Winter Restaurant Invites: 2012
I’ve decided to aggregate my restaurant invites into monthly or quarterly invite round-ups in a similar way like I do with my brunch posts. Yes, the meals were free, but my write-ups are still honest, candid, and impartial. This winter, I ended up visiting three places: Shed 5, Henry and the Fox and Spitiko.
Shed 5
37 Dukes Walk
South Wharf, VIC 3006
03 9686 1122
shed5.com.au
GoogleMap
Date Visited: Early August
PR Company: Gunn Communications
Shed 5 was only opened for three weeks when this menu-sampling dinner happened. The restaurant forms part of Southwharf’s burgeoning food and bar landscape. I can foresee Melbourne’s business district extending towards this direction to include the Docklands and Southwharf.
From what I gather, the restaurant seeks to serve Mediterranean / Greek cuisine with a modern twist. A traditional high-heat wood-fire oven forms the basis of cooking for many of the dishes.
Flatbread & Fava Puree 10
fried chickpeas, shallots, hazelnuts
N’duja & Mozzarella Croquettes 4ea
oregano & rosemary aioli
We started nicely with a fava purée dip that went well with the breads. The candied hazelnuts and pickled shallots gave great flavour counterpoint to the creamy puree.
I was less excited by the croquettes because I’m generally not a fan of deep fried foods (unless it’s ayam goreng). I found the croquettes very salty, with a spicy kick in the filling.
Smoked Eel 15
ocean trout, capers, sherry rillettes
Saganaki Cheese 15
grilled onions, roasted peppers, barberry
Continuing with our starters, the seafood rillette was an absolute delight to eat, although the accompanying biscuits were very salty.
The delicious saganaki started off also tasting quite salty to me (I admit my tolerance for salt is low), but after awhile I got used to it. As it cooled down, it got more firm, meaty and chewy, with a very nice milky flavour. The roasted peppers gave great flavour counterpoint.
Cyprian Lamb & Pork Meatballs 15
tomato & cinnamon sauce, truffled pecorino
Slow Cooked W.A. Octopus 17
saffron kipflers, capers, sorrel mayo
The lamb and pork meatballs was a winning dish for me. Moist, juicy with a strong presence of fresh herbs.
For the octopus dish, I was quite happy with its meaty texture but generally thought the dish was on the heavy side and could afford some tangy counterpoint. The sorrel mayo was very interesting though, with a fresh, green-leaf herbaceous character to it.
King Green Prawns 31
barrell aged feta, tomatoes, sorrel
On to mains… First up, this wood-fired king prawn dish was divine…!
I’m a newbie to Greek cuisine, but this combination of ingredients put under a wood-fire just worked fabulously. Prawn flesh… so freshly cooked and charred by the wood-fire, with its glorious juices spread all over the hot plate. Delicious.
Greek Village Salad 14
fennel, peppers, olives, barrel aged feta
Slow Roasted Lamb Neck 32
dates, pinenuts, capers
The unctuous slow-cooked lamb dish tasted earthy sweet, with hearty and robust flavours. I was not as keen on the presence of dates as it pushed the dish into the territory of having too much sweetness. But thankfully, that serve of classic greek salad helped cleanse my palate.
Bannockburn Half Chicken 29
green raisins, pinenuts, roasted chestnut dolmades
I was a lot more keen on this lighter main dish. The wood-fired chicken came really succulent and juicy with an interesting hit of aniseed flavours from fennel seeds. The bits where there were chargrilled chicken skin were especially delicious. It took a mere 16 minutes in the wood-fire oven to roast the chooks.
Goats Milk Crema 13
walnut baklava, chocolate & coffee sorbet, metaxa jelly
Spiced Halva Semifreddo 13
quince sorbet, salted caramel, ricotta doughnut
The night ended gloriously with two beautiful desserts. I can’t even explain why they were both so good, nor can I tell you which one I preferred. But all I can say is just order them! OMG OMG…
Head Chef Vas Donoudes (previously at Cicciolina, Enoteca)
I really enjoyed my meal here. Great setting, good food and the whole affair was conducted very well by the staff and organisers.
Henry and the Fox
525 Little Collins St
Melbourne, VIC 3000
03 9614 3277
henryandthefox.com.au
GoogleMap
Date Visited: Mid June
PR Company: Gunn Communications
This meal happened a few months prior to Shed 5. Regrettably, I did not bring my dSLR then, so I only have 5 Instagram pics to show for this event. This won’t be a comprehensive post, but I’d just like to share it anyway.
Henry and the Fox sits on the quiet end of Lt Collins St and the restaurant was opened by the same person who’d recently opened The Sharing House, Akachochin, Coffeehead and Goldilocks. I think this dinner was organised because being on the quiet part of the city, the restaurant wasn’t getting much thoroughfare, so here’s a go at getting some social media presence.
Jamon & Manchego Croquettes 4ea | Fried Zucchini Flowers 4ea
Said owner, Paul Mathis (pictured above), gave us an introductory speech before the food started coming. We learnt that the head chef here is Michael Fox, who was The Age 2011 Young Chef of the Year.
Top: seared scallops, apple & celeriac remoulade, caper & raisin puree, toasted pumpernickel 24.5
roasted moreton bay bug tails, cauliflower puree, spiced cauliflower 24.5
Middle: rabbit terrine, rhubarb compote & salad, toasted brioche 23.5
cured kingfish, coriander & fennel seeds, mandarin, coriander shoots
Bottom: confit ocean trout, salted cucumber, radish, horseradish cream
goats cheese, roasted baby beets, pickled shallots, shiso, raspberry vinegar 18.5
We were served nearly all of the entrée dishes on the menu, they were all pretty good. I’ve forgotten the dishes in detail, but I do remember enjoying the seafood-based entrées more, especially the cured kingfish and the confit ocean trout.
poached chicken breast, quinoa, pistachio, fig, sorrel | crispy pork belly, fennel, dill, orange 30.5
mulloway, avocado, chickpea, chorizo, red pepper
Sides: spiced carrots 10 | brussel sprouts, smoked bacon, chestnuts 10 | salad of rocket, pear, roasted walnuts 8
The mains, however, we a bit of a let down. The pork belly was quite salty, and the quinoa salad that came with the chicken was also many notches too salty. I wonder whether it was because the kitchen struggled with serving such a large group of diners simultaneously. The fish main and the side dishes were alright otherwise.
passionfruit cheesecake, passionfruit mousse, jelly, granita, yoghurt sorbet 14
chocolate panna cotta, strawberry cream, strawberry sorbet 16
doughnuts with chocolate sauce
quince, pear, custard, coconut crumble, coconut ice cream 14
But the night ended on a high with several very good desserts. My favourite was the deconstructed passionfruit cheesecake, it had such a crisp tangy punch because of the granita, and the yoghurt sorbet was gorgeous!
It was a well organised event and we were served a crazy amount of food. I think if you enjoy share-plate dining that’s similar to Cumulus Inc., Henry and the Fox is a good alternative spot, only less crowded.
Spitiko
270 Park Street
South Melbourne, VIC 3205
03 9690 2600
spitiko.com.au
GoogleMap
Date Visited: Late July
PR Company: Harvey Publicity
When I received this invite, I mistook it for a sit-down type meal. Turns out it was more of a media launch event, where most of us were standing and it’s mainly finger food.
I will need to read event invites more carefully next time, because I did not enjoy this event that much. Standing with a glass of wine in hand and ‘working the room’ is just something I’m not that good at. There were quite a lot of publicity people there… editors from The Age and other newspapers, cameramen, and even George Columbaris made an appearance!
Crisp hot flat breads and dips
But what I liked about this restaurant relaunch was the strong Greek family themes. One wall of the restaurant had a series of beautiful portraits of chef (ex-Masterchef 2010 contestant) Philip Vakos’s nonna. Even the menu was designed using various old family photos. The concept behind this place revolves around how dining there is like entering the comfort of a Greek home to eat.
Calamari – lightly fried
Dolmades – rice filled vine leaves | Patates Tiganites – Hand cut chips
Small nuggets of beer food started coming from the kitchen. Because of the huge amount of people, you had to be fairly quick to get your share of food. I remember enjoying the calamari, but Fakegf and I thought that a few of the other nibbles (like the sausages – not pictured) were very salty…
I did not stay for long. I did, however, look longingly at the whole lamb turning on the spit. But alas, those souvlakis were being churned out at a very slow rate, so it did not distribute to us. Fakegf did, however, nab a chicken souvlaki, but sadly, it was again crazy salty. We left after that.
Garides Kataifi – angel hair pastry wrapped prawns | chicken pieces for souvlaki
I think this media launch wasn’t that representative of the restaurant’s food, it’s more geared towards generating publicity and interest. The kitchen went quite overboard with seasoning in some of the dishes, although some of my fellow bloggers who stayed reported that the other dishes later in the night weren’t over-seasoned.
A Greek colleague at work has mentioned that the food here is very good. So despite not enjoying the nature of this launch event, I’m still keen on visiting Spitiko for a proper Greek meal, and blog it properly then.
Goat milk and halva in desserts! ZOMG! So much goodness in these posts. Lately I’ve started to think that some of you Melbourne bloggers could easily eat out for the rest of your lives without paying for it :P
Hannah recently posted..Cedar City Dining: Chili’s and Denny’s and Greens, Oh My!
Oh those desserts were heavenly, Hannah… And no, I don’t get invites all that often, so can’t subsist on that alone, lol.
The SALTINESS of Melbourne food at the moment is just killing me. I ate with boyfrang at Cumulus Inc recently and while the entrées were fine, the mains were unbearably salty – to the point of obscuring the flavour of roast pork belly. And I’m an ang moh – I can’t imagine how it must taste to your palate. It is well known that fast food joints make their food salty so that it stands out in your memory — salt in evolutionary terms is a mineral that it’s hard for hunter-gatherers to get enough of, and for this reason in the right amount it makes flavours literally brighter, more intense. But lately, everywhere, it has been overdone, made a theme ingredient rather than a background intensifier, and it sucks.
You write it out so cheem, but yes I’m am so glad there are people who taste the same problem as I do. I always feel so upset when I taste a good dish destroyed by oversalting.
OMG I actually really wanted to visit Spitiko…. hopefully it will be better if it’s not a PR event with millions of people! Sad thing is they invite all these people to try and impress them but it can backfire…
Piggyeatalot recently posted..Akachochin
Indeed. It takes good organizing and proper coordinating to make sure the event goes well.
I’m not good at “working the room” either, so invitations always give me a “should I – shouldn’t I” dilemma. At least you could bring Fakegf with you! Out of all these ones, Shed 5 looks like the winner. I’ve read about it on other blogs too.
leaf (the indolent cook) recently posted..cookbook review: vietnamese street food
Shed 5 was the best organized of the events and the food was good too.