Billingsgate

Thankfully, now that that tv series isn't showing anymore I can actually get a table at my local.

That's Billingsgate.

I was quite a fan of their take-away menu, more especially since I once tried to make seafood chowder. That took for bloody ever and next time I'd much prefer to pay someone to grind my prawn shells twice instead of doing it myself & covering the kitchen in pink bits of shell.

Then they stopped doing the take-away business & the show started on tv, and I couldn't get a booking at all, and I was deprived, *deprived* damn you all. But now all the foodies have moved on to the latest & greatest flavour of the month, so I can finally head there.

So I got to try:
* crumbed sardines (WA?) with salsa verda and mashed potato
* hirasama kingfish
* seared salmon with toasted pine-nut risotto
* seared barramundi with brussell sprouts and potato cubes

The kingfish had an almost sweet dressing - olive oil, lemon & sugar I think, and little baby salad leaves. The sardines - tasty.....but really tasted just like a sardine skin in batter.

The barra - well, if it wasn't for the barra, I think I would have said that I had arrived at Otto's pig-lovers 7 course banquet a little early. There were brussell sprout leaves which had had their edges crisped in bacon fat. There were little crunchy cubes of potato, made crunchy with bacon fat. There were itty bitty pieces of bacon, such as when you had fried bacon very quickly on a high heat & all the fat has melted away.

Salmon. Meh. Salmon Tasty. Pine -nut risotto though - wow! I'm going to have to try & recreate this one at home. Little triangles of pumpkin, toasted pine nuts- so moreish, spinach & stacks & stacks of cheese. And - not made with aborio! I don't like making risotto at home because you end up with a pot full of glug and a stomach that feels like you've eaten lead. But this - I gotta try making a risotto with long-grained rice instead. Seriously, it looked like rice that you've let soaking overnight in the rice cooker.

Gotta go back again. Deal! $35 pp for the pre-ritz (<7pm)>9pm) menu - and you get to choose 2 items. Mmmm, double dessert anyone?