Aussie night

After our last successful outing a few months ago, it was time to get together with my friends over some Aussie wines.  While the main goal of our last dinner was to introduce Hello Kitty to my friends, this time we would be introducing The Kat to them.

My friends chose Gough 40 as the venue, as it had been one of their favorite places.  I myself have never been impressed with the food there, but it does fit the description of a place serving 'innocuous' food. 

After resolving an initial issue with our reservation (or seemingly lack of one), I finally sat down by the door on this chilly night inside the empty restaurant.  There would turn out to be no other customers tonight.

I struggled a little with the menu, as very few items jumped out at me.  Eventually I managed to pick something.

Thanks to my small lunch, I was actually pretty hungry by now.  The garlic bread was a sight for sore eyes, and I wish I had more than 2 pieces...

Traditional seafood soup - not bad, with plenty of seafood like king prawn, mussels, scallop, and clams.  The flavors here were a little on the light side, but perhaps that is because I have long grown accustomed to David Lai's bouillabaisse.

Linguine with duck confit - apparently this place only stocks one type of pasta, but offers 11 different ingredients with go with it.  As my first choice was not available tonight, I went with something else I knew I couldn't resist... and the restaurant offered to make it as a starter portion.

And it worked out fantastically well.  I LOVE duck confit, and the delicious meat and sinful, fatty skin have been shredded before being placed on top.  The linguine itself was tossed with a little bit of pesto along with shimeji mushrooms (シメジ茸).  Simple and delicious.

Grilled U.S. kurobuta pork with peach liqueur - this was a nice surprise.  The pork was fairy tender (partially thanks to the fat) and not overcooked like Hello Kitty's duck breast.  It also came with plenty of flavors thanks to the use of peach liqueur, so it was not bland at all.  Very happy to have chosen this.

We brought a little more wine than we were able to consume, but still did pretty well considering Aussie wines are generally a little more punchy and alcoholic...

2003 Penfolds Yattarna - served much too cold.  Nose was very, very caramelized, and reminiscent of sugar cane juice.  Lovely toasty notes, with good acidity here.

2000 Clarendon Hills Astralis - nose showing sweet fruit, a little metallic and animal, very fragrant with cedar notes, along with very ripe fruit.  Good acidity here, too... The color was visibly lighter than the slightly older RunRig.

1997 Torbreck RunRig, from magnum - decanted for 45 minutes prior to serving.  Very sweet nose, with lots of ripeness and plenty of coconut butter and tropical fruit.  A little smoky.  Much more concentrated and muscular compared to the Astralis.  Drinking exactly like one would expect from an Aussie shiraz...