So life is a lot like an RPG where talking to townspeoeple/shopkeeper gets you rep and unlocks information to get you to new areas lol!

So I got an early heads up about a restaurant that was opening, and managed to visit on day 2 of their soft launch. Apparently called Street_ADL, it’s a wine bar that will have an indigenous Australian degustation restaurant, which I’m really looking forward to as when I hear “indigenous Australian” I think kakadu plum, quandong, saltbush, bush tomato, and Billy Kwong. The chef of the restaurant is also apparently renowned for working in famous restaurants, but I fail and don’t actually recall the names.

As only the bar was open and the restaurant still in progress, I decided to check it out. I’ve been liking grenache recently, but I still fail and only managed to drink half a glass (I had more planned for later!) and decided to check out the bar food. First thing I spotted was pork crackling, oh yes! Perfectly salted with some sort of pate-like dip.

These were port ribs that were braised, fried, then had some spicy sauce. Everything came out in paper boxes, and it was all wooden cutlery. The whole recycling focus reminded me a lot of Greenhouse by Joost when it was a popup restaurant in Sydney. I was surprised there were only 4 ribs, but for $18.90 it was expected from this type of restaurant – I had a preconception that it was going to be like Pancakes at the Rocks where it would be a whole rack, but I should have anticipated super fancy stuff.

HOW DOES ONE EAT A FLOWER COVERED STEAK WITH WOODEN FORK AND KNIFE??? By having genius chefs pre-cut the steak, of course! This was super pretty, though I did have a giggle that there was such a concept as eating steak with wooden utensils. It was tasty though! It was on a bed of salt bush and I’m sure one of the flowers ended up tasting like wasabi.

There was a dessert that was the chocolate fudge sundae, but wasn’t super pretty so I didn’t take a picture – and it came in a take away coffee cup! The texture of the ice cream was like a soft serve/mousse, but it was super dark chocolate with a nice richness to it, so I was happy. There was also a hint of salted caramel, with chocolate sauce and macadamia. It was a little too much, however, I was feeling brave and clueless when I asked about the whisky. For some reason drinking whisky was a really enticing idea. Due to an in-joke, I have previously chosen Talisker (turns out 25yo is hard to find so I had to settle for 10). This place was still waiting to complete its drinks collection, so I asked about one from Islay (cause it sounded the closest to Isle of Skye), but it was an 8yo and I wanted something awesome, so I chose a Macallan 18yo instead – and it was a great choice! I don’t have a refined enough palate to understand what I was drinking, but it was amazing – tasted really good and had a honey quality, which made my sundae taste super nice, as if it was toffee-nougat.

All in all a great preview of what the restaurant has in store.

CAN’T WAIT. WHAT SOUFFLE???