IDES - Collingwood

As part of our sister birthday celebrations, I took Quynh to IDES this year to celebrate her 25th birthday (back in March). Upon arriving we already encountered our first mishap, we had forgotten to make a reservation. As a 36-seater fine dining restaurant who require reservations months in advance, it was by some miracle they managed to fit us in. Thank-you IDES!!! 

We were seated outside which honestly did not detract from the experience and bonus points for amazing natural lighting! The birthday girl had the matching wine menu to pair with the tasting menu for an additional $80.

March 2021 Menu

We were given some bubbly for Quynh's birthday and had absolutely zero idea that the centrepiece was actually our first course. Upon the lifting the lid due to curiosity we realised that it was our first course of the night. The Maple Tart with cashew nuts and blue cheese was beautifully dainty and a delicious bite of food. 

So pretty!

Avocado Nori Wrap. The pops of fingerlime worked so well with these flavours.  

Soft 

Quail Egg with pork broth. The yuzu on the egg gave it a citrusy flavour and the broth was so clean and refreshing. 

Black Mussel with parsley & nigella seeds.

Cross section of the mussell!

Sweetbreads with fennell mustard. Veal sweetbread that was surprisingly yummy! Always mind over matter...

Sesame Sourdough with peanut butter. This replaced the traditional bread and butter you get an fine dining places. I am not the biggest peanut butter fan but it was very smilky smooth.

Rock Oyster with salami vinagrette. So beautifully savoury. This was an extra course for an additional $8 pp.

So pretty when served all together

Salt Baked Abalone with miso. Lovely chunks of abalone in a creamy sauce. This was an extra course for an additional $15 pp.

Smoked Scallop with tomato & endive. Such a dainty dish and the sweet scallops paired perfectly with the slightly bitter endive.

Steamed Marron with shitake & nori. Always fun to eat marron and it was paired with creamed corn on shiitake which was delish. 

Barbequed Pork Loin with braised pepitas. Nice crunch.

We got moved inside for dessert which was great timing as it was getting dark outside. The ambience was great inside with pretty decent lighting. We started our dessert courses with Australia with dark chocolate & pineapple. Always a fan of the snow ice.

Vanilla Toffee with quandong. 

Of course we had to get The Black Box with blueberries & elderflower. This was an extra course for an additional $25 pp. Made famous by Peter Gunn on Masterchef, it was honestly so surreal seeing it in front of us. The tiny steel hammer was honestly so cute. It was super fun and interactive getting to smash the Black Box and it was like a box of goodies inside. The components literally melted in my mouth and the tempered chocolate had such a great snap to it.

Absolutely gorgeous

Birthday treat! What a sweet way to end the night.

Just wanted to thank IDES again for being so accommodating and making this birthday dinner one to remember. The food was amazing and our waitstaff were patient and knowledgable. The paired drinks were great. It was so lovely to see how bustling the restaurant was. The total bill came up to $425 (for 2 peole) which is on the pricier side of degustation courses in Melbourne.

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Mercer's - Eltham

Birthday celebration at Mercers last year. This is their Spring menu which is most likely not valid anymore since I am posting this literally at the end of Summer so I'm sure their Autumn menu will be amazing! I got the matching wines menu which I highly recommend, really good pairings to the food.

Bread & Butter: Enough Said

Cute pumpkin soup shots

Beetroot and goat's cheese carpaccio: FRESSH

Malaysian Dancing Prawns: Delish and full of flavour

Japanese beef tartare with wasabi sorbet

Tandoori quail with fried potato boreks: these boreks thooooo, little crispy nuggets of goodness

Spiced glazed duck 

Porterhouse with textures of onion

Le Grand Dessert for two

What an enjoyable meal. What made it even more amazing was the personable touch this restaurant had with their great service. It was fine dining but really intimate and cosy and we had the absolute pleasure of chatting to the owner and head chef, Steve Mercer.

Grossi Florentino (Upstairs) - CBD

For my 25th birthday in September, Quynh took me Grossi Florentino. Hailed as a fine dining institution in Melbourne, we were more than excited to dine here. We got the 6pm reservation and was ushered in upstairs We got the Gran Tour ($180) which was their 6 dish degustation.  

Our menu for the night

Bellini and a strong ass cocktail

Oyster, horseradish, kolralbi

Close-up shot

Our first dish was the oyster, horseradish and kolralbi. It tasted very fresh and briny but perhaps I would've loved a little more acidity in the form of pickled kolralbi. Nonetheless a good start to the meal. It came with some unexpected sides as well.

Russian potato salad

Beautifully presented was the Russian potato salad served in a Cornetto. Such lovely contrasting textures but needed a touch of salt.

Capsicum Crisp & Chicken Sandwiches

There was also a Capsicum crisp which housed artichoke, cucumber and almonds paired with a dainty chicken sandwich. The creamy chicken was scrumptious against the dainty thin wafer holding it together. 

There was also a blob of a dish which was poached veal in a tuna emulsion. This was incredibly flavoursome.

Quite a spread!

We love our bread, we love our butter

Ahh bread and butter. Our favourite course. Always. The sourdough bread was delightfully warm and the smooth silky cured butter was dusted with sage rosemary dust. Did we we have 2 servings of this? Yeah obviously.

White Asparagus & Prosciuto

With our next course, we were given the option to substitute a dish for one of the specials. Such a good option because that means more variety, yay. I got the White Asparagus, Prosciutto and Greens in white sauce. The asparagus were soooo soft and all the flavours worked. I felt that it was a really understated dish that allowed each ingredient to shine. 

Kingfish

Quynh got the Kingfish, Apple, Sorrel, Row, Goat Curd. This was very pretty but quite a small serving compared to mine. The generous sorrel gave the entire dish very herbaceous undertones.

King Prawn

Next was the King Prawn, Banana Shallot, Pantelleria Capers, Pancetta. The prawns were plump and joocy. I really like that crusting. Also no semi-allergic reaction, scorrrrrre.

Straight-up Parmesan

The servers were just casually wheeling around a chunk of parmesan which we could snack on if we preferred. Hell yes! The chunky slices were drizzled with a balsamic reduction. So simple but oh so great. 

Spanner Crab Taglierini

Oh My Goodness. This was the Taglierini di Riso Venere, Spanner Crab, Bottarga. Simply amazing and easily my favourite dish of the night.  The crab was so sweet and plentiful and the flavours were just spot on. Honestly, so good. 

Duck and porcini ravioli

Surprise course that wasn't on the menu! Duck and porcini ravioli with pear. Little bite sized pockets of flavour. i loved how earthy it was. 

Wagyu Rump Cap

Our last main course was the Wagyu Rump Cap, Bitto, Kalette, Mustard Fruit, Bone Marrow. Today I learned that Bitto is an Italian DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) cheese produced in the Valtelline valley in Lombardy. On the day, it was just a cheesy sauce The meat itself was tender and had a nice bite to it. Bone marrow is decadent as always. 

Chocolate Souffle

For dessert we had Chocolate Souffle, Hazelnut, Grains of Paradise. The ice cream had flecks of Szechuan pepper throughout it from what I remember and it gave it such an interesting spicy kick. The souffle itself was super fluffy.

Yay for lil birthday treats. Chocolate bites that well tasted exactly like chocolate. 

Overall, we had a pleasant time at Grossi. The food was quite nice with some really standout dishes. They gave us a nice goodie bag of coffee beans. I really wanted to touch on the service that we encountered. I had scoured the reviews on Grossi before we went and the one common theme I read about was their exceptional service. I don't expect fancy schmancy stuff but if this is what they are known for then I had high hopes Don't get me wrong, we definitely had friendly and very professional servers but there were some things that were odd. It was just small details like not offering to take my jacket, not wheeling the cheese over to us until we got curious and enquired about it or some servers not even cracking a smile when talking to us. Didn't seem the case with other nearby tables. I have noticed this trend with some fine dining restaurants, where because we aren't interested in their wine list or perhaps younger than their usual clientele, that we are not given the same attentiveness as everybody else. It is just a bit disappointing. But whatever, I am glad I have ticked Grossi off my fine dining list. On to the next! 

Taste: 7.5/10

Presentation: 7/10 

Service: 5/10

Value for Money: 7/10