Restaurant of the Year - The Grove

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last month or so. I've been busy eating my body weight in food that Mum was working overtime to churn out for us. My bathroom scales hate me. Anyway I have a huge backlog of entries to do so they will come in due course. First up, the meal I had at The Grove with Mel, Andrew, Teresa and Stuart back in April. I had to apologise for the freak that I am and my need to document all things food-related. Stuart was dumbfounded and asked me Why? To which, I screamed WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY? IT'S FOOD!!! Nah I didn't. I probably said something along the lines of Why Not? You know, typical Hii girl answer.

Also, I had only just discovered the low light setting on my camera and it was after I took these photos so they aren't the best lighting wise as I didn't want to be the annoying person letting off the flash every five seconds and disturbing the general ambience of the place.

Cover of the menu:

Mel pretending that she hasn't already checked out the menu online and planned what she wanted:

Blurry pic of the bread roll but I'm including it for completeness' sake:

We had the degustation which consisted of 3 entrees, 1 main, a pre-dessert, a dessert and handmade macaroon and chocolates.

Hamachi with creme fraiche and horseradish sorbet, lemon oil. It was ok. The problem wasn't that it wasn't nice but that I've had Tetsuya's degustation so I was one tough customer to please!

Tortellini of saffron and goat's ricotta, beurre noisette, date and sorrels. From memory, I wasn't too taken by this. Me no vegetarian. Don't get me started on that beetroot tart from French Cafe.

Crispy wild boar, confit hen's egg, beetroot, apple and walnuts. This was sooo good, juicy and tender and the tiny gooey egg on top was just the cherry on top. Mel and I had this at Taste of Auckland and loved it then too.

Teresa was the only one who chose beef as main - Organic beef fillet with bone marrow, young carrots and white onion puree.

Everyone else was like Duh! we are having lobster. Butter poached crayfish, toasted farrow, sweet corn custard and smoked tomato. Can't remember the details now but it was pretty yum.

Another angle of the crayfish:

Bring on the desserts, baby!!!

Pre-dessert - some kind of fruit based yoghurt topped with a teeny tiny apple donut. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. I wanted to lick the glass.

Main dessert - Souffle (banana??? can't remember) with ice cream and cookie crumbs. This was gross. I don't like souffle as a rule and this one had such a strong alcoholic taste, it was yuck.

Macaroons to finish off!!! To be honest, their only redeeming quality was that they were sweet. They didn't have that yummy crunchy stickiness that good macaroons should have though.


Hang on a minute!! The menu mentioned macaroons AND chocolates. What!!!!!!! We've been ripped off. Shame on you, The Grove!

Birthday Dinner @ Kabuki, Stamford Hotel

Unless you're living under a rock, you would have heard about the daily deal craze that's sweeping the nation at the moment. There seemed to be a new website popping up every other day. It takes me a ridiculous amount of time everyday to scope these "deals" out. Anyhoo, months ago I bought 5 vouchers to Kabuki at Stamford Plaza, an upmarket teppanyaki restaurant. $45 for $100 worth of food. Score! So I booked for the weekend before my birthday and ordered everyone to clear their schedules for that night.

Viv took it to the extreme and went and got her hair done for the night. She obviously isn't familiar with the etiquette that you should never outshine the birthday girl. Tsk tsk tsk. To be fair, Fiona got her hair done too. Double tsk tsk tsk.

The restaurant rung up and said it was a full house that night so we needed to be there on time or the chef will start cooking without us. So we all rocked up on time except for the Tses who were half hour late. The blatant disrespect for the birthday girl is just piling up! The JJs came up from kampung for the night too.

The Shis with Isaac looking confused with his mother's hair...

I had to make an executive decision and order for Mel and Andrew so I just chose the ones that were the most meat-heavy. The meals are set-menus and you choose whichever one you like. There was a set which had lobster and it was $100. Fiona thought the objective was to choose the most expensive one and I had to burst her bubble and told her it's not a buffet!

We all basically ended up with similar sets and each set came with salad, miso soup, teppanyaki vegetables, fried rice and dessert.

Andrew: The Renge (Lotus) Set $71

Kobachi Appetizer, Hawkes Bay Lamb Cutlet, Szechwan pepper marinated Venison, Black Pepper Scotch Fillet.

Mel, Gavin, Jayden, Jason: The Kaede (Maple) Set $74

Kobachi Appetizer, Wasabi Prawn, Asian salsa scallop, NZ King Salmon, Premium NZ Eye fillet.

Me, Fiona, Jenn: The Botan (Botany) Set $61

Kobachi Appetizer, Wasabi Prawn cutlet, Teriyaki Chicken, NZ Beef Sirloin.

Viv: The Tsubaki (Camellia) Set $52

Kobachi Appetizer, Wasabi Prawn Cutlet, NZ King Salmon, Teriyaki chicken.

We started with the appetizer which was salmon with thinly sliced vegetables. Nice and healthy.

Next up we had the salad which was your stock standard salad.

Our chef then came out with a tray containing our meat. Hohoho meat gooood!

Our chef cooking the scallops and prawns.

Check out that big pat of butter sitting on top the succulent prawns.

The waitresses came around and put a paper bib around everyone of us as food was going to start flying soon!

Wasabi prawn cutlet with yum yum sauce .. this was gooooooood. Fat and juicy.

NZ King Salmon and Salsa Scallop...

Viv's set didn't come with scallops so her salmon looked a tad lonely.

The show started with the chef making us catch a rice bowl each and then catch a raw egg with the bowl.

Chef cooking the teppanyaki vegetables.

A mother's job is never done. Isaac's bedtime coincided with our dinner so Fiona had to sing to get him to sleep.

Took this pic not because I wanted a photo of the JJs but because I needed a sneaky excuse to take a photo of the couple next to them. They didn't talk to each other throughout the whole meal and looked so miserable. We guessed it was an internet date went wrong, ie they didn't look like their photos on their profiles. Haha...

It was time to sing for our suppers again and this time, we had to catch cut up omelet bits in our mouths!! Jason had no trouble at all..... hmmmmmmmmm wonder why?

Chef making a silly joke with the fried rice:

Finally, we had to catch the bowl with fried rice in it with another bowl in our hands.. Stressful!

Last but not least, the meaaaaaaats!!

My beef sirloin....

Teriyaki chicken:

I was so stuffed I had to give my teriyaki chicken to Andrew, the human garbage can. The dessert was goooooood. Pannacotta and a red bean mochi. Oh so good. Anything red bean is good in my books.

After dinner, we went home to have the cake Fiona bought. Because you know.. the food was pitiful and we were still starving. Not!

Apparently, my name is Tiramisu.. heheh.

Happy birthday to me...

Mel got me a cupcake book.... forgot to take a photo before I uploaded all my pics so this will have to do. The real book's cover is much prettier.

Viv got me a necklace because she thinks of me as the Queen of Angels... *aw shucks*.

JJs got me cupcake chocolates and a gift card to Smithys.

Thanks to all for my presents and for coming along to the dinner. Twas a good night. Yes mother, I will take you to a nice restaurant when you arrive.

Night Out At Kermadec

I've been working unsociable hours while getting used to the new job so decided to make a bit of an effort and go out for dinner at Kermadec last Friday. By effort, I meant dinner at 6.30 and home in time to play Cafe World on facebook with the sisters by 8.30. I know, I need to slow down and curb my crazy partying lifestyle.

The viaduct was real busy as it was a Friday night and office Christmas party season.. or as I like to call it, prowling season.

View from my window seat... great for people watching!!

I booked out the restaurant for the night as you can see...... either that or no one else eats at that time except farmers who go to bed at 7 pm. What can I say? I get hungry early!!

Anyways, on with the food shots.........

Entree (looks funny without that little stroke above the second to last e)

Seared scallops with parsnip skordalia, soft poached quail eggs, crisp pancetta, hazelnut crumbs and truffled beurre bosc pears. The scallops were gynormous. Is it just me or does it look like someone accidentally gargled and spat all over the plate?? Suffice to say, Top Chef won't be ringing me anytime soon to be a judge... heheheh.

Main -

Grilled local snapper and Cloudy Bay clams with aubergine caviar, roasted artichokes, toasted pine nut and shallot sauce vierge. The fish was beautiful. The rest was a bit too fancy smancy pancy for my tastes... what's wrong with veges that you can actually pronounce???? Hehhh i'm all class.

Main -

Slow cooked Perendale lamb shoulder with lamb cutlet, crisp goats cheese sandwich, fennel purée, candied garlic, shelled broad beans, fresh mint and muscatel dressing.

The presentation deserved a close up... fresh flowers on top of a wafer sandwich. I forgot this was goats cheese so in my excitement to "eat the pretty flowers", I took a huge mouthful of the "cream" and nearly died. Yuck.. me no likey goats cheese.

Also got a side order of handcut chips. So good... but what's with the artful yet sneakily stingy arrangement?? I prefer my chips plentiful and messy, thank you.

Arty attempt of a photo that I took while waiting for the main attraction of night aka dessert!!!

Behold !!!! This was called The Workshop something or other... stupid website didn't have the dessert menu listed. Seriously, don't they know that's the most important part of any meal???? Anyway, back to the love of my life. Everything was made of cherries which I luuuuurrrve. The presentation was so pretty I almost couldn't bear to touch it. But I did the next best thing and wiped the plate clean instead. Yum yum!!

The white blob on the right was a delectably smooth ice cream made of cherry pits (!!!). It tasted kinda vaguely like almond and looked like vanilla bean. The middle red blob was a pitless cherry marinated with chamomile tea. The toadstool on the left was a cherry meringue on top with a white chocolate mousse as the stalk.

More cherries marinated in chamomile tea and cherry toadstools. The thin scroll running across the bottom of the pic is cherry paper!! It tasted like brittle licorice... Ingenius huh??

I saved the best for last... the middle bit is the balloon. It's a thin layer of cherry sorbet shaped like a balloon resting on a smear of sticky white chocolate/toffee. I felt like I was cracking an alien's egg (kinda like a scene out of Alien 2 hehe).

It was sweet and tart and yummilicious!! More please! This was only $17!! Worth every penny.

Kermadec does a dessert tasting menu where you get 5 different desserts for $55 per person. Anyone wants to go with me??