Went out last night with Anj to a great little resturant in the coastal town of Huskinsson, Kiosk. Danni, girlfriend of Glenn Co-Chef from another great local resturant Pavilion (where I also do the odd Wait shift) has recently started as the weekend night chef. The general layout of Kiosk is Cafe, which is the main business that it does. Simple tables, a great bench seat on one wall but the atmosphere is one of casual relaxed friendly eating. Danni who has worked in some of Sydney's best resturants is a fabulous chef who takes the small kitchen, the cramped tight conditions and makes us a wonderful meal.
It was going to be a 6 course degestation meal, with sea food being the main drive, but due to apparent lack of numbers (there were only 3 empty tables ??) the menu was changed at the last minute to a 2 choice three course.
Anj and I decided to order each dish and share (as evenly as possible). So for Entree we had a warm lamb salad and seared scallops in a sweet corn soup. The lamb was cooked brilliantly with all the flavours and richnes captured within, the salad was crisp and matched well with the meat. A great start to the meal. As for the scallops - words cannot even try to describe the mouth watering tenderness cooked just righ so that the middle of the scallop was at that just cooked point and the outside crisp and seared perfect. The sweet corn soup I could have drunk by the bowlfuls - De-Lish!
For mains we had Salmon with a basil risotto. The salmon was beautiful and pink with a such sweet flesh you know it was fresh as fresh can be. Danni had coated the skin with a salt mixture so that when eaten with the sweet flesh it was an explosion of tasted in your mouth. By adding the risotto to the combination, again the salty tastes and basil with a fair bit of dill and fenel (which always goes well with fish like a salmon) it was trully an awe inspiring dish! The alternative was pork belly, which came with a dauphin of potato (thin slices of potato layered with cheese and cream me thinks! then baked) a rich sweet apple sauce and two wedges of candied baked apples. The pork belly had crackling skin with the sweet tender meat beneth, one of my favourite dishes was pushed to new highs, the rich potato, sweet sauce and apples with the tender almost illegally good pork I was feeling like NOT sharing this dish and missing the salmon! In the end I had to give it up and swap for the taste of the salmon - it still wins my award as the best dish of the night, biased though I am!
Dessert was a slight let down, the Christmas pudding was great and the anglaise sauce briliant the orange cake was not was I was looking for after such a good meal. A fruit sorbet or tierene woul dhave been better. But as this is a cafe turned resturant and dessert is never my favourite dish of the menu it only has a slight cloud over a great evening. And the coffee was great as well!
We must say that both Anj and I needed a walk on the beach to let our meal settle and to let the bottle of wine we shared run it's course though our system - note to self get half bottles!
All in all a wonderful evening full of great company and fantastic food. Looking forward to another visit to Kiosk to try there standard menu. which is on a three week rotation 3 opitions in Entree and Main with cakes etc for dessert. I'm going to go 2 entree a main and skip dessert to have a coffee and another beach walk!
