The Boy has been wanting to try
Persimmon for a while, and he swayed me by making me look at previous posts by
Absolutely Famished
Besides, I LOVE the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV for you others)... getting to the NGV via driving is a whole different matter...
For the first time, I drove to the NGV, made a u-turn and parked right in front the Art Centre!! WUHOoOoooooooooooooooooooo.... ME... City... parralel park.. St Kilda Road...full stop.
Located at the back end of the NGV ground floor (past the Egyptian/ancient history section)... there are enough signs to direct you to Persimmon...
Once there, you get hit by a specatacular view of the courtyard of NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden!
You'll be greeted by waitpersons with impeccable manners (Plus points! I had a handsome waiter!!!)
We were started off with complimentary brioche, caramelised shallot bread with delicious salted butter and pink sea salt and cracked pepper...
Close up shot of the caramelised shallot... this had me reminiscing my lovely olive bread from
Les Boucheries Parissiene
The Boy and I decided to share an entree of
Panko & Wakami coated deep fried scallops served with lemon zest aioli $17
Panko is a flaky bread crumb used in Japanese cuisine and Wakami (or
Wakame) is a sea vegetable, otherwise an edible seaweed...
The scallop was beautifully cooked, and the lemon zest aioli was incredibly light and refreshing
For mains, the Boy ordered the
Barramundi with white beans, chorizo, salsa verde and espellette foam $28
Espellette (methinks, is a type of chilli pepper.. but when the waiter served us the dish, he mentioned yabby... we both heard this... so maybe we are hearing things?)
It looked really beautiful, but I think the positivity of this dish ended there... he was very dissapointed with this dish as there wasn't anything very special with it...
I on the other hand, ordered a beautifully cooked
Braised lamb's neck, celeriac, candied hazelnuts with artichokes barigoule $28
The lamb was super tender and the crunchiness of the candied hazelnuts were a bliss to my tastebuds...
FINALLY!! At last, I have found a worthy adversary to the lamb at
Phillipe Mouchel's The Brasserie @ Crown
For desserts, the Boy's day was saved with his order of
Vanilla cream, burnt citrus, mandarin, olive oil powder and lime vinaigrette $15
It came with a strawberry meringue and a lime meringue.. (WHICH, I ate happily!)
But my day was fulfilled and utterly completed with this order of mine...
Bitter chocolate fondant, mint ice cream and chocolate pop rocks $15
The moment it arrived, I was bouncing in my seat ready to crack it open for the wonder to ooze out!!
The mint ice-cream was really minty and fresh, balancing the bitterness and sweetness of the chocolate fondant and the pop rocks just made me giggle hysterically (like the time I sampled
Pierre Roelof's chocolate Lamington)
I truly enjoyed the lunch I had at Persimmon, and I can just see it getting better and better at my next visit!
*Disclaimer: All food ratings are purely based on my own experiences and how I feel about the service, food and quality
Food/ Cuisine: Contemporary/ Modern
Overall Food Rating: 8/10 (Only because the Boy's fish wasn't too spectacular!)
Restaurant ambiance: 8/10
Service/ Attitude: 9/10 (How many places have you ever been to in your life where the waiter says, "Thank you very kindly!, You're very welcome!"
Value for money: 8/10 (Price was standard for the area and cuisine... we paid $120 including drinks; I was extremely full after the meal and wasn't hungry... which to me... is good value)
Address:
180 St Kilda Road
Melbourne VIC 3004
Tel:(03) 8620 2434
Website:http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ngvinternational/persimmon.html
Persimmon is open
112am-4pm daily
EXCEPT Tuesdays
How to get there:
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