Restaurant Amuse

With Mothers Day coming up again I was at a loss as to what to get my mother. She has all sorts of things already, and with Mothers Day, Xmas and her Birthday I am starting to lack on my creative gift ideas front.
So I thought, why not take her out to a lovely restaurant for dinner, just me and her.

For this I selected Restaurant Amuse. It is a known quantity. I know the food will be good, I know the drinks will be wide and varied and I know all the staff are attentive and informed.
I did not take any notes, so my memory of what some of the dishes actually contain are a bit hazy. It was only last night, but I got tucked into Apricot Bellinis and an assortment of beers followed up with PX*.

"Snacks" - Onion Rings, Avocado Puree, Lime marinated Ceviche, Labneh, Lavosh, Profiterole stuffed with pumpkin and pine nuts, and proscuitto wrapped housemade ?bread sticks

First Course - Crab, Finger lime and Sea Lettuce. Lovely, light, well balanced.

Second Course - Beetroot, Feta, Meringue and Cress on a Coffee and cocoa soil. Topped with a red wine vinegar granita.

Third Course - Ruby Snapper, Rottnest Scallop and Samphire - on pureed peas, apple and cauliflower with wakame powder. I loathe Samphire and I think the Wakame was overkill for this dish. It did taste of the sea, unfortunately it was the sea if you go swimming and get a mouthful.

Fourth Course - Pork Belly, Seasoned Squid and cucumber salad on an emulsion (can't remember what sort). Was lovely. Melt in your mouth pork belly, light and airy and very crunchy crackling, lovely spicy squid. Cucumber salad was refreshing and vaguely Japanese.

Fifth Course - Mushroom, Hollandaise and Egg Yolk. I really enjoyed this dish. There is something so yummy about runny eggs :) The mushrooms were a bit sweet for me, but went well with the whole dish. Croutons were a bit greasy, but perfect with the egg.

Sixth Course - Was supposed to be Lamb. I don't do Lamb. I said I would have the vegetarian Tagine in its place, but Carolynne (Chefs wife and co-owner) said they would do a chicken for me. Am glad I listened. It was delicious. Basically same as the lamb dish in components, but with moist tender chicken. It was a little puck of Chicken rolled in Onion Ash and served with some creamy ?cheese and eggplant sauce with broccolini tips and garlic chive.

Palate Cleanser - Hibiscus (Roselle) ?gelato in lemonade and bitters.

First Dessert - Fairy Floss covered guava gelato on a passionfruit something and then a mandarin reduction was poured over it melting the fairy floss. I had mine poured on the side so I would still have my fairy floss. Nom.

Second Dessert - Pistacchio Ice Cream (nitrogened so was creamy smooth and broken up ... kind of looks like popcorn in this picture, but looked more like Feta in the flesh), Some sort of Raspberry creamy dessert (pink puff in picture), a freese dried raspberry and a wedge of cocoa powdered chocolate creamy something or other that wqas extremely rich. Yes, I was tipsy by this point.

Petit Four - Lychee jelly (salted), Chocolate Truffle (I can honestlky say that I make better Chocolate Truffles), and little marshmallows (nom). Our table also seemed to be the only one that was sent out a bowl of fairy floss. Maybe because I told the hottie Euro Chef that served the Fairy Floss dessert how much I loved fairy floss? Lovely thought and I greatly appreciated it ... even if I had to double my diabetes medication that night, LOL.

 Anyway, my Mother appeared to have a good time and it was nice to sit down with her and have no distractions from her phone, or constant visitors or from my children!

*What I actually drank - apart from the Apricot Bellinis, was 
Weihenstephaner Pilsner - A traditional pilsner, with smooth bitter hops and a refreshingly crisp finish. Weihenstephaner is the brewery that is home to my favourite drop - the Heffe Weiss.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager - Full of floral, spicy hops. It has a malty sweetness which is balance by the hoppy bitterness. Yummy and one of my new favourite beers!
The Pedro Ximénez that I had was not actually written on the winelist on their website. I might have to give them a call and find out what it was. Beautiful, thick, syrupy and not sickenly sweet.

Restaurant Amuse

So, last night we went to Restaurant Amuse again. Beautiful as always.
Our overall discusion on the food left us with Chef Hadleigh Troy still doing it well, however, he seems to be playing it a lot 'safer' than when we were there last (about 18 months ago). Gone were the bizarro out there combos - like the deconstructed caesar salad where the lettuce was a cos jus. So, there were absolutely no misses on the night. Unfortunately, it also felt like there were no real revelations (and wit), like previous dishes such as the salted peanut gelato with beer sorbet and minature pretzels dish. I did have a few favourite dishes from the night (see below). The wine and cocktail list is amazing - as usual. The staff are all well versed in foods and drinks, which just adds to the pleasure of the evening.

The Amuse Bouche - Jamon wrapped melon, ceviche on a paper thin cracker like concoction, salted crisps, proscuitto wrapped bread stick and a sesame and something house made stick. The dips were a type of Dukkah and cream mix and one that was an aioli like substance (can you tell I wasn't really listening?)

1st Course - one of my favourites - Tomato, tomato consome, tomato sorbet, condensed watermelon and goats cheese

Course 2 - another favourite of the night - Beetroot, goats cheese, with coffee and cocoa soil.

Course 3 - Kingfish, lemon aspen and red currants.

Course 4 - I am sure they said Barramundi, but the menu says Snapper.  Snapper, peas and asparagusin a lemon butter foam.

Course 5 - another favourite - Pork belly, pork crackle soil, seared scallop with pineapple and a cauliflower puree.

Course 6 - Tagine of prawns, zucchini, shallots and eggplant with couscous. I ate it before I remembered to take a photo. oOps.

Palate Cleanser - Lychee sorbet and a sour citric custard base.

Course 7 - his was a really cute idea but, to be honest, it didn't need the blood orange reduction. Strawberries and mascarpone covered with 'fairy' floss.

And this is it after the blood orange reduction was added :(

Course 8 - I actually really liked this and the interplay it had. Blueberries (4 ways), white chocolate and fennel. There was a blueberry toffee shard, a blueberry ?jam log, blueberry soil and I still can't figure what the other one was (note - I was a tad inebriated by this stage). It was served on top of a fennel mousse that was so delicate in flavour, along with white chocolate soil and white chocolate gelato (Nitrogen - hence it looking like feta and the smoke)

And then we finally had coffee (or, in my case, hot chocolate) along with petit fours. The petit fours were not relevatory(like they have been at, say, Rockpool). We had a marshmallow, a chocolate truffle and a finacier. The financier was excellently made having just the right amount of flavour and moistness. For those that haven't had one, it is a tiny bit like a friand, it is a well known type of French teacake.