E-Book Dinner at Syracuse

In this episode of On Golden Fond : the E Book explorers trot off to wine bar Syracuse.  Many fine small dishes are eaten; cellar special wines are consumed; our heroes retire tired but happy.








Friday last I went out to dinner with Perigeux (my s.o.), Moulard, Fiorenze, Scott & Nic (brush up your screen names, you two). We trotted over to Syracuse, a wine bar/restaurant in the heart of the banker district, to enjoy a nosh with the help of the good people from the Entertainment Book (25% off! cheers stingy Ecumer). The Good Food Guide 2009 gives it a very respectable 14.5/20.


I have some good memories of Syracuse over the years. I tasted my first Super Tuscan there, I celebrated a dear friend's divorce there (oh, the hangover), their associated lunch bar on the corner (I think it's called Ortigia, we just call it The Good Sandwich Place) serves what may be the finest meatball sandwich in Melbourne. Also it's just far enough from the office so you can go to quietly schmooze someone about a job, with low odds of running into an observant colleague.


One thing these experiences has left me with is a healthy respect for their markup skills, so we started the night with a quick aperitif at Chez Ecumer, to take the edge off what was generally regarded as a Friday that was the end of a work week that needed ending.


A five minute walk took us to the venue; we were led to our very large table for six which would have been generous for eight and given menus and a wine list. The menu is split into maybe a dozen or fifteen small plates ($7.50 - $14.50), which looked pretty good, and four mains ($26 - $34), which looked okay but not as exciting as the smalls. The very nice waitress advised us that two small plates per person would pretty much see us right for a dinner; we were sceptical (a few Large Hungry Boys among us) but she was mostly spot on.


Food


We had :


Marinated olives - sound olives with some nice hints of lemon oil


Turkish bread and minted yoghurt - pleasant filler but not exciting. The only way to get extra bread to go with other dishes (for vital juice soaking duties) as far as we could work out.


Scottaditti (Roman style marinated lamb cutlets) which were advised as a must have. They were well on the medium side of medium rare, tasty enough but not quite exciting.


Calamari with rocket salad - perfectly cooked calamari and a lovely balanced salad


Saganaki - the cheese that squeaks was crispy, gooey and lemony in all the right proportions.


Rare seared tuna with borlotti bean salad - perfect seared tuna, melt in your mouth protein. If you like that kind of thing.


Grilled duck breast with lentil salad - Slightly under grilled purpley half a breast (we like it like that!) on a bed of lentils. Very well executed but slightly unexciting - if the dish had some herbage on the duck breast, or some flavour element that bridged the lentils and the duck (maybe a little ground fennel seed in each?) then it would have kicked it up a notch.


Chicken liver mousse with toast & cornichons - a fine example of the type - good rich flavour, very smooth. There's not a lot of upside for a restaurant with a dish like this - if it's just right, people will think "That was pretty good". If they have one slightly skew batch, they fail. Let me stress that this was very good.


Butter fish fillet grilled in prosciutto - the fish was a bit soft and mushy. Flavour okay but texture was kind of overdone.


Pork belly (boiled and grilled I think) - have it on it's own and it was a very nice piece of moist tender pork. Add some of the pickled red cabbage condiment and it lifted right up and became the kind of thing you would come back for.


Risotto with I think truffled cheese or truffled oil. Lovely risotto, firm & creamy, cool elements of truffle nicely in balance.


Did I forget anything? We were too full for cheese (good looking selection) or for dessert (didn't look closely enough to judge).


Wine


Being a wine bar they have a huge list that defies any but the keenest to master. A bit of informed/desperate searching found us
- an Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 05 (can't remember the label). Strong fruit, strangely strong citrus tones that drove away everyone except Nic & Ecumer. Ecumer likes citrus, Nic likes any chardy.
- a Yarra Valley Cab Sauv (05 I think). Good balance, ready to drink. The red drinkers managed two bottles.
- a Geelong Chardonnay 06 half bottle. Buttery, some residual fruit. I love places that take half bottles seriously, they give the diner so many more options.


Service


Service was generally good. There was a gentle attempt to up sell us to mineral water at the start (to which Fiorenze of course caved : "Oh, San Pellegrino, it reminds me of those afternoons in the piazza ..."). Occasionally hard to get attention for a new bottle; the joint was quite full by the time we were nearing our end. Dishes came steadily and pretty well timed. Their advice in what to order was polite, clear and largely well matched to our tastes (we weren't as excited by the cutlets as they were).


Ambience


The venue is a large Victorian (?Ecumer is no architectural anthropologist) space. This makes it very lovely but susceptible to sound. As the joint filled up we had to raise voices and resort to a few "WHAT WAS THAT?"s to get through our profound musings. This was not helped by the nearest table who had raucous guffaws that could represent the Commonwealth if there were such an event.


Overall


We ate ourselves full of food that ranged from good to excellent, had a few good bottles of wine, good service and a somewhat noisy environment. Bill came to $60/person after discount and including tip which we thought was pretty darn good. We toddled home for a digestif and to watch cooking videos in preparation for Truffle Day! next week.


Next E-book dinner is scheduled for Grand Final eve. We'll be excited or drowning sorrows about who will be in the final - ideal circumstances for a dinner. Except for Ecumer who is neutral to ritualised tribal conflict. For him, any time is a good time for a dinner.


Never eat anything larger than your own head.


Cheers,


Ecumer


Addendum : Fiorenze


There was also an extremely toothsome ham hock and cornichon terrine; sweet, smoky and gelatinous in the right proportions.