Alere, Flinders University

Slow cooked lamb shoulder
Slow cooked lamb shoulder, with freekeh, mint, tahini and pickled cucumber

date of visit: Friday 26 August 2016

Alere is the new restaurant at Flinders Uni which is being run by Blanco, the same company that looks after the well-regarded Botanic Gardens Restaurant. It’s also participating in this year’s Festival of Food but for many people it will be a tricky venue to try out, as it’s only open Monday to Friday until 5pm.

Lucky for me that I control my work hours (I would say ‘I am my own boss’ but when you work to others’ deadlines, that’s not the case!) and I have a handful of friends who work varying flavours of part time. So for one day, my friend and I were able to play at being ‘ladies who lunch’.

Booking ended up being something of an up-and-down process. Alere does offer on-line bookings through its website, but because I was booking Festival of Food I decided I would rather speak to a person. So I rang and left a message and never heard back. And then I started to think that maybe I should have booked online but … if I book online now, will I end up with two bookings. So I rang again, left a message, missed the return phone call and eventually managed to confirm the table. Phew!

If you’re not familiar with the sprawling campus that is Flinders Uni then Alere might be a bit tricky to find. Basically you drive, drive, drive for MUCH longer than you expect (I was expecting to be spat back out on to Shepherd’s Hill Road at any moment!) but finally you reach The Hub. The parking which is available is 2 hour ticket parking which is OK but not ideal if you are after a particularly leisurely lunch.

Alere is set up on the second level of The Hub with floor to ceiling windows that flood the restaurant with the most beautiful light and afford diners with great views across the university and hills. If you’re so inclined, you can spend lunch people-watching the students below!

Sourdough
Sourdough with cultured butter

Seated, the most important part of the meal – reading the wine list – commenced. And finally – HOORAY! An interesting and well-curated wine list that is not flooded with NZ Sauvignon Blanc! There might be two SavvyBs on the wine list but they are both local and they sit alongside gems such as the Lino Ramble Ludo Fiano, the CRFT Grüner Veltliner and the Unico Zelo Dolcetto. I was also impressed to see that a hefty portion of the wine list is available by the glass in either 100mL or 150mL pours. This all makes me soooo happy. Really really happy.

My dining companion prefers whites with a touch of sweetness to them and I knew that the only Riesling available by the glass was dry – so we asked our waiter for a suggestion. Sadly, she had none (I’m not suggesting Alere stick a moscato on the wine list but perhaps ensure the staff can point a customer in the right direction) BUT when I said I was having the Lino Ramble Fiano she enthusiastically said she had tried it and it was very nice. This was enough to sway my friend into trying it and it was a success all round!

With Festival of Food we only had to pick our main courses. I’d decided to go for the spaghetti with poached prawns while my friend chose the slow cooked shoulder of lamb, with cracked freekeh, mint, tahini and pickled cucumber.

Entree tasting plate
Entree tasting plate – vitello tonnato hidden at the bottom

We started with the delicious sourdough and followed this with our entrée tasting plates. From the top, a soup, grilled haloumi and finally Alere’s take on vitello tonnato. All delicious – which really says something because vitello tonnato is normally something I go out of my way to avoid! If I wanted to be picky, I’d suggest the confit tomato atop the haloumi was a bit large, but really – just eat the veal!

Main courses arrived and it was depressingly obvious that my friend had ‘won’ in the menu selection stakes. While my prawns and spaghetti were delicious (perfectly cooked pasta, a good balance of heat from the chilli, plenty of prawns), the lamb took the biscuit. It was so good! The meat was so soft, tender and falling apart it was like eating deliciously spiced lamb puree (but in a good way – still with texture). My friend generously offered me a taste of the gorgeous looking flatbread, but because I’m such a nice person I declined. (It’s possible I declined because I’m such a pig I would have hoovered loads of it up … who knows). She loved it!

Spaghetti with prawns
Big fat bowl of pasta!

So there we were – perfectly full and happy little campers and in no need whatsoever of dessert (we may have also had one eye on the clock). So out came our petit four (no picture, sorry) – a fried ricotta doughnut, saffron poached pear and … a truffled honey cream. So the tiny plate smelt of truffle. I love truffles. But guess what? It turns out I totally do not love truffles when they’re in my dessert. The smell was, frankly, awful. And while the little doughnut was lovely, the truffled cream was one of the most really quite unpleasant things I’ve eaten (the worst still remains the ‘seven textures of milk’ dessert I ate as part of a degustation once …).

When our waiter picked up our plates she asked us how we’d enjoyed it. As my face is an open book, there is no point in me sugar-coating these kinds of opinions. So I said I didn’t like it and asked what the general feedback was on it. Our waiter did say that it does rather tend to divide people’s opinion.

And I think in many ways that’s what good, interesting cooking should do. No one is going to like everything, all the time and as a cook or chef you might as well see if you can push some buttons. You can stick a chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and vanilla icecream on a menu and as long as it’s good, no one is ever going to complain. But what are you proving? People like chocolate … well, we kind of knew that! So absolutely hats off to the kitchen team at Alere for taking a risk. I didn’t like it – but so what? I tried it in a massively low-risk environment and now know that perhaps desserts with truffles are not for me. Others may love it and I appreciate trying something new.

So Alere gets a massive thumbs up from me (both for food, service, and the chic styling that includes mustard!). Finding it is a bit of an adventure, and there are a few service niggles but it is also fantastic to have somewhere so good in the southern suburbs and I’m very jealous of the university students and staff.

I’m looking forward to my next visit.

Alere Restaurant
Flinders University
Registry Road
The Hub, Level 2
Bedford Park 5042
phone: 08 8277 7186

Alere Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

The Stag

date of visit: Thursday 21 July 2016

disclaimer: I was a guest at the ‘eat and tweet’ to celebrate the menu launch

So – apologies to both venue and reader for just two photos from this event. I’d spent the day at a wine tasting and exhausted my phone’s battery’s capabilities snapping away at wine bottles.

You may remember that The Stag has had a time of it of late. A few years ago it touted itself as “the worst vegetarian restaurant” (yep – it was a steak house). After a bit of financial excitement, new owners came in, and operating from a clean slate rejigged its dining offering as a fine dining restaurant.

A bit of tweaking and we see that The Stag has shifted to a more moderate position when it comes to dining. Venue Manager Robby Lippett describes the new menu as ‘gastropub’.

This means that the pub classics (yes, you can still have a schnitzel, burger or S&P squid) sit alongside a ‘tapas plates’ menu and a list of ‘big dishes’. Our tasting menu took in some of both (I think they figured we’d know what a schnitzel was like!). We were served tasting portions and the full size dishes were available to photograph but sadly technology failed me – just trust me, these two images aren’t representative of portion size!

chargrilled octopus
Chargrilled Octopus

We started with the chargrilled octopus – a $15 tapas plate. It’s served with black bean, cucumber and chilli jam. As we were having five courses, you can see that this was just a taster – or just a teaser because those two mouthfuls of octopus were really good. Definitely a dish I’d order again.

soft shell crab slider
Soft shell crab slider

Next, the softshell crab slider. For $14 you get two of these and yet another dish I’d order. It was delicious – the crab was crispy and both that and the crunch of the pickled carrot worked well with the bun and mayo. It was lovely to taste a slider that was something a bit different too.

The duck pie floater ($26) was a dish that sounded really interesting but I’m not sure how well it worked in its scaled down form. I think it’s really hard to miniaturise anything involving pastry – quite often, as here, you just can’t scale down the pastry enough and our tasting portion was dominated by it. I’m sure this isn’t a problem in a normal portion but unfortunately I’m not a big enough fan of pea and ham soup to ever revisit it!

The vegetarian option at this course sounded great – handmade gnocchi with cauliflower, blue cheese, porcini, kale and a parmesan crumb. Unfortunately I wasn’t sitting near to anyone eating vegetarian so I didn’t get a taste!

Our final savoury course was the scotch fillet mac & cheese. Now Andy loathes mac and cheese (seriously – what is wrong with him?!) so it’s not something I get to eat. In fact, it’s something you rarely see on restaurant menus – but here it is, with some beef, onion rings and truffle sauce. At $34 it is almost the most expensive dish on the menu (the porterhouse surf & turf at $38 takes honours) but from the taste I had it’s worth deviating from a schnitzel with gravy …

We wrapped up with the peanut butter parfait ($12). My love of legumes sadly does not extend to peanuts but this was a nicely put together dessert, complete with peanut brittle and salted caramel.

The dining room is set apart from the pub’s front bar and is actually quite a plush, relaxing space. Even though the Stag is returning to its pub roots, you do feel like you’re in a proper restaurant dining room and there are even soft furnishings. That’s right – you can have a conversation!

For those seeking pre or post dinner drinks, the Stag’s front bar is complemented by the upstairs Champagne Lounge.

From what I saw, the new menu hits its mark. By staying true to the pub staples, while allowing the kitchen a little foray into more interesting dishes, it should mean that the Stag has broad appeal.

The Stag Hotel
299 Rundle Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: 8311 0392

The Stag Hotel Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

The Propaganda Club

Steak tartare
Steak tartare with plenty of mini toasts

date of visit: Tuesday 12 July 2016
disclaimer: I was a guest of The Propaganda Club

One of the perks of writing a food blog is invitations to try out places I wouldn’t normally go. Obviously, that can also have its downside, but in the case of this adventure, it was a definite plus.

The Propaganda Club bills itself as ‘Adelaide’s only late night supper club’. The bulk of its menu is served til midnight and after midnight there is a slimmed down version. I don’t get why Adelaide needs this, I don’t get who is going to opt for smart dining so late at night but then I am probably not the target market.

Fortunately for those of us old enough and boring enough to not be needing snacks outside the hours offered by the standard Adelaide restaurant, The Propaganda Club (hereafter referred to as TPC because I am a lazy writer) is open by 4pm most days (6pm Saturday and only open for private events on Sunday and Monday). This makes it a great venue for a post-work drink or dining at a more, shall we say, regular hour.

You might hear TPC’s location described as downstairs in Regent Arcade. While I have no doubt that it’s technically accurate, it implies that the venue is somehow in the middle of the arcade, when actually, you enter from Grenfell Street. This is quite important in the evening when the arcade is shut and attempting to go via Rundle Mall is the wrong approach! I can’t quite remember what used to be in this space – I think at one point it might have been a dodgy bar (that’s a fuzzy memory from my uni days …), children’s clothing shop and perhaps even a cheap noodle restaurant.

The re-fit has been significant and yes – it looks exactly like it does on its website. You enter through a massive sliding door on Grenfell Street and are greeted by front of house staff who will direct you downstairs to either the Soho Lounge or the Manhattan Room.

The Soho Lounge (and accompanying Sidecar Bars), decked out in icy blue velvet upholstery, looks like a great place to have a drink – either post work or at the start of a night out. My tip here is to get on to this before it gets popular.

The Manhattan Room is the restaurant. Same ash-grey wood floor (which not only looks smart but I suspect it will age extremely well), but this time rich red velvet upholstery. The seating layout is booths with long tables down the middle of the dining area. I dined on a Tuesday evening and it was lovely and quiet – so I hope that at busier times the well upholstered booths do a reasonable job of sound-deadening.

As my friend and I were dining as guests of the venue, we were offered a complimentary drink each along with some nibbles, two of the ‘small’ plates and two desserts. I chose Champagne (because I don’t drink cocktails) and my friend opted for TPC’s take on an espresso martini. The espresso martini got a thumbs up (she’s an expert) so she then put herself out by experimenting with the Airmail – also a big tick. The house Champagne is Besserat and the $20 a glass (retail looks to be around $80 a bottle) is not unreasonable. I was pleased that a bottle was opened for me (ordering wine, especially sparkling wine, by the glass freaks me out as I’ve had so many bad experiences) but less pleased that our waiter told us how much wine training the staff had had while she opened the bubbles wrongly*. Eek!

Our nibbles were some olives and the caraway seed ciabatta. I love caraway seed so felt they could beef up the caraway seed component but other than that, I loved the fact that this was served as a whole, warm loaf.

beetroot salad
Beetroot Salad

For our two small plates, the venue had made the choice for us – steak tartare ($25) and the beetroot salad ($20). I had a glass of The Other Wine Co Grenache and across the table Hesketh’s Bright Young Things Sauvignon Blanc ($12 and $10, respectively). Steak tartare is making a welcome return to menus in Adelaide, but I now realise I have some very firm opinions on this dish.

TPC’s was served with a quail’s egg (daintily hidden under a quail’s egg shell, for a dramatic reveal) and was really very good. The meat was not too finely chopped (if it is, it becomes pappy), it was really well spiced and the use of a quail’s egg meant the proportion of egg to meat was (in my opinion!) correct. Too much egg and things can become slimy. Spicing is important too – you need things like mustard and capers to cut through the meat.

And most importantly – TPC does NOT skimp on the accompanying mini toasts. FULL MARKS. (And the waiting staff were told this rather effusively – I love my carbs and having to eke out that aspect of the dish annoys me rather a lot).

My dining companion was not as enthusiastic about the prospect of steak tartare as I was but was pleased to decide that not only had she really enjoyed it, it had actually converted her.

The beetroot salad was not quite as exciting – obviously beetroot is a great match for steak – and the soft Persian feta worked really well but it just lacked a little something. After thinking about it, I reckon that the addition of some lightly pickled root vegies would provide the necessary lift.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the two small plates were enough in terms of the amount of food – thus making TPC much more affordable than its online menu suggested. If you are particularly hungry you might have to explore either a large plate or three small plates between two but don’t look at the menu and assume you’ll need to spend the $60-$80 on a small and a large plate per person.

For dessert we had the opera slice and the crema catalana. The crema catalana is infused with orange and topped with mandarin so one mouthful was enough for me but my friend loved it. The opera slice was nice but, served with both chocolate ganache and sorbet and some crumbled praline and a wafer, it had a touch of the deconstructions about it. I think I’d prefer just a slice of really excellent gâteau opéra without any trimmings. I almost feel bad writing that, as it’s not as though there was anything wrong with it – it just didn’t wow me for some really quite indefinable reason (and, naturally, your mileage may vary!).

One thing that really impressed me about our meal at TPC was the way it was structured. Aside from the initial invitation, our experience was as much like that of an actual customer as possible. We weren’t part of a group of hosted diners being served a cross section of the menu – we had normal dishes from the à la carte menu. We weren’t given free-reign on alcohol which meant we could get a feel for how the wine list works with the menu. In particular, I was pleased to see that the wine list was interesting and sanely structured (without being achingly trendy). There are plenty of wines available by the glass and most are $10. Someone who has an interest in wine has had a guiding hand in this and it makes me happy. The combination of bar and restaurant means that your choice of apéritifs and digestifs and everything in between is comprehensive.

At the end of our meal, one of the chefs came out from the kitchen and asked for our immediate feedback on everything from the food through to the service and timing. This is a great idea – I think the venue will get much more honest and accurate feedback than they ever will through a blog post. Little things will often not make the cut when it comes to writing a post and nothing has been through the filter of hindsight.

I’ve already recommended the Soho Lounge to friends as somewhere to head for a drink and I personally would head back to TPC to eat some more of that steak tartare. It’s always lovely when a venue exceeds expectations!

The Propaganda Club
110 Grenfell Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: 8223 6411

* Hold the cork, turn the bottle!