The original Cumulus Inc (2014 visit)
Well, since I'm here, I found that my original Cumulus Inc photos are uploaded, but were never posted! Oh dear. Better do it now.
A pinot noir that I no longer remember.
The best steamed mussels I've ever had. Fantastic garlic aioli and very tender mussels. The sauce was also amazing!!!
At a guess, scallop and pea soup.
Every visit up until 2017, I ordered this every time. And the only reason I didn't this year is because my food buddy didn't eat parfait and I already had almost a whole flounder to tackle, on top of all the other tidbits I ordered.
Jamon, maybe?
And that flathead special. I was with my brother at the time and when they told us about it, we both said yes. And I since then, it's been one of the best fish dishes I've eaten. I still remember how happy and impressed I was because even the pickled veg flavours were spot on and worked perfectly with the fish, and it's the reason I keep ordering fish dishes here. I absolutely love it. Have not had a better flathead since. Not even Cirrus.The end!A nice blast from the archives.
Aloft
Aloft. Out of the three restaurants I visited, this was my favourite experience. I can't really make a direct comparison with Franklin since I didn't have a dinner sitting there though, so now, Aloft was the one I enjoyed the most as a whole.I actually had some reservations (pun intended) about eating here simply because their style was Asian, and I have a tough time liking Asian food, but it's a hatted restaurant and had great views, and they had kitchen counter seats, so why not! I didn't need a view of the water, I needed a view of the chefs. However, the kitchen was limited to the banquet menu, though I didn't mind that too much. And what a surprise the kitchen was. As we were walking to be seated, I saw a super eye catching thing: fire.
I got so excited that as soon as politely possible after being seated, I stood back up and started taking pictures of it. I must have looked so excited that the chef actually told me I could walk into the kitchen and take pictures. Wow, how nice! He even adjusted the flame intensity for us too, but it got pretty hot! That was so amazing, I couldn't believe he let us in!! Already a winner in my eyes!
The lighting was great so I took heaps of pictures.
It's always nice to see what a restaurant's bookshelf is like. They have Pier, the first restaurant book that I'd ever encountered and got me into fine dining!
Masterstock pig's ear + prickly ash
Okay, onto the food. First up, pig's ears. Oh my goodness. My last pig ear experience (not counting China where they do it they way I like by default) was at a Perth restaurant and it really wasn't nice because it was a single hard, crisp texture. However, these were crispy and flavour packed on the outside, and still crunchy-gelatinous on the inside, just the way I like it! They were seriously addictive!
Pacific steamed oyster , kimchi + sesame
Flirty Bay oysters make an appearance once again! But still, I couldn't make out the exact pronunciation of the word, so I still had no idea if it was Flirty or Floaty. I did try asking the all knowing Google, with various pronunciations that sided to Flirty, then to Floaty, but all I got were tips on how to flirt like crazy, or Flutes on eBay :(These were very good, but I didn't like them as much as I liked them au naturale. Probably just personal preference - nothing except maybe a dash of lemon!
I had to make sure to take full advantage of my position at the counter by taking as many action shots as I can! Also, being so close, we had a great conversation about the swarming seagulls in the harbour. We commented that the seagulls were swarming, then one of the chefs said that it was unusual for them to be this close - usually they'd be flocking much further out in deeper water. Who knows, maybe they found some tasty stuff nearby.
Fig leaf + turmeric wafer, BBQ pork belly
Woot! Pork belly tacos! Well, that's what I kept calling them. Royal gala apples were shaved over the top of these, which added great flavour to the pork belly, and they were using a tool that looked like how crinkle cut potato chips are made! The turmeric wafer looked delicate and prone to shattering, but they were actually quite sturdy, which was great. The pork wasn't as soft as I like, so these were just okay.
Drunken chicken wing, buttermilk + avruga caviar
But this next dish. Woah, what a turnaround! A fried chicken wing! I honestly didn't think I'd get to eat fried chicken throughout my trip, especially as I couldn't do Belle's Hot Chicken's fried chicken and waffles since I was busy on the weekend, but lo and behold, fortune favours the... insane? This wasn't just any old fried chicken, it was fried in shaoxing wine, so it was tasty fried AND tasty drunk!!! I love drunken chicken, so this was a win win, then another win because that avruga caviar was super smokey and aromatic.These were eaten with hands (as were the tacos, oysters and pig ears), and we were given the magical towels that start off dry and tablet sized, then just add water and POOF! they turn into wet towelettes!!!Oh, by the way, does this slightly remind you of Rockpool 1989's kombu butter chicken wing? Maybe that's just me haha.
LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE CHUNKY KNIFE THAT I DIDN'T EVEN USE FOR THE NEXT COURSE EVEN THOUGH I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE CHUNKINESS
But first, another plate up shot, because I can.
Yellow fish curry + coconut pickled fennel
Fried fish!!! Tonight's fish was black trevally, and the curry sauce was really, really mild, so much so that I actually wished there was a teeny tiny bit of spice to it, but no matter. No burning is better than burning. I didn't like the pickled fennel only because it was a little too acidic for me. I would have been happy with just the fish curry since it was light enough.
Chargrilled koji beef, miso + eggplant
I was really, really full, and then this came out! A massive (not really massive, just looked that way because of how full I was) chunk of really incredibly tasty Cape Grim beef, with eggplant and miso mayonnaise. And topped with kale. There was a lot of eggplant, and I think I had to eat my friend's portion of eggplant cause she didn't like it, so I was really, really, bursting full at this point, but that beef. was. so. good. Wow. Yep, I definitely love Cape Grim Beef. The only time David Blackmore's wagyu has been better, is in Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney's David Blackmore full blood wagyu burger. Every other time, a Cape Grim cut will do, it's that good. Absolutely loved this dish.
Our classic condensed milk ice cream, coffee + sable
And finally, dessert. My friend was happy this was an ice cream dish so she wanted one to herself. I was really full, so I didn't really care. What was hilarious is that we saw how the palm sugar curls were made - a couple of chefs took out these trays of palm sugar stuff and started scraping away at it with spoons! Madly scraping! My friend had pointed it out and as soon as I looked, I had that stupid happy face that I get when I'm really excited about seeing food being made, so much so that the chef noticed!So, when he had plated up our dessert and handed it to us, describing it, I asked, "is this meant to be shared?" at which point he said yes, so I asked if we could have one each pretty please, so he was happy to make another one. We must have looked like crazy dessert lovers! Yes, I did manage to eat all of mine. Dessert is a second stomach, after all! It was quite delicious and I loved the sweetness level of the palm sugar. Having the word sugar in it made me worry that it'd be too sweet, but it was actually really balanced with a deep, almost toffee/burnt caramel flavour. Then a hit of bitterness from the coffee syrup was really nice too.All in all, yes, Aloft was my favourite experience because the chefs were so friendly, also the view of the chefs, and because I enjoyed a good number of these dishes. If I came back, I would want the a-la carte menu so that I can order the pig's ears, natural oysters, chicken wing, but also I really wanted to try their dumplings because the dumplings looked absolutely amazing, and I'd not order the fish curry or the pork belly tacos. But as an Asian themed restaurant for someone who doesn't like Asian restaurants (Spice Temple being the exception), this place did really well.And that's my Hobart restaurant adventures done. I'm exhausted from all this writing!
MONA - Museum of Old and New Art
I was originally planning a foodie only tour of Hobart since my stay was only two and a half days here, but my brother (I think he was the first) asked me if I was going to visit MONA, and that if I wasn't, that I should go there anyway.Then I had a few other people talk about it, including my taxi driver, so I thought, hey, it's a cool place, it featured in Restaurant Australia, and everyone knows about it, so I may as well get cultured while I'm at it.I did a walk past the information booth on the first day that I was here to enquire the minimum time I would need to get through the museum, since I was very, very time limited with all my restaurant bookings. The lady said that whole day was best, otherwise 4 hours was recommended, and that at a minimum, I'd need two hours. Well, that was interesting. Not being interested in art, I figured I could do this in two hours. However, as my first day was spent getting to know Hobart city, I had to leave it for my second day, and the only time I really had was between my 12PM Franklin booking and my 6PM Aloft booking. Given that lunch generally takes me about an hour, that gave me 5 hours, or so I thought.I took my time at Franklin since I love restaurants, and so I managed to head to the pier at about 1:15PM... which is when I saw the MR-1 leaving. Okay, so I'd just missed one. According to my memory of what I'd glanced at, there would be another boat in half an hour... right? Nope. It's one boat, and each way takes 25 minutes. The next boat was at 2:30PM. Oops! Also, you had to book your return trip during your intial purchase, so I had to decide when to come back. The last two boats for the day were 5PM and 6PM. I couldn't well choose 6PM since I had to be at a restaurant by then, so 5PM it was. That meant a total of just less than two hours, since I'd have to be ready for the boat by 5... meaning out of the museum at least 15 minutes early. I'm a fast walker and I like zipping straight past things, so it's still manageable, right?Next thing I had to decide. There were two classes of tickets - regular, and posh pit. The regular one took you there and back for $28 (free if you are a Tasmanian resident) and you could sit on the sheep (not alive! Not dead either... just sheep shaped seats!), or, for a significant amount more ($55), you could sit on the sheep and gain access to the VIP room where you had free drinks and nibbles and have a golden bench to sit on out at the front of the boat. Since I was running a carte blanche (I had allocated double what my estimated budget was for the entire Melb - Tas trip... and spent pretty much double my estimate... lol) and was unlikely to return to Tasmania, I thought, why not, let's splurge and get the posh pit even though the free drink would be wasted on me.Oh, yeah, I still had to actually pay for the museum entry. So $80 later, I was all set for my artsy experience.
Well hello there, VIP room. It turns out that for this particular ride, I was the only one who bought a posh pit ticket, so I had the entirety of the posh pit to myself! That was an amazing feeling! The lady at the bar immediately greeted me and asked me if I would like a drink, but I declined, saying I don't drink, so I asked for water instead. I was free to explore anywhere I wanted, and I could hop out to the regular area if I wanted to as well.
As we departed, I farewelled the MR-0, which wasn't in use at the time.
This boat actually moves really fast. It felt fast. It was loud too, doubled with the wind roaring in my ears. I took some videos of this too, but I haven't yet transferred them onto my computer or started thinking about how to embed the videos, so I will probably never end up uploading them.
Woot! I got an antipasto platter that was actually really tasty! But I was so full from Franklin that I couldn't eat it all...
Walked amongst the commoners :P
And finally, the museum was in view. The driver announced here that there were 99 steps up to the MONA, and that if you had any difficulties with this to make yourself known. Me, being the excited and energetic person that I am, ran up the stairs ahead of everyone, while trying to count. I got as far as 98 steps!!! Which step did I miss counting?!?!?!?!?! I am so disappointed! If I ever come back, I'm going to have to re-count those stairs! Argh!
The MONA is actually a very large complex, so instead of heading straight in, I took in the views from the island, as well as taking pictures of some of the stuff outside.
OK. Start the clock. I'm officially in. What's really cool was that there are free lockers here to dump your stuff. I was carrying a bit so I was incredibly relieved to be able to store everything, and only take my phone, camera and spare lens with me, and attached the locker key to my camera strap. I actually got really, really lucky because I was wearing a dress with pockets to be able to go bag free with all that stuff!The people at the entrance recommended that we start from the bottom first and work our way up, so I did exactly that. They also said we were free to take as many photos as we liked, but we weren't allowed to touch anything. However, there was a third thing: there are no signs or explanations of artwork in the MONA. Instead, you have to pick up an iPhone looking device that would give you audio via headphones, and information via the screen. It also tracked your location within the museum to keep a log of which exhibits you visited, so that you could, at the end, submit your email address and then be sent information on what you'd seen. That is techy, and cool! However, call me hipster - in a hipster art museum - but I figured, no, I don't want to carry a device, I barely read signs as it is, so I was gonna go with the pure definition of art, and interpret everything as I see it. After all, the artwork is only complete when the viewer has seen it and reached their own conclusion, right? /worsthipster
You hear the first exhibit before you see it. Cascading water and lights display various words! Without explanation, my guess would be that this was displaying either the most used words on the internet in real time, or, the most used words on the internet/media over the course of this year. I will never know if my theories are right or not!
Everything is pretty big, but yeah, they fit a lot of everything on this lower floor. Get ready for an overload.
It became immediately obvious why we weren't allowed to touch anything. Dinosaurs made of old things, and even one dino-cetpion!!
Artworks that were interesting, but that I didn't really understand or interpret since they aren't my preferred subject matter. A lot of it seemed to be a representation of things that are "wrong" though.
This one caught my interest for a while, and look, even Noddy made an appearance! Basically these were toys and everyday objects fashioned into the likeness of guns, with the barrels staring right down at you. There were also rockets on the sides, with a plushie puppy and other toys strapped to the sides. While I can't quite describe the emotions that these triggered in me, I do know that I found it very intriguing, and very "real". I use the term "real" a lot, usually to mean that it's an accurate reflection of real life (eg. the show Black Mirror is also very "real" to me).
Moving on, I was impressed there are people who can write smaller than me! But I didn't stop to read these.
I stayed at this exhibit for a while because who doesn't love paper aeroplanes! They're so cool! They looked like old fighter jets to me, since I don't recognise planes. There were a few big battleship looking like aircraft too. I spent ages wanting to take a bottom-up angle for these ones, since my camera and phone have a really cool remote control trick so I could literally place my camera face up to take pictures from underneath.
I overheard someone say "taxidermied kittens!" for this one.
Haha. This was the first thing I saw on the second level. From far away I couldn't figure out what the white plaster things on the wall were, so I took a closer look and laughed. There were three different "versions" of this, repeated over and over against a long wall. I would have posted all three saying, "which one does yours look like?", but my middle shot was blurry. So one's all you get. I'm totally a mature person :PAlso, the gift shop sold these as soaps. LOL. I really wanted to buy the mini soaps because they were a gift shop exclusive and not available online, but soap doesn't last forever, so I didn't get one. Would have been cool to get these and give them as gifts!
This was by far my favourite exhibit. It was also the one that was the most impossible to take a picture of, because it's actually a room within a room within a room, in complete darkness except for the lights emanating from the space where the wall connects with the floor. Strings of binary lined the walls, but if you looked close enough, some of these groups were words instead of numbers. I can't remember which words I saw, but I'm pretty sure they were all about darkness and being alone or something. Very, very cool. I really liked this and related to this one the most. The innermost room had an entrance that was shorter than me, and right in the middle, I had a mild shock (and looking at instagram posts for MONA, it turns out I'm not the only one who managed to give myself a little jump), but pretty much instantly smiled. I had a thought cross my mind that this would be an excellent torture room LOL.This was the one exhibit where I would have loved to listen to the artist's meaning, so I really regretted not having the little info device, but at the same time, I was so happy just being in here alone in darkness :)Because I got handed a pamphlet, I at least know that this one is called Kryptos. Constructed between 2008 - 2010 by Brigita Ozolins, a Tasmanian artist. This is their take on "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Wow, no wonder I connected to this one so well.Gosh I sound so morbid for a happy person.
One of the more (in)famous exhibits in here, you'll smell it before you see it. Again, because I didn't have the info device, I didn't know what it was, though I had a pretty good idea because someone else said that this exhibit would be here. It's basically a digesting and pooping machine. It feeds at 11am and 4pm, and it'll poop at 2pm. Amazing.
Oh what, there's a LIVE exhibit inside the MONA?!?!?! HOW COOL. Oh my goodness, I thought I was hallucinating or this was some sort of mirror trick at first, because I was on an upper level looking down, going, WOAH THAT'S A REAL PERSON I CAN SEE HIM BREATHING OR maybe it's just a really good animatronic BUT I THINK HE'S ACTUALLY REAL, and then by the time I went back downstairs, he was GONE with only a cloth and headphones at the pedestal? Woah.Ok yeah, I was really wishing I had the info device right about now. However, later on, I did read somehwere that this is indeed a living person, and what's really cool is that he actually has an agreement with MONA that they can keep his skin after he dies. Woah, yep. This was the most mindblowing exhibit for me, mainly because he was there one minute, and next, he was gone! If he had been there the whole time I think I wouldn't have been half as excited!
I loved this exhibit too. Very whimsical in my eyes. Apart from the animal tower coming off the hedgehog's (?) back, all the other floaty things were hanging from the thinnest of strings, so thin that I actually think spider web was probably used to suspend them. Again, I'll never know unless I do research. But I liked this because I feel that there's a lot of death represented in this one to me, and I love the some of the concepts of death. There was something absolutely breathtaking about the suspended creatures, too. Lots of insects, I felt that this at least partially represented decay in some way.Gosh I love how happily morbid I am.
Teehee! This was in a tiny room and actually moves :D
The single exhibit that was interactive. Each of these is a box that you can pull out, and an audio plays with all different people saying "I love you," and had a story that you could read.
And stop the clock. I'd used up one and a half hours and I thought I got through all of it, including this one little dark exhibit that only let in two people at a time because it was a deathly still pond, so yes, water, with only squares of rock to step on, up to a tomb with a mummy in it. However, I think I might have still missed things even on a second sweep of the second floor. I'd say that I somehow missed the Supersymmetry experience (oops!), and I didn't find the White Library, Hound in the Hunt or the Library Gallery.There was still plenty to see outside too, once I'd done two rounds of the gift shop, agonised over the really nice skull earrings and instead bought a tshirt that I'm too embarrased to wear outside.
The panoramic shot of the outside. At the left, yes, that's a trampoline. I totally should have gone on the trampoline!!
And if you venture really far, to the winery (yes, the Posh Pit tickets also gives you a free, 30 minute tour of their cellar door, but I was definitely out of time), you get to see the pets!
I didn't count the stairs going back down...
Bye bye MONA, bye bye sheep shaped seats!
This time, the posh pit had a lot more people so I didn't feel like a silly person who was the only one who forked out $$$ for the premium seats. Since the trip back had a lot more people, I was glad I took the pit this time. The lady at the bar welcomed me back and asked if I was happy to have water again! How nice! So I told her that I didn't want the antipasto plate again since I needed to save stomach space for dinner. She said that there wasn't antipasto this time, it was actually a dessert plate! How could I say no to dessert :P and this was actually really nice too. I was actually surprised at how tasty the snacks were! I would totally do this again!Okay so, speaking of doing again. I admit, I took completely the wrong approach on this one. I don't even appreciate art, and there was stuff that I really felt like I connected to here. I would not allow anyone to try MONA in two hours. You need at least 4 hours, like the lady at the pier said the first day. But, definitely take the whole day, the posh pit and the cellar door tour. You're only going to do this once, right? So do it right. And DEFINITELY take the info device thing.I would actually come back to Tasmania to redo this, and spend a whole day here. In fact, I'd do my Tasmania trip completely differently the second time round, but I'll explain that when I actually get to posting about my Tasmania trip.Yep, this was totally worth it. I want to live in the Kryptos again.I love darkness!
Franklin
Yay, Franklin! While Franklin has always been on my Hobart list, my excitement grew recently after discovering that a chef I am aware of (but didn't actively stalk at the time) moved here and started working at the restaurant. I would have loved to come here at night for their full dining experience, but because I had far too many places to go and not enough time, I ended up shuffling this one to lunch simply because it was open for lunch while my other restaurants were dinner only. That bumped Templo right off this visit, but maybe next time....
To start with, a house soda. It tasted kind of elderflowery to me, which was very cool. Not too fizzy, not too sweet, and very drinkable.
Delicious bread and butter. I love how the butter was scraped on the side! I still find that Sepia's perfectly round butter was really weird to see (even though I said it was cool, because it was also cool); I like messy thing sometimes better than neat.
What's even cooler? This was the shot down the bar towards the entrance - what you see in the background there is actually Pigeon Whole Bakers! How awesome!
Oyster
To start with, three oysters. Usually I get two for myself, but this is Tasmania, land of the best fresh produce you could ever get, so I treated myself to one more. When they were served, the waitress said that the oysters were from Flirty Bay, however, Flirty sounds a LOT like Floaty, especially if you moosh the vowels a little bit. So I literally had no idea what she said. I wasn't sure about asking again because I didn't want to come across as hard of hearing lol.These were probably the best oysters I've ever eaten. Yeah, better than the Wapengo ones from Embla. Before, my Tassie oysters of recent memory all came from "my local fish shop" and weren't that nice at all, to the point where I would avoid buying Tassie oysters, but the real deal is actually nigh unbeatable! I think also, SA oysters taste better than TAS oysters when in Perth simply because it's closer so there's less time lost in shipping?
House pancetta and cicely mustard
I had to try the house pancetta, mainly because I love cured meats and I also wanted to see how this compared with Embla's jambon. Sorry, the jambon still wins. But look at that fat! So good! I almost didn't want to add the mustard, but, the mustard did make it taste even better.
And guess who is here!!! A super sneaky shot of Analiese Gregory!!!! I was pretty sure it was her, but I didn't want to seem like a creepy fangirl, so I kept my distance. Also, because I wasn't absolutely sure, just mostly sure, I would have felt awkward if it wasn't actually her. I managed to confirm by overhearing the waitress as someone else came into the restaurant looking for her.
Chicken liver parfait, pickled cherries and yeast crisps
Alright, now the real deal of the restaurant. Chicken liver parfait. Yes. Look at that. Isn't it so picture perfect? And I love those wafer thin parfait receptacles! This was my first time eating pickled cherries and they were nice, and offset the richness of the parfait really well! Also, I deliberately held back on eating my bread too quickly to be able to mop up leftover parfait :)
Raw littlewood lamb with anchovy and horseradish
Raw lamb with anchovies and horseradish. I feel like I've eaten so many new things while here! My first time eating lamb tartare, and it was absolutely delicious! I loved the presentation of this one too!
Crispy potato with brown butter and salted caramel
However, it was dessert that really took the cake. It was described as crispy potato with brown butter and salted caramel. Oh my goodness. The waiter recommended it and said that if I couldn't eat it, he would. Too bad, I wanted to try this anyway since this is the first time I've seen potato in a dessert dish. Oooooh yeah. Those potato slices were so thin and crispy and the natural savouriness of it worked!The brown butter was soooooo good and it was just the right texture too, but the real winner, the thing that made this dish so godly, was that salted caramel. You think other salted caramels are good? Wait till you try this one. It's like, if Werther's Original was taken to the highest level possible by the most talented chefs in the world, this is what you get. Something you can't stop eating because when mixed with the potato and butter cream, was just. Amazing. Wow. Oh yeah. Come here for this. Lots of this. Yesssss.
And some pictures of the restaurant because I like their decor and setup. I would have loved to come here for dinner simply because they make use of their oven and that's when all their meats come out (according to their website, their oven can actually fit a whole cow in there!).Yep, I definitely like this place!
Dier Makr
Dier Makr. What a funny name. I didn't even know of its existence even though it's a one hatted restaurant in Hobart. I had my eye on so many other restaurants and had already got my reservations and lists together, when one of my baristas told me I had to go here.I usually don't actually do something unless more than one person says the same thing except on rare occasion, and this time I thought, why not. These guys have good taste so I'll try it out! And that resulted in me reshuffling Franklin from dinner to lunch to accommodate for this place.
I only did a very small amount of research for this, just enough to check if it was a nice restaurant or not (I still didn't realise it was hatted), and what intrigued me the most was the menu. I like succint menus and prefer ones with the main ingredients and processes described, so this very "simple" sounding menu wasn't enough to trigger my imagination since I wasn't used to the style. But the reviews were all good, so I left it at that. Let's give it a go!
This place is fairly small (20 seats?) and has really cute decor. Two things I noticed were one: those wine glasses had really nice stems. Super thin, I don't think as thin as Zaltos, but they got close. I really liked the stems! How do I know this? Because this is a hipster restaurant, so I went and ordered an orange wine. But because wine glasses are tall, and because I still don't know how to take photos, I didn't get a good shot.And two, if you choose the tap water, it comes in a fish shaped jug. But not just that, it's a glurgle jug! Basically, it gluggs a little bit before the pour, then it goes, glug glug glug if there's enough water to go back down after the pour! The way I described it probably makes no sense; it's basically a jug that makes noises as water is poured. Maybe google it.
Beet that root
First up, the beetroot dish. What cute little morsels! This was eaten with hands, and it was a slice of what appeared to be raw pickled beetroot and curd on the inside. A failsafe tasty thing!
Lettuce, oyster
Oh, this was cool. I've never seen this before. Half a lettuce with oyster and oyster cream, and crunchy bits. See, I thought maybe we would get just raw oysters and something interesting with the lettuce, but it was actually the other way around! Having the oysters lightly grilled was really nice, and they were really good oysters! My friend doesn't eat oysters so I had more piled on top of my plate, so I was happy.I actually really liked that the descriptions of each dish were listed as they are, because now I realised that I had no idea what to expect! This is a new adventure!
Beef
On the menu, it did describe the beef as raw I guess. I would have thought they'd just put beef. Maybe because raw beef freaks some people out if they don't know beforehand? It didn't matter to me, and this was really, really good. Again, really flavoursome beef. It must be the Cape Grim stuff because the cows from there are just so tasty! It was lined with sour cream and topped with sansho leaf, I think. Really good stuff!
Uh, apple
Isn't this so cute! These were tiny and adorable. Apple roses that were bound in "apple leather" (like rollups?), and apple puree inside. This didn't just taste like apple though. There were varying textures and acidity levels within these bite sized treats, so it felt like I was tasting all parts of the apple, but separately! A simple looking, but complex palate cleanser.
Really wide beans
When the waiter gave us this dish, she said that the chef described this as "peas and friends" - how cute! I seem to really love vegetable dishes now. I can't remember exactly when it all changed, but the headlines that Yellow made was probably a good starting point. Anyway, broad beans! Yay! And peas! The creaminess of that burrata too. I think it was burrata. It was super creamy, and tasted like the inside of a burrata. Oh yeah. Also, my friend was convinced that the crunchy bits were fried chicken skin, but I thought that this might be a vegetarian dish. Turns out she was right, the waiter confirmed that it was indeed chicken!
Fushies
I'll admit, I have no idea because I didn't ask what "blue eye' was. I assumed it was cod, but what if there's a different fish that also has blue eye in its name??? So I will always have to describe this as just "blue eye" as a result. Sigh. I really should do better next time. Self chiding aside, this fish was really tasty! And what made it tastier was the pil pil sauce! That stuff was really addictive! The fried celeriac on the side was nice too, but I don't really like celeriac much so I was kind of wishing it wasn't there, even though it's the tastiest celeriac I've tried.
I scream
And dessert is served. Fig leaf ice cream with peach and macadamia. That's a cool biscuity thing on top, though it hid the rest of the dish. There was a lovely fig gel surprise underneath the ice cream that I totally loved! Again, because it was described as fig leaf, I didn't expect it to be the ice cream component of the dish. I love it when I guess wrongly!It was a very quick, short and light dinner. I love that there were some really unexpected combinations (that lettuce and oyster dish was brain-bending!!!) along with classics (beetroot, beef). It was a really reasonably priced restaurant, but I felt like there maybe wasn't enough food. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't hungry after it, but I did think that I could eat a lot more, and the Vue de Monde joke of walking out and eating a burger seriously crossed my mind (but a small tasty burger, I couldn't have eaten a large tasty burger). I couldn't be exactly sure if I was hungry or not simply because the last three days in Melbourne, I'd been absolutely stuffing myself to the brim so I was worried about my metabolism being in overdrive too. Luckily, I didn't actually get hungry and I didn't wake up particularly hungrier than usual the next day, so the serving size here was fine. It was just me being panicky, especially in contrast to Tipo 00's $69 chef's menu where I actually didn't finish one of the dishes.Overall it's a great place and super causal, but, a little too hipster for me, if such a thing is possible. I'd need to come here with someone classier and more hipster than me to be able to feel at home here. The food and the people were great though, so nothing to fault there. The waiter was super friendly and when I told her why I'd chosen this restaurant, she guessed correctly which barista recommended the place! So yeah, very nice, surprising dishes, but I felt a little out of place.Also, you definitely have to look at the receipt here. Why? Because the chefs receive the order names slightly differently than what's on the board, and it's a fun read :)