The Brasserie – Hilton Adelaide

 Hi Folks！ I just realised that I have not put restaurant reviews up here for long times. Anyway, at least I am writing one now. 🙂 This post is about a week day dinner at the Brasserie in Hilton Adelaide with my wife who got so lazy on cooking. 😦

The brasserie in Hilton Adelaide is a signature restaurant here. They serve modern Australian cuisine, especially focusing on SA produces. Their menu showcases food from different SA producing regions, including some of the world famous seafood sites and so on. The executive chef at the Brasserie, Dennis Leslie, has worked in hospitality since 1996 and is truly a celebrity chef in Adelaide. After working overseas and travelling the world for 14 yrs, he returned Adelaide and since then worked as the executive chef @ the Brasserie. I liked the way how they set out the menu cos ppl can easily see what food is available from each SA food region.

The restaurant is located on the ground floor of Hilton Adelaide. With beautiful and rustic furnishes, the restaurant gave a very comfortable feeling for their customers. At the entry point, products from the Mushroom Man, a local mushroom specialist, are on display whereas Dilmah T series tea are displayed at the lounge, where I interviewed Mr Merrill Fernando.

On the night we went there, it was pretty empty. We got seated quickly by our friendly waiter. Another setting of the restaurant I liked was that you can actually see the kitchen, unlike some other high end restaurants. The price at this place is very affordable, taking into consideration of the amount of food you get and their nice flavour.

 

The complimentary bread was okay, nothing special. It is just a bread that we eat everyday.

 

 

House-made chicken terrine, pistachio, bacon, onion jam, $17, an Entree my wife ordered. This is a good terrine dish I should say, although not the best I had before. The terrine itself was made to perfection. The duck meat was so tender when biting but went very creamy in mouth. The addition of pistachio and the wrapping bacon complimented each other well while the jam added some extra flavours to the dish. Terrines are 100% meat dishes while pate is made of liver. For ppl who doesn’t eat offal, I guess a terrine can be a good alternative to pate.

 

Pork belly Lechon Kawali, salted duck egg& tomato salad, crispy pig ears, birds eye chili&garlic vinegar dipper, $17. This is my entree. I should say I like this dish a lot. The restaurant is really great in combining/fusing east and west cuisines. The salted duck eggs are truly Chinese, while fried crispy ears is a favorite dish in many south east Asian countries.  The addition of salted eggs is a genuine talent because the saltiness does not only add flavour to the pork belly but also takes the fat and oily mouth feel away. This is similar to what I did on the Berkshire pork before, but I salt cured chicken eggs myself for 100 days before using. The ears were very crispy and tasted as if I was biting a cracked pork skin. Yum!

Onkaparinga Valley Venison – Sous vide of Venison loin, pickled Adelaide Hills cherry, shallot tarte tatin, Willabrand fig salad $34. I had this dish for the main. Honestly, the venison is very very nicely cooked. Cooked medium rare, the venison was so tender and moist , giving a beautiful aroma without any other game smell. The mouth feel of the meat was like biting beef tongues. I tried to cook venison before, but didn’t have any luck. The pickled cherry and shallot tarte tartin were very nice and sweet. However, the fig and cabbage salad didn’t get my vote. It was somehow a bit bitter. 😦

 

Coorong Wild Seafoods Salt and pepper whole Flounder, palabok with SA quid, kinkawooka mussels & prawns in roasted prawn sauce and smoked mullet, $33. This is a very good tasting dish. The flounder has a full flavour of sea while the flesh was very tender. The flounder was from the Coorong area where it is most famous for the quality and taste of flounders. However, due to conservation, fishery of the Coorong flounders were not permitted for some years. It is glad to see that the restriction has been taken away, which means our ecosystem is getting better.

The other part of the dish, the palabok, is a Filipino rice noodle dish. The rice noodle is different from what-so-ever I had before. They taste very nice with a smooth texture. The spices and seafood added much extra flavours to the noodles. 😀

For drink, I had my regular lemon lime bitters.

Just before we finished our dinner, the chef of the day came out and checked with us if everything is alright. The dinner took 2 hrs and we left the restaurant satisfied and full. I like the way the restaurant presents as this is also a good way to promote our SA produce.

Food: 3.5/5
Service: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5
Ambience: 3.5/5

Total: 14.5/20

 

 

The Brasserie Hilton Adelaide

233 Victoria Square 
ADELAIDE, SA 5000

P 08 8217 2000