Thursday, March 31, 2011

Jaques Reymond

I hit a milestone birthday this month, can you guess which one?

And to celebrate Toby took me to Jaques Reymond to have their degustation. I've been envious since I read Carla's review. If you compare her review you will a few similarities and quite a few differences too, possibly because of my added gluten free requirement. I can't believe that a fancy french restaurant was able to do a vegan and gluten free degustation!

We started with leek and watermelon terrine which was quite refreshing.



Then we had watercress and green tea soup with shitake mushroom on top and a daikon fritter underneath. They did the the diakon fritter with rice flour so I didn't have to miss out. Toby and I loved this, it had a slightly bitter taste but in a good way and I loved the combination of texture with the soup, mushroom and fritter. I'm also intrigued about how they got the fritter to stick under the mushroom.




Then it was my favourite savoury dish, the tomato jelly which was made from agar amd was absolutely punching with flavour,kind of like 100 tomatoes in one tiny little bite. This also contained some sort of mousse in the middle, surrounded with edible flowers and nuts.



This looked a lot like a piece of meat but was actually shredded beetroot wrapped in cabbage over rice with pinenuts and a lovely slightly sweet citrus sauce. Those two dots were a strong coffee reduction.


This was marrow and mushrooms, both the marrow and the mushroms were really tender and had a strong flavour like they had been marinated in a dashi type sauce and cooked for days. We both loved this and I'm not even a big mushroom fan.


Silken tofu with a sherry reduction with violets. This dish was a tad on the bland side, but it was very pretty.

Mushrooms over sushi rice with hazelnuts. Toby and I also felt that this needed some more sauce or spice or something. Toby added a tiny bit of salt which he said made it a lot better.

 My favourite dish of the night was called 'pre dessert' and consisted of a fruit based sorbet, jelly and fruit but the combination of flavours was so beautiful  I wish I paid more attention to what the waiter said when he brought this out instead of my inner dialogue screaming 'yay, dessert'.

Then it was raspberries, poached pair, pepperberry sorbet and dark chocolate.


Finally petite fours, roasted peach, nuts based fruit crumble, blackurrant jelly and jelly surrounding fruit.

Sadly, truffles were not available because they are not in season. Toby had a short black too and said it was good, although it was not specialty standard but he would be happy to pay for a coffee like it. The service was excellent, the food overall was so impressive and inspiring. It was such a wonderful experience, I felt very spoiled indeed. It's in a beautiful old house with a few tables in each room. Also, we saw Jaques himself roaming around too which is pretty cool. he actually glanced down at my red tights! At $135 each we can't afford to go regularly but it was so worth it for this once off experience.

Jaques Reymond
78 William Rd
Prahran

8 comments:

  1. Happy birthday! What a fabulous meal! So wonderfully documented, too. I very much enjoyed eating vicariously through you.

    I am quite envious... I went to a restaurant for my birthday this year that said they could do a vegan, gf tasting menu and it was totally pathetic. Everyone around here seems to get overwhelmed when they have to deal with both vegan *and* gluten-free. This meal looks like you were in the hands of true masters!

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  2. happy birthday K

    what a magnificent meal - a gleegan degustation from a high end restaurant is a wonderful thing and a special present

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  3. Brilliant! Looks wonderful - I think I know where my birthday dinner will be this year.

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  4. Happy Birthday. I have wanted to go to Jacques Reymond for quite some time, even more so after reading the reviews that you and Carla have written. Glad you enjoyed it and had a nice celebratory meal with your man!

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  5. That looks amazing! Happy birthday, and glad you had such a delicious celebration!

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  6. At last, a non-veg restaurant that realises CHOCOLATE IS VEGAN. If Michael wants to go here for his birthday I shan't protest.

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  7. Wow, looks great. I'm always amazed by the fact that "fancy" restaurants can't get tofu right. It's always so bland! And yes, I'm so tired of getting fruit or fruit sorbet as my desert. Never any dark chocolate in sight! I had the vegan degustation @ Attica and it was OK but this looks a lot better. Hopefully I'll get to try it at some point - thanks for the review!

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