Present were all of us except Andrew who is still AWOL. This time in the Philippines instead of Ballarat. We miss you Andrew. So there was John (birthday boy), Jim, Karen, Ron, Kim, Megan.
Lantern Room is one of our favourites for our special dinners, held only for birthdays and Christmas. It didn't quite live up to expectations this time but probably because our expectations were exceptionally high. It was still pretty good.
We had the degustation ($99 ex wine, except Jim had the accompanying wine, the soak that he is). First off was the winner for the night. A little mouthful of crisp crunchy light pastry filled with a smoked salmon and refreshing salad with wasabi. Just gorgeous.
Next off was their signature dish, Prawns with mango and apple salad, done to perfection as always. the flavours were just right, done in a rich sauce, reminiscent of a satay sauce but much more delicate.
The next course was scallop and something dumplings in a bisque which had a mixed reception in the group. Some really liked them, delicate flavoured dumplings complemented by a strong seafood broth. Others thought that the bisque was too strong and salty and that the bean shoots on top didn't add anything to it. The use of Chinese soup spoons proved a bit frustrating in trying to scoop up the last of the broth and we refrained from licking the bowl.
The Patagonian tooth fish was quite nice. The waiter said it was extremely expensive fish and while it was a delicate white fish, we couldn't really work out why you would pay lots extra for it. It was flakey and delicate, with tomatoes and greens and capers, but the rich butter sauce with a touch of wasabi was the really winner. Plus the rice cake. Again the frustration was in scooping up the rest of the sauce.
The lamp rolls were okay, nice, delicious, didn't blow us away. I found them chewy and the ubiquitous bean sprouts didn't add anything to the dish, they seemed to be an afterthought.
The confit of salmon was lovely, delicately cooked with a fabulous mushroom and bean accompaniment.
And the pork was sweet, tasty with a crispy outer skin with a flavour a bit like tomato paste. Some liked this, some didn't, thought it was a bit tough. Oh well.
And the dessert was very sweet but very yum also,
We liked all the dishes, the ingredients were fresh. The place was pretty much full when we arrived at 7pm, and pretty much empty by the time we left just after 9pm. It was a bit noisy but not overly so. It didn't quite have the wow factor that we've experienced before but maybe that's because our expectations were too high?
