Malamay Barton, Wednesday 20 June 2012

Tofu Ricotta balls

Prawns and noodles

Smoked Chicken

70/70 egg with blossom prawn confit

slow cooked eggplant

Beef

Waygu beef and risotto

Scallop and enoki mushrooms

Black sesame icecream and ginger cake

WINE

Courabyra (2001) '805' Sparkling Tumbarumba NSW
Penfolds Bin 389 1993 Cabernet Shiraz

FOOD:

We decided to go back to Malamay because we liked it so much the first time, and Karen hadn't been there and it was her birthday after all.  All six of us were able to come, no excuses were made.

Malamay is one of those restaurants which offer only degustation, either full menu (7 courses? we lost count) for $88 or $66.50 for five courses.

We started with the "Scallops with Mussels flavoured Bean Paste and Enoki Mushrooms" one lonely scallop on a bed of deep fried mushrooms with a tiny dollop of bean paste on top.  Absolutely lovely, light and plain, delicate a good starter.  I thought that there needed to be more of the bean paste but Jim and John thought there was enough.

Tofu ricotta with Chillied Mushroom Relish.  My absolute favourite, I adore anything with tofu.  This came as a crunchy ball on a bed of the mushrooms, a bit bland, it needed the strong chilli to lift it.  It was a superb combination, the lightness of the tofu and the strong flavour of the relish, they had done the balance really well. 

3 Chilli relish and bonito marinated prawns on hand made noodles.  Ron said that the explosions of flavour from the relish got richer and deeper, with a very strong aftertaste.  A more conventional dish though, we felt that they weren't really experimenting with this one.

Double smoked Spring Chicken with Fennel Salad. The chicken was a bit plain, with the smoked flavour coming right through, but it needed something else other that a fennel salad to go with it, perhaps paw paw or green mango?  The texture of the chicken was good, not tough at all.

Pan fried Beef cake: This was minced beef in a pastry case with a bit of kimchi on the top and a mustard sauce underneath.  Ultimately it was just a beef patty, very different in style to the other dishes.  With its heavy pastry it turned out to be a very filling, heavier course.

Slow cooked eggplant:  Basically a big lump of eggplant baked with a topping of sesame seeds and a paste made from black beans, sesame paste and a dried seaweed miso.  I usually like eggplant (love eggplant) but found that the big lump was quite unappealing.  The topping was nice though.  I gave most of it to Ron (who spent most of the night texting...).

Sous vide Wagyu Beef flank with king mushrooms.  I thought it was lovely and tender, great flavour, particularly of the white pepper (we think).  But Karen said her piece was a bit chewy (it was), not as nice as the equivalent dish in the Lantern Room.  Andrew thought it was very nice but the pepper was a bit much for Ron

Dessert: black sesame icecream, coated in sesame seeds with a ginger sort of cake thing on the side.  Brilliant!!! Absolutely yum, great finish to a meal, I had been full but managed to fit all of it in.

Great meal all in all, not all the dishes were perfect but heck you can't expect perfection all the time.  The no choices degustation is a great idea, saves arguments, decision making and lets them concentrate on doing a few dishes really well.  The menu had changed since we visited in March, there were only  a few dishes which were the same, (the prawns, the meat) so it interesting to taste the new ones, see what directions they were heading in.  They seemed to be moving away from the szechwan to include Korean and Japanese ingredients.  It would be interesting to go back in a few months and track further changes.

Soju Girl Wednesday 6th June 2012

Smoked Trout betel leaf

Kingfish

Stuffed eggplant

Soft shell crab

Prawns

pork

Fish

Duck curry

peanut butter icecream caramel sauce

sticky black rice

WINE

La Zona, Chrismont of King Valley Pino Grigio 2012
Wynn's Coonawarra Estate Connawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 1992 (surely Jim must have exhausted his cellar by now!)

FOOD

We were trying to figure out why we had not been to Soju Girl before and couldn't quite remember why, and this has been our loss because Soju Girl serves just the kind of Asian food we like.

The place is very trendy, very hip, very dark, lots of young people, lots of noise, loud music.  Parking in Civic was hellishly difficult, but are we just spoilt in Canberra?

There was a long long wait in between entree and main courses, but to make up for that the food was just divine.

We decided that the entrees/small plates looked interesting, so ordered 5 of those between the five of us (Andrew had something else interesting to do that night which had something to do with the Transit of Venus which had happened that morning) and only 2 mains.

The smoked trout, betel leaf, coconut and chilli relish set the tone for the evening, very different, fresh, crunchy refreshing, with a lovely lime flavour coming through and we even ate the betel leaf  (was that supposed to do something for us, I'm not sure?)
 =
The king fish, which was described as "tiradib of kingfish, yuzu, white soy and ginger lime radish" was voted the winner for the night, extra ordinary lime flavour, very delicate with the marinate going right through it.  Ron rated it "wow" 11 out of 10.

The soft shell crab with shredded green paw paw and basil was another winner (3 in a row!), deep fried to perfection, magnificent.

The prawns were a bit fiddly, a bit of a disappointment compared to the other dishes, but the pork stuffed eggplant with candied seeds and spicy miso made up for it.  It was basically boats of eggplant with filling and fried basil on top, in a rich sauce, beautiful flavour.

But the pork was a bit boring, fried pieces of pork, nicely done, but that was about it.

The main dishes, the fish and the duck both had spectacular presentation.  The fish was standing on it's side (very cool way of presenting it) had a fabulous coriander flavour, delicate chilli jam and coconut flavour which complimented the delicate flavour of the fish

The duck when we went to eat it, was nice but not exceptional, not much different from any duck curry in any Thai restaurant.
 Now the desserts, yum, I"m still dreaming about the peanut butter icecream, chocolate fondant and salted caramel sauce.  Peanut butter icecream must be this month's flavour because I had just that dessert at the Ginger Room.  I"m not sure which one was better, this was an absolute treat.

Ron had the Black sticky rice, banana jam and roast banana foam which he promptly photographed and put on his facebook so that all his friends could make comments, but we think that secretly he wished he had ordered the peanut butter icecream.  What's to bet that he will go back there and order it some time in the next week.

 What fabulous food, this will definitely be on our list of repeats

Ginger Room Wednesday 23 May

Appetiser

Dumplings and peanut salad

Blue Cheese mouse and beetroot salad

Pork belly

Salt and Pepper prawns

Lentils and asparagus

Smoked duck

Kangaroo

Peanut butter icecream

ganache tart

We went to the Ginger Room (Old Parliament House) because it was Ron's birthday and he wanted to spoil himself, or whatever.  Karen unfortunately couldn't come, she and Jim had some very complicated child transporting arrangements to deal with.

WINE
Croser Petaluma Non Vintage Chardonnay Pinot, Jim assumed from the Adelaide Hills
Rockford Rifle Range Cabernet Sauvignon Barossa 2008: this wine is apparently hard to find, one needs to be on their "list" to get an allocation, so Jim was impressed with this.

We decided not to have the degustation, it did not appeal to us, so we had the 4 course meal instead, $79.

A little appetizer appeared, a little piece of beef fillet done in an asian marinade on a spoon, just delightful.

First course:
A few of us had the Fried Ginger, minted broad bean peanut salad, smoked tomato and basil dumplings.  The dumplings were really fried won tons with a tomato salsa inside, the nuts and broad beans were an interesting, crunchy combination.
John had the tarago shadows of blue mousse etc which he said had a very subtle flavour.

Second course
Jim had the salt and pepper prawns which surprised him a bit because he was expecting something with an asian flavour but it tasted nice anyway.  I had the five spiced lentils asparagus etc.  I felt that the lentils overwhelmed the rest of the dish, it was not particularly delicate, but nice otherwise, in a wholesome kind of way.
Ron (guts) had the pork belly for seconds.  Magnificent, nice and tender with a lovely blackberry sauces, sharp and full of flavour, really, really good.

Third course
We lost the plot a bit after this, most of us had the duck, lightly done with the smokey flavour coming through.  I think Andrew had the kangaroo.

Dessert
We revived a bit when dessert appeared, the peanut butter icecream was absolutely to die for, just worth going to Ginger Room for that alone.

So what did we think of the meal?  I"d been there a few months before and been disappointed with the small sizes of the entree and fish courses.  This time I was a little overwhelmed by the size of the portions, maybe someone had complained.

The Ginger Room is reliable, food good, not quite outstanding like say Sage is.  Maybe the boys won't agree with me, maybe I have been there too many times.  On the Wednesday night there weren't many other tables filled, so maybe it is going off a bit and people are finding out.

The ambience is lovely, refined dining room, beautiful panelling on the walls and ceiling, well placed tables, white table cloths, not too noisy.  I'd go back there.

Menu 

2 courses $59 3 courses $69 4 courses $79 5 courses $89

Vegetables

• fried ginger, minted broad bean peanut salad, smoked tomato and basil dumplings \
• san choy bow, chilli salted bean curd, tea quail egg
• tarago shadows of blue mousse, brioche wafer, quince tarragon beetroot salad
• five spiced lentils, asparagus, goats cheese, candied pecans

fish

• pambula rock oysters,
• mojito sorbet scallop, confit fennel, orange, pistachio,
•  rocket sesame crusted tuna, sake sticky rice, wasabi soy jelly, pickled ginger
• salt and pepper prawns, heirloom tomato, coriander, red nam jim

 meat

•  szechuan pork belly, bok choy, rice noodle, blackberry sauce
•   native pepper kangaroo, fried enoki mushroom, shimeji, macadamia
• cinnamon smoked duck breast, roast pear, watercress, radish, almonds chef's whim



• dessert
•  
• ginger poached pear, nashi, amaretto grapes, grape granita
•  wattle seed dark chocolate ganache tart, blue cheese ice cream, hazelnut toffee
• peanut butter mousse, nougat ice cream, chocolate praline wafer, caramel sauce vanilla marshmallow, lavender crumble, rosewater, black cumin ice cream