Taste of Melbourne 2010 - Part II - Maze, Izakaya Den, The Palace, Sarti, Charcoal Lane

Part II of my Taste of Melbourne Post concentrates on the majority of the dishes we had whilst working our way through the throng and bustle of the crowd... this is not counting all the other freebies of alcohol, cheese, lamb, chocolate etc...


maze Restaurant & maze Grill


Because we've already been to Maze when they first opened in Melbourne, we were curious to their new menu (well the Boy was more so than I)...


It was disappointing that not many of the head chef's were around and we didn't get to see Josh Emmett


Cured Marlborough king salmon with sweet corn, chorizo and kipfler potato (12 crowns)... the fish looked extremely well done.. but it wasn't.. it was amazingly tender and medium rare... and wonderfully rich in Omega 3!!


The Boy had a delicious Seared Hopkins River beef, with shitake and aged soy dressing (12 crowns)


Izakaya Den


Saturday's Pop-up Restaurant had me running towards it (as I didn't want to miss out)


Embarrassingly, I'd never heard of this Izakaya prior to this event (I know... I am *ashamed*)


The Sweet corn kaki-age served with green tea salt (8 crowns) was interesting and with the green tea salt adding in a delicate flavour to the sweet corn ... not quite worth the crowns though...


The same goes for the Spicy Tuna Tataki (12 crowns), good, but it doesn't stand out from the other Japanese Izakaya's out there...


Sarti


We didn't actually get to eat this dish from Sarti - although I really wanted too!

Pistachio 'panna cotta' with caramel salted popcorn (8 crowns)


Charcoal Lane


The happy team at Charcoal Lane =)


I only managed to sample 1 out of the 3 dishes on offer, but managed to get pictures for all of them anyway (GO ME!)

So here was the one dish I did try and it was delicious (although slightly salty)

Wallaby Tataki with ginger, soy and horseradish (10 crowns)... I can safely say, I much prefer Kangaroo over Wallaby =)


Their Seared Kingfish, Red Curry, Puffed Rice and Coconut (12 crowns)


Their star dessert of Raspberry & Rosella Flower cannelloni, Strawberry and native mint salad (8 crowns)


Longrain


I heard that their Salted Western plains pork & prawn sweet rool with pickled vegetables (10 crowns) was very much overpriced and under-taste (a pity)


However, that didn't stop them from drawing a huge crowd.


Longrain was situated just upstairs and had pretty much their very own busy disco and dance spot with a bar and DJ in attendance!


With a bar offering both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of drinks, it was hard to not want to try their drinks...


The Boy and I both had a Virgin Ping Pong - lychees, passionfruit and fresh lime (8 crowns) and a Virgin Moscow Mule - fresh lime & mint topped with ginger beer (8 crowns) --> the alcoholic versions were 12 crowns


In terms of drinks, I didn't hurry back for a second glass and hurriedly returned to Stokehouse for another Espresso Martini!!!

Read more about Part I of Taste of Melbourne...

Stay tuned for Parts III and IV!!!