Duck liver parfait, pinot jelly, mushroom duxelle, rye toast - Astra Lodge Aipex Ski Dinner
In a word, pretentious :)
That's a bit harsh, but unfortunately true. Perhaps I'm getting a bit tired of pretentious food that tries too hard to dress up the ingredients when a simple clean preparation is more than adequate.
Take the starter for example, the prosciutto and a sweet/sour pickled radicchio was very good. Why throw in the Milawa chevre?
And the slow-cooked veal would have been fine with a good creamy mash. Do we really need a mash with burnt onions and bacon? In its defence, perhaps the veal one it's own was a bit plain, so the bacon and burnt onions in the mash almost compensate for it.
Surprisingly, the Masterstock Beechworth Chicken, fried, with chilli, ginger caramel, herbs and shoots was quite good. The skin was golden and crisp and the flesh, firm, tender and moist. Although, any hint of poaching in masterstock was blown away with the chilli and ginger caramel. Ok, it was sweet chilli sauce. I did like the presence of Vietnamese hot mint with the bean sprouts though. Very refreshing with the sweet chilli sauce.
The desserts were good but not outstanding either. Someone mentioned that the chocolate topping on the chocolate pecan pudding was like Cottee's Ice Magic! Would you find that in a fine dining restaurant? The orange and vanilla ice cream could have been more orangey... and the lemon curd tart could have been more zingy. I did like the luscious double cream though :)
Astra Alpine Lodge
03 5758 3496
5 Sitzmark Street, Falls Creek VIC 3699, Australia
Photos:
- Shaved prosciutto, pickled raddichio, Milawa chevre
- Duck liver parfait, pinot jelly, mushroom duxelle, rye toast
- Masterstock Beechworth Chicken