RPS » Vue le Monde http://www.delic.com/blog The view from here Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:01:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Melbourne – Day 6 http://www.delic.com/blog/2009/11/10/melbourne-day-6/ http://www.delic.com/blog/2009/11/10/melbourne-day-6/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:12:33 +0000 rshah21 http://www.delic.com/blog/?p=135 The weather was way too hot to do anything of import today. We walked up to the Victoria Market, which is a series of markets for produce, meats and other goods just outside of central Melbourne. All we could manage was two hours outside there, and then we crawled back to our hotel to cool off. After lunch, we headed to the Melbourne Aquarium. I had been told that this was better than the Sydney Aquarium, but it turned out to be a bit of a let down, from a size perspective. The Antarctic penguin tank was quite cool (the penguins have figured out that they are the stars of the show), but the other areas, including the sharks were not as impressive as Sydney.

Since we were in the area, we crossed the Yarra river and went to the Crown complex (hoping to see Tiger Woods, as he is staying there while playing the Australian Masters. No luck), and I bought some cigars before having lunch there. (Dinner tomorrow night will be there as well). A stroll around the promenade (still too hot to do anything) and back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

    Food

  • Lunch: Gyoza, Thai Basil Beef and Singapore Noodles at the Crown. Cheap and good
  • Dinner: Vue le Monde. (#4 on the Australian Gourmet list). The best meal I have ever had. The most expensive too, but worth every penny. No set menu at Vue. The experience consists of five to fourteen courses, selected for you by the waiter (in our case a Virgina Tech grad) and sommelier. Since there is no set menu, dinner actually begins with a discrete discussion about the “financial implications” (if any) for the table, and then you sit back and enjoy. The waiter and sommelier select a path for each diner through the 60+ dishes the chef and staff have selected for the evening, and the 1200+ wines on the wine list, adjusting to how you react to each course and wine.
    Our dinner comprised of an amuse bouche of a poached egg in shell with panko breadcrumb, a trout dish smoked under a bell cover, a wild mushroom and truffle risotto, a foie gras dish, a fish course of snapper with miso and apple, a palate cleanser of frozen hibiscus under water, a chicken course with three preparations of chicken, a lamb course with three preparations of lamb, a cheese course, and two deserts (fruit for me, fruit and chocolate for Jae). Based on Jae’s dislike for sweet ice/desert wines, her last desert of a super rich chocolate souffle was paired with a glass of beer (Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout).
    The service was great, the food excellent and the ambiance perfect. The only, only downside was that the table we had didn’t have the best view of the kitchen (which was more of a stage than a room), but we could see all the other dishes from the other patrons, and everyone was constantly looking at other tables trying to see what everyone else was eating.
    Photos – There really wasn’t anything worth uploading from today. Photos of the Vue le Monde would not do justice to the evening
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