The Little Snail

Was a big disapointment.

I have been here twice before, the first time was years and years ago, and i only really remember the company, not the food. At the most recent time was Kate and my first date back in January 2005 - so I'm sure everything tasted great that time! Yesterday Sandrine and I went for lunch to catch up as we haven't seen much of each other since she commenced work. The lunch menu is 3 course prix fixe, and below are our dishes.

Seared Scallops served with Anchovies Pan Braised & Caramelized Tomato and Capsicum Cake. This was not very good at all. The scallops were smaller than the size of a 10 cent piece, there were no anchoies, and the capsicum cake was missing too. The scallops were over cooked - badly, luckily the salad had some flavour.

Snails (one dozen) in the shell, garlic butter. Sandrines entree was nicer - as you would expect, but they were quite small.



Crispy Atlantic salmon served with lime, prawns & mango salad. Here, again, a key ingrediant was missing - the prawns! The fish was nice, but again i felt over cooked and the mango did not seem fresh - amazing seeing cheap fresh mango is so abundant at the moment.
Confit Duck with sweet potato, baby spinach & Orange dressing. The duck and the dressing were good. The vegetables were rubbish, all over cooked and tasted like they had been sitting out waiting to be served since last night. I can only imagine the souz chef is on holidays and left the dishpig to do all of the sides...

We both had Lemon Meringue for desert, it was ok. Nice and light on top, and the base was very rich - too rich for me but sandy liked it (although apparently not as good as her mum makes)hahaha, a fine dining experience my ass... the wine cooler was plastic, and all cracked - actually broken all the way through and sticky taped! The white wine he suggested was a Clean Skin! And still $29 a bottle... it was nice, but what a rip...
Sandrine finished with a Parisian coffee, which has Grand Marnier in it... was strong and goooood. Maybe the highlight of lunch!

Thursday Lunch

Today I had the day off work, and was waiting on an important call... I have been really anxious to get it for a while today, and felt sure some important information was coming my way this week. I found out at 930am that it wouldn't be until next week.... so my plans of celebrating or consoling myself for the day were replaced with cooking. Above is lunch. It is herbed chicken breast with sweet potato two ways. I boiled and mashed almost a whole kilo piece of sweet potato, blending it with salt, pepper and some honey. And i cut a few large discs which i baked. See below - i tried to present it nicely for once...


So i stacked up a big pile of the mash, and topped it with the three best baked pieces, then loaded it up with chicken. Then i put a mix of herbs, mostly corriander, and honey etc together to make a strong sauce, which i dripped around the edge, and onto the chicken on top.



And of course because i am a pig, and a long way off a real gourmet, i had a side of oven fries! haa... at least i put it on the side! It was good, all very yummy - but the sauce was too sweet and it needed more complexity... not sure how... oh well, next time. At least it looked the part.