Matteo's

Hello Fellow Nom Seekers!

My dear friends V & A were joined in holy matrimony a few weekends ago.  The ceremony was touching and humorously reflected their personalities and the food at the reception was ah-may-zing!  I count myself blessed to have friends who love their food because it guarantees good eating in their company.

The reception dinner was held at Matteo's in North Fitzroy which dabbles in a bit of Italian-Asian fusion.  I am generally wary of fusion cuisines but the folks at Matteo's somehow marry these diametrically opposite food cultures up and create exquisite plates to remember.

To prove my point, here is what we had:

Soft boiled duck egg coated with yuzu curd, organic quinoa salad with avocado, hazelnuts, Myrtleford ricotta and preserved lemon

We got to pick out our own entree and main from a selection.  For entree I could not resist the duck egg.  In general, I love a good boiled egg - it's simple but perfect at the same time.  The accompanying quinoa was complex and interesting with crunchy nuts and creamy avocado and the zing of the preserved lemon.  Yum!

Japanese seafood plate

P ordered the Japanese seafood plate which looked like works of art.  My photography does not do this justice (the room was romantically lit = dim,  which did made it difficult for a hack like me to take a decent shot).  The trio consisted of:  Hiramasa kingfish sashimi, shrimp remoulade with kaffir lime and lemongrass;  tempura Balmain bug tail, wakame seaweed salad and teriyaki glazed smoked eel, coddled egg and potato salad with kewpie mayo.

Crisp skin Cone Bay barramundi, jasmine rice congee with scallop & freekah, finger fennel & mustard green

Being Asian, I am partial to a bit of congee so this was my selection of mains.  The congee tasted of the sea. with chunks of scallops throughout.  I would go so far to say that the congee rivalled my mum's.   The barramundi was nicely cooked ie the flesh still held together.  Sometimes when barras are badly cooked (eg when I cook it) the flesh tends to fall apart.

Seared wagyu beef skirt steak, tamarind beef sauce, panko-crumbed tomato-sambal eggplant, braised snake beans, bell pepper piperade

This was P's mains choice.  He was still reminiscing about the wagyu a week later.  The mains came with sides.  If veggies tasted this good all the time, I would happily be a vegetarian.

tatsoi salad with nashi pear and daikon, dried wasabi peas, wasabi mayonnaise

Fried royal blue potatoes, sesame and furikake salt

The dessert was our own tasting plate with three small tastes:

Five spiced quince & pistachio frangipane tartlet

Coconut milk panna-cotta with plum wine jelly

Warm, dark chocolate fondant pudding

It was a beautiful evening celebrating a beautiful couple *sniff*

After such a lovely experience, I have decided to have my birthday dinner at Matteo's! So hopefully  more pics to come later on this year.



Until next time...

Champions Bistro @ Bowls Clayton

Hello Fellow Nom Seekers!

 A few months back, Champions Bistro was considered a hidden gem of a fine dining experience in the incongruent surrounds of a lawn bowls club in the middle of Clayton.  With bloggers like Sharking for Chips & Drinks and Good Food Guide covering this from the get-go, word has spread.  So rather belatedly but assuredly, I made my way there too.

The menu is a set degustation menu of 9 courses for $80 pp.  For an extra $50, you can opt for wine matching. Unfortunately, or perhaps rather fortunately for my tummy, they did not have a kid's menu.  So kiddo had the adult 9 course degustation.  She did not finish everything hence the fortunate aspect of this - we polished off some of her's as well.  Champions Bistro did offer to do an abbreviated version of the degustation for kiddo minus a few courses, but we waved that aside.  Greedy, I know.

We were advised the menu changes every week or so depending on seasonal and local produce available.  Here is what we had:

Fried Potato with Scraped Wagyu

Anything with the words 'fried potato' and 'wagyu' has got to be great.  It is a mini steak and chips held together by avocado glue.

Heirloom vegetables, anchovy & garlic emulsion

These heirloom veggies were so delicately sliced, they were translucent.  Almost too pretty to eat but eat it I did.  I couldn't really taste the anchovy in the emulsion but that did not detract from the deliciousness of it all.

Macadamia, crab, butter + sorrel

 This was unusual but sublime.  It was a crunchy meringue-base with crab and sorrel on top.  Light as air.

Ocean King Prawns, first radishes, acidulated water

 These juicy prawns were very refreshing paired with the radish and the tomato-y tasting acidulated water.

"Autumn Harvest" mushrooms cooked in pork juices, sour quince

  OMG, this was my fave - juicy substantially sized mushrooms cooked in very intensely porky juices.  The cinnamon quill-like things in can see in the photo were concentrated pork bits in a dehydrated crunchy form.  I mopped up the pork juices with the sourdough (see below)

House made sourdough and churned butter

 My main dilemma of the day was whether to apply a liberal amount of the house churned butter on the warm sourdough or whether to mop up the above pork juices with it.  *sigh* such first world problems.

Duck, native berries, orange and carrot

 My second fave - the confit of duck.  It literally melted upon contact and had a slightly sweet glaze.  The native berries were delicious.

Pynegana cheddar, black garlic, plum, rye

 We were advised that the inspiration for the pynegana cheddar was the lunchbox cheese and crackers.   I don't know about you, but my lunch box cheese and crackers tasted nothing like this!  The cheese was wonderfully savoury and moussey in texture.  It had a sprinkling of shortbread on top which gave it a sweet and salty element.  The rye was in the form of the gigantic cracker and the plum and black garlic was in the little accompanying jelly.

Salted pop corn

 Now for desserts - I must come clean, I did not eat the desserts as I am on the the I Quit Sugar Program.  Kiddo had both my share and her's.  I asked her for feedback.  This simply named "salted pop corn" dish is a creative and complicated take on the good ole salted pop corn.  It had a meringue-y type base, with a custard made of corn and gooey ice-creamy, cream topping.  The crumbs were crushed pop corn. My sister said it had a sumptuous mouth feel.  I also sought comments from kiddo who did not offer any as she was too busy licking her plate and mine.

Butter, nut, pumpkin

This unassumingly named "butter, nut, pumpkin" was a surprise.  It kept us guessing what was to arrive at our table.  This had a hazelnut meringue, pumpkin gloop and a burnt butter ice cream.  Kiddo gave it two thumbs up.  It is rare for her to knowingly eat pumpkin.

Last but not least, I have to include a pic of the lawns:

Fine dining with an unexpected but fun view.

I think it goes without saying that I will be coming back again.  I was so busy describing the delectable artistry of the food, I almost forgot to mention the service.  The staff were so friendly and informative without being pompous.  They offered Kiddo colouring pencils and activity sheets to keep her occupied - a nice touch.



Until next time...

East Empress

Hello Fellow Nom Seekers!

Happy Chinese New Year to you!  We recently celebrated Chinese New Year at the East Empress in Glen Waverley.

The East Empress had a selection of banquets, not specifically for Chinese New Year but available all year around.  It was as banquets go, quite a good price for what you get.  We opted to have the $46.95 per person banquet which was in their mid range.  Having said it was a good price per person, just bear in mind East Empress is quite rigid.  The price includes coffee and tea per person.  Since kiddo was paid up as an adult and she does not drink coffee or tea, we had asked whether she could substitute it for a juice or soft drink or mineral water, etc instead.  This request was declined.  Humph!

Apart from that, the banquet itself was generously proportioned and delicious.  We had plenty of left overs to take home.

First entree of four entrees, we had the 'Stuffed Scallop Shell'.  Shell is the operative word.  Don't be misled as I was to think that this dish had scallops in it. It didn't.  Once I got over that disappointment, it was actually rather nice - it was a medley of fish and onions in a curry sauce.

Entree number two we had the 'Sang Choi Bao'.  This was kiddo's pick of the bunch.  It was a gigantic serve with lots of chopped up savoury bits like spring onions, water chestnuts, shrimp with the meat.

Entree number three was Peking Duck.  We were very excited to see that each person got two pancakes and the pancakes were filled generously with lean duck meat.  This was my pick of the bunch.

Entree number four was the stir fried prawns and scallops.  This was very well executed too.  The veggies were crisp and the seafood was a decent size and not over cooked.

The banquet came with two mains.  The first being Cantonese beef with plain rice.  The beef was beautifully tender and not too sticky sweet which was a good thing.

Main number two was teriyaki chicken with fried rice.  The fried rice was awesome.  It had lots of char sui and baby prawns in it.  The teriyaki chicken was also very tasty but by then we were too full to appreciate it properly.  The waiters proportioned out each dish with the rice for each guest.  My only criticism of this method is that the dish eg the chicken and the beef above, gets lumped on top of the rice and it was really difficult to get to the rice without everything falling out of the bowl.  It was a like an archeological dig.  Perhaps the mains dish should be proportioned out on a separate side plate to the bowl of rice.  Or we could even help ourselves with the dishes placed on the lazy Suzanne.  

Dessert was a choice of either banana fritters or pineapple fritters with ice cream.  It's deep fried, it's sweet, it's ice cream with maple syrup.  Of course it was fabulous.  

Now if you like to see this banquet in a short video format (I promise you it only goes for a minute or so, you hopefully will not die of boredom), have a lookie-see below.  It would also give you a glimpse of the ambience and interior of the East Empress.  The cake in the vid does not come with the banquet.  The East Empress charge a $10 cake cutting fee - just keep that in mind if you want to ever bring celebratory cakes there.  

Cheerio

Peninsula Wantirna Chinese Restaurant

Hello Fellow Nom Seekers!

Peninsula Wantirna is what I categorised as a 'surprising good eats find'.  It is tucked away within the Golden Pebble Hotel so it isn't exactly in the forefront of my mind when I think of good Chinese restaurants in Melbourne.  But I'm glad I went and I am sure it will become a regular haunt. 

We had a six person lobster banquet which we requested several of the dishes be augmented to accommodate seven of us.  All the dishes were well executed and I didn't have the MSG burn I normally get from eating out Chinese.  The serving sizes were decent and the timing was perfect.  I even ate the complementary tong shui dessert at the end which I normally don't. 

Oyster Two Ways - with black bean and with garlic.  Yum!



Lobster with noodles.  Seriously good.  The lobster was nice and meaty.   

Complementary soup.  Tasty. 



Stir fried beef with Chinese broccoli.  The beef was so tender and the veggies were nice and crunchy.   

 Crispy-skin Chicken.  No words necessary.  Just by the look of it and you know it taste good!



 Stir fried Snow Pea Sprouts.  Loads of garlic - yum!

 Lemongrass Pork Chops.  These were finger licking good.  The pork had been flash fried and was so tasty. 

 Steamed Whole Barramundi.  Poor little thing was just swimming moments earlier. 

 Complementary fruit platter.  Nice touch with the jelly - would be popular with kids. 

Complementary tong shui.  It was green bean and kelp.  Wasn't too sweet which is a good thing.  

The restaurant itself was very spacious for Chinese restaurant standards.  We had plenty of room between us and the next table.  It wasn't crazy noisy as some Chinese restaurants can get.  I think it would be a great place to have dinner if you had young kids as there is plenty of room to roam and plenty of room for high chairs and prams. 

I should add we went there for my Mum's birthday - Happy Birthday Mum! 

The deets:

Location:
Peninsula Wantirna
500 Boronia Road, Wantirna VIC 3152
ph: 03 9887 0028

Cost:
Approximately $300 for seven people for the augmented six person lobster banquet. 

Ambience:
Casual dining.  Very spacious. 

Nom Again:
Most definitely. 

 

Until next time,
Nom Seeker, Glutt.