Author: Alex

Enoteca Italian Restaurant, Adelaide

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date of visit: Saturday 4 June 2011

Something of a delay in this review hitting the web, not dissimilar to the delay in getting to the restaurant in the first place. We’ve been saying we must go to Enoteca for well over a year now and the closest we’ve come was me trying to book a table on a Tuesday night way back in late 2009. You guessed it – Enoteca isn’t open on a Tuesday: lunch is Wednesday to Friday and dinner is Wednesday to Saturday.

But we finally got our act in to gear and took some visitors from interstate there for dinner on a damp, cool Saturday night. Enoteca lives on Carrington Street in the Italian Centre (formerly the Italian Club). When I was little my parents used to eat at the Italian Club quite regularly: it was a reasonably basic setting with the restaurant at the rear of the building and food being delivered to the table on those plain aluminium platters. Not a lot of glitz or ceremony, but the food was incredibly good. Years later a friend and I held our joint 21st birthday party at the Italian Centre in the same room which is now Enoteca. Let me tell you – it’s changed quite a bit.

So many Italian restaurants in Adelaide are all about hustle, bustle, noise, clatter and Italian staples so it was an absolute joy to enter a restaurant that was still, calm and quiet. The tables are spread out and the room is divided into a couple of sections by drapes. You don’t have your neighbours in your lap, you don’t have to hear their conversation. I’m sure they could fit more tables in if they wanted but as it stands, Enoteca is a triumph of customer experience over accounting.

We settled at our table and began deliberations with a bottle of Prosecco. The wine list at Enoteca is interesting without being too unwieldy. There’s a good selection of by the glass options and they are not limited to one or two grape varieties or price points – there’s even a choice of four sparkling whites. By the bottle, there is plenty of variety across both Australia and Italy, with a few other countries making brief appearances. The wine list does need a bit of a spell check and I also question the wisdom of its alphabetical arrangement. It’s vaguely alphabetical by grape variety, but Burgundy and Petit Chablis are both listed separately from Chardonnay and Syrah and Shiraz are separated. As there are no tasting notes this makes it a wine list where you either need the help of a good sommelier or you need to know your stuff. Assistance with the wine list was not forthcoming on our visit which is definitely something that needs to be rectified. But, we were interested in unique wine options, with newly introduced vegan wine uk, which caught our interest.

Food wise (and let’s face it, it’s not all about the wine) the menu is a collection of dishes showing clean, simple flavours. Most things I would have been more than happy eating, but I opted to start with the whitebait and follow this with the tagliatelle con funghi svizzero (tagliatelle with Swiss Brown mushrooms).

The whitebait came with a roasted garlic aioli which was really delicate. The little fish were perfect – fresh, crunchy without being greasy or overly fishy. My pasta came with, unsurprisingly, plenty of mushrooms and was dressed with a thyme brown butter and Parmesan cheese. Now, I know to a lot of people this would be too simple but this is my favourite type of Italian food. The balance between the amount of brown butter and everything else was spot on (after all, even I don’t want my food swimming in butter) and, as with the whitebait, the portion size was just tipping towards generous. I don’t want to end a meal feeling hungry but neither do I want to feel as though I can’t move.

Around the table other dishes ordered included a prawn and crab risotto, orrechiette with sausage, char grilled prawns, gnocchi with slow braised lamb, braised veal shank (the braised meat of the day) and the chargrilled pork rib eye. We did a good job of covering the menu and all the food received a thumbs up. Unfortunately I can’t report on the desserts – we teetered on the edge and a couple of us almost succumbed (apple and rhuburb crumble with Calvados custard and cinnamon icecream anyone?) but prudence won out and we finished our meal with coffees alone.

The service at Enoteca was good but not flawless: no help with the wine list, plates of food presented to the wrong people, and some of the friendliness was a little stilted. But, to be honest, mentioning this makes me feel a little mean because it really wasn’t significant.

Other downers on the evening? Two trivial (and easily fixable) niggles: the music was just a tad too loud and the airconditioning a trifle too warm.

But a very big positive was the price which came out at around $75 a head, which, while not cheap per se, definitely marks Enoteca out as excellent value for money.

I’d be more than happy to go back to Enoteca and take guests with me. I wonder if it’s going to take another two years, because that would be a shame.

Enoteca on Urbanspoon

Enoteca
262 Carrington Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: +61 8 8227 0766

Coffee Poppy Seed Cake

- Alex 6 Comments

Coffee & Poppyseed Cake

You know how sometimes a coffee cake doesn’t have any coffee in it? It’s actually a cake to eat with coffee and the whole thing turns in to a disappointing experience?

Well, this is not that cake. A few weeks ago Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall published some coffee recipes in the Guardian and one of them was this cake, complete with coffee, poppy seeds and a very syrupy glaze/icing.

I can’t remember the last time I made a cake with poppy seeds in, even though I like them (both the poppy seeds and the cakes!) and I’m always thinking I should be a little more diverse in my cake making. Poppy seeds, like sesame seeds, are one of those things that can go off. They need to be stored in cool, dark places and used relatively quickly, otherwise they can go a bit rancid – and that’s not what you want in cake.

This is a simple recipe and is almost a one bowl wonder.

Begin by soaking, for at least 2 hours, 100g of poppy seeds in 80g of mascarpone (the recipe specifies sour cream, but I had mascarpone in the fridge). The poppy seeds soaked up all the mascarpone and it became quite a stiff mixture.

Preheat oven to 170°C and grease and baseline a 22cm spring form tin.

If you’re so inclined you can sift the dry ingredients first: 150g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarb, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. If you’re making this by hand (that is, without the kitchen trickery that is a food processor or a stand mixer) make the effort. Even with gadgets to hand, I’m starting to do more and more sifting …

Now cream 150g of unsalted butter with 250g of caster sugar, before mixing in three eggs, one at a time. Ensure each egg is well beaten in before adding the next. Mix in a 1 tsp vanilla essence and 40mL of espresso coffee. If you don’t have a coffee maker to hand, make up some really really strong coffee and use that.

Add in the flour a bit at a time, alternating this with the poppy seed/mascarpone mix. Mix until just combined and then spoon in to the tin and bake for 35-40 minutes (until the toothpick comes out clean).

Allow to cool for a little in the tin and then cool completely on a cake rack.

Now, for the icing HFW suggests using 125g of icing sugar (definitely sift this – it makes your life so much easier and your icing a lot less lumpy) and 50 mL of espresso. I did this but we found this icing too runny and, by the time it had soaked through the cake, it made the whole thing far too sweet. So I suggest making your favourite icing and adding a bit of coffee to it. Or dust it with icing sugar before serving – the poppy seeds make it quite an attractive cake even without icing so there’s no need to go mad.

I personally thought that the cake had a good coffee flavour which was accentuated by the cinnamon. The universal opinion was that it was too sweet and I really regretted making the icing.

So while I’ll definitely be making the cake again I’ll be passing on the icing.

French Onion Soup

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I love soup and as it’s getting a bit chilly here in the southern hemisphere soup is perfect for a cold night in front of the fire and tv.

This onion soup recipe comes from the May 2004 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller and was the recipe accompanying the Masterclass piece on hard cheeses. This means that the original recipe specifies Gruyère but I couldn’t find this in our local shop so I substituted a mix of cheddar and mozzarella (both of which I had hanging around in the fridge). I also only made up a half quantity – and I just can’t imagine how tedious the onion chopping would be to make more!!!

Begin by heating olive oil and butter in a heavy based pan and then add 500g of very thinly sliced onions. It’s really important to slice the onions thinly – absolutely as thinly as you can!!! Turn the heat to low, cover the onions and cook, stirring every now and then for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes is up, remove the lid and cook for a further hour or so, until the onions are golden. You’ll need to stir frequently (but you don’t have to hover). This part is really important – cooking the onions for a long time gives not only great depth of flavour but also imparts a lovely colour to the finished product.

Once the onions are golden, add ½ tbsp of plain flour. Stir this in well and cook for about 4 minutes. This is also important because you don’t want your soup to taste of plain flour! (The same thing goes if you are making a white sauce – always cook the flour out). Next, add 75mL of dry cider and simmer until this has nearly evaporated. Then add 750mL of stock, a bay leaf and some thyme and simmer for about 15 minutes. Finish with a splash of Cognac or brandy and season to taste.

All of this can be done well in advance – and the more in advance the better. I thought the soup tasted a lot richer and complex the following day.

To finish (or to serve), grill slices of bread on one side (I did this in a griddle pan – no oil required, just head) and rub the toasted side with a cut clove of garlic. Put your hot soup in to bowls and arrange the bread, toasted side down, on each bowl, covering the soup. Finish by putting as much grated cheese as you want over the bread and popping the bowls under the grill (or in a hot oven – though you’re likely to need to finish off under the grill anyway) until the cheese is melted and starting to brown.

It does rather look like it might give you a heart attack but it doesn’t (yet, at least) and it will definitely make you feel very warm and cosy!