Ale Stars November 2010

I’ve been meaning to get to this update for a while now… a whole month in fact as the next Ale Stars is just around the corner!

Last month we did Beer Cocktails. I think the name probably turned a lot of people off as numbers seemed to be way down than usual. Works out well for me though, as I know nothing about beer (except what I like) and so I could hear Shandy really easily and actually learn something new!



This is what we got told:

Beer blending and the creation of beer cocktails may be capturing some of the limelight for the moment but they’re far from new practices. Brewers and publicans have been blending and adulterating their beer for centuries providing the consumer with the product they want to, or could afford to drink. Modern mega breweries may also blend their beer to maintain consistency across large selling brands or possibly create more than one brand from stock beers.

Beer cocktails reside in the realm of the bar staff or home consumer and are created to make a beer more accessible, refreshing or even to give it a characteristic appealing to social groups and range from a short list of well know classics to the more surprising and esoteric for the most part attempting to create a beverage greater than the sum of its parts.

For me, I was apprehensive and not sure what to expect. I guess I learnt my lesson and to trust Shandy and the staff at the Local! I will tell you from the outset – I was pleasantly surprised!

We had four ‘cocktails’, all of which were interesting and mainly delicious. This is what we had:

Radler – Trumer Pils & Homemade Lemonade
The lemonade had been made by the kitchen staff at the Local (1 box lemons will give you 1 litre of concentrate, which with the right mix of soda water and sugar will equate to 5 litres of homemade lemonade) and made the radler quite flat. It had very sour notes upfront but the sweetness from the lemonade and pils was there too. The lemon probably overpowered the flavour of the pils a bit too much – we had a second one of these in our break and played around with the mix until we liked it at 40:60 (40% lemonade). By this stage we decided that it was YUM and we could sit around easily on a summer’s day drinking jugs of radler.

Table made Faro – Cantillon Gueuze & Taphouse candi sugar
The kitchen delivered again with a housemade toffee/sugar that we added in solid pieces to the Gueuze. The idea was that it would dissolve and leave us with a Faro – a sweetened version of a lambic beer that younger kids would drink in cafes as the lambic by itself was a bit too flavoursome for some of the younger customers – fancy that! The only problem with our faro is that despite all the stirring, prodding and stabbing with straws, that damn candi sugar would just not dissolve! Most of us put this to the side and came back to it an hour or so later, at which point the sugar had STILL not dissolved. Oh well. We drank the Gueuze anyway and fun was had by all. A very bitey flavour, the sour taste was slightly neutralised, but still a session beer for me. I have to say that I thought it was hard work. It was flat by the time we got to it, so apparently authentic as in the olden days (!) lambic beer was usually served uncarbonated.

Black Forrest Ale – St Ambroise Oatmeal Stout & Lindemans Kriek
Now, we’ve had the Kriek before, with not much success at my end of things. How can I put this delicately? I hate it. It reminds me of medicine I used to have as a child. The Black Forrest Ale had the exact same smell as the Kriek – as one of our esteemed Ale Stars put it – “Cherry Bum Juice”. I am not sure what the mix was on this one, but all I got was the Kriek – the stout was totally lost on me. As a result, I pretty much hated this one. The flavour is just so solid and so strong that I didn’t finish this one and handed it off to another Ale Star to finish for me. He finished several other people’s beers as well!

Imperial Black & Tan – Feral Hop Hog and Moo Brew Imperial Stout
We’ve had this mix before – lots of people have I suppose. Most successfully we’ve had it with the porter and larger at Coldstream (I think it was the larger? Someone please advise?!) but this is the mix I was most looking forward to… Two amazing beers in their own right left most of us excitedly wondering about what they’d be like together. And we were not disappointed. It was quite bitter, which is fine, but I don’t think I got the mix quite right (this is the only one we self mixed). My first try resulted in the hops overpowering the stout in a big way – after gulping down a few mouthfuls, that was quickly fixed and once topped up to a 50:50 mix, the hops balanced nicely with the stout.

PM24

Very luckily we got to experience the lovely new PM24 last week - rather at the last minute!



Champagne arrived quickly on arrival – being able to enjoy Louis Roederer by the glass is lovely, although pricey at $24 a glass. House made sourdough bread, with beautiful unsalted butter and a salmon spread was a delicious start to the meal. The salmon was a mix similar to what we sometimes cook (although ours is a poor mans version for sure) with dill, lemon and smoked salmon. It was extremely tasty and certainly spoiled my appetite!

Three of us dined last week and we shared 4 starters, 3 mains and 3 desserts, as well as a couple of sides with our main course. We generally found the starters to be the more interesting dishes. The mains tended to be quite heavy and rich, as well as being more traditionally French than the starters, which were a bit fresher with more distinct and interesting flavours. However this is not really a ‘sharing’ kind of place. None of the dishes are plated to be shared, but in this case we wanted to each try as many things as we could off the menu. The staff were wonderful in providing extra portions, and helping us share the dishes when needed. This is what we had…

Starters
Cured New Zeland King Salmon - Sour beetroot, dill, and horseradish cream -21.00

Roasted Beetroot - Octopus salad, goat cheese and eggplant compote -21.50

Seafood Nicoise Salad - Passionfruit, olive oil & rosemary vinaigrette, avocado royale – 25.00

Zucchini Flowers Crab Fritters - Piperade, red pepper vinaigrette – 25.00


A selection of starters including the zucchini flower at the top, octopus and beetroot (with accompanying goats cheese & eggplant ball) and chickpea crouton

These were all really amazing, delicious dishes. The salmon was perfect – none of us were really big horseradish fans, but it comes as almost a mousse and was not overpowering with the salmon at all. The beetroot was also great with the creamy goats cheese working perfectly with the tartness of octopus. The crab fritters divided our table a little – two of us loved them and thought they were the highlight of the starters, although we do agree that the flavours were the least unusual… Perhaps that’s why they are such a popular dish (the waiters told us these had been getting rave reviews). Given their flavours are a bit more mainstream, maybe that’s why we found them so delicious… maybe they are just delicious!

Mains
Rockling - Shellfish ragout, bouillabaisse fumet, saffron rouille - 37.50

King Salmon - Pan cooked, gnocchi, mushroom and chardonnay jus – 38.00

Rack of Lamb - Panko, mustard and rosemary, crust, Provencale vegetable gratin – 45.00

Potato gateau 8.50

Peas French style 8.50


King Salmon

The rockling was good – the portion was enormous, which you don’t often see these days! All of us commented that we would have struggled to finish the dish if we had not been sharing. The rockling was a large fillet, cooked beautifully, with other delicious seafood pieces. Again not great for sharing, but lovely rich flavours that seemed quite traditional for a bouillabaisse. The salmon was probably the most disappointing dish of the day. The mushroom and chardonnay jus looked more like a crust than anything, although it was soft and not great – the mushroom overpowered any other flavour and alongside the salmon we found this to be too rich for our tastebuds. The lamb was a thing of beauty (even though we were getting quite full by this stage). Cooked perfectly so it was incredibly tender, it was served with winter vegetables and was a lovely, traditional dish with an occasional tang of the mustard cutting through to make things a bit more interesting.

All these were accompanied by two excellent side dishes – a creamy, melt in your mouth potato gratin and peas ‘french style’ which included generous chunks of pancetta and a creamy sauce. Artery overload! But beautiful dishes and a lovely main course.

While the meals came out a little close together (leaving us very full after our main courses!) we were easily convinced to order dessert and had real trouble deciding on dishes – everything sounded very nice! The smell of the waffles cooking was now floating around the restaurant and that helped our decision, so we had:

Chocolate Waffle - Chocolat sauce, vanilla chantilly cream 18.00
Tahiti Vanilla Crème Brulee 18.00
Lemon and glace fruits - Ice nougat, raspberry jus, berries 18.00

The waffle (despite the incredible smell) was disappointing to a few. I found it to be very yummy indeed, but a bit short on the chocolate sauce and cream. So the jury was out on which was the best – I personally cant go past a crème brulee, especially one as beautifully creamy and sweet as this was. But the majority of the table ruled in favour of the iced nougat, with summer fruits. A very refreshing dessert and a perfect way to finish the meal!

All in all, a wonderful dining experience. For most of us (who are not millionaires) this will be an occasion restaurant, as to truly enjoy all it has to offer means at least $200 a head. But the interior is interesting and comfortable, the food wonderful, service is flawless (for the most part) and so PM24 is an experience well worth trying! Get in now before the tables book out until June!