More than just a tour …

A couple weeks ago on Twitter, I asked whether anyone was going to the March into Merivale launch party. As expected, I had a mixed response of yes’s, no’s and maybe’s. Either way, I was still going to go because the lure of free food (great food btw) and drink was too good to ignore. As per usual, I did my token food blog post on the event and ended up being quite impressed by what the Merivale range of restaurants had to offer. 

The free food was great and there were alot of people walking off the street trying things out. From the naked eye the event was a success as the average joe wouldn’t of thought of dining at any of the Merivale restaurants. The restaurants are not easily visible, but the addition of signs outside the George St entrance is helping spread the word about the restaurants.

Fast forward a few weeks and I receive an email from Melissa from the Merivale Group, which gave me a pleasant shock. They had invited us to have a behind the scenes look at how the Merivale head chefs would be preparing for the gala dinner. We would freely be able to chat to the chefs and do our usual geeky ritual of taking photos of all the food and only eating it when it got cold. Sure why not ? What else is there to do after work on a Tuesday night ? 

Before we got to step into the kitchen, I was expecting an evironment similiar to the shenanigans you see on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. Alas, this was not the case. You lied Mr Ramsey, you lied. Instead, we met some fantastic chefs who were very accomodating with our food photo fetish’s. I even had a good 15 minute chat with Richard Johnson. It turns out he is a die hard Tottenham Hotspurs fan who grew up near West Ham, the home of my team West Ham United. He had a wealth of knowledge about football and even the historical aspects of West Ham. We were chatting away and having a good yarn, all the while he was busily preparing the nights canapes. He’s a good multi tasker that lad. 

The canapes

One of the highlights of our night was trying out all the canapes which were being served to the gala dinner guests. It was great to see first hand how they were made, but even better when we were offered them to eat. Thanks to grabyourfork and onebitemore  for the names of the canapes.

This was such a simple yet satisfying spoon of treasures. I think the sharp and simple ingredients are the key.

These could pass off as mains on their own. Copious amounts of tuna and scallop were topped with a hearty portion of fish roe. The dressing at the bottom of the spoon did a great job of tying everything together. 

Everything is lined up ready to go to ensure that the canapes are served fresh. Here we have the deep fryers ready with the calamari and the butter lettuce also in place.

You can tell a good chef by his salt and pepper calamari , in my eyes anyway. The calamari was crispy and soft, the salt and pepper combination was just right. The lotus chip added a welcome crunch wheras the miso dressing and butter lettuce just tied everything together so well. This canape was a definate hit with all the blogges, judging by the silence.

 

 Simple, quick, yet a crowd pleaser. 

I thought the quail would be good enough on it’s own, but the fact that it was also wrapped in proscuitto made it taste ten times better. 

Gala Dinner : 6 dishes, 6 chefs, 150 stomachs

We made some jokes saying that during the drinks they would shove us into a corner to ensure that we didn’t disrupt the other patrons. After all, we’re just a bunch of food nerds who get a kick out of taking photos of food. Well, you could imagine how surprised I was when they asked whether or not we would like to stay for the gala dinner. The response was a resounding “YES”, but of course I had to act a little bit modest with my response. But secretly inside, I was glowing with joy like a kid who got to open his christmas presents early or like the time I ordered a small cheese burger from Macca’s (takeway) but ended up with a twelve pack of nuggets and two Big Macs instead. Sucks to be the guy who ended up with my cheese burger. 

The Gala dinner was held in Ucello, which is lead by head chef Massimo Bianchi. However tonight, it would be a combined effort with six merivale chef’s all working in tandem for a good cause. Proceeds from the $300 per head dinner would go to Camp Quality.

Enough of the foccacia, let’s move onto the six courses we were priveleged enough to eat.  Each course was prepared by a different chef and restaurant.

Daniel hong – Lotus 

The simple part of this entree was the blue fin tuna. The highlight was undoubtedly the dressings and sauces which accompanied the tuna. The sweetcorn and avocado were creamy and the wasabi had the uncanny ability to not get up my nose no matter how hard I tried. As you can see, the presentation was unique and attractive. It was almost like a work of art, with each piece of food having it’s own purpose and position.  

Massimo Bianchi – Uccello

This dish is actually alot bigger than it looks and unfortunately the raviolo of lobster internals are covered by the generous portion asparagus and mushrooms.  Getting through this dish required precise use of knife and fork. It eventually led to the raviolo of lobster which was fresh and in abundance. At times, you expect only a tiny portion of lobster. Not in this case, there was enough here to keep our table happy that’s for sure. I ended up dipping my never ending supply of foccacia into the asparagus sauce.

Peter Doyle – est. 

I’m a big fan of Peter Doyle as I’ve tried some of his creations before, so I was expecting big things with his dish.  Not surprisingly, Mr Doyle delivers once again. The baby snapper fillet was small, but steamed to his high standards. You’d think after all these years, he’d have mastered the art of steaming fish and he doesn’t dissapoint in this regard. At the base was a beautiful kaleidascope of colours made up of strands of sand crab and vegetables. The shallot vinaigrette was full of flavour and I ended up drinking it straight from the dish and totally disregarding the spoon on my table. 

Simun Dragicevich – Bistro cbd 

I spent more time looking at this dish than I did eating it. My first thought was, ” lentils , meh how boring! “. Oh boy how I was wrong. The lentil salsa was perhaps the most flavoursome lentils I have ever tasted. I am actually quite curious in how Simun actually prepared these, the flavour was outstanding. The quail and porcini ballontine was tender and the finest addition of sea salt brought out the true flavours of the meat. The hand cut chips were also top notch, very kettle chips like in terms of texture and crunch which made me go om nom nom nom out loud. 

Christopher Whitehead – Mad Cow

Isn’t this a beautiful sight ? Cooked medium rare and tender all the way through.  The creamed spinach was worth dying for, but then I wouldn’t have tried the golden shallots which were just as good. The tarragon jus was welcoming and added a little bit of flavour to the beef. Mind you, it probably wasn’t even required as the beef was so awesome. I think I need to crank out the thesaurus, running out of words to describe everything. 

Lauren Murdoch – Ash st cellar 

 After trying this dessert, Lauren Murdoch is my new idol. This was one of the ‘best’ desserts I have ever tried and I understand that this is often an abused term used by bloggers and is a sure fire way for me to lose credibility (not like I had any in the first place). I just hope she serves this at Ash St Cellar because I would purposely dine there just for this dessert. The best way to describe it is is a deconstucted ferroro rocher. It had all the right elements of quality chocolate marquis and ganache, crunchy and smokey roasted hazelnuts and a gorgeous cinnamon cream which was not sweet at all. It’s sole purpose I believe was to offset the sweetness of everything below it. 

These consisted of cocoa dusted truffles and chocolates filled with a sweet cherry liqueur. Sadly, my stomach could not handle any more chocolate and I had to give these a miss.

When you mention Merivale, not many people can associate the name with the fine restaurants which were apart of March into Merivale. Instead, they would probably refer to The Ivy and it’s hard door and dress code policy. I hope that March into Merivale has changed this stigma associated with The Ivy and opened up the doors to all the fine restaurants in the Merivale Group

In addition, I think it’s great that Food Blogs are being recognised for their efforts and food coverage. Even though most of us do this voluntarily as a hobby, it’s great to have these sort of opportunities to see how things work behind the scenes. There is a subtle difference between ‘amateur’ blogs and food critics ; blogs encourage conversations and food critics make publications. Conversations spread like wild fire these days, thanks to social media tools such as Twitter and even the comment function of a blog. Both communication mediums have their place in terms of effectiveness and credibility, but it’s a great privilege to be recognised as it’s been long overdue for some of the more seasoned veterans such as grabyourfork.

Oh what a night!

The venue for the gala dinner :  

Ucello
Level 4, The Ivy Complex
320 George Street, Sydney 2000
Ph : (02) 9240 3000
Web : http://www.merivale.com