I wasn't really looking forward to this, because the last time I went to Ginseng at the Hellenic Club, shortly after it opened, I wasn't really impressed. But, majority rules, so I went with an open mind. And, was pleasantly surprised, the food was excellent, well presented, tasty, genuine (Kim said Cantonese).
Present: Jim, Karen, John, Ron, Kim and myself. Andrew was enjoying himself in some fancy resort in the Philippines as per usual.
Ginseng is not BYO, so we had to buy wine off the wine list. Stonefish 2011 Chardonnay and Stonefish 2010 Shiraz, both well chosen by Jim of course.
The entrees were duck pancakes (as per usual, are we getting too predictable) and Peking beef pancakes. The duck came as big chunks of duck, with spring onion and hoisin. The whole dish worked, the duck was lovely and tender. The beef pancakes were beautiful, quite sweet, maybe too sweet with the shredded honey beef?
Honey pepper beef, tender with a nice hint of pepper
Char kwey tau: voted by Karen to be the best in Canberra
Prawn and scallop lemongrass: intense ginger flavour with lots of snow peas
Chinese broccoli with shitake mushrooms, lots of lovely sauce.
Seafood stuffed eggplant, just divine, voted the best dish of the night.
We also had dessert (well some of us did anyway): lemongrass and coconut pannacotta with a really delicious lemongrass flavour. And chocolate mousse with blue berries, jaffas and chillis, which Jim claimed was Yummy.
John and Ron texting
Jim and Ron who is still texting (oh well, Jim is texting too.)
A good night. One downside was that we had to be signed in to the club, a very complex process with a machine. The restaurant was not crowded or noisy, a real plus. The menu was the same as it was 5 years ago, which is not a bad thing. One other slight downside was that they were a bit tardy in taking away our main course dishes. Not a big deal.
Well worth a repeat visit
No comments:
Post a Comment