Pavlova

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Aru – Melbourne, City – Wednesday 23 March 2022 – Lunch

Walking into Aru we have the strange feeling we’ve been here before. Is it the old Review on Little Collins? If it was, it is remarkably changed, and we are happy to try it on, just the same way Catherine has tried on many a Review dress back in the day.

The long rectangular room has sleek furnishings, mainly wooden, with a metallic curtain divider giving a modern, clean feel, much like the forthcoming food, and smooth service. The bar looks inviting for another time, maybe an evening cocktail and snack.

Duck sausage sanga, leatherwood honey, onion, peanut; torched salmon sea succulents, horseradish, orange kosho

We are in the mood to celebrate and enjoy a big lunch out in the city. Bookings are not easy to get these days and we got this one a few weeks ago. We must admit it wasn’t the first we tried to make, checking sister restaurant Sunda (only open for dinner) as part of our efforts. Now we are here and we are ready!

We have a new floor person today about three weeks in. He’s keen and is ready to extend the hospitality of the restaurant with a smile on his face (under the mask). It’s okay to be nervous if you are caring and hospitable and he certainly is.

We begin with the duck sausage sanga. This is genuinely a snack not to be missed, and another time at the bar is in our not too distant future. I’ve heard it is a take on a Bunnings hotdog, but it is far prettier and much tastier, leaving no feeling of guilt.

Skull Island prawns, native curry, blistered tomato

Next, the scorched salmon is meltingly good, and we are getting on a roll. By this stage we are on to our next wine. We have a terrific sommelier who has already poured us a Reserve Gosset Champagne which is a rare offering, and a first for us at a restaurant. It sets us on a path with this very expensive wines by the glass list. The Chardonnay by Salem & Co (Oregon) is exceptional with elegance and complexity from low/no irrigation. The Fiano from Campania is also a beautiful expression, despite the price tag.

Skull Island Prawns hit the table, introducing some subtle heat and deep flavour, with generous prawn meat. Having negotiated hard on potential side options, we erred on the side of indulgence with the spanner crab fried rice and it was unmissable in hindsight. This is a beautifully executed rice dish.

Spanner crab fried rice, white kampot pepper, sweet corn; Hiramasa kingfish, buttermilk dashi, desert lime, lettuce

The side took the limelight, but the actual main was still delicious. The Hiramasa Kingfish may have been the lesser of the various savoury dishes, but it went to show the overall abundance of quality here. The buttermilk dashi lifted it, but perhaps it was on the pan for half a minute too long.

Tapioca pudding, butterscotch, banana, wattle honeycomb; scorched pavlova, coconut, passionfruit, cultured cream

Dessert arrived in the form of a tapioca pudding, and a pavlova, which we shared. Both have excellent attention to sweetness. The tapioca felt richer and deeper in flavour with the butterscotch and wattle honeycomb. The pavlova was beautifully presented, with the usual visual appeal of careful blowtorching.

It is starting to feel less unusual getting out and about, and we couldn’t be happier about that. We were ready for a great meal and it presented itself in an odd spot on Little Collins. Our experience at Aru was outstanding.

Aru Restaurant – www.aru.net.au
Tuesday to Saturday – 12pm to late
Phone +61399398113
Email info@aru.net.au
268 Little Collins Street, Melbourne

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Farmer’s Daughters – Melbourne, City – Friday 30 July 2021 – Dinner

At the age of 43 it is both exciting and terrifying to think I have hopefully at least this much longer to live. Somehow destiny has led to my work being at its busiest at the same time as my birthday each year. Coupled with long nights in a regional role, reporting to global leaders, by the time it comes around I feel twice my age. Instead of “queue the violins” I take solace that it is also a time of excessive celebration.

Tonight, Catherine has us booked into Farmer’s Daughters, where we have been trying to go for months, surviving two lockdowns in between. The only thing I want consistent tonight to the last time we indulged in the city is the pre-drinks at Bouvardia, and indeed this fine cocktail bar living up to the last time we were there. It is absolutely superb. Our fingers are crossed that this dinner that follows is superb too.

While it did take five minutes for us to be seated for our 9pm booking, we did have one of the great tables in the room on the restaurant level. You get a feeling about a place fairly quickly, in this case we were excited, with great initial interactions with the staff.

As it turns out, those initial interactions chartered a course for the rest of the evening, and it showed that service can still be terrific in Melbourne. Despite having wanted to visit Farmer’s Daughters for some time, I actually don’t know a great deal about the restaurant. What was quite obvious, looking at the wine list is that this is a restaurant that celebrates local.

Naturally this extends to the food. Farmer’s Daughters on the restaurant level has a tasting menu consisting of five courses. Whilst you get the menu at the end, the kitchen takes you on a journey of their choosing, subject to dietaries. At the moment, that journey is centred on Gippsland. Our starters, skewers of O’Connor beef, locally grown broccoli, romanesco and cauliflower, and beautifully untouched Lakes Entrance kingfish, were all tremendous and diverse examples of the wealth of local produce in this bountiful region of Victoria.

As Catherine enjoys her Frankland Estate Riesling (Great Southern), and I, my Purple Hen Fume Blanc (Phillip Island), we are served with a dish I’ve since heard is a consistent favourite, and for good reason. The baked Baw Baw Alpine trout, sitting in a shallow pool of mountain pepper cream, with trout caviar, is superb from the first taste to the last. The subtle balance of the flavours, and the soft textures, broken by bursts of caviar, is an outstanding dish. We saw it on the pass as we were guided to our table, and really couldn’t wait to try what we saw, as it is also visually appealing.

Showcasing the fresh produce of Gippsland, sugarloaf cabbage is served bathed in clam butter, with Snowy River Station seagrass. It is a thoughtful vegetable based course. By now we’ve moved on to two new white wines, with mine an Arneis by Adelina (Clare Valley) and Catherine the Cannibal Creek Chardonnay. The latter is another wine from Gippsland, and while not exclusively choosing local wines, the sommelier / wine service has done a terrific job of mixing interesting producers and varieties, and doing their best to also showcase the region where the food is centred.

Our next course of garfish from “Campfire Corner Inlet” is a bit chewy and not to everyone’s taste. Crusted in a Japanese spice mixture called shichimi, which adds great flavour, and served with Wattle Bank oyster mushrooms, replacing the fish with many others would make for a more pleasurable dish.

On the back of a lowlight, but not bad dish, the venison course again hit the high notes. From Terramirra Park, this venison almost melts in the mouth. Beetroot, smoked parsnip, and black garlic accompany to lift the dish even further, but honestly the venison could be served by itself and it would still be terrific. By this stage I’m drinking the Xavier Goodridge ‘Pa Pa’ Pinot Noir, another find from the riches of Gippsland, and life is very good indeed. The attentive wine service also pours me a half glass of the Sagratino/Mourvèdre that I was keen to try by Aphelion.

Service all round had been excellent, and there were few times we were looking around for want of anything. While our table made a big difference to our comfort, I felt that everywhere in the restaurant seemed equally well served. Add to the quality food and service, the whole setting from the expansive glass frontage to Exhibition Street, to the sleek beige interiors, is signalling a new sophistication coming to Melbourne dining.

Dessert is served and looks like a cross between a decadent creme biscuit and a macaron. This take on a pavlova with carob, macadamia and mandarin, has that post-crack give I like in a merengue, and enough sweetness to keep us happy. It’s clever, local, Australian themed, and a nice way to end a high quality and focussed offering from the kitchen.

Good looking spaces are sometimes easier to create from scratch than sketch out of the past. Farmer’s Daughters is a great demonstration of a purpose built restaurant with a local focus that doesn’t remove ingenuity but enhances the experience.

Farmer’s Daughters
95 Exhibition Street, Melbourne
https://www.farmersdaughters.com.au/
info@farmersdaughters.com.au
+61 3 9116 8682