thanks CS guy for helping me rename
It is my fondest wish that the following will leave your mouth watering and drooling with jealousy. And the Australians will rush to Brisbane and book a table for the winter menu.
Saturday night Nick's dad came over to be in the house while Elana slept - so we could go out for dinner for our Wedding Anniversary. (Which is today - Monday 19th)
We had an 8'o'clock reservation at Venice a bar/cafe` on the river in Brisbane. It was our fourth visit to this restuarant & once again we weren't disappointed. They took our coats as we sat down and Nick ordered a beer (crown lager) and I was cold so I decided to just have water until after I knew what I was ordering. We perused the menus and eventually decided to share and entree` and each have a main - our waitress told us the soup of the day was pea & ham so we decided not to have soup, the venitian fish for the fish & chips meal was red snapper and the merket fresh fish of the day was Barramundi.
After debating with myself for a few minutes I decided not to have a pasta meal (we had pasta on Friday night and I ate the leftovers for lunch on Saturday) - although it sounded fantastic - veal shanks with curly fetticine in sauce of some discription that sounded yummy but was two days ago so how can I possibly be expected to remember it - what do you people want blood!!
j/k So We ordered an entree Sumac fillets of lamb on a sweet potato roesti and some kind of coulais - We had no idea what a roesti was and found it to be like a sweet potato quiche almost - there was egg in it - it was really yummy and the lamb was quite pink - but I ate it yay me!
So I decided to have the Market fresh fish of the day on the bed of crushed potatos, carmelised onion surrounded by truffle oil and Nick went with the duckling. In the four times we've been there Nick has had two steak meals and two duck meals - I have had the chicken pasta, the chicken & mushroom risotto, the fish (which wasn't barramundi but I can't remember what it was) on Polenta wrapped in proscuitto and the fish (barramundi) on crushed potato.
So our entree arrives and it looks beautiful two fillets of lamb crusted in sumac and Nick tells me cumin on top of this piece of cake made from sweet potato (or maybe the cumin was in the sweet potato....) surrounded by this orange sauce on one side and yellow sauce on the other - I have no idea what either of them were but they were both really yummy.
So I ordered the fish so I decided that a milk drink wouldn't really go so I ordered lemon lime & bitters and while we're looking out over the river and at the lights on the story bridge our mains come.
Nicks duckling has a very crunchy skin its on a bed of bok choy leaves surrounded by a brown sauce which Nick says is quite sweet but tastes as if there is soy in it (it's Nick's main interest in a restuarant to pull apart the food and see how it is made and if he ccould recreate said meal) beside it is two triangles that look like pastry but are in facts layers of thinly sliced potato and sweet potato that have been baked or fried so the top is quite crunchy but the middle is soft - they were really really yummy!!!! - I had a bit of his vegetable thing but not the duck - I'm not a fan of duck.
My fish was absolutely beautiful - the flesh was so white and the skin so salty and crispy - I think they used celery salt on the skin - and it was on top of crushed potatos that had been crushed with the vinegary carmelised onion and some other herbs and vegetables - there was a bit of chilli and some really good truffle oil - it was the best fish I'd ever eaten. And the fish we had at our wedding was REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! good.
The most interesting thing was behind us was a table of about 15 and they were having a wedding reception - the couple had moved up recently from somewhere down south and none of their family was with them except the brides brother who was responsible for inttroducing the couple - the more drinks the table had the louder they got. And the bride & groom announced their pregnancy to the table - it was very nice - I thought it was so nice that they were celebrating their wedding while we were celebrating our anniversary (at the same place we went after Nick proposed)
Dinner was finished and we got the dessert menu - we could have had pannecotta with pitaschio and fig something.... (again can't remember) the chef's gelato served with amaretti biscuits. But what I'd been seing all night ordered by other patrons was just too good to pass up - especially after I'd read it on the menu.
Rich chocolate tortafa (sp) (which was this really really thick mud - it was the consistency of peanut butter and it was SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! good) with roasted coconut icecream and fudge sauce.
What it was was this piece of "cake" and it was about 3inches by 2inches with this HUGE circle bandy snap in the top (and it tasted just like an anzac biscuit - it was SO yummy - it seriously would have been about 5inches in diametre) sitting in a swirl of choclate fudge sauce and beside it was a little bowl with a ball of vanilla ice-cream that had been tossed in roasted coconut - it was the best dessert ever.
and Nick had a vanilla bean creme brulee` with poached pear and wildberry coulais. Which translated was this creme` brulee` in a ramakin and beside it was a little pear that had been poached in vanilla & cinnamon and the plate had a swirl of this wildberry sauce - he said it was really good.
So we really enjoyed our meal - all up it was about $110 which was less then I'd expected - the mains were $28 each - we got the bill and walked back out into the cool night air to grab a taxi.
We were home just after 10pm to find that our angel didn't even sleep cry (she sometimes crys out at night in her sleep just because) that Kim hadn't heard a peep out of her. - So we went to bed.
It was a lovely way to celebrate our Anniversary.