marked up compared to some of their neighbours. They are also generous with the matched wines giving about 120 ml for each serve.

Comments A very sophisticated meal in a very sophisticated setting. Zalto glassware, the best you can get, and Leon cutlery all add to the total experience.

Score:17.5/20

Point Leo Restaurant, (Point Leo Estate - Merricks) 01/2018

When someone spends $50 million on a sculpture park, an winery and an architect designed modern restaurant and then engages a bevy of chefs with pedigrees that include Rockpool in Sydney, Attica in Melbourne and other excellent restaurants you must expect something pretty special. That is what John Gandel, of shopping centre fame, has done at Point Leo Estate, some 85 Km out of Melbourne.
From the outside the place is gorgeous with a stunning entrance leading into an attractive 110 seat restaurant. 
After passing reception, and an impressive sculpture, (This pic is from their website), 

seating is arranged around a curved venue with floor to ceiling glass walls looking out over a sculpture garden featuring over 50 works by modern Australian and International artists.

The room itself is attractive 

although the bare wood tables do not suggest fine dining. At present it is also very popular so it's always crowded and noisy. 
We started with a Goat cheese tart ($19). The menu is set out as "To Start" basically small dishes from $5 to $9.5, "Entrees"  $19 "Pasta" (only one) $26 Mains" $36 to $49 and "Sides" $9 to $15.
This was very mild and  rather characterless.

We followed this sharing the pasta dish.

 This looked a bit meagre. Three small smoked Flinders mussels for each of us on a bed of hand cut al dente linguini. There was so little sauce that the spoon provided proved totally unnecessary. There was a lemony tasting succulent in the dish which did not appeal to me but Sandra loved the whole dish. She felt the thick sauce enriched the dish.
Our next course, Tempura whiting with eggplant, smoked fennel and cashews. ($36)

was a very good size serve. The batter was excellent though it still had a lot of fat in it. The smoked fennel was a nice addition though the smoke was not obvious to me. What made it really good was the combination of the fish with the eggplant which almost melted in the mouth and cut down the fat in the batter.
The side of shoe string chips ($9) 

came with no mayo, aioli or tomato sauce. When requested it took so long to come it was barely needed.
Our last course, pork belly with glace citrus and nettle gremolata, ($37)

was another extremely good dish, imaginative and technically excellent. The small squares of glace citrus was brilliant - looked good, tasted good and blended well with the pork. A great advance on apple sauce. Although I got little taste from the nettles the gremolata garnish it did help keep the dish more moist and palatable.
A glass of 2016 Point Leo Shiraz was extravagantly expensive at $18. Twelve dollars would have been reasonable.
We were too full for cheese or desserts.
On the negative side it's noisy +, it's expensive and the service is slow and the tables reminiscent of a cafeteria. On the positive side the cutlery and glassware are excellent, the food is very interesting, locally sourced, super fresh, cooked with imagination, in unusual combinations and nicely presented combined. Lastly, service was very friendly.
Score: 15/20
For more information about the sculptures go to the Pt. Leo Sculpture app.