Ginseng Manuka 12 August 2015

Present

 
Ron, John, Karen, Jim, Andrew, Kim, Megan
All of us, Yippee.
At the end of a really cold day in Canberra when it was 4 degrees at lunchtime and it snowed in Ron's backyard which he kept on telling us just to skite.  And Jim saw it too but he didn't skite.
Plus another night of politician watching, this time new Speaker Tony Smith, President of the Senate Stephen Parry, Mitch Fyfield (who we always see at China Plate he must be stalking us) and someone else but I've forgotten his name.

Wine: Pelican Point 2014 Semillon Sav Blanc
Katnook Estate Coonawarra Cab Sav 2008 (rather nice)

Mixed Seafood Entree

Scallops, prawn dumplings, soft shell crab, almond prawns, salad

Mains:
Shantung Lamb
wasabi steak
seafood stuffed eggplant
nark duck
bean curd asian veges

 Mixed Entree was a bit mixed in quality.  The scallops were a bit, why bother, just deep fried in batter.  Would have been better grilled with chilli or spice or something.  Prawn dumplings nice, almond prawns okay but could have been crisper and the soft shell crab just okay.  Very hard to do perfectly.  The salad was fabulous though, it broke though all the fried stuff in the rest of the entree, which was a bit much really.

With the mains, the lamb was spectacularly fabulous, beautiful.

Wasabi beef was the pick of the night.  There was not too much wasabi, just enough to give it an astringent taste, it was tender, impressive, fabulous were the words used.
The duck was tender, alright, not spectacular. Some thought it was a bit on the chewy side not crispy enough.

The eggplant was fantastic as always and the beancurd and veges okay, but what we wanted.

Dessert was the lycee pancakes and black rice pud.  Lovely.

Lovely evening, mains were great, entrees not so, but we've had entrees there before that are a lot better so it's all a matter of choosing.  I'd forgotten how noisy Ginseng can be with lots of people, decibels in the 80's (ow!).

Chomolunga Manuka 29 July 2015

Gravel Ridge 2009 Martinborough Pinot Noir

Megan, Jim, John, Ron

King prawn, fried with sauce

Chhoela chicken with garlic, chilli, spices (mustard), puffed rice
goat curry with himalayan spices
diced lamb with spinach and creamy sauce
Chomolunga tarkare with vegetables
soybean and peanut salsa

 Not many of us tonight, so not many choices.

We saw this restaurant in passing the previous fortnight and for want of any other ideas decided to give it a try. Nepalese, why not.  It's tucked away in Palmerston Lane, Manuka, and is well presented, nice and quite.  We basically liked the food,  weren't overwhelmed by it.  The curries were nice, fairly standard. We found the chhoela chicken and the soybean and peanut salsa very odd.  Both were had a very mustard hot flavour which was almost unpleasant. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be and we're just not up to it and we did want to try something different after all.

Still, I shouldn't be too harsh.  It's a nice little restaurant, the service was very friendly and helpful, the rest of the food your standard Indian subcontinent type, the diced lamb very tasty.  Ron REALLY liked his buckwheat pancake dessert which we've never come across before in Canberra