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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Dinner @ Wildflower

With the sad news about Fenix we're off to drown our sorrows at Wildflower - we last ate here close to a year ago where we enjoyed a leisurely degustation lunch.

We're escorted upstairs, a surprisingly large room that gives us a good view of Theatre Place.

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After a look at the menu we opt to try the 8 course dinner degustation.

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Seared Salmon cube topped with Salmon Roe that sits on a nest of shredded iceberg lettuce, wrapped with smoked salmon - at the base is a bed of small diced potato salad


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Bacon and Potato filled Zucchini Flower

I love bacon but it's probably just a bit too heavy for the delicate zucchini flower.

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This next plate just had way too much going on - too fussy and not all the flavours worked. It reminded me of something Gordon Ramsay had said during an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, once you get to 9 items on a plate, stop! The worse element was that pinot gris jelly topped with truffle sauce. Alone they were just passable, together they were almost inedible. The truffle and the acidic nature of the jelly clashed terribly. The actual quail elements were quite nice though in all the dishes so far, the seasoning has been a hit and miss affair with some parts of a dish being undersalted and others oversalted.

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This dish was described as salt and pepper calamari on stir-fried rice. Once again the seasoning was uneven.

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Shredded Pork served with Beef, roasted peach and potato croquette. The shredded pork was very tasty but also quite rich.


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Cleanser: Jasmine Tea Sorbet


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The final savoury course comes out as a huge platter to share. It is a meat extravaganza. Seared Sirloin, a larger portion of that shredded pork, eye fillet, deep fried Tripe. Vegetable wise, there are a couple of baked onions, a cylinder of parsnip, carrot purée and some fresh baked fig.

We do enjoy our meat but this was just too much food and not enough vegetable to offset the protein.

By the time it came for dessert, the waitress must have felt sorry for us having to put up with a spoiled screaming brat and his ineffectual "parents" for most of our meal and asked us if we'd like to move downstairs. The offer was gladly accepted.


I don't think it is too much to ask that when going out to dinner you don't have to put up with the tantrums of a spoiled child. Especially one that should have been in bed way before his plate of chips (don't get me started on that) turned up close to 10pm! If they are too cheap to hire a sitter then they should just stay at home and leave the rest of us in peace. The child obviously knows he runs the show, clearly evident when he threw his chips on the floor and when the father went to pick them up, the child jumped on the chips grinding it into the floorboards.


Back to the food - dessert came as a huge platter to share

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Chocolate Pudding, Raspberry sorbet, Vanilla Panna Cotta, Plum Pudding Ice cream, Blueberry Torte, Pineapple Sorbet, White Chocolate Semifreddo and Chocolate Sorbet.

An overly generous platter that at this stage of the evening we couldn't really do justice to it. Four people would have trouble getting through it.

While the lunch degustation was very good, this dinner degustation just has too much going on, too much food, too many things on the plates, perhaps they are just trying to do too much which resulted in uneven dishes. They need to simplify and shrink the portions. If we go back we'd try ordering from the a la carte menu and see if that produces a more balanced meal.


The details:
1 Theatre Place, Canterbury
Phone: 03 9888 6662
Open:
Tuesday - Saturday noon-2.30pm and 6.30-9.30pm;
Sunday: 9am+

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