pemberton

Lunch at Wine and Truffle Co – Manjimup

by Sab on October 14, 2011

Tom and I decided to go somewhere fancy for lunch on our last day in Pemberton (back in June, this post is well overdue). The Wine and Truffle Co in Manjimup seemed suitable as I have never had truffle and was extremely curious to go to this place.

For our meal, we started out with the Toasted hazelnut sourdough with truffle butter. I really enjoyed this, I love the flavour of hazlenuts and sourdough so those two things together were wonderful. I think the truffle butter added a kind of inexplicable complexity in flavour that couldn’t really be explained by the other ingredients.

Tom ordered the Beef and Shiraz Pie, described on the menu as “slow cooked beef in a rich Shiraz sauce, baked in crisp pastry served with homemade tomato & apple chutney, seasonal vegetables and truffle mash”. Tom said that it was delicious.

I ordered the handmade truffle pasta which was described on the menu better than I could put it: “handmade truffle pasta with sauteed mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and spinach drizzled with truffle infused oil & parmigiano reggiano”. I had ordered this dish because I was keen to leave the restaurant knowing what truffle tasted like and compared to everything else on the menu, it had truffle written more times in the description than any other dish.

The pasta came with flakes of black truffle ontop that looked delightfully like cross-sections of tiny black brains. The taste was earthy and salty, as expected with mushroom, parmigiano reggiano and truffle. The cherry tomatoes were my favourite part of the dish, providing sweet freshness relief to the oily dish. I was not partial to the pasta – it was thick and gluggy.

I’m experimenting with taking pictures while food is being eaten – this way the person I am dining with doesn’t slowly become hungrier while I figure out which angles work best with their meal and their food gets slowly colder ;)

Some meals don’t photograph well once they’ve been partially eaten!

Do you think this half-eaten piece of pie looks tasty or off-putting? I’m on the fence…

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I went to the Lavender and Berry Farm for morning tea and thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful surrounds that were rich in flora and fauna: there were ducks wandering about the cafe and squeaking when we arrived as well as many little birds eyeing our food.

Tom and I ordered tea and two different scones – the scone with berry jam as well as the lavender scone with honey, both of which came with a large helping of whipped cream. Both scones came out warm and were obviously baked that day. There was only one scone on each plate but they were of a large size so we didn’t have to fight over the scones.

The berry jam had a tart, very concentrated berry flavour so we did not need to use much of it atop of our mouthfuls of scone. I thought that the scone was nice but unfortunately I don’t know enough about scones to describe them!

The lavender scone had a subtle flavour of lavender – perhaps too subtle for my palate as I could not really taste it. However, that could be a failing on the part of my taste buds rather than the scone. The honey it came with was rich and smooth – it all went down nicely with whipped cream!

The tea was a nice counterpoint to the meal, providing extra warmth on a winter day and it did not compete with the flavour of the scones. I had chamomile tea, I used it as a sort of palate cleanser between the different types of scones.

The family at the table across the room from us ordered three plates of the signature dish – pancakes with icecream and hot berry sauce. The pancakes were huge and looked more like cakes than pancakes! A dish that is best shared between a few people, as it looked very tasty but quite rich – the family ordered one each and only ate half of what they ordered.

The little birds really enjoyed it, a swarm of about thirty of the cutest tiny birds descended upon the pancake leftovers after the family left the cafe. The birds were skittish around me and my camera, quickly flitting in and out of the plates. It was hard to capture more than a few at a time!

The birds are quite bold – one fat little bird came up and ate plain whipped cream out of my saucer while I was sitting right in front of it! Sadly he was in and out too quick for me to snap a picture.

Here’s a little shot of the store where they sell their jams and a variety of other things.

I really enjoyed this visit, the atmosphere in the cafe was really nice – especially with the cute little birds, rich plant life and decorations that gave the place a comfortable, country cottage feel. I would recommend this place to anyone who wanted a relaxing morning tea near Pemberton! Have a look at the Lavender and Berry Farm website if you want to find out more :)

Lavender and Berry Farm Cafe on Urbanspoon

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After a long drive down from Perth to Pemberton, we didn’t feel like cooking our own dinner. We were staying at the Karri Valley Chalets so we wandered next door to the resort next door for dinner at Lakeside Restaurant.

To start, we ordered the warm house loaf which was a dukkah encrusted loaf, served with balsamic essence and sea salt butter.

The bread was perfect – warm throughout, soft on the inside, crunchy and flaky on the outside.

Tom ordered the fish of the day, which was an oven baked snapper with parsnip mash and a spinach, beetroot and fetta salad. I was told that the mash was delicious and tasted like potato :)

I ordered the moroccan style calamari, which came with wild spinach and a chilli plum glaze. I also ordered a side of roasted pumpkin, sweet potato and beetroot with shaved pecorino. I couldn’t finish it all, but my favourite part of my order was the squid. I wasn’t too sure about the batter, but it was light and flaked off easily.

Not a bad way to start our holiday!

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