I’m going to interrupt the sight-seeing with some food porn from down under.
I went out Wednesday with Rick, my new boss, for dinner at Pearl, a restaurant more-or-less across the street from the office. And wow, was that some good eating. Easily in the top five meals I’ve had.
Here’s quotes from a review:
“Awarded three hats in the Good Food Guide Pearl is just about perfect”
“Lindsay takes gastronomy seriously – respecting the cultural integrity of food, and he has an understanding of a dish’s heritage – but not so solemnly that he can’t have some fun with what he creates or re-creates”
“Just as balance is the key to the wine list, so too with the food. Lindsay is a master at balancing the sweet with the sour, the hot with the cold, the raw and the cooked”
Let me tell you about the meal.
I started with an entree (apparently in Australia “entree” means “appetizer”) that was described on the menu as:
Buffalo milk mozzarella and black fig salad, with katafi baked quail, pomegranate syrup and wild fennel seeds
This felt like the best starter I’ve ever had. I can’t say conclusively that it was the best, because it’s hard to discount accurately for novelty on a first visit–I don’t know if the magic of the slightly porous mozzarella and the pomegranate syrup would hold up as quite such an amazing experience if I had it frequently. On the first encounter, though, this was just amazing.
Then the main was:
Roast red duck curry, a crispy fried egg, shallots, mint, sweet fish sauce and coconut rice
This showed up as a meal construction kit, with one dish containing the rice, another containing the duck in curry sauce, another containing the sweet fish sauce, egg, shallots, a lime, and some chiles, as well as a plate on which to assemble.
I put the rice out first as a base, poured the chicken and curry over top. I then reserved the lime, chile, and mint, and made a paste by mashing the egg into the sweet fish sauce. I then added lime juice, chile, and mint back into this paste to make a second condiment, which I used to top the dish.
Each bite had the potential to be very different. Some were just the rice, simple and delicious with coconut. Some were combinations of rice, curry, and duck, where the flavours melded brilliantly. Some were duck with the lime/chile/egg/mint/sweet fish sauce production, and again the combination of flavours was startling, but extrememly pleasant.
After the mains, a simple salad of warmed bok choi with a mild lemon vinagrette was delivered to cleanse our palettes.
Then it was on to dessert. My selection was:
Roasted peaches with vanilla tapioca, toasted coconut, fresh lychees and lychee sorbet
Each individual taste was pleasant–every ingredient was of the top quality, in season, etc, and the peaches were roasted just enough to bring out the maximum flavour while still retaining some texture, etc. However, it was the combination of the flavours and textures that made the thing. Brilliant.
