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Sandhurst Club - Bendigo

14 View st
Bendigo
5442 3070

I was kindly invited by my supervising GP to attend a drug-rep. dinner at Sandhurst Club (I've heard it was quite an exclusive club in Bendigo – not so long ago there was a debate over allowing female memberships.)

Locating the double-story brick mansion overlooking Rosalind Park without any guidance proved to be a slight challenge. It was located rather ambiguously off the main road, which was only accessible via a small unremarkable laneway and no obvious directing signs either – all the more exclusive!

I was obviously excited when I saw several bottles of local reds sitting at the centre of each table. Not wine expert, especially Bendigo wines, I didn't really have much preference between the
Burnt Acre 2008 Shiraz & Turner's Crossing 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon – and unwittingly went with the former. Later I was strongly urged to try the latter by other Doctors on the table (very knowledgeable food-wine connoisseurs). I thoroughly enjoyed the Cab Sauv, probably a glass… or 4 too many over the duration of the night. =)

Entrée:
The Club's Four Tastes

Taste #1 Pan fried prawns served with creamy rosemary sauce - flesh had a juicy bite with a fresh aroma of the sea. Yum!
Taste #2 Pumpkin soup – deep orange soup speckled with herbs (gah, drank it too fast to notice which herbs they used, vaguely remember by taste probably thyme) in a petite white tea cup. It was thick, creamy and flavoursome.
Taste #3 Beef on skewer drizzled with rosemary & olive oil – was a tad over grilled giving a slightly dry texture to the meat.
Taste #4 Potato with white horseradish relish – a mouthful of the horseradish certainly gave a strong kick of wasabi through the sinuses - definitely a bold statement!

Main:
Lamb Backstrap with roasted pepper sauce, grilled Vegetable Stack & Rosti potato.

The lamb was a lean cut, cooked nicely to a peeking-pink showing through the sliced straps. It was tender & juicy; the blunt knife incised easily through it. The grilled slices of juicy cucumber & rich suppleness from the eggplant complemented the lean lamb perfectly. Just one small issue: the base layer of Rosti potato was overly peppery and unfortunately not crisp nor crumbly (probably just my personal preference for Rosti). Overall a well balanced main.

Side note: I wonder sometimes why places serve dishes with a whole sprig of herb (rosemary / thyme) or what not, especially if it in no way adds flavour to the dish (clearly not a big issue given some of us got rosemary, some thyme). Although likely a little visual kick, but 'sigh' what a waste…

Dessert: Orange, Almond and Pistachio Cake, served with cream, strawberry jam & orange marmalade

It was a warm toasty cake with a moist buttery texture. It had hints of orange and almond with crunchy bites of pistachio. I found the strawberry jam smear clashed with the overall citrus elements of the dessert, but was well complemented by the cream and bitter-sweet orange marmalade.

P.S. Apologies to most if not all of you who are not current members of the Sandhurst Club, as I would highly recommend dining here! Maybe try bribe a membership, haha.

Food rating: 17/20 delightful food.

Bath Lane Café – Legend Burger

13 Bath Lane
Bendigo

CAUTION: please continue eating (reading) at your own risk. You may become very very very full and get heartburn!

Touted on the menu as the best burger in town (see also Half-Eaten's review), I had quite the expectation for this "Legend Burger".

After waiting a decent 15 minutes (fairly efficient given the traffic flow), I was greeted with an ENORMOUS (potentially double a double whopper) probably almost 15 x 15cm in size. The impressive mound of filling was sandwiched in between a huge toasted bun, held together with a silver knife stabbed vertically down the middle.

The lean steak patty was slightly charred, and had a fresh beefy taste (excuse my non-illustrative description of beef…not sure how else to describe) on the palate and had a good bite to it without being chewy. Then there was a stack of fried omelette, many layers of crispy bacon, heaps of tomato & lettuce, and a sweet tomato relish.

Trying to eat the burger was a disaster. It was clearly too big to try to squish and bite. Resorting to knife and fork (not sure how such logic works, but that's what I went for), I tried to slice eighths off the burger. No doubt that was also a complete failure. In the end I was virtually eating a salad of burger – what a mess.

If there had not been such a monster of a burger sitting on top of it, the bed of chips would have been a little more appetising, albeit the crispy shell and soft potato centre.

Food rating: 14/20 – simple but well constructed gourmet burger brought to "legendary" proportions. Please come with a VERY VERY empty stomach, and be prepared to kick back and rest for the next… uh 6hrs+. Other things on offer include a range of teas & tonics advertising relaxation, nice complexion etc (seems like a trend on bath lane).

Ibuki (伊吹)

321 Flinders Lane
CBD Melbourne
(Grand Mercure Flinders Lane Apartments)

Having acquired Crowdmass vouchers ($45 for $100 value), my sister had after a couple of failed attempts at reservations, we were able to slot in on Father's day. We arrived early at 6.30pm - as per instruction when we booked over the phone – to find ourselves in a rather quiet restaurant. Having read some good reviews (well at least for the Lonsdale St one) I had decent expectations for this Japanese restaurant.

Gyo
tataki - marinated tataki beef slices both of raw & salt cured. It was so soft, virtually melting away in the mouth. Well seasoned with strong acidic element from the pickled ginger (possibly a little too acidic for my palate though).

Agedashi tofu – soft tofu texture and tasty broth.

Miso cooked fish – too salty and a little too dry.

Eggplant – rich, soft texture but nothing spectacular.

Sashimi & sushi platter – fresh but not spectacular, tuna was not of high grade (though we weren't exactly paying top dollar =P).

'Ibuki' roll – an inverted sushi roll with roasted sesame sprinkled over the exterior rice. Enveloped in the middle was eel, avocado and green leafy vegetable (total clash of flavours). Although juicy, sweet and soft, I was very disappointed by the extremely small portion of eel in the humungous roll of rice.

Lobster tempura & assorted prawns / vegetables – quite impressive presentation with the standing lobster and fan of soba noodles. Eating it was however another story. It was poorly battered – uneven, not always thin & crisp, and left huge oil stains on the underlying paper. Lobster, I personally believe doesn't suit being fried, and not surprisingly the centrepiece was a little dry & tough. On a brighter note, the vegetable tempura(s) were still juicy & fresh on the inside.

Steamed barramundi – was ok, but clearly wasn't "live" barramundi. The encasing seaweed & mushrooms did not add any flavour elements to the fish itself.

Green tea & sesame ice cream – The green tea ice cream was REALLY nice, having a delicate balance of bitter & sweet. Most places either over/under shoot the balance. The black sesame provided a good roasted aroma.

菊正宗Sake (smooth dry) – went well with sashimi.

All in all it was a forgettable experience. If not for the fact that it only cost us $90 with the vouchers, this was not overly value for money. Also the menu lacked "nice" sashimi range including a lobster / assorted $80 platter (as advertised online for the Lonsdale store, sigh).
P.S. the items that I had "bold" font were the ones I enjoyed most.

Rating: 11/20
Service – depends on which waiter comes around – hit and miss, some attentive others poorly educated of menu.

Al’s attempt at cooking #2: Lindt chocolate panna cotta

Recipe: (courtesy of Neil Perry + Donna Hays, and tinkered by me - less sweet + creamy... ironically this dessert is cream based LOL)

Main ingredients:

- 100g chocolate (lindt 70%)

- 400ml pouring cream

- 1/4 cup caster sugar 

- gelatin leaves (didn't have any, so i used powder (2tsp) instead) 

Method: argh... too much effort to type... lolz. i'll post if ppl want it 

* note: recipe suggested 4 moulds... i think the volume here is enough for... 8! especially if u plan to actually have dinner before hand. LOL

Review:

- nice shiny surface (pre de-moulding, sigh), and has a tremulous wobble. It has a deliciously smooth and creamy texture on the palate - a perfect match with papaya, or any summery fruit to help cut through the rich panna cotta! 

Issues: 

- difficult to de-mould --> next time shall rememeber to fill all the way to the brim, and oil lightly but evenly, and use conical shaped moulds instead.

- possibly a err'ing on too soft --> a tad more gelatin

Snow Pony

95 Whitehorse Rd, Balwyn

www.snowpony.com.au

Sister store of the awesome Porgie + Mr Jones, Snow Pony also serves breaky all day every day, and is MUCH closer to me!

Their ingredients are all organic / gourmet :  ..."Our bread is organic from Noisette, our chickens lived a happy life down Gippsland way, our eggs are the best from Shelley + AllanGreen, our Mushroom man, Ricard is a legend + we LOVE Tom Cooper and everything he smokes!. Our double smoked bacon is from Echuca from free range piggies."...

Taste of Melbourne 2010

Arriving extra early (5pm) to meet Thanh (so he can pass me some of his free tickets), meant extra time spent in the dreaded chilly weather, and it almost started pouring.

*

Then before the opening ... a firetruck pulled up after what seemed like a "fire" accident inside, and all the staff inside were evacuated - - what a great start to the day LOL, ah wellz time for some CHEF CELEBRITY spotting!!! After the long wait, with much shivering, the doors finally opened to let us in - - ah, the warmth and wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchens really stimulated my appetite, not that I wasn't hungry already. And Agnes joined me just in time to go in. Poor thing had a "thin" soup for lunch, clearly starving in preparation for this over-eating session!

Apparently there was a "smaller crowd" typical of weekday opening night for Taste of Melbourne, but still created a handful of queues and swarms of people around the more popular stalls.

Restaurants:

The European

Being hungry and all we went for the first thing that caught our eyes :

Duck tortellini with pea puree and truffle oil (The european) - I was so eager (ie hungry) to eat, that I totally forgot to take a photo. To our horrid surprise, it was a PAINFUL experience. The tortellini had a hard/undercooked skin and dry stringy duck meat. And it was cold... GAH...

Rating: ??/20 (gah... painful start to night, but must soldier on!)

Stokehouse

Next we went for something that looked "steamy" still (given this bad experience). So, something fried - surely can't go wrong.

*Wagyu beef cigars, artichoke tampenade and horseradish (Stokehouse restaurant)

Rating: 14/20

They managed to pull out warm/hot (yay) and still crispy cigar of minced wagyu which was indeed soft & juicy. Though seems like a waste to mince wagyu, but that's just me wanting to eat a whole steak of wagyu. Artichoke tampenade was a delightful accompaniment. Then later in the night we came back for their dessert...

* The Bomb, in the making ... oo blow torch

* The Bombe, ooo i want the whole roll from the freezer HAHA

*The Bombe : strawberry sorbet, white chcolate parfait and toasted meringue

Rating: 17/20

Just watching them take out the whole roll of "the Bombe" and then BLOWTORCHING it - we were salivating (well i presume Agnes was too, haha, since this dish ranked very highly). The sourness of the strawberry sorbet, sweetness of fresh strawberries & white chocolate icecream, slight butter goodness of the base, soft textural amusement and warm temperature from the torched meringue - - was a wonderful stimulation of the senses when you get a bit of all 4 layers. Favourite dish of the night! =)

Will definitely be going to StokeHouse when i can!