a whisk and a spoon

Weekend in Adelaide

I recently spent a long weekend in Adelaide, South Australia.  This was mainly a home base for wine-filled sidetrips to the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, but I did do a fair amount of inner city food exploration as well.

We landed on Friday on afternoon.  Before checking in at the hotel in downtown Adelaide, we stopped for lunch at the food business  in the suburb of Hazelwood Park.  First things first, of course.  Our waiter initially seemed put off by the fact that we did not have a booking, but since the restaurant was clearly not full, he allowed us to sit.  With seats came a friendlier attitude, thankfully.  Hiding underneath my smoked salmon there was a potato cake, which reminded me of a Jewish kugel–tasty!  R was very pleased with his pumpkin and goat feta salad. I’ve noticed a lot of pumpkin on menus here…in the US, this is mainly a cold weather thing.

Then it was a quick trip over to a fancy little neighborhood called Hyde Park, for a sugar/caffeine hit at Mulots Patisserie.  The millefeuille, one of my favorite traditional French pastries, was super-crispy (soggy ones are so disappointing).  I didn’t know what a nègresse was, but it turned out to be a big meringue-ball with some buttercream.  R had a difficult time figuring out how to eat it!

On Friday night,  we had a four-course dinner at Auge in the center of the city.  My starter (called “Uovo Affogato” on the menu) was the most interesting thing I’ve had in a while.  It was a poached egg atop sauteed spinach and buckwheat polenta.  That’s truffle parmesan caging in the egg and a drizzle of chestnut butter around the plate.

I’ll definitely try to replicate this at home at some point, and I’ve alrady found buckwheat polenta at Macro Wholefoods in Bondi Junction!

Since I’d already spent my daily dessert allowance on the vanilla slice, I opted for the cheese plate at the end.  But R had the affogato, and it looked pretty good.

After returning from the Barossa on Saturday, we cleaned ourselves up and took a taxi ride out to Penfolds Magill Estate Restaurant. The modern dining room has glass walls overlooking a vineyard (and a spectacular sunset just after we arrived). We are pigs and after looking at the menu opted for the seven-course degustation with “super-premium” wines (mmm). The table is set…

We spent the better part of Sunday afternoon trying and buying wine in McLaren Vale.  We had dinner at a Belgian beer place back in Adelaide afterwards, but thumbs down on that one.

On Monday, I checked out North Adelaide, stopping for a quick breakfast at The Store on Melbourne Street.

After a bit more poking around, I headed back into the main part of town to hit the museums. I meet up with R for lunch in The Art Gallery Restaurant, a pretty little glass-enclosed number with very nice food.