Dinner at the Boat House

There was a little of me that wanted to check that I couldn’t just treat people to a 4-7 course fine dining experience without all the excess wedding hoo-ha, so to put my mind at ease TimmyC took me to an impromptu sneaky dinner at The Boat House. I was tempted to get try the truffle degustation but to see their calibre of food without a reoccurring star ingredient, we chose from the four course a la carte menu.

Four course menu $80 (it is in the Entertainment book, don’t forget your gold card/app!).

The Boat House is always inviting with their attentive service and freshly house made bread and butter.First Course~

Winter vegetables with their own carbon and puree. The leek was amazing, the puree absolutely blew my mind but we were a bit disappointed to find that the ‘carbon’ form was just a part of the vegetable that was soft enough to cut and chew.

Cuttlefish, rockmelon, Buche d’Affinois, almond. I’m not completely sold on the combination of seafood with rockmelon but I like how they used rockmelon ribbons. The cuttlefish itself was very tender and easy to chew.

Second Course~

Waygu beef brisket potato pebbles, béarnaise, chives.

Organic chicken cauliflower morel, pine ash, cafe au lait. I loved the crispy chicken skin, it was like someone packed all the flavours of the chicken skin and condensed it into a concentrated biscuit, it was unreal to eat. Again, I don’t order that much chicken but this was really moist and I thought tasted better than the beef. 

Third Course~

52C salmon puy lentils, fennel bisque, crisp herbs.

 

Ranges Valley beef flank, grilled cucumber, red cabbage, horseradish, mayonnaise. I thought the beef was a little salty in parts but it was cooked perfectly to my liking and had a lovely beef flavour. I couldn’t eat the cucumbers they were way overly salted and when I mentioned it to the waitress she said that she will tell the chef. They have taken this dish off from the new menu.

Fourth Course~

Chestnut and chocolate parfait, textures of mandarin. There was many textures of mandarin including sorbet, jelly, gel complimented with white chocolate crumble underneath. I found the sorbet a bit tart and intense but could be balanced out by the parfait.

Nitro truffle mousse, banana, honey parsnip, celeriac cream. I found the chewy parsnip texture really odd amongst the dessert and I’m a bit biased as I don’t really like the banana flavour.

TimmyC and I enjoyed the first two courses and then the flavours and combinations impressed us less in the latter half of the dinner. We were slightly disappointed with the food at The Boat House that night as we’ve definitely had better from them. We also decided it would be too hard to choose an alternative course at a fine dining level for our guests but it is reassuring to be sure.