Last week I went to Aria Brisbane, which sadly closed its doors on Saturday. The only regret I have is not going there sooner, so I could have gone multiple times.
Alas, i did not. C’est la vie.
On Wednesday night last week, three of us walked into the restaurant, half an hour early. We were seated in the bar while we were waiting for the table.
The coffee was good.
We chatted, and were still curious what to expect at this stage. We had all heard good things about Aria.
Ok, before I continue and get to us being seated, GOMA did it better as far as food goes. The reason I am saying it here is to get it out of the way because Aria was still pretty good, and I don’t want you to think I thought poorly of it while I was reminiscing about eating it.
Someone came and got us at 8:26pm, we were booked in for 8:15pm and, before anything was said by the staff, I joked about us being punished for being too early. We were very politely informed they had upgraded the position of our table, and apologised for the wait. Ok, not being punished then.
We were seated by the window, looking out over the river. It was a pretty nice view. Especially all of the lights on the Story Bridge.
The waitress smiled. She introduced herself, but spoke so quietly I didn’t here her name. We just smiled and nodded.
While we were looking at the menu, she asked us if there was a special occasion for being there. I was honest.
“I heard your restaurant was closing down on Saturday and I didn’t want to miss out.” It looked like she almost cried. Whether it was because we were heathens or she was reminded of the sad fact this wonderful place was closing, I am not sure. She took a deep breath and asked what we wanted.
We asked for the ten year tasting menu. Her smile returned.
As described by one of the trio, this was a degustation of nostalgia.
Each dish was a highlight from each year it was open. Ten years, ten dishes.
I am not going to run through all ten, just the highlights for me.
I am also not sure of the order, except for 2 dishes. I know the duck came before the steak. I will get to this and the story surrounding it soon.
The first dish that comes to mind though was the scampi. The scampi, which seems to be somewhere between a prawn and a lobster (shrugs), was wrapped in ribbons of batter/pastry and deep fried, with 2 halves of a quail egg accompanying it. The flavour was pretty good, and for something clearly deep fried it wasn’t very greasy. The quail egg was nice, but the flavour of the quail egg barely added to the scampi.
The next dish I remember was a brussels sprout dish. It tasted a little like french onion broth and bacon, with the bitterness of the brussels sprout bursting through at the end, in a good way. I really liked this dish. I don’t think there was any meat in it, even though it tasted like there was.
Now for the duck/steak dishes and story.
The duck pastry with pea puree came out. I have now eaten enough duck, that I could tell this was duck breast in the pastry. It was not as gamy as I like my duck, but it was nice. Especially when mixed with the pea puree. It was wonderfully delicate though, and I was impressed by that.
The waitress came out (this is the story part) and asked us how we were going, I said I loved duck, and she smiled and said she did too, but the next bit was her favourite. She then proceeded to tell us about the steak dish, and she was very enthusiastic, but sooo quiet. None of us knew what she had said, aside from the next dish is steak. We spent a few minutes trying to figure it out, when the sommelier came over and started explaining the next wine, to go with the steak dish. Incidentally I was not drinking, but as my companions were I finally got to see a sommelier in action. It was amazing. I am wondering if I could ever get someone just to tell me what the wine pairing should be, next time I am at a degustation.
The steak came out, I don’t actually remember much of this dish, as I spent more time looking at it going “Oh, that is what she meant”. It was one of my favourite dishes though. Oh yeah it was carpaccio. That was what she had said, I think that was the only bit we heard. There was more to it, and I could see why it was her favourite, even if I had no idea what she had said about it.
This all lead into a palette cleanser and dessert, plus petit fours. The only thing I want to say about this is that the petit fours were pretty tasty.
It was 11:30pm by the time we finished, and had it not been so late I was still keen to keep eating. I got home about midnight and went to bed.
Night all.
Bren's Food Adventures 