Dinner @ Taxi

Just before heading out last night, dynamic duo Elle and Al called to see if we'd been interested in going to Taxi. As none of us had been to Taxi and in the spirit of expanding our dining experience we said yes.

We opted for a bottle of Yarra Burn Pinot Chardonnay to start and decided on trying the 7 course degustation with wine match.


Tuna belly
Wine match: Saki
Two slices of Tuna belly served with shredded seaweed. The tuna was delicious, meltingly soft as it should be.


Duck soup with enoki and shitake and duck dumpling
Wine match: Leffe Beer

We're slightly confused when the waiter serving this course calls it our first course. Though not said at the time there's a bit of annoyance at the so called wine match. Actually considering we just had sake, we're yet to have wine.

One other point about the beer - when shown at our table it wasn't a full bottle of beer to start off with, when the third serving was poured, a small amount still remained in the bottle - it wasn't poured but taken back from whence it came. Considering we have paid $80 a head for the pleasure of these wine matches you would think that they would be able to fork out the whole $5 (retail price for the bottle) beer and serve it between the 3 of us. Working on averages, we just paid $34 for a part bottle of beer! I don't even want to think about that thimble full of saki!


Pork Belly, Confit Potato, Corn Mush
I love potatoes but I did not enjoy this one. Odd taste and texture. The pork was quite tender but had a rather reconstructed look about it.


Red Emperor, Black beans
A truly terrible dish - the red emperor had the texture of rubber. It was overly salty and bitter.
The skin sitting atop was inedible. The fish had the appearance of having been cooked then having sat in the acid dressing causing it to continue cooking.



Sliced quail breast, Duck portion
Wine Match: French Grenache
After a ridiculously long wait our main finally arrived. It consisted of one sliced quail breast and half a portion of duck - it's other half appearing on our dining partners plate. I don't know but that seems awfully cheap.



Liquorice foam, caramel cream
Another long wait till the dessert comes out, even longer before it's wine match appears. Another lazy dish. The liquorice foam had a most unappetising colour and was too thick to be classed as a foam. The caramel cream was tasty but dull. I don't know whose idea it was to put too similarly textured items on the same plate.


Petit Fours - Chocolate ganache cake, strawberry jellies, honeycomb, chocolate truffles
How about this - our seventh course are the Petit Fours! In what alternative reality are the Petit Fours ever considered a course?

You may well gather that we didn't enjoy our time here.
You'd be right.

There's no way we'll be returning. Uninspiring food combined with tight fisted servings and indifferent service. Having just spent $800 our thoughts are that we were well and truly ripped off. Considering this restaurant had just been awarded 2 hats in the latest Good Food Guide, we were stunned by how bad it was. It's embarrassing.

Since dining we've discovered that Taxi has been bought by Queensland gambling interests whose obvious focus is not in fine dining but trying to screw as much money as possible out of it's diners. Relying on tourist trade may work in Queensland but trying to apply that logic here will see you soon closing the doors - the sooner the better in my opinion.

Rare comment from Paalo follows:
It was good to see that even the minor celebrity on the table behind me got just as indifferent food, (with slightly better service), they would have been tickled pink that their closed eatery may well have ruled over this one.