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Food review by Steve Liesbeskind and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Today we had a virgin cook in the kitchen with Ro Stamm, who was assisted by Bernie Leung.

While Ro was born in and around Champagne, he spent most of his informative years in Paris and this background led us to a terrific lunch today.

Canapes

1.            Puff pastry squares with pear topped with gorgonzola – simple but so effective. The pastry provided crispness and butter flavour and the small rounds of pear added sweetness to offset the moderate power of a very good selection of Gorgonzola.  Together we had a very smart and enjoyable canape.

2.            Colour on a spoon – well-piped roasted beetroot puree with piped cauliflower puree topped with chives. This looked great on the tray and tasted very good. The power and acid of the beetroot were bright and enjoyable, to mix with this we had a subtle and delicate flavour of the cauliflower puree. The cauliflower balanced the beetroot flavour.

Main

Duck breast cooked three ways. The process designed by Ro required the duck to be cooked to ensure the skin was well rendered then handled twice in the REX kitchen. The outcome was a beautifully cooked and presented dish. The breast cut in 3 slices showed pinkness of the flesh and had crispness of skin. The duck was easy to cut and overall well handled with a delightful flavour with balanced seasoning. A well-handled protein for the lunch today. The duck was served with a very good potato mash. This mash had more structure than a Paris mash but the use of butter (a lot of butter) and milk with salt, had the members singing the praise of this mash. In addition, snap peas were prepared and served in quantity on the plate. The peas were well cooked and crispy, a great treat. To round out the meal, there was a light and elegant red wine and stock jus. Great flavour that complemented the duck.

Salad

We had a mixed green salad served with a Dijon-based vinaigrette that Ro makes at home often. The salad had good acid and the Dijon was evident. The salad went very well with the cheese provided.

Cheese

Tete De Moine. This is a cow's milk cheese made in Switzerland. It comes in a 700gm round and is a hard cheese that matures for 7 – 9 months. Normally the cheese is served shaved but today we had wedges that were very enjoyable. The dominant character was that of nuttiness and had a slight complementary style to a Comte. Members were very happy with this cheese and look forward to it being served again.

A great first lunch that Ro should be proud of and the members were very complimentary of it.

Wine 

Today we kicked off with a German Kabinett Riesling from the Mosel Region 2016.  A delightful wine, perfect with the superb pass-arounds prepared by our Chef de Jour Romain Stamm.  Nice balance of fruit/acid, mouth-filling, but without any cloying aftertaste. Fresh and clean at 10.5%. Kabinett is the starting point for German Rieslings in terms of dryness. 

Beyond that, we go to Spatlese, Auslese and so on up to Ice Wine.  I remember with affection, the salesman for Fred Pieroth, with his briefcase of chilled German wine doing his rounds in the Sydney CBD in the late 70s. I think we as a group brought quite a lot of them in those days, they were enjoyable wines, but for some reason, they just dropped off the radar from the 80 /90 decades to become almost non-existent. Perhaps it was the residual sugar and the search for dryer white wine that brought this about. In any event, it was an enjoyable stroll down memory lane for a wine style we no longer drink. As Marcel Proust coined the phrase  “remembrance of things past“. I digress.

We were then treated with two NZ Pinot Noirs, the 2015 Greywacke from Marlborough and the  Wairau River Pinot from the same district and both 2010. I was somewhat surprised to hear comments from around the room from respected members, voicing a degree of antipathy towards NZ Pinots. I found this strange, as from personal experience I have really enjoyed the quality Pinots from Otago, which I consider far superior to any Pinot from here. A personal perspective. Anyhow, the Greywacke from the legendary NZ winemaker Kevin Judd was in my view the preferred wine, 13.5%, still fresh with nice Pinot fruit still noticeable. In comparison, the Wairau River wine at now 12 yo was beginning to show the effect of 5 years extra bottle age, with loss of acid/fruit balance.

The final two wines were the  Vinden Estate from the Hunter 2010. and the Seppelt Benno  2010 from the Bendigo region. Both Shiraz. The Vinden came in at 13.5% and the Seppelt at 15%. They were both excellent wines,  very enjoyable, the Vinden being basket pressed, and showing some soft tannins. The Benno was in view a slightly better wine, holding its 12 years of bottle age better and showing some delightful plumb/cherry flavours. Despite the big alcohol well balanced and a better long-term proposition.    The Pinots and the Shiraz were excellent wines for the superb duck and cheese we were fortunate to enjoy on this occasion.