Tel: (08) 8724 9966
Another example of travller's laziness - but in this case it was about 8:30pm at night, I had driven through the darkness and everything either looked closed or was some horrible fast food bingo draw.
Entree (below): Chicken Putenesca - "Succulent chicken shanks wrapped in proscuitto sauced with a fresh tomato, olive, caper and white wine sauce". The putenesca sauce was flavoursome and well-prepared, but the proscuitto wrapped chicken shanks were slightly undercooked and lacklustre. If they could somehow manage to crisp the proscuitto (which is what I envisaged from the menu) it would give the dish more texture and created less of a divide between such a great sauce & the meat which seemed to go off on its own tangent.
Entree: Sesame Chicken - "Chicken medallions sauteed in honey and toasted sesame seeds, nested on an avocado skordalia, accompanied with grilled pancetta and snow pea shoots". A classy take on a classic - who would have thought honey & avocado made such a great combination?
Below: Baked Scallops - "Japanese scallops baked in shell with shallot , wine stock with fresh bread crumbs and parmesan". Japanese scallops are - in my opinion - the best variety of scallop you can get. The size, texture and fact it can be presented without the guts on the side makes it a pure & desirable dish. This rendition had a great fresh shallot flavour, not heavy at all. The soggy breadcrumbs did let me down, but it could have been worse with the parmesan overpowering the whole dish. I thoroughly enjoyed the flavours here - the chef has respected the quality of the scallops and played the flavour to highlight the produce.
Dessert (below): Chocolate Hotpot - this was like a chocolate lava cake with some ground nuts and ice cream - what a perfect way to end an evening. It was a clean, unique chocolate flavour with a harmony of textures.
Above: Beer Lime Sorbet - "tastebug tingling dessert, sorbet made with lime infused beer served with frozen berry crumble, candied fruits and mango coulis". Looks and sounds a lot better than it tastes - kudos to the chef for conjuring up a beer lime sorbet - that part didn't let me down but it was the candied fruits and combination of the other elements which spoiled this dessert. I was initially worried I'd taste more yeasty-beer flavour than the lime, but the lime accent shined through and the texture of the sorbet was even slightly bubbly - that itself was a simple way to cleanse the palate after a heavy meal. The candied fruits tasted like a couple of old chopped orange peels thrown in and mixed around (bitter) and the mango coulis was great but I was just wondering what it was doing in there. Frozen berry crumble is basically some frozen berries blasted in a blender - interesting idea for those wanting to try something different at home texture wise on their desserts, but added little value to the sorbet.My confession is that I really enjoyed this meal. I was full & tired but persisted to go the whole 3 rounds with a dessert, because I was simply curious about the beer lime sorbet and the variety/combination of flavours presented to me on this menu.
I hate the hotel (which is really a mote) because their photos were deceptively bait-and-switch, but if I am back in Mt Gambier I will definitely come back to The Whitehouse (yes, the name is disastrously sickening) for an evening meal.
