Thanks to James Hill for the meal review and to Chilly Hargraves for the wine comments

In our second 'cook off' for Chef of the Year 2018, Gary Patterson was in the kitchen assisted by Gary Linnane and Matt Holmes.

President Peter Kelso welcomed members and made special mention of our annual visitor from the West, Basil Greene, who attended with his brother Peter.

Canapés. The canapés that kicked off proceedings were sashimi salmon with wasabi paste and pan-fried crab cakes.

The sashimi tuna was very fresh, and its intense colour was a stand out with just enough wasabi paste to add to our enjoyment of the fish.

The bountiful crab cakes were fabulous, plenty of crab meat served warm with a generous squeeze of lime. Blue swimmer crab meat was used and a corn tapioca meal used to bind the cakes, it was tasty and a popular canapé.

Main Course.

Gary likes to accompany his main portions with salads or similar to produce light fresh dishes. Today we had a salad with individual seafood terrines. Gary used whole pieces of seafood in each terrine rather than pureeing the seafood. The resulting texture was excellent. Whole pieces of scallops provided a beautiful plump centrepoint for the dish accompanied by king prawns and salmon supplied by Tassel. He had sourced all the seafood from a local wholesale outlet avoiding retail to ensure quality. The terrine was served room temperature and was made with cream mayonnaise, leeks and onions. Gary added some cayenne pepper to give the dish some heat but not enough to overwhelm the flavours. On each terrine, there was a spoonful of salmon roe to add to the wonderful mouthfeel.

Members were generous in their praise of the dish with some comment that the accompanying salad of lettuce, apple, tomato, pickled mushroom, yellow capsicum and almonds could have been dressed to enrich the flavours.

A wonderful dish, perfect on a hot autumn day.

The Wines

Aperitif

2011 Cherubino Riesling Great Southern WA (11.5% Stelvin)

Main

2012 Scorpo Chardonnay Mornington Peninsula (13.5% Stelvin)

2013 Yves Cuilleron Sybel Rose Northern Rhone (12.5% Cork)

Cheese

19 Clyde Park Pinot Noir Bannockburn Geelong (13% Stelvin)

09 Angullong Sangiovese Orange Region (14.5% Stelvin)

2011 Cherubino Riesling - A pleasant mix of lime and toast, but rather low in acid. Easy drinking. Although not over the hill it lacked vigour and freshness.

Manzanilla Sherry - Certainly losing freshness with some devolving rancio notes. The palate was quite broad and a little tired. Too long in bottle.

2012 Scorpo Chardonnay - Very new world with lots of wild and barrel ferment characters. Still very fresh, it showed a typical regional fruity profile with texture and depth. There was a “funky” dryness on the palate and quality oak on the finish.

2013 Yves Cuilleron Sybel Syrah Rosé - A controversial wine that seemed to sit between a rosé and a red. At 6 years of age it had lost its original juicy fruit, but still carried its red wine structure and tannins. A cork closure certainly didn’t help.

2016 Clyde Park Pinot Noir - Quite ripe cherry notes but showing some development. Tannins were soft with obvious oak flavours. Another contribution to the argument that most Australian Pinots need to be drunk young. Very different to the 2008 Coldstream that we had recently.

2009 Angullong Sangiovese - A wine very much in the traditional Australian red style. Although many Chianti have alcohols above 14% this wine was more about the ripe fruit and oak than savoury Sangiovese. While not tired it lacked varietal definition and flavour.

NV Lyndhurst The Grate Rare Tawny - Not sure if Grate was misspelt here, but it was certainly an exceptional wine. Beautiful aged, rancio notes freshened with some quality young material. Very textural with a balanced sweetness. Thanks James Hill for this birthday wine and Happy Birthday.

Cheese and coffee.

James Healey presented Fromager blue d’affnois a pasteurised cow’s milk from Rhone Alpes France It was runny with had a soft creamy texture, the flavour mildly blue with a buttery aftertaste.

Gary served nectarines and walnuts to accompany the cheese with multigrain bread.

Spencer Ferrier provided a Nicaraguan El Penon San Juan Rio coffee showing bright flavour notes with a long finish.