Catalina, Rose Bay
Most of the dinner deals Piggiepoo sends me are so tempting, but after buying two deals last year and totally forgetting to actually use it before its expiry date made me a bit wary and more selective of what deal I get (it is surprising just how quickly 6 months go by). However, when she sent me a $110 3-course dinner for two at Catalina, I barely hesitated in snatching up that deal. The deal had a special set menu, where each course had three dishes to choose from.
Catalina has been on our radar for a terribly long time – we even had booked it once, only to find out later that we had double booked that day and had to cancel the dinner (boo) – so we were pretty excited to finally dine here.
Bread and Butter
While we were enjoying the sourdough bread with lashings of the creamy butter, our first course arrived but one of the dishes seemed… a little different. As our waiter disseminated the duck egg on a bed of fried whitebait, we looked a little puzzled at each other then puzzledly at the dish. We were sure we had ordered something else, but its presence made us doubt otherwise.
F hesitatingly told our waiter that he had ordered the pickled beetroot salad, not the whitebait and our waiter froze with a look of mortification. It turned out that our waiter got another table’s order mixed up with ours and swiftly rectified the situation with profuse apologies.
Citrus and Sugar Cured Kingfish with Horseradish and Pomegranate Dressing
I don’t think I’ve had sugar-cured anything and it was interesting to note the differences from being smoke-cured or salt-cured. The kingfish was quite soft and a little drier than we were used to or had expected, but I found I quite liked the light sweet after-taste.
The sweetness was brought out a little more by the dry sweetness from the pomegranate. While F wasn’t sure of the dryness of the kingfish, but he quite liked the little pops the pomegranate made.
Pickled Baby Beetroot and Goat Cheese Tart with Seeded Mustard, Caramelised Onion and Wild Rocket
When we got the whitebait dish by mistake, F was half-tempted to roll with the mix-up. However, on seeing and tasting the pickled beetroot tart, he was immensely glad that he decided not to.
The tart was definitely the better dish of the two with its super flaky and buttery pastry base, creamy and slightly sharp goat’s cheese, sweet caramelised onions and bright pickled baby beetroot. Despite the butteriness from the pastry and creaminess from the goat’s cheese and walnuts, it was quite light. F thought the pickled beetroot sauce was a thoughtful reiteration of the main components of the dish, where he couldn’t help but mopped it up with the pastry.
Pan Fried Snapper Fillet with Potato and Garlic Mash; Lemon Caper Butter
The snapper was well-cooked and well-seasoned with a pretty nice crispy underside; I quite liked how the accompanied creamy sauce was tempered by sharp tang of dill and capers. We might have been biased, but we loooooved the potato mash – so much so that F thought it may have outshone the fish.
Char-Grilled Riverine Beef Tenderloin, with Olive Potato Gnocchi, sauteed Mushroom and Red Wine Jus
The tenderloin was amazingly juicy, succulent and melt-in-your-mouth tender. I loved the charred cross-hatching – F thought it was pretty standard, but I thought it was the little details that really add up to a great dish. We both however equally adored the soft-pillowed, packed-full-of-flavour gnocchi, where F used them to soaked up all of the tenderloin juices and I unsuccessfully tried to ration them for each bite – it was just too delicious to be sensible! I also really liked the added earthiness and different textures that the mushrooms brought to the dish. Definitely a favourite of the night.
Mixed Salad Leaves, Tomato and Cucumber
The main course came with a lightly dressed salad. I have to be honest, I didn’t eat much of it besides a few cherry tomatoes and cucumber (I seem to have an aversion with eating lettuce in public – I think it makes me feel like a cow haha), but from what I had it was pretty refreshing – a nice break from all that meat.
Classic Lemon Tart with Mascarpone
The lemon tart was wonderfully sharp and tangy, tempered by the thick and creamy mascarpone. For extra zing, I scooped up some of the passionfruit sauce on the plate to go with a mouthful of tart. Yum.
I love my tart base to be light and buttery, so I thought this tart was perfect. F likes his bases thicker and more shortbread-like (which I made a face at when he told me), but he still thought it was a pretty good dish overall.
Honeycomb Parfait with Chocolate Brownie and Caramel
I didn’t realise that the honeycomb parfait would be ice cream, so it made for an utterly awesome surprise when I found out. I loved the dark chocolate brownie as the thin base – its slight bitterness was a nice point of contrast to the creamy honeycomb and sweet caramel on top. But what I thought made this dessert so special was the salted caramel decorating the plate.
I know some friends who abhor salty, sweet things because it’s just “too weird” or “not right”, but I love the strangeness of it all. The salted caramel just seemed to add another dimension to the dish; a complexity to an otherwise pretty simple-looking dessert.
Petit Fours with Coffee and Tea
I can never help but feel slightly disappointed if we only get one thing as the petit fours, but I found out quite quickly that I was fuller than I realised. So I guess it was a good thing we only got one to go with our (my) earl grey tea and piccolo (F’s).
Catalina
Catalina is situated on the busy New South Head Road overlooking the bay, but it being a dark and rainy night, the view was pretty dark and obscured (I did get to see a few seagulls get buffeted by the wind though). However, I can imagine just how glorious it would have looked during a lunch service on a bright sunny day – all that water sparkling from the sunshine would set one at ease I think.
While some dishes were stronger than others, I thought the food was quite excellent overall. The service was top-notch with the wait staff being very attentive without making you feel watched or harried. Catalina is definitely on our must-return-to list.
Catalina
Lyne Park
Rose Bay, NSW, 2029
Ph: (02) 9371 0555
Web: http://catalinarosebay.com.au/
Author
By squishies
Follow squishiesInformation
This article was written on 01 Jun 2011, and is filed under Dessert, Dinner, Modern Australian, Sydney, East.
Current post is tagged
Recent articles
- The Winery, Surry Hills16 May 2012
- Al-Aseel, Greenacre09 May 2012
- Sugaroom, Pyrmont02 May 2012
- Coco Chocolate High Tea, Middle Head25 Apr 2012
- Easter Long Weekend, Gerrigong17 Apr 2012
- Food Friends, Parramatta04 Apr 2012
- Torque Bar & Grill, Concord30 Mar 2012
- My sister’s baby shower feast & my “sciatus”26 Mar 2012
- Jeep Wrangler King Island Experience, Tasmania21 Mar 2012
- TOYS Collective Issue #9: Blood, Bones & Butter, Otto Ristorante15 Mar 2012
Recent comments
Who Are We?
Search eatshowandtell
Share
Sponsors
Categories
Creative Commons
Eat Show & Tell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.
I like my tarts to be shortbread-like as well, and I’ve also double-booked dinners; don’t you just hate that?
Yes! I always feel so bad =T Google Calendar is a life-saver though (I just have to remember to put stuff down now haha)
Amazing photos as usual!
Thanks!
Oooh, I must have missed this deal…. I’m usually such an addict of those vouchers.
That creamy sauce on the fish looks intense. Or just really creamy…
Haha I’m not surprised! I find them so hard to say no to, so I try not to look at any now hehe
Love foodies and their “lists” lol. This one has been on ours for ages too! Its one of those palces you drive past and EVERY time say “We need to go there, the view looks amazing!” but never get around to it.
Now I’ve seen the food, hopefully it will push me along more
You mean to say that not everyone has a spreadsheet of “must-eats”?
Hahah
Do go! I think you will enjoy it quite a lot. ^_^
I saw this deal too, but it was only for use during the week so I had to give it a miss which is a pity as everything looks nice. Salted caramel = yum!
That is a pity! =T I didn’t realise the coupon was only valid for weekdays.
Awesome looking dishes. For a moment I thought the sauce on top of the fish was passionfruit and reminded me how well it pairs with seafood.
Oh! You’re so right – passionfruit goes so well with fish. It’s such a surprising combination isn’t it? But makes so much sense at the same time hehe
Oooh, that pickled beetroot tart looks DIVINE! I saw that deal, but had no money at the time
gotta love discount dining!
The beef tenderloin looks pretty good!
I prefer to come here for lunch as the views are quite spectacular. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the famed pelican while having oysters at the balcony.
That’s so awesome! I feel like I have to come back for a lunch now haha
Everything looks so incredibly delicious!