Birthday Lunch @ C Restaurant

Hey folks! Long time, no see! Like most of you, I've had a very busy couple of weeks, what with Christmas and all that jazz. In my self imposed blog absence, I also did a nifty thing and turned 25! I'm finally smack bang in the middle of my twenties and to celebrate my lovely family took me out to a fancy lunch at C Restaurant in the CBD. For those of you that don't know, C Restaurant is Perth's only revolving restaurant and it's located at the top of St Martin's Tower and provides a truly excellent 360º view of the city. It was quite fashionable back in its heyday in the middle of the 90's mining boom. The restaurant has all the typical WA fine dining tropes; French waiters, an excellent wine list and 3 different types of steak. We had the two course luncheon ($55/head) as the dessert selection sounded a little lacklustre to be honest. Pictured above is my baby brother's entree; Butter poached Manjimup marron tail, served with quinoa salad, mango relish, seared scallop and cilantro pesto. As you can see, the dish was visually stunning, and according to baby bro, the mango relish was delish! 

 My dad had the freshly shucked South Australian oysters with lemon gel and 'chilli julienne', which is just a strip of sliced chilli. Menu items with unnecessary adjectives are my pet peeve. Also, I don't understand why the oysters had to come from SA when we have perfectly awesome oysters here in WA. Food miles, people, it's a thing. None of those things bothered my pops though and he scarfed these down with reckless abandon. 

 I had the pork belly with a Broome bug (a type of crustacean) remoulade, mandarin puree and a Calvados apple brunoise (again, this is just a fancy French term for cutting something into cubes the size of match heads). The pork was fatty and delicious and the mandarin puree and mysterious crunchy bits in the middle were excellent too but good lord that bug remoulade has to go! It just had the most unappealing consistency (think of something that starts with v and ends in omit) and a flavour to match.  *shudder*

Mama bear had the prawn tian with mango spheres and a wakame seaweed salad. Again, this dish was beautiful but a bit meh tastewise. Mom liked it but said it wasn't anything to write home about. 

 On to the mains! Baby bro had the slow cooked Angus beef rump steak, pomme pont neuf, watercress and pear salad, with a morel mushroom sauce. When restaurants say they slow cook their steaks, I don't know why they then ask you how you'd like it cooked as it is clearly never going to be rarer than medium at best (for those of you who have your steaks cooked more than medium, that's another conversation entirely and I'll have to deal with you later). The chips (Sorry, I mean pomme pont neuf) were good, as was the utterly drinkable morel mushroom sauce.

 I had the mushroom and truffle risotto with chicken breast. It was okay. The risotto was a little too al dente for my liking and the parmesan tuile had softened to the point of chewiness but the overall flavour was nice. As a side note: I've had truffle in a couple of dishes now but it's usually been paired with mushroom so I can't really distinguish the taste. For those of you in the know, does truffle just taste like supercharged mushrooms or what?

 My old man had the char grilled beef filet with mustard sauce and sautéed vegetables. Pops is a bit of a steak aficionado (not to mention a former chef) who likes his steak rare enough that a good veterinarian could revive it. According to him, the steak had been pre-cooked before being charred on the grill as opposed to being grilled fresh. As he was cutting into it, there were no discernible steak juices to be seen. Like at all. Weird.

 Last of all, my mom had the turkey breast roll with apricots, chestnuts, potatoes and traditional gravy. Mama bear said this was very good. The potatoes (that cube thing being impaled in the foreground) were a bit dry but otherwise good.

I know I sound like a massive food snob bitch in this post but holy Heston Blumenthal! Restaurants, if you're going to go for the ultra haute cuisine thing with the frou frou menu descriptions, gels, spheres and tuiles, then for the love of liquid nitrogen, please make your food taste as good as it looks! That being said, AUD$55/head for two courses and a view isn't bad in a city as expensive as Perth. And C Restaurant is a special occasion type restaurant where the food may be further down the list of priorities after alcohol and what's outside the window. Maybe they had an off day, maybe I'm just not cut out for fine dining or maybe they've just passed their peak. Who's to know! All in all, we had fun and I can now cross this place off my bucket list! I'd definitely say try it out, if only to see what all the fuss is about!

Over and out!