ezard

the sister and bro-in-law were down from adelaide over the weekend and we decided to go have dinner at ezard - reviews of ezard have been excellent (85% on urbanspoon) and we decided to go try it out. unfortunately due to trying to make a booking really really late in the week (about four days before we wanted to go for dinner) there wasn't any place left and we had to go for the early sitting of 6pm. early sitting = no degustation due to the lack of time (we had to be out by 8) and the brother was quite disappointed with that! but to that point, they have excellent service, we talked to them about really wanting their degustation (see link to dish list here) they agreed to let us do a sortof degustation where we had the degustation, but took two dishes out. fair enough, we skipped out on the salad and the cured salmon.

romantic setting of ezard

trio of dips to go along with our bread and olive oil

accompaniment to japanese inspired oyster shooter

japanese inspired oyster shooter

steamed spanner crab dumpling with yarra valley salmon roe, celery cress

steamed spanner crab dumpling with yarra valley salmon roe, celery cress with the tom kha added

pan roasted baby barramundi with caramelised eggplant, tomato and lime salad, yellow curry dressing

slow cooked bangalow pork belly, apple pudding, fennel, white peach and calvados jus

eight score sher wagyu beef, potato terrine, garlic and red wine jam, mushroom soil, bordelaise jus

palate cleanser

and we upgraded to a dessert wheel

a peanut butter popcorn creation which while me and my other half didn't quite like, my sister loved and walloped down.

a beautifully plated strawberry roll - very pretty but tasted pretty normal

mango bit of the wheel which the sheepy and i had to fight over, haha. i lie, he let me eat most of it coz he's such a nice guy. whee.

second favourite dessert - honeycomb icecream

green tea cake which the bro and maddie loved

this is the espresso chocolate marquise, soft meringue, raspberry gel bit which comes with the normal degustation if u didn't upgrade to a dessert wheel - which was actually really good too

 so what are my views on ezard? i loved loved loveeeeddd the oyster shooter and blue spanner crab dumpling.the barramundi was cooked to perfection with crispy skin and tender flesh but wasn't anthing too special. didn't quite like the pork belly, i felt it pretty salty but if you do prefer the saltier side, i'm sure you'd love it.the wagyu was beautiful, i loved the potato terrine and the pieces worked extremely well individually - just didn't think the beef really went with the potato but maybe that's just me. upgrading to the dessert wheel was an extremely good idea - even though by that time we were all quite uncomfortably stuffed, we still made room for the extremely nomolicious dessert.

also, the service was fantastic. not only did they cater to our want for degustation, the food came out extremely quickly and they took out all uncooked and alcoholic portions of the dishes to serve to the pregnant sis-in-law. no cakage allowed, the only drawback but all in all, although on the pricier side (poor sheepy is going broke coz of me, lol), extremely worth it.

may the force be with japanese food,
cheers~