Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A saintly experience


I am a food groupie - I love celebrity chefs, I'm a sucker for cooking gadgets (the Tupperware piping bag thing changed my life!) and watch all things cuisine on telly (hello Nigella, Jamie et al).

So naturally all my holidays revolve around food. My dear friend Bel and I joked that our three month European holiday a few years back was our 'Food Tour of Europe' - cheese in France, chocolate in Belgium, tapas in Spain . . . the list goes on. No need to worry about those churches and art galleries (kidding - of course we did them . . . with baguette in hand of course).

It was a given then, that when I flew over to visit the darling Bree in Melbourne last week, we would indulge in all things delicious and decadent - especially because it's probably the last time we'd catch up in Melbs before she has her bubba in November (and after that, it'll be all play cafes and babycinos!).

I left her to surprise me with a booking somewhere and she done good!

St Katherine's is a new venture between George Colombaris and Shane Delia.

And it is ah-MAZING!

Clocking in for a long and lazy ladies' lunch, we did the safe and boring thing but I'm so glad we did - we chose the $58 tasting menu which took the hard work out of deciding what to order.

But goodness me, it was A LOT of food!

Here's Bree with the first course . . .

 

Oysters . . Turkish lamb dumplings . . Olives . . Taramasalata with prawn crackers . . House made bread . . Fig, haloumi and ricotta pide with sticky balsamic . . Some other pide (can't put my finger on the flavour - roast cap I think) . . Pickled vegetables with dukkah . . Bean dip (Shane's Dad's recipe!) . . Wild seed, caper and pomegranate salad

Then there was a beautiful piece of swordfish each, plus a king prawn with a lovely little salad of cos lettuce, dukkah, pomegranate and viniagrette dressing.

Next a waiter came up with another plate of food that we assumed he'd directed to the wrong table - surely we couldn't have anything else before dessert? But oh yes, the heaped platter of rotisserie lamb and chicken was definitely for us - complete with side dish of rice.

Wow.

Finally, after hardly even touching the sides of the meat, we were treated to dessert . . .


Yes, we played the birthday card and I got a candle! It was the first time I'd seen Bree since my birthday, so it only seemed fair!

We indulged in a Mr Whippy soft serve (coconut icecream for the mum-to-be) with chocolate ganache, turkish delight and crispy cocoa pops. Lots of fun.

 We also made room for the divine watermelon salad which helped cleanse the palette and get rid of the 'blugh' feeling of having eaten too much. Beautiful chunks of watermelon with mint jelly and cinnamon labne. Delish.

 
To top it off, I celebrated with a Jansz and Apple Tea (separately - not in one glass of course!) while Bree treated herself to a refreshing mocktail of raspberry, lime and mint.
It was goooood.
 
We walked out of there like zombies. I was seriously in a food coma for a good 12 hours afterwards.
 
Now, I'm no food writer or critic, but I know what I like and I LURVED this place - reasonably priced, a great vibe to it, beautifully light filled and spacious and delicious food. I reallly liked the special touches like the cutlery in the tomato paste cans and the bread delivered to your table in a brown paper bag. Very cool.
 
 
This is one happy food groupie.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You have inspired us to book in on our next trip to Melbs. Lovely to catch up over another culinary delight - brunch at St Ali. Kelly xx