Mercer's again
Yesterday was our anniversary and in rather unadventurous mode, or in traditional mode, depending on how you look at it, we went to our local fine dining establishment Mercer's. Well it's close and the food is just wonderful really. Moreover we have now been there enough (not a lot really), for the totally charming Ute Mercer who is in charge of the waiting staff, to greet us by name. Now we know she is just well organised, but she does genuinely seem to recognise us, and thanked David for his Trip Advisor review from our last visit. In fact she obviously persuaded her husband Stephen, the chef to come and chat briefly at the end of the evening. We noted that he only went to a few tables, so I guess we felt a tiny bit flattered, if at our cynical hearts we knew it was just good business.
An example of Ute's style, is that David was impressed by the price of the wine we chose - a Leo Buring white label riesling, which was absolutely delicious and he mentioned this to the waitress. I think it was around $50.00 and David thought it might have been about $25 in the bottle shop. It was not this year's vintage of course - I think it was 2014. Anyway a little while after David's conversation Ute came out to talk about it, and how their policy was not to have a huge markup on their wine. Mind you I found the current vintage in Dan Murphy's this morning for a mere $14.90. But then I suppose lots of restaurants would charge more than the $50 we had paid.
So what did we eat? The usual amazing little amuse bouche - a sort of deconstructed Caesar salad as a soup was how it was described. I think the base was a lettuce soup with a frothy very flavoursome something on top. And the most delicious very large bread roll to accompany it. Then I had a carrot soup with confit chicken and caramelised pears. An interesting combination and it was nice But I think David's tomato tarte tatin trounced it.
For mains David had smoked beef and I can't quite remember what all the other luscious things on the plate were. There were two kinds of beef I think - fillet and cheek.
But I think on the mains I trounced him with salmon with a potato crust which was just delicious and so crunchy. The chef explained how it was done - pretty complicated and I'm not going to try it at home but he did say that texture with food was very important.
The salmon was sitting on a pea risotto and a pea and parmesan broth. It was pretty sensational. And generous portions as you can see.
And we finished with le grand dessert for two which, as you probably know, is a taste of all the desserts on the menu. The star being a kind of crème brulée I think. And full marks to the restaurant and to Ute here. We had mentioned to the waitress that it was our 52nd wedding anniversary and so, as restaurants do, they had written happy 52nd wedding anniversary on the plate in chocolate. So far not so unusual I guess, but still - full marks. But Ute brought it out - a bit flustered asking if they had it wrong. Surely we could not have been married that long. We were too young. Again my cynical soul would say what good salesmanship, but she is a very warm and genuine kind of person and we felt good. We forgot to take a picture of the desserts, but David took a picture of the plate when we had finished. It's rather a fitting conclusion I think.
It was nice.
