Tonight I had dinner with Andy and Amelia at Bruno’s Tables. Hidden away in an old Queenslander, and surrounded solely by other residential properties, this little find has a big reputation for fine dining and serving modern French food. The head chef, Bruno Loubet, is well known for creating intensely-flavoured food and amongst his many other roles as restaurateur and chef, contributes to Brisbane News for their cuisine section.

Although I enjoy fine dining, it is very rare that I have an occasion to go to places like this. As a result, I went for the full three course meal so that I could properly appreciate the food I would be unlikely to have the opportunity to enjoy in the near future. I will not be able to go into great detail for each dish as each one had too many ingredients to keep track of. My entree, which I was extremely pleased with, was something like Roasted Chillies served with a Rocket Salad, some type of small shortbread and a dressing I could not identify. The roasting of the chillies mellowed out their spiciness and increased thier sweetness, which was then balanced out well by all the other ingredients. Surprisingly all of the entrees ordered were rather large and I could confidently see two of them being sufficient for a meal.

My main dish was the Venison served with Mushrooms and a tartlet accompanied by a Blue Cheese Sauce. The venison was cooked extremely well but the flavour of the meat and gravy was perhaps, excessively strong and thus very filling. The tartlet, mushrooms and blue cheese sauce helped to ease the meaty flavour of the meat and gravy and was overall a nice experience. It is very rare that I eat venison and so it was nice to have it prepared and cooked well by someone else.

Dessert was definitely the food highlight of the evening, with everyone ordering the dessert that was really three petite desserts served as one. This wickedly rich course was made up of Orange Creme Brulee, Chilli Chocolate Cake and Cherries in a Forest Fruit Tea. Though Andy’s and my brulee could have done with a little more setting (Amelia’s was perfect), the strong orange flavour and perfectly caramelised top made for a fantastic mix of flavours. I have never had chilli chocolate in my life, let alone in a cake form, and so was absolutely delighted by the miniature pudding-like cake. The premium quality chocolate flavour was surprisingly strong as I had expected it to be tamed somewhat by the addition of the chilli. Andy and I spent a lot of time trying to isolate impact the chilli had, just because other than their heat, chillis tend not to have a very identifiable flavour. I found the cherries in the tea were a great accompaniment for the other petite desserts, which I used as a palette cleanser between savouring the flavours of the other two dishes.

Overall a fantastic dinner that was made even better by the company it was enjoyed with.