Attica

The husband made a booking in Oct 2013 for a Jan 2014 dinner reservation at Attica, which made it to No. 21 on the San Pellegrino list. We also had very high expectations for the meal, especially after watching the MasterChef contestants trying to recreate Ben Shewry's Plight of the Bumblebees which looked simply amazing on tv. We had been fortunate enough to try Andre at No. 38, and Narisawa at No. 20. Consequently, we were expecting something more similar to Narisawa than Andre. 

When we arrived, we had a bit of a shock as to how basic it looked in the middle of a streetblock within a simple Melbourne suburb.

The view from our seats; we had the table right next to the front door.

The waiter arrived with macadamia nut cream and smoked oil for dipping bread in. They bake their own organic rye bread in-house, and it was excellent. The quandong nuts were just for show.

The amuse bouche was a dip of fermented corn with mushroom leaves from their garden, named for their mushroom-like flavour, as well as fermented carrots. They were right, the leaves tasted just like mushrooms.

One would never be able to guess, just looking at the leaves.

This was walnut purée with shaved mushrooms, with a creamy, rich texture.

Up close. Such a pretty dish.

How one dipped the leaves into the corn dip- it was impossible to avoid getting fingers dirty.

Next up, fried mussels with sea vegetables presented with a mussel shell. The mussels were fresh and sweet, but unfortunately the most interesting thing on the plate was the painted shell.

A close up- lovely presentation. But the idea of a fried mussel did not really excite me.

The second course was snow crab, which arrived covered in leaves.

The leaves were blanched sorrel, sweetened with mandarin, and the crab had toasted buckwheat. Interesting combination of flavours.

This was my favourite dish of the evening. Marron with kale and tarragon, with shredded chicken thigh with an onion and pork sauce.

The marron- almost like a cross between a langoustine, crayfish and large prawn, was deliciously sweet and the chicken-kale-tarragon mixture accompanied it brilliantly.

Next up, a dish that was lauded by critics but one which I felt was quite a letdown- potato baked in the earth which it was grown in. It was a delicious, sweet-tasting potato. But one simply does not get excited over a baked potato. It was accompanied by goats curd seasoned with ground coffee and coconut husk, but ultimately you still call a spud a spud. (I thought that was brilliant!!)

This was cucumber with a sauce of Burnet, which had vinegar. It was grilled with cucumber oil, garlic and peas and topped with holy flax. Quite a nice dish, with the sweetness and flavours of the vegetables coming out nicely. 

Portarlington King Goerge Whiting wrapped in paper bark and grilled with pearl oyster meat. It looked like opeh, a large whitish leaf traditionally used to wrap food in Singapore (primarily fried prawn noodles).

This was pretty tasty. Nothing to shout about though, unfortunately. The fish was fresh, sweet, flavorful, but one would expect that from a restaurant ranked No. 21 in the world.

The meat dish was a South Australian kangaroo fillet dressed with quandong skins, accompanied by a salad with 15 different leaves from their herb and vegetable garden.

The kangaroo was beautiful, seared perfectly and yet sufficiently rare to be moist and tender.

And yes, we counted 15. But seriously when the dish emphasizes the counting of 15 leaves rather than the combination of the 15 flavours, something is slightly odd.

The waitress invited us to go round to the back herb garden, which was a really nice touch. Every table got a tour of the garden, which had numerous herbs and vegetables used in the dishes we had.

And an even better surprise.....

We were served ice creams! A raspberry liquorice sorbet dipped in chocolate and freeze dried raspberry. Absolutely beautiful.

The first dessert was called blueberries, vinegar and fresh cheese, which came with apple powder, organic blueberries and chrysanthemum and liquorice leaves. Extremely pleasant. We loved the combination of the different flavours.

Such a pretty dish too.

I forgot to take a picture of this before demolishing it, but it was titled raw strawberry jam and had meringue and sorbet. It was nice, but we were dreaming of the plight of the bumblebees and therefore were slightly disappointed.

The dinner ended off with caramel-filled chocolate eggs inspired, crudely phrased by me, by Ben Shewry's father's paintings of the pukeko birds in New Zealand. Very pretty.

And yummy too.

Our verdict: the meal was definitely good quality, but unfortunately lacked the wow factor that Narisawa, Eleven Madison and even Andre had for us. Possibly the San Pellegrino judges might have had a different menu, but this was quite a letdown in our opinion. While foraging was an interesting concept, I personally had some trouble at the thought of paying $190 for an 8 course meal to eat bush tucker, garden herbs and baked potatoes, no matter how fresh, exquisite, and delicately composed.

• 74 Glen Eira Road
  Ripponlea, Victoria 3185
  +61 3 9530 0111 
• attica.com.au
• 
  

Tasmania Travels

The husband and I spent a week in Tasmania earlier this year, with discounted tickets that we booked last year on Tiger for less than $100 return from Melbourne. Unlike previous holidays, we were feeling pretty lethargic and didn't quite plan what to do, what to eat or where to go until we were on the flight to Hobart. Except for Cradle Mountain, each day was a take-it-as-it-comes day, but we had a brilliant time. It was one of our best holidays. Here's the summary:

Wine tasting: Tassie is known for Pinot. Not a favourite grape of ours unfortunately, but anything goes when you're on holiday.   

Tasmania is also famous for curried scallop pies. We were expecting minced scallop, until...

We cut a pie open and found entire scallops. They were absolutely delicious. 

We passed by Richmond enroute to Port Arthur and stopped for a stroll through the town. This bridge was built in 1825 and can still carry 45seater coaches today. 

Refueling during lunch

A pretty good snapper with chips at a cafe at Dunalley enroute to Port Arthur. 

Looking out from behind the Penitentiary at Port Arthur

Beautiful waters at Port Arthur - we can say that today! 

View of the main cluster of buildings at Port Arthur

The blow hole near Eaglehawk Neck

The Arch near Eaglehawk Neck

Wineglass Bay at Freycinet National Park from the lookout - it took us about 30 mins to get to the lookout from the car park. 

Wineglass Bay from the shoreline. Too bad it was a cloudy day. 

Coles Bay at Freycinet National Park with the Hazards in the background - which we climbed over to get to Wineglass Bay. All in, the walk to Wineglass Bay and back to the car took us under 2 hours, which included about 30 mins of lingering and taking photos at the lookout point and beach. We were pretty pleased as the prescribed time for the walk was 2 hrs 45 mins. Not that unfit after all! 

View of Great Oyster Bay on the way back to Hobart

The Neck at Bruny Island separating the coastal Adventure Bay from the isthmus on the right

View out from one of the lookouts on South Bruny

Perfect, pristine beaches at Adventure Bay. 

Hay bales drying out in the sun

Every adventurer deserves a reward. We found ours at the Get Shucked Oyster Farm on North Bruny.  

We started with a platter of a dozen Kilpatrick oysters and a glass of Oyster Bay sauv blanc

They were so amazingly sweet and fresh

The husband had one natural oyster to try, which he described as being extremely tasty and sweet. I didn't dare to take the risk, with a car ferry ride coming up without any certainty of a clean loo.

We also tried the Asian style oysters, tempura fried with sweet chilli sauce. Not fantastic but good anyway, since we weren't heading back that way again. 

We headed out the next day to Cradle Mountain via Launceston, and made stops at a few small towns along the highway. Strangely enough, we really enjoyed walking around these really small but charming places. Probably we might have expected too much if we had planned and read up about those towns beforehand. 

The Mill at Oatlands where wheat around the district was ground - this was a reconstruction. Oatlands apparently contains the largest collection of sandstone buildings in Tasmania, and the main road was quite a pretty one. 

One of the churches at Ross, another small town.

The convict-built bridge at Ross. Apparently after the chaps completed the bridge they were released. Not a bad deal. It was amazing construction work, considering there weren't large motor vehicles in those days to gauge a maximum load. It's still used today by cars and trucks and coaches. 

We stopped by the James Boag brewery in Launceston for a taste. Seems like James Boag is probably Tasmania's most famous export. 

We were pretty happy with a tasting board of two ales and a lager for $10. Plus some hops for nibbling on.  

We did a few short walks enroute to Cradle Mountain, including the Alum Cliffs at Mole Creek.

And Devil's Gullet nearby

Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain. Surely the most photographed spot. We started on the Dove Lake walk which was supposed to take 2 hrs, but turned off after 1 hr to head up to Marion's Lookout. Just as well, since the Dove Lake walk was rather boring. 

It was pretty steep and hard going. From steps like these below. 

Soon the views started getting more and more amazing

And the hike got more and more treacherous. I took this picture looking down on where we had climbed from, and we mapped out the route so we wouldn't have to go down the same way. 

View of the Cradle from Marion's Lookout. 

Really beautiful landscape on our way back to the car park

Just before leaving, I decided now was the time to try out whether I was indeed allergic to raw oysters. We stopped by the Barilla Bay oyster farm right next to the airport, and bought a dozen. 

Super fresh, super sweet. The taste of raw oysters for the first time in more than two years was amazing. What was more amazing was that I didn't. DIDN'T. DID NOT. get the runs!