Foveaux

1 day I just felt like eating out. Wanted something nice. So I found myself an excuse - my entertainment book is expiring and we should use it while we can. So flipping through the EB, we found a restaurant which I didn't know how to pronounce the name - Foveaux (correct me if I'm wrong, I checked with my workmate, I think it's "for-vor"??). We went online, checked the price, there was actually a price drop with their degustation menu. EB listed $95, but it was actually $75 for 6 course degustation. We thought, cool! that's where we should go!.

Started with some bread and butter. We had 2 options: whole meal or white. Thinking I'll be little bit healthier, I went for whole meal. 1 minute after finishing the first bread, totally forgot about being healthy and stuff, got myself a 2nd bread, now the white bread haha.. Seriously, I think my DNA is not programmed to eat healthy :p 

Oysters with chardonnay vinegar pearls and salmon roe (supplementary $4 each) This was our additional course. Order it as extra entree. Looked very pretty, tasted very fresh too. The chardonnay vinegar pearls were interesting to eat together with the salty salmon roe. Each of them would burst with flavours to fill our mouth when bitten. 

Amuse bouche that we got on that day - Warmed pumpkin veloute with liquorice oil. As far as I can remember, this was my first time having savoury liquorice. Usually it's with chocolate or the sweet type. Very nice at start, however towards the bottom, all the liquorice sank and it got a bit too heavy for me. I used to didn't like the liquorice after taste, but I think I'm starting to like it more now. 

YW Course#1 - Cold smoked tuna, whipped ponzu, tomato salsa, avocado and sesame.  Highlight for me - whipped ponzu. Very light and fluffy but full of flavour. Went really well with the smoked tuna. 

RM Course #1 - Tomato and olive sorbet, cucumber flowers, olive jelly, sheep's fetta and capsicum paint. My first course was a warm dish, but this is a very cold dish. The tomato and olive sorbet was very refreshing, but I felt a bit weird eating it, that's simply because of the difference in temperature.

 YW Course#2 - Caramalised pork belly, ceveche prawn, black pudding puree, shiso and prawn rice cracker. This was really really good!! Both our course#2 were combination of some meat + seafood. The rice crackers were very crunchy. Pork belly was nicely caramalised outside, soft and juicy inside. 

RM Course#2 - Sauteed hervey bay scallops, venison heart, sesame puree, crushed beetroot and la goya jus. This was the first time we see venison heart on menu. It was little bit more firm than normal meat and little bit chewy. Scallop was really nice too. Sweet and nicely caramalised. However, Robin said he didn't understand the sesame puree though. It had very fragrant smell, but didn't really have much taste. Maybe that's the reason it was there. Also, maybe a little too much beetroot too. Little bit was nice, but too much of it would overpower the venison or the scallop which had a lighter taste in comparison. 

YW Course #3 - Roast snapper, yellow capsicum puree, black olive paint, eggplant, caper, parsley and garlic toast crumbs. I would happily fry fish at home everyday if everytime my fish can come out like this. Perfectly crunchy skin with smooth and soft meat. Eggplant and the garlic toast crumbs were really good as well! I had to stop taking photo of this dish because Robin said "if you don't eat now the skin wont' be crunchy anymore". Straight away I put my camera down :p 

RM Course#3 - Herb baked leather jacket, braised rabbit, lettuce, peas and green olive puree. Had a bite of this fish, but thought "meh.. Mine was nicer with the crunchy skin" :p 

YW Course #4 -Wakame roasted veal sirloin with Jerusalem artichoke purée,  asparagus, summer purslane and a burnt butter jus. Veal was nicely cooked. Can see from the photo of the distinct 2 tones of pink of the meat. First time eating summer purslane (the leafy greens on the plate). The texture was not like the usual soft leafy vege, it's a bit firm, had a crunchy bite to it like a thin slice of carrot. 

RM Course#4 - Braised lamb neck, cous cous, prune puree, spanish onion, carrot and orange. 1 word to describe this dish - orange. It smelt too strong of orange even though there's no orange visible. The lamb was very soft, but I thought the orange oil was too strong. 

Course#5 for both - salad of pineapple, kaffir lime, yellow curry with coconut sorbet and rice paper. Robin was very amazed with the rice paper. Very thin crispy rice cracker on the top. Coconut sorbet was very refreshing, but I didn't really like the kaffir lime leaves in the pineapple salad. When I ate the coconut sorbet, all I tasted/smelt was kaffir lime and no coconut. Only when I ate the sorbet on it's own I could taste coconut.

 YW Course#6 - Braised watermelon, passionfruit marshmallow, sheep's yoghurt sorbet, pink grapefruit, fruit salad sage and crumble. My favourite, definitely the passionfruit marshmallow. Lightly toasted on top, thick and fluffy the rest. I actually liked it a lot because it was heavier than the normal supermarket marshmallow. It felt more 'substantial'. Braised watermelon was not as sweet as expected. Sheep's yoghurt sorbet was actually quite light. Not as rich as it sounded like. Didn't really like the fruit salad sage though. Maybe I'm just not a herb-y kind of person. Thought the herb smell was too strong again. 

RM Course#6 - Tobacco roasted pears with pecan gelato, raspberries, candied celery and chocolate wafers. Tobacco roasted pears were quite nice. Added some smokey flavour to the sweet pear. Didn't try the candied celery, didn't sound like something I would enjoy :p 


Overall, I'm quite happy with the choices that I've made. As you can see, we had 2 options for each course. What happened was I picked what I want for each course, Robin would have the other dish so that we tried the whole menu. I think I picked all the nicer options :p 


$75 for 6 course degustation (additional $30 or $50 for matching wine) 
1/65-67 Foveaux St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9211 0664



Notice the new feature of my blog? Well, the inventor (credit to MC for idea) didn't give it a name, so let's just call it the indicator :p Basically it's where I rate how easy or hard I find to take photo in the restaurant - whether the lighting is good, the seating arrangement, shadows etc. 


For this restaurant I gave 1.5 camera because it was actually quite hard to take photo there. It was quite dark. Well, good for a nice dinner date, but not for taking photos (I don't like using flash and I don't like going past ISO400). Photos are actually quite grainy if I blow them up.