Antoine’s Grill, Concord (Guest Review)

Written by a Guest Reviewer for Napoli Restaurant Alert

Antoine’s Grill – a true taste of France in the Inner West! Antoine has worked alongside the renowned chef Alan Ducasse at La Cour Jardin in Paris and at one stage appointed private chef to the House of Roederer Cristal Champagne. (Locally, he has worked with Luke Mangan and Serge Dansereau at Bather’s Pavilion.) After the offshore stint, Antoine decided to return with his family to Australia and open up in Concord where his partner Sam grew up.

It’s a warm and intimate space with an unmistakable Gallic feel, full by 7.30pm on a weeknight, the warmth accentuated by our enthusiastic waitstaff, Thomas and Helene. After amiably talking through the dishes, we begin with melt-in-the-mouth Sydney Rock Oysters with French red wine eshaIlot, and a smokey Champagne mornay.

Next onto Yarra Valley goat cheese pannacotta, fig, beetroot, caramelized honey & port glaze. Such an elegantly presented entrée. Beautifully textured and a lovely flavour combination; but a toasted brioche or wafer would have been a nice addition.

Spanner crab soufflé, watercress, walnut, galangal scented emulsion – exceptional! The crab and galangal danced on the palate and we were surprised by the generous amount of crab in the soufflé. The accompanying salad was refreshing and beautifully light.

Quail filled with roasted mushroom, foie gras, spring onion & parsley root puree, cassis jus. The filling is delicious and the cassis jus together with the parsley root puree is just superb adding a lovely sweetness that just lifts the dish straight away. A fabulous follow on to our entrée’s.

Signature 500 day grain fed Wagyu Steak. When ordering this dish my husband was presented with a box set of Laguiole steak knives to choose from – a first in the countless number of restaurants we’ve visited around the world. This Wagyu steak was fall-apart-tender – a juicy, flavoursome main course. The accompaniments we chose – Warm roasted eggplant, with fire tomato & parsley and the French peas with mint, basil & roasted almond relish worked really well with both the quail and steak. I also tried the Roasted carrots, marjoram with herb scented sour cream and Steakhouse chips on my first visit and would also highly recommend them as sides.

Then onto dessert. Café Gourmand – chocolate vanilla profiterole, Baileys scented crème brulee, chocolate velvet fondant and miniature lemon tart. We really enjoyed this, a set of miniatures of the desserts featured on the menu. It definitely pressed all the right buttons.

Callebaut chocolate velvet fondant, Grand Marnier sauce, minatured iced “magnum”, nougatine dust. A rich and decandent dessert. Loved the flavours, loved the textures, loved the dish – full stop! What a spectacular finish to our menu. The richness and smoothness of the fondant together with the Grand Marnier sauce and the beautifully nutty textured “magnum” – Antoine absolutely nailed it!

In summary – it was a decandent, polished and precise 4 course meal at a reasonable price. We will definitely be back. Next time we will bring our children along. I was quite impressed by Antoine’s kids menu. First time I’ve come across a menu that features “real” food for children – grilled salmon, barramundi or steak – no chicken nuggets or fish fingers in sight!

Bon appetit!

Antoine’s Grill, Shop 1, 112 Majors Bay Road, Concord Ph (02) 9743 3354

Silverbeet and Ricotta Scroll

Great for breakfast, brunch, or lunch!

Ingredients
1 bunch silverbeet, stalks removed, chopped
2 reserved silverbeet stalks, diced
1 brown onion, diced
3 spring onions, diced
2tbsp olive oil
75g parmesan cheese, grated
500g ricotta
1 egg, lightly beaten
12 sheets filo pastry
50g melted butter
Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a pan, add onion, silverbeet stalks, saute until soft, add spring onions
2. Add silverbeet, a couple of tablespoons of water, season with salt and pepper and saute until silverbeet cooked (add more water if needed). Allow to cool and remove any excess liquid
3. Combine ricotta, parmesan, silverbeet mixture and mix thoroughly. Add egg and stir through
4. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees
5. Lay out 2 sheets of filo pastry. Brush each sheet lightly with butter, and place another sheet on top of each sheet, and repeat, until you have two piles of 6 sheets.
6. Dividen the ricotta and silverbeet mixture in half, and spread along one each of the filo stacks, along the longer side. Roll each stack into a log
7. On a baking tray lined with baking paper, take one log and roll it into a scroll. Take the second log and place around the first. Brush with butter and bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden.

Coffee Warehouse Deli & Cafe, Homebush

A sprawling space on Parramatta Road, Coffee Warehouse Deli & Cafe has just what its name implies – lots of coffee, roasted on the premises, a deli where you can pick up freshly sliced smallgoods and other Italian treats, and a cafe.

The menu has a range of pastas, pizzas, meat dishes, salads and panini.  Not sure if ‘cafe’ is the right name though, these are well and truly restaurant prices – even the panini were an exorbitant $23 and a basic Pizza Margherita $26, while a fillet steak and chips was $36 – it is very expensive and overpriced for what it is, but I will say that the pizza was very good indeed. Similarly the deli goods aren’t bargain prices.

Margherita

Ham and mushroom

Would I drive to Homebush especially to come here? Probably not.  But would I drop in for a pizza if I happened to be on Parramatta Road going somewhere else – maybe.

Coffee Warehouse Deli & Cafe, 17-35 Paramatta Road, Homebush, ph (02) 9764 8822

Baked Eggs with Spinach and Ricotta

A great breakfast! Serves 4

Ingredients
1 brown onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp raw sugar
100g baby spinach, wilted
100g ricotta
1 can canellini beans, rinsed and drained
8 eggs
Toast to serve

Making it

1. In a small pot, heat olive oil, add onion and saute until onion is soft. Add tomatoes, salt, sugar and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes. (If you like you could also throw in a whole chilli for flavour)
2. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
3. Spread beans among four individual baking dishes (or you could do all in one large dish), ladel sauce on top.
4. Create a little well in the centre, crack two eggs into each dish, add spinach and dot ricotta around the dish.
5. Bake for 3-4 minutes or until eggs just set. Serve with toast.

Mejico, Sydney

Da-na-na-na-na-na-na, tequila! When a place has a dedicated tequila menu, you know that the night could get dangerous.  Enter Mejico, the latest in the “wave” of Mexican restaurants  that everyone says is happening in Sydney.  To me its more of a ripple, because we need the number to be multiplied by about a thousand to catch up to the number of neighbourhood Thai places.

Curious, I ask our friendly South American waitress about the owners and she tells me its owned by the guy who owns the chain Zumbrero, a Mexican chain, and that he’s travelled extensively through Mexico learning about their cuisine.  I plead ignorance, haven’t heard of Zumbrero (she says there are 27 in Australia!) - and discover that there is one in Darlinghurst, but the other locations in NSW are in Queenbeyan, Wagga, and Wollongong – that might explain why.

Its an appealing menu with plenty to choose from, but we have to start with the fresh guacamole made at the table with plantain chips.  My friend comments the plantains must be some kind of bananas (“no, they’re plantains!” says our waitress), and I can see why, they honestly look like dried banana chips, which I can’t stand, so I hope she’s wrong (“they don’t taste like bananas, they’re plantains!” says our waitress again).  A bit of proogling says they’re both sort of right, plantains and bananas are actually related, but unlike bananas you can’t eat them raw. And thank goodness they don’t taste like banana chips, but like potato chips.  Anyhow, whatever they are,  they are great for scooping up the fresh guacamole with a right hit of chilli, and I really liked the addition of pistachios, great crunch (or you might get walnuts, depending what night you go) and we’re off to a good start.

We then have Hiramasa Kingfish Ceviche with ruby grapefruit – again a nice fresh feel with a good tang from the grapefruit, but may be too acidic for some

Smoked Pork Belly with black bean hummus and tomatillo salsa – this one was a bit too fatty for us and we didn’t enjoy it, but nice smokiness.

Chargrilled Black Angus Sirloin with chimichurri and quinoa and pumpkin.  That chimichurri – fabulous – and beautifully tender meat

Queso Fresco with homemade agave syrup.  This was recommended as a side, and it was a good one, I was scooping up every bit of that agave syrup.

Agave-glazed Caramel Fudge – a very rich little finish

Am I coming back – yes I am – there’s more I want to try – the lamb tacos, the salsas, the ribs.  This isn’t street food Mexican and it isn’t cheap – so don’t expect it to be such or you’ll be disappointed (keep in mind that even a takeaway chicken salad from Guzman is $11 these days), but you’ll get some great flavour highlights.  I looked at all the poor hopefuls in the line waiting to get into Jamie’s Italian for dinner, which is right next door, and I know which one I’d pick.

Mejico, 105 Pitt Street, ph (02) 9230 0119

Today’s Cake – Fig and pistachio frangipane tart

Ingredients
Pastry
30g pistachios
250g plain flour
125g cold unsalted butter, chopped
75g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
2 tbs ice cold water
Zest of half a lemon

Frangipane Filling
125g pistachios
120g unsalted butter, softened
120g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
100g almond meal
40g plain flour
Zest of half a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

4-5 fresh figs, quartered

Making it
1. To make pastry, process pistachios to form fine crumbs. Add flour, butter, sugar, zest and salt.  Process to form coarse crumbs. Add egg yolk and water. Process until mixture just comes together. Shape into a disc and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for 30 minutes

2. Roll dough between two sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick and  large enough to line a 12cm x 36cm tart tin. Remove one of the sheets of baking paper, flip the pastry into the tin, remove other sheet and push  pastry  into sides and base. Freeze for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 160 degrees

3. Line pastry with baking paper and weigh down with baking beads or rice. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove weights and baking paper and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until pastry is golden and crisp. Allow to cool.

4. Meanwhile, process pistachios into a fine crumb.

5. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and creamy. Add eggs and egg yolk one at a time, beating after each addition. Add almond  meal, flour,  lemon zest and ground pistachios  and beat until just combined. Spread mixture into tart shell.

6. Layer figs on top of filling and gently press

7. Bake for 30–40 minutes or until golden

8. Serve with yoghurt or cream

Rockpool on George, The Rocks

Rockpool on George was Neil Perry’s first baby from which his empire spawned.  It was one of Sydney’s early fine diners, and has had its ups and downs.  Three hats, lost hat, gained hat, closed and re-opened as a “casual” place, Rockpool Fish café (I went, didn’t like it, neither did everyone else apparently, it closed), back to being fine dinner, back to three hats.

I’m here with a dear friend, my food soul-mate, and neither of us have been here for a good few years.  Like me, she’ll drive across the Sydney metropolitan just to get that one key ingredient needed for a recipe, or go to a restaurant just to try that one special dish.  And I’ll admit I’m here tonight to try a particular dish, the layered pork tart with the chicken liver parfait (Rockpool doesn’t do takeaway, or I would have ordered it to go).

It’s a simple pricing structure at dinner, two courses, $110, three courses $135, four courses $155.  This is seriously expensive three hat dining, if you compare it to Est’s nine course degustation for $175.  Or Claude’s eight course $140 menu. And Momofuku’s 14 courses for $175. Or Marque‘s ten courses for $160. But I digress.

The menu is divided into four sections, but they are totally flexible about how you choose your courses which I really like.  So even though you go the four course option, you can choose one dish from section 1, two dishes from section 2, and one dish from section 4, or whatever other combination you prefer. This worked well because ‘section 2’ had the biggest hit rate of what we wanted to try.  What I also liked was that our charming waiter said he would tell in each section what was the ‘signature’ and what was the ‘most popular’ – interesting the divergence between the two.

So would you walk out of here and say this is a worthy three hatter? I really think it depends on your luck with the ordering. Some of thedishes were just outstanding, some ok, and some had one particular element of the dish (I hate saying ‘element of the dish’, sounds like one of the used-to-death Masterchef phrases but I can’t think of an alternative at the minute, so forgive me – incidentally, what’s with that whole “boys versus girls” Masterchef thing? Really? It appeals to my 8 year olds, but not sure of the demographics beyond this) that was outstanding and the rest so-so.  So if you got pot luck and ended up with all the outstandings, you’d walk out pretty impressed. Overall I think the Asian inspired far outweighed the others so go down that path if you end up there.

I also noticed a little card when they gave us the bill - they have a 3 classics dish Friday lunch for $65 – this is great value if you want to give the place a whirl.

To start we were given a canape of Queensland Spanner Crab, parsley, egg and fennel fondue. A nice little introduction but not particularly memorable. (Please excuse my photos, had my old camera which was on its last legs).

Then onto what we chose:

Blue swimmer crab and corn congee, almond tofu, star anise scented peanuts, fried bread and chilli oil (section 1 signature). Wow. What a start. This definitely fell in to the totally outstanding category. Try this dish.

Goats cheese lasagne, muntries, lavender kipflers, pangrattato and broccoli sauce (section 2 signature).  This was the ‘outstanding elements’ rather than overall fabulous. The actual lasagne itself was a bit of a shoulder shrug. But those potatoes. And that sauce.

Quail with daikon, tong ho, nori and chilli condiment (section 2). Beautiful quail and the chilli underneath – again flavour. Neil knows his Asian flavours. Almost had a Julia-Roberts-slippery-little-sucker-Pretty-Woman moment with the radish though.

Chicken parfait inside a one thousand layer pork tart (section 2). The dish I came for. The pork layer – fabulous.  But something was going on with the parfait.  It was overpowered with something acidic, I couldn’t quite tell what, but I could not taste the parfait just an acidic tang – it was really disappointing. It was also a runny parfait compared to most I’ve eaten, and goodness knows I’ve eaten a few.

Lamb rolled saddle, bo ssam shoulder, celery, wheat infused soy beans, tea smoked mussels (section 3 signature). Bo ssam shoulder, mussels, magnificent. Lamb saddle nice and tender, but soy beans too hard.

Whiting grilled over rushes (Japanese weedy things), squid, iceberg lettuce, pearl balls, onions and red date infusion (section 3). Squid, pearl balls, lettuce yum, beautifully cooked fish, a well put together dish. [Here's the recipe if you want to have a go at it http://www.foodservicenews.com.au/news/coorong-yellow-eyed-mullet-grilled-over-rushes-squid-iceberg-lettuce-pearl-balls]

Date tart (section 4 signature) – a lovely tart, and apparently its Neil’s 1984 original. My first attempt at making it was ok, with practice it will be stellar.

Vacherin pandan custard, coconut parfait, jasmine sorbet and lime granita. Wow. I thought it was in a little ceramic dish but it was actually in a edible feather light meringue bowl.  There were flavour explosions going on everywhere here. Loved it.

Petit fours to finish!

Rockpool on George, 107 George St Sydney, ph (02) 9252 1888