Celebrating special occasions is always a good excuse to go fine dining. Celebrated 2 years with my fiancé here at Est. Originally I wanted to do a degustation, or 4 course dinner, but with train delays after work, only had time for 3 courses. Looking at the menu, the second entree choices weren't that exciting either. I've been wanting to come here for a while now, and although I don't blog about food often anymore, I guess fine dining takes a priority when blogging (in between organising a wedding etc).
One of the last to leave
Located a level above the Establishment bar where it is super loud, you arrive at this restaurant which is a stark contrast. The sound proofing they used is on point, because you wouldn't even know it's a very loud bar right under you. They have a champagne, wine and whisky/rum cart around the restaurant, but didn't opt for any drinks (not a student anymore, but as a new grad with minimal savings, I can't afford to drink when going out). Three courses were $135pp.
homemade sourdough
The crust was crunchy and a little bit sweet, which actually paired well with the butter. A simple non flavoured butter, which melted straight away as the bread still had steam coming out. Halfway through the dinner I asked them to clean the bread crumbs from the crust, but they misheard and thought I asked for another bread, so we got another bread. This bread was pretty big to start with, and so I was already starting to get full.
entrees
The drink in the top right was a cocktail of lychee and other fruity flavours, but tbh, for around $20, it just tasted like pineapple juice with some edible flowers. The lychee flavour was very subtle. It was nice to have a sweet drink to balance the savoury dishes.
coal grilled marron, salt and vinegar cabbage, laver, lardo dumpling
dumpling as a side dish
First time having a side dish accompaniment to an entree. The marron was cooked to perfection and very fresh. Loved the texture of the cabbage since it gave it a crunch and not too vinergry. The laver helped season the dish a bit more. Not sure what the purpose of the dumpling was though, but it had some peas and a tiny bit of prawn was a clear consommé for more seafood flavour.
There was a decent amount of crab which wasn't overpowered by the different elements on the plate. The lemon jam helped give it a bit of creaminess and lightness, hazelnut and cavolo nero (Italian kale) for some crunch, and trout roe for some more flavour. The horseradish wasn't too strong either.
Lamb loin and belly, smoked broccoli, young garlic, curd, black olive
Lamb was cooked medium rare wasn't chewy. Loved the garlic sauce, probs the best I've had, and balanced well with the black olives. You could definitely smell smokiness from the broccoli but didn't taste like you were eating charcoal.
Rose veal, eggplant, green shallot, bone marrow, toasted milk, yeast
Veal was also cooked to medium rare. The sauce was a bit more heavy and saltier in this one, probably from the bone marrow. The toasted milk on top was a cute addition and a fun bit of crunch.
dessert
raspberry vacherin, buffalo curd, hibiscus, kaffir lime, raspberry sorbet
inside
Such a fun dessert to eat, you smash the vacherin meringue and inside it has raspberry bits, sauce, and the buffalo curd. Would have been nice to have more sorbet and curd to cut through the sweetness of the meringue and sauce. Meringue was light and crunchy.
For the second dessert, wasn't sure which one to pick, since I didn't want a chocolate dessert. This was the most popular one after the chocolate dessert. The puff pastry was super light and loved the bits of apple inside. The artichoke added a bit of a different dimension to it helping to cut back the sweetness. The ice cream only had a subtle hint of miso flavour. I would've liked more, but I guess miso is a strong flavour, and anymore would be too overpowering.
Complimentary special occasion chocolate cake
Cute dark chocolate mousse cake with a candle. This was quite dense so definitely shareable even though it was small.
petit fours: beignet and dark chocolate + white chocolate truffles
The beignet were served warm and very light and fluffy. The dark chocolate had a good bitterness to it, so went well with the sweet white choc. Wasn't expecting petit fours for a 3 course meal, so it was a nice little treat afterwards. We were so full by the end of the night. Lucky didn't end up getting 4 courses or the degustation. I guess we could've eaten more courses, just probably cut back on the complimentary bread (but bread was so nice, and it wouldn't make sense to not eat it). Overall, it was a nice dinner, but nothing mind blowing. I think these days I'm easily pleased with all food, since I've travelled to both Europe and America only in the past year, Asia the year before, and have conquered a lot of Sydney top restaurants. It just takes something extra for a dish to be mind blowing or create flavours never heard of before.
