Taking my food obsession to Australia I dragged Stephen along to Vue Du Monde, one of Melbourne’s top restaurants and arguably one of Australia’s finest restaurants. I don’t think Stephen has yet quite experienced the whole over the top fine dining scenes that I have recently fallen into – and I wasn’t sure how prepared he was to be adventurous with our dining – but I was he enjoyed himself tonight and was happy to eat nearly everything only side stepping the very strong blue cheese at the end of our meal.
The best thing about Vue Du Monde – it was literally around the corner from our hotel so we could roll our bodies easily home … ha! I think it is set to move soon though to top of the Rialto Towers (55 floors!), which would have been a pretty cool venue with views over all of Melbourne.
The dining area is fairly intimate at Vue Du Monde – but the space is broken up by walls and decorations and other bits and pieces which help to form smaller spaces so as to not feel like you’re in one vast dining room. The kitchen is wide open to the interested diners complete with a mirror sitting on top so that you can see what the chefs are preparing at the moment. We were happy to be seated at a table which was pretty much facing the kitchen (with a couple of tables in between) and also happy to see the man himself, Shannon Bennett make an appearance later on in the evening.
Décor in general was interesting featuring bare (but giant) light bulbs hanging next to wine glasses filled with greenery and the china was a mixture of modern and old and mis-matching glasses. So, from all this what would the food be like! Well, it was quite complex but simple at the same time. Making use over many fine and rich ingredients it felt like quite a balanced but challenging meal. I was hard-pressed to write down everything that was going on in our dishes. We were later emailed a copy of the menu later which was quite a nice touch.
Service was excellent at all times tonight – as fitting in a restaurant such as this every person service our food new everything about it. Often the servers were chefs from the kitchen. Water was constantly topped up. If there was any fault at all it was that the staff were mainly men! But I won’t hold that against them …
But, on to the main reason we were at Vue Du Monde … the food!
Our amuse bouche was a very delicately toffeed smoked eel with caviar. We were instructed to eat it with our hands – presumably you were supposed to throw it all in. The contrast of the sweet with the smokiness of the eel was appealing in this dish.
Next up were a trio of dishes consisting of: Blue fin tuna with sake balls and an Oyster emulsion of bone marrow on edible sand.
And on a separate plate was the apple taste of mint clear cellophane dumpling of buttermilk. Or something llike that. When we first saw the dumpling we weren’t sure what we were looking at as the dumpling was so transparent. Really cute.
We were then served our bread which were sour dough flavoured by beer and fennel. Unusual but I guess beer is kind of like a yeast!
Our first official starter was a fresh Whiting and Summer vegetables. The whole dish didn’t have the most intense flavours in the world but it was very pretty.
One of my favourite dishes of the night was our next one of was the Marron on a Hot river stone, Spanner crab sandwich, and Brown butter emulsion. Another dish to eat with the hands – was disappointed when I got through so quickly. The brown butter emulsion was amazing. Good texture came from the crispy crab sandwhich.
A chef from the kitchen came out to finish off our next dish which was an incredibly rich Fried Duck Egg, ,Lamb Sweetbreads, Puree of White Asparagus and Truffle. The truffle was the chef’s final touch as he shaved it over our dishes at our table. We were told that the duck has been slowly cooked at the exact temperature (something like 63 degrees for 37 mnutes?)
Pushing the boat in something a little different was our next dish which served almost as a palette cleanser although it would be insulting to call it that. Goats cheese served as frozen snow courtesy of a little bit of liquid nitrogen, with a pea puree, warm peas and bacon stir fried with shallots and a Rye bread crouton. The cold and hot mixed well and again another favorite dish.
Then we got our official palette cleanser of Cucumber sorbet, elderflower granita, frozen lime.
There were a couple of themes emerging tonight including the fact the chef must like smoked items! Our next course was a Beetroot and Smoked bone marrow – Paper thin sliced beetroot, carabi, beetroot logs and smoked bone marrow sauce. Not sure I was loving this one so much as I’d loved the other dishes – it was very well smoked is all I can say so good thing the beetroot was there to offset the smokiness.
Taking a couple of ingredients which are readily available in Australia was our next dish of Kangaroo, Macadamia, Cabbage, and Blackberry. You can’t really make out the kangaroo but trust me is in there! Only neg was the little bit of grit in Stephen’s lettuce that took away from the dish a bit.
Continuing on with the meat theme we had our next course served over two plates. The two plates I’m sure wasn’t entirely necessary but probably a way to keep the flavours separated. Wagyu beef cheek (divine) and a Radish salad. The beef cheek had been slowly braised for over 16 hours so was incredibly tender and melt in our mouths.
That was sadly the finale of our savoury courses. Well, unless you count the next course of cheese! A Blue Sapphire and an Old Telegraph cheddar for Stephen, both served with fried rye bread and stewed plum.
Check out this toothpick holder thing. I’m sure we weren’t the first guests to be totally enthralled by it. When the waiter brought it out he had the cheekiest look on his face like he couldn’t wait to see us play with the thing.
But speaking of fun. How much fun were our desserts! First up we had a Frozen lolly with popping candy and the Smoking House lemonade cutely served in a medicine bottle.
Then we had a very colourful Pavlova with thin slivers of cucumber, strawberries, cubed pineapple, mango sorbet, crispy meringue, soft meringue, some dried dry fruit (sliced paper thin and totally crispy) and one other fruit which remains unidentified.
The whole meal was wrapped up by a Chocolate Souffle. Incredibly moist and delicate it came with a test tube stabbed into the centre. The vanilla crème anglais was then poured into the middle to fuse with the soft melted chocolate mousse in the centre. Nice performance piece.
Well, that wasn’t quite the end of the meal with some amusing petit fours including:
Lemon jujubes and Mini Lamingtons and Toasted Rose Marshmallows on a stone
And the cutest cigar box which contained … Pineapple Licorice!
And as if Vue Du Monde hadn’t already given us enough we even got breakfast to go! Breakfast included a mini loaf of bread, biscuits, muesli and even a herbal. Shannon Bennett we had an awesome time!
