Interlude - Melbourne

[sgw]

Finally Melbourne has a new gastro destination.

After the sad closures of Pomme and Ondine I have been on the lookout for my new fav restaurant.

I was delighted when my boss said he would take me out for diner one Friday night, when he suggested Interlude i have to say that i wasn't really expecting to much. I had heard of the restaurant and chef, as he was awarded the young chef of the year award from the age. But after the last two years recipients the bar hasnt been set to high.

We were greated in the small, sleek and modern room by some of the happiest and nicest waiters i have encoutered.

It was after we recieved some canapes that i knew this was going to be a special night. Canapes included a clear smoked eel and apple jelly and a stunning rocket cocktail. A perfect start to a meal.

Looking at the menu it was obvious this place was different, think Fat Duck or NY"s WD50 but with a sense of humour.

We ordered a la carte menu, we ate

Clam Chowder,

a large clam shell, one side containing fine dice of potato and onion the other a flavoursome chowder foam, the whole thing dusted with a bacon powder. Absolutley delicious.

Entree- Veal Sweetbreads baked in Brioche- cramy veal sweetbreads set in a alcoholic jelly then encased with the bread dough, it was served with a small square of fig terrine some onion jam and a truffled Mayo thing. The presintation was amazing and all the flavours went so. well

We then recieved an extra course from the chef "just because he felt liked it" of what the waiter decibed as 'Perfect Scrambled eggs'. It was served in a tall shot glass, the eggs were so smooth and it was topped with a beetroot foam. Not sure if it was perfect but very close.

Main Course- Fish and Chips- This was amzing, the fish, barramundi i think had been cut into thick chips and pan fried golden, Mashed potato had been shapped like fish, battered and deep fried. It came with lovely mushy peas and a interesting lemon mousse. It was so good.

Must mention my partners main course was beef with flavours of a burger, which too was amazing, a chargrilled steak with all the flavours of a burger it looked so good.

We then had a palette cleanser of a lightest lemon foam.

Pre dessert was a chcolate bar served in an Interlude Wrapper filled with a spicey mousse. Very clever and fun.

Dessert- Banna clafoutis with a frozen pina colada

the clafoutis came in a tart shell and was rich and delicious then in a martini glass was a pina colada made from different sorbets and granitas.

Wow, we only order 3 courses and ended up having a seven course degustation. The food was amazing such attention to detail.

I was first turned onto to good food living in New York and have eaten all around the world. This was one of the best food ive eaten . All the staff seemed to love their work and we were made to feel very welcome. We got to meet the chef at the end, who was absolutely lovely and very cute!!!

MY favourite restaurant in Melbourne.

[SBonner]

Thank you for tip. I'm going to be in Australia for two weeks in November and will give this place a try. How is their wine list?

Thank you.

Stephen Bonner

Vancouver

[sgw]

I didn't pick up the bill, or loook at the wine list. But we had some nice bottles.

The menu is set price. I think 2 courses was $65, 3 courses was $79

Thanks for the welcome

[Shinboners]

I went to Interlude last year. The food was very good, although I reckon the portions could have been a little bit larger. I remember the prices for the entrees were in the high teens and for the mains, they were in the low to mid thirties. Mind you, our spending was blown out of the water by our entree of the air freighted French field mushrooms (with a thin slice of black truffle) at $25. My fiancee loved Interlude more than I did, and I felt the service could have been a little bit warmer.

[Shinboners]

And some changes at Interlude for 2006 - taken from http://www.interlude.com.au

As from the 10th January 2006, the dinner pricing structure at Interlude will change.

We have decided that, due to the current popularity of our dégustation menu, the prix fixe menu will no longer apply at dinner time.

In its place, Interlude will offer three dégustation options:

Introduction Dégustation

8 course ($90 for food, $140 with matched wines)

Intermediate Dégustation

11 course ($125 for food only, $200 with matched wines)

The Tour - The Largest Dégustation in Australia

25 course ($185 for food only, $285 with matched wines)

For lunch, we will continue the $30 2 course/$40 3 course Set Menu, with a limited a la carte menu.

Dégustation will not be available for lunch.

Details of the menus will be posted on our website late December/early January.

If chef robin has the time, I think many of us would be interested to read a few comments from him about the changes.

Edited December 13, 2005 by Shinboners (log)

[chef robin]

Interlude had come a long way since we opened two years ago.

This change over to degustation only is something I have been wanting to do for some time, but we thought leaving it until the New Year would be the best option.

As a chef and restaurateur I am always looking to challenge myself and my staff and to push the limits of what the restaurant can offer as a dinning experience.

We had taken the menu in its current state as far as we could.

I have always felt the public had a lot more confidence in other skilled trades than chefs. For example if you went to a top hair stylist or a interior designer you would tell them roughly what you liked and then let them work their magic, after all that’s what you’re paying them for. But for some reason people are a lot more reluctant to do that in restaurant despite the fact that chef’s train long and hard.

We will still have a menu at Interlude with the three options, that will each contain slightly different dishes, but ultimately you will be letting us cook for you.

The dining experience will be same in that the 8 course menu will be equivalent to a regular three courses in other restaurants, and the 11 and tour menus will be the same as previous degustation menus. The tour being made of lots of little tastes and bites.

This is not a new concept by any means and more and more top restaurants around the world are moving over to this style of restaurants as for a chef it offer them a chance to really show what they are capable of.

I look forward to cooking for you all soon at Interlude

[Shinboners]

I have always felt the public had a lot more confidence in other skilled trades than chefs. For example if you went to a top hair stylist or a interior designer you would tell them roughly what you liked and then let them work their magic, after all that’s what you’re paying them for. But for some reason people are a lot more reluctant to do that in restaurant despite the fact that chef’s train long and hard.

I think the perception is changing, and to my mind, chefs have a much better profile than even ten years ago.

We could probably put a few broad explanations. Firstly, from a consumer viewpoint, people have become much more aware of what they put into their mouths. It didn't seem that long ago that the Queen Victoria Market was marked for closure and it seemed that supermarkets and fast food chains would be the only source for food. Now the Queen Vic is flourishing (along with the other main markets), farmers markets have prospered, and specialty food stores are everywhere. Naturally, this flows into consumer expectations on the food they get at restaurants and a higher degree of adventurism. People become more open to new food, just look at how Vietnamese and Middle-Eastern food has flourised in Melbourne. Things like chicken livers were not on menus five years ago, but now you can find them at many restaurants. Naturally, this all leads to people being interested in the chefs who prepare the food.

The second thing is how chefs have promoted themselves. The advent of Pay TV that has allowed people like Bill Granger and Neil Perry build a profile for themselves. Bill Granger's profile is now so strong that there are billboards around town promoting his new cookbook. There seems to be more food orientated TV programs than ever - Beat the Chef, Ready Steady Cook, Food Lovers Guide To Australia, Surfing the Menu, and My Restaurant Rules all spring to mind very quickly. My friends in the professions tell me that the Epicure is the first part of the Age to disappear on a Tuesday morning, and there is the monthly Melbourne Magazine that always profiles chefs. There are also the other food magazines. Readings will often tie in cookbook launches with dinners. It's almost quite sneaky the way it happens. I remember a while ago, there was an advertisement promoting the David Jones Food Hall. It was a photo of a table surrounded by a dozen people - I realised that I recognised nearly all of them, and they were all chefs or ex-chefs!

It's interesting that you talk about hair dressers and interior designers as they are people that deal with lifestyle. Food has now become an important part of lifestyle. It's not seen to be a stuffy businessmen's lunch or "posh restaurants for old money" thing anymore. Good food is accessable at lower prices, and I think that once people get a taste for it, they will move up to more expensive options down the track.

This is not a new concept by any means and more and more top restaurants around the world are moving over to this style of restaurants as for a chef it offer them a chance to really show what they are capable of.

←

Many Melbourne restaurants already have a degustation option on their menus, so it's not going to be a new concept for most diners.

And you already have a reputation for producing fine food, so I think most will be happy to trust you with their evening's dining.

[fou de Bassan]

chef robin,

I dream of going into a restaurant and letting the chef and sommelier choose. Chefs seem to work so hard to express their vision and personality that it is a shame not to let you do just do that. It is then that we see the link between the dishes. Like a symphony is a collection of movements, so is the connection of the dishes to form a coherent whole. This is the essence of culinary art.

Hopefully we'll be seeing you soon. Given the conjunction of Saturn and Mars with babysitters.

Kathryn (fou de Bassan)

[PCL]

I dined at Interlude on the 1st December and have been meaning to post my thoughts for a while now, working the experience over in my mind. It’s taken me some time to get this out, but simply put, I had to think about it. It’s not my fault really, there was just quite a bit to think about (and with the approach to the silly season, lots and lots of work!!). It's a work in progress, but I thought I'd better get it up to provide momentum to my procrastinations.

16 courses worth, along with some tough metaphysical issues. The fact that it was a birthday present from my wife may have veiled how I really felt about things, the food of course, not my wife, but that’s another story. One might even say it felt like standing on an edge when we walked out the door, finally, at well past 1 in the morning. It could go either way, I thought then: I could simply like this place, or I’d adore it.

A few of you might remember the degrees of emotion I expressed after a single visit to VdM, also on my birthday. But so what, you grow up, isn’t that the point, and it seems, a year on, Melbourne has too. We went to VdM looking to be impressed and ended up with a fight on my hands. And it cost us $500 for the privilege. We went to Interlude just to see, and was taken on a journey. Sometimes, you just have to surrender.

The small spoonful of Caesar Salad stirred up soft-focus images remembered from The French Laundry Cookbook, and then the impossible happened: it expanded like a zip file, spilling onto the palate everything a Caesar Salad should be, but in this case, isn’t. That’s what cos lettuce ice cream sitting on a crisp slice of parmesan and soft anchovy dressing are supposed to do to you.on a warm humid Melbourne evening.

When the next couse of marinated octopus with an eggplant semi-freddo arrived, there wasn’t much to do but tuck right in. In a flash, it all made sense. The eggplant, lightly spiced and pureed, insinuated itself into the aftertaste of previous course’s parmesan, both salty elements with similar profiles, carrying over into the octopus. Each element of the composition held its own without standing out, with undertones harmonising. A zucchini gazpacho signalled the end of entrees, and by lacing the chilled soup with slices of smoked eel, it was possible to discern a continuity of flavour through each course without direct repetition. Clever. Even dish temperatures somehow made sense, starting with cold, to room temperature back to chilled, but not quite cold. Like a musical scale.

Fish came up next, red mullet fillets (so classical, didn’t even know we could get our hands on red mullet down here, and yuh, I’m supposed to know my fish…) with ratatouille and a bouillabase custard. It was the first time I’d seen ratatouille in such small perfectly brunoised elements, and not a hint of having been baked. The tiny dices of vegetables were crisp and exploded like sherbert powder, and when mixed into the custard and scooped up with morsels of fish, it became as close to a deconstructed dish as I could imagine. Apart from the fish, everything had been inverted, a semi-dry bouillabase sauce, an unbaked ratatouile. I realised that I had been transposed.

Settling in again to the next movement, a piece of sweetbread arrived with the dreaded foam. White, frothy, miniscule bubbles, set against bright green pureed broadbeans. The froth was announced as tobacco froth, distilled if you like, from a fine cigar. It immediately brought back the chapter in A Cook’s Tour when Anthony Bourdain visited the French Laundry and was presented with a similar concoction. Given that I’m an unashamed fan of Phillip Morris products, acceptance of my fate was not an issue. The foam, small pile of smoked tofu and sweetbreads worked a treat, introducing to the palate a new series of sensations. Classical preparation, with intensity provided by the amazingly flavoured bean puree. And yes the foam… it provided a pleasant buzz, escalated heart rate, and a diffusion of calm through the body. I’m sure that won’t work for non-smokers and the buzz might be altogether different, but my wife seemed to enjoy it too.

In keeping with the classical theme established, we moved onto skate. That’s something you don’t find on Melbourne menus very often, except for the odd seafood joint (Claypots comes to mind). This was heralded as a classically dressed skate, but the presentation and composition were anything but. Strips of skate flesh, infused with the poaching liquor, strewn delicately around the plate to be dipped into a ‘beurre noisette’ unlike any beurre noisette I’d ever seen. How browned butter may be transformed into salt and pepper-type crystals escapes me, but how joyous it was to dip each strip of flesh into the powder, rolling it around before flicking each one into the mouth. It reminded me of some Asian preparations of fish, where fillets or more commonly, whole fish are dry rubbed and grilled. Two worlds apart, but I can’t help but feel there was a commonality…end part 1

[Shinboners]

I dined at Interlude on the 1st December and have been meaning to post my thoughts for a while now, working the experience over in my mind. It’s taken me some time to get this out, but simply put, I had to think about it. It’s not my fault really, there was just quite a bit to think about

Tell me about it.

Usually, I can go to a restaurant and have the review posted up here within 24 hours. Maybe 48 if I'm feeling lazy. But geeze...I went to Interlude last night, and right now, words are pretty damn useless.

I’m just at a loss at the moment. All I can say is save up some money, find the first available date in 2006, and just make a booking at Interlude. And if you happen to be wanting to celebrate something, propose to a loved one, or if it’s just a first date, you can thank me later when you get the honey at the end of the night.

How can you do justice to sucking on a foie gras and roasted apple lollipop? Or how your eyes pop when the "Tomato Explosion" does its job? How about the everyday turning into the extraordinary as with "Bacon and Eggs" or the extraordinay turned into the heavenly as in the "Wagyu Beef Sirloin". Can you really explain the extent of the dessert envy when Mrs. Shinboners realised she should have ordered my chocolate granache instead of her (still sublime) souffle?

A principle joy for me is Wickens taking foods that we grew up with (bacon and eggs, macaroni cheese, caesar salad, chicken noodle soup) and present them to us in a new context. It becomes an intoxicating combination of haute cusine and comfort food. It's not a case of giving the diner odd flavour combinations or throwing in a few ingredients that most diners have never heard of (or even worse, expensive ingredients for the sake of prestige). His approach provides a sense of humour and warmth.

I'll write up a dish by dish review. You're going to read it, think that it all sounds pretty amazing, and when you get to Interlude, you'll understand why words can't do Wickens' food justice.

p.s. And unbelievably, the night got better because when I got home, I found that Teenage Fanclub were progamming Rage.......

Edited December 18, 2005 by Shinboners (log)

[Shinboners]

Okay, I'm going to do a PCL and do my review in more than one part. First, some background information. Mrs. Shinboners and I wanted to enjoy Interlude before it moved into the degustation only format in 2006. We enjoyed the dishes we selected, but Chef Robin also gave us a generous taste of the future of Interlude.

First, here's what we chose from the old menu.

I had the crisp veal sweetbreads, smoked tofu, peas and broadbeans as an entree. The sweetbreads were crumbed and fried, the outer layer having a perfect crunch and no hint of oil. The flavour of the sweetbreads made its presence felt without being too overpowering. I ate it in small slices, alternating with the tofu and greens to settle the palate before tucking back into the sweetbreads.

My fiancee enjoyed the eggplant semi-freddo, marinated octopus, frozen grapes, and Pernod foam. I had a little taste and what struck me was the texture. It was so smooth. One taste wasn't enough for me to get a handle on the flavourings, but she looked lost in contentment.

Onto the mains, and we both had the wagyu beef sirloin, kipfler potato mille feuille, brocolli puree, crisp bone marrow, and dijon mustard brochette. There was also little crumbed and fried nuggets of slow cooked beef cheeks. It was sublime. Every component could stand on its own, but they worked together as a whole dish. After eating one small component of the dish, we'd literally stop and spend time considering what part we'd eat next. The wagyu beef was cooked rare, and for the first time, I understood why people revere this meat. It was ethereal in the mouth, the softest hint of flavour before the meat melted on the tongue. Our waiter explained that the wagyu they served had a rating of 9 (out of 10), not only making it amongst the best available, but also amongst the most difficult to source. The potato mille feuille, crisped to perfection on the inside, wonderfully resistant and yet soft texture on the inside. And the bone marrow and beef cheeks - they achieved the same perfect balance of flavour and texture as the sweetbreads. This was truly one of the finest dishes that I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. I've taken a look at the 2006 degustation menus, and this does not make an appearance. I do hope that Chef Robin will bring this dish back in some format in the future.

Finally, desserts. I had a chocolate ganache, hazelnut mousse, coffee streusel, with tarragon. This was a memorable dessert. The flavours had plenty of punch, with not much subtlety, but it was so much better for it. Desserts are usually pretty straight forward affairs in that there isn't much room for the diner to play with what's in front of you. But with this dessert, it was game of enjoying each part of the dessert on its own, and then combining the differing flavours.

Meanwhile, my significant other suffered dessert envy, but found a certain degree of comfort with her valrhona chocolate souffle with marshmallow and bitter chocolate sorbet. She said it rated amongst the best chocolate desserts that she's enjoyed. The souffle had a perfect texture and lightness with the sorbet providing a good contrast. As for the marshmallow, she said that words like soft, cloud-like, and heavenly would not be adequate.

[Shinboners]

And here's part 2.

We started off with a "yuzuaide", an icy liquid made from yuzu. It tasted sour, salty, and sweet, and the flavour reminded me of a cross between lemon and grapefruit, and it cleansed the palate very well.

Next came the canapes, four in all. All were one bite jobs, with the two that stood out being French onion soup and deep fried mac and cheese. These two had flavours that stood out strongly, a kind of instant reminder of comfort food of adult and childhood years. The other two were a composed Greek salad and a buckwheat blini with creme fraiche and frozen shaved smoked salmon. The Greek salad didn't do much for me, but the blini would have been a star if it wasn't for the other two canapes.

And now we go course by course.

Caesar salad. As Pein said in his review, this was like a zip file. I suppose if you were to summarise Wicken's cooking in one course, this wouldn't be a bad one to choose. You taste all the components of the dish, each flavour works in harmony and reveals themselves in order, and it is all so balanced.

Foie gras and roasted apple lollipop, with the apple in the centre and the foie gras coating it. Yes, it did look like a lollipop and you ate it like a lollipop. And back to my childhood memories, my lollipop fell off its stick. I can't remember if foie gras and apples were traditional partners in French cooking (I'm too lazy to look it up in my cookbooks right now), but whether or not they are, it worked for me.

Pickled cucumber, mango puree, and several aromatics. This was a finely sliced piece of cucumber, the puree in the folds, and the aromatics sitting on top. The aromatics were not mixed together, but they appeared in distinct rows - a thread of saffron, then a few bits of crushed pepper, salt flakes, then the next aromatic after that. For me, it was the aromatics that were the star of the show, the cucumber and mango being the backdrop to these individual explosions of flavours as the aromatics hit the tongue. Superb.

Whole black truffle. This was a truffle flavoured frozen ‘sponge’ rolled in chopped black truffle and filled with a liquid Madeira centre. It came with a couple of thin cheese (I think they were cheddar) crisps. This was an exercise in understatement compared to the pyrotechnics of the previous course. The Madeira centre wasn’t as strongly flavoured as I had expected, but it did give a good backdrop for the flavour of the truffle (which was very earthy and very warm).

Chicken consommé and instant noodles. This was a fun dish. A bowl of intensely flavoured chicken consommé, served with a few chanterelle mushrooms and broad beans. You then took a bottle of herbed yoghurt and squeezed it into the consommé to make the “instant noodles”. Excellent.

Bacon and eggs. No, it’s not the Thomas Keller dish. At Interlude, Wickens cooks an egg at 32 degrees for 2 hours. It is served with a bacon consommé and a piece of dehydrated bacon. Visually, it’s a fantastic dish to look at with its presentation in a wonderfully curvaceous bowl. Tasting it is even better. Like the other dishes, this is an exercise in bringing out flavours, and like the canapés, it’s also an effort to take the familiar and present it in a different form. I reckon that chefs can get a bit too clever with their food, but this dish shows how you can be interesting without going over the top.

Tomato explosion. It’s back to the pyrotechnics, with a tomato ravioli that you put into your mouth and, as you’d expect from the dish’s name, it explodes in your mouth with a burst of tomato flavour. Just remember to keep your mouth shut rather than chew when you get one of these.

Rare cooked pork shoulder with warm cider foam. I’ve never had pork like this before. The pork was so rare that it looked raw – maybe it should have been called blu. Eat the pork by itself and, well, it doesn’t taste like much with just the smallest hints of pork flavour hanging around somewhere on the tongue. Eat it with the cider foam and you start thinking of the best roast pork and apple sauce dinners you’ve ever had. The texture of the pork was like jelly, and like the wagyu beef, it quickly melted in the mouth.

Grapefruit in grapefruit. A grapefruit sorbet in a grapefruit foam. You have the same basic flavour, but its presented in two different formats at two slightly different temperatures. Try the sorbet by itself, it’s okay. Try the foam by itself, and that’s okay. Try both together and the flavours and textures lift up several notches. And it did a fabulous job of cleansing the palate.

A chocolate banana bon bon with puffed banana rice, peanuts and cherries. This was a nice little bite before dessert. Like many of the courses beforehand, it was one bite and then flavours dancing on the tongue with the chocolate and cherry being the most prominent.

There’s really not much more for me to add on Interlude. The food is wonderful. I love the way that Wickens takes the familiar and presents it in a new way, and I adore the sense of fun he has with his food. In the food world, there are few better ways to spend an evening.

[PCL]

I've made a bad habit of attempting to write multi-part reports and have been failing dismally in succeeding. I think my time management skills need to be reviewed! But I hope the fragment I did manage to post conveyed enough of how I felt.

To echo Shinboners, there isn't much more to say about Interlude's potential and capability to excite and astound. The courses that followed what I wrote about finally totalled 16, ranging from caviar (Osetra) to ox-cheeks to smoked squab, all very unsupposing and obvious ingredients, but all imbued with the indelible WTF factor. My first visit basically ended with a cleansing ale, chatting to Robin W, and a determination to return.

[chef robin]

Next week will be our 2nd year birthday. I'd would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and custom over the last 2 years.

Of course we couldn't have a birthday without a party. As last year we let our customers pick their favourite dishes for the menu we (i) thought it was only fair if this year i got to pick my favourite things. Should be a cracking night.

For your interest the menu is;

Things I Like; scallops,pizza,sweetcorn,pigeon, apple pie, bacon, duck, sweetbreads,sardines, malted milk, doughnuts, twix

Our 3rd year looks set to be our best year yet ( and the last two haven't been bad) with our degs in full swing. We look forward to welcoming many of you back this year and meeting those of you who have yet to visit us.

Regards

Chef Robin

[PCL]

Which night is it?? If it's Wednesday, no can do... racing...

[chef robin]

Which night is it?? If it's Wednesday, no can do... racing...

←

Its on Thursday 9th Feb.

more details www.interlude.com.au

[Shinboners]

Happy birthday to Interlude. I hope you have a top night with the celebrations.

The missus and I were talking about our dinner there, and thinking of our favourite childhood and comfort foods we'd love to see with a haute cousin. After going though a few options, the one that appealed to us the most was.....the twistie roll! Chef Robin, I don't know if you ever had them in England, but over here, the twistie roll was simply a buttered roll, cut in half and filled with twisties. Let us know if you ever come up with an Interlude version of it.

[PCL]

Shinboners and I were invited by Chef Robin to test drive the 25 course degustation, known as "The Tour". We duly showed up with hiking boots and note pads at 7pm, March 9.

It was a 5 hour journey.

It turned out to be 28 courses in total.

The timing of so many courses was crucial. We were asked to note how that worked, and to be honest, portioning was just right, leaving that hint of "I'd like a bit more" and anticipation for the next item.

It was revealed to us that foams and intense but light emulsions are crucial in providing flavour in terms of a 'sauce' but yet holding back enough bulk to prevent overly stuffing one self.

There were a few new things on the menu, such as an interpretation of a 'pizza' slice, dehydrated 'pina colada' to start with, and a mean squab and foie gras emulsion combo. The stand out was a piece of salmon, fatty and pristine, lightly poached and sitting on a steaming 'potato consomme'... sounds banal, but hey, it's not what you'd expect.

The ensuing discussion with Robin was insightful, our notes being presented and dissected and critiques put forward. I'm no culinary master, but it was good to know that the 'man on the street' has a voice that's worth listening to.

At this point, I'd like to invite Chef Robin to post about The Tour, and maybe give us an update on going-ons in the kitchen. When we visited, it was only a week or so after a new brigade had been inducted into the kitchen. Also, calling out to Shinboners to chip in his valueable 2cts worth!

[Shalmanese]

Shinboners and I were invited by Chef Robin to test drive the 25 course degustation, known as "The Tour". We duly showed up with hiking boots and note pads at 7pm, March 9.

It was a 5 hour journey.

It turned out to be 28 courses in total.

The timing of so many courses was crucial. We were asked to note how that worked, and to be honest, portioning was just right, leaving that hint of "I'd like a bit more" and anticipation for the next item.

It was revealed to us that foams and intense but light emulsions are crucial in providing flavour in terms of a 'sauce' but yet holding back enough bulk to prevent overly stuffing one self.

There were a few new things on the menu, such as an interpretation of a 'pizza' slice, dehydrated 'pina colada' to start with, and a mean squab and foie gras emulsion combo. The stand out was a piece of salmon, fatty and pristine, lightly poached and sitting on a steaming 'potato consomme'... sounds banal, but hey, it's not what you'd expect.

The ensuing discussion with Robin was insightful, our notes being presented and dissected and critiques put forward. I'm no culinary master, but it was good to know that the 'man on the street' has a voice that's worth listening to.

At this point, I'd like to invite Chef Robin to post about The Tour, and maybe give us an update on going-ons in the kitchen. When we visited, it was only a week or so after a new brigade had been inducted into the kitchen. Also, calling out to Shinboners to chip in his valueable 2cts worth!

←

Oh man, I really need to make it down to Melbourne sometime .

[bmj]

I think only one thing comes to mind when I see pictures of Chef Robin's food and read his menu....plagiarism.

[Shalmanese]

bmj: There is already a thread here on the issue of interlude and plagiarism. This thread is for discussing the food.

[JaysB]

Does anyone know the technique that chef wickens uses to glaze his short ribs. I have tasted it and like the presentation. any help would be appreciated.

[PCL]

Now, Robin hasn't posted here for a bit, but maybe try emailing the restaurant or sending him a PM. He just might reply...