Jacques Reymond

Okay, let's be honest before I start. This is not a travel post, but a food post. I know I know, it's meant to be my travel blog. But I cannot not share this experience. Just like how I shared the Iron Chef Sakai's experience in Japan last year. So, here we go :

I made a booking for the place about a week before we went, but I think that's possible because we went on a weekday instead of the weekend. Apparently, they can be booked out for months for weekends.

We started off with a French pastry that was served, which was freshly baked and had such crispy crust and so soft and empty inside. The butter taste of the bread was just so nicely done without being overwhelming.

The restaurant
*I love the fireplace*

We decided on the degustation meal, the non-vegetarian option. Actually, I had already on that weeks ago. LOL. It was a 9 course degustation meal.

Lemongrass, spinach and rock lobster soup
Fragrant tiger prawn
Sweet potato and tumeric ice-cream

As odd as the combination is in the soup, the taste was heavenly. It was tasty and rich. The prawn was pretty ordinary but the sweet potato crisp. That went really really well with the tumeric ice-cream.

They have a wine that matches every single dish on the degustation menu but as we both aren't big fans of alcohol, we decided to just do just one wine but was told that they won't really match all the dishes. Instead, they recommended 2 wines to go with the food, but was happy to split each glass of wine into 2, so we both still ended up with just one glass each. Fantastic service! =)

Sandwich of spanner crab, mirfin and fresh wasabi jelly,
lacquered petuna ocean trout, black bean and sweet corn dressing.

To be honest, I don't wasn't really that impressed with the sandwich but the ocean trout! That tells of an entirely different story. It was just slightly undercooked for a fish for me, but the texture was so wonderful and it tasted very much like unagi, rather than ocean trout. But I absolutely loved it! It wasn't undercooked as per say, but it was well... not your usual well-cooked fish if you get what I mean. But it's that undercook-ness that gave it that wonderful texture!

Wild barramundi, almond and bush mountain pepper caramel,
yogurt and black garlic, kaffir lime and lemongrass espuma

Oohh.. the lemongrass espuma - it was just simply gorgeous. The amount of flavour in that bubbles was just magnificient. I have never tasted anything like that.

Peking duck and Hervey Bay scallops, peking juices, spiced
marshmallow like crepe, crispy rice, ginger sesame and pandan oil

As most who knows me, I am not a big fan of ducks especially of the roasted kind but this was fabulous! I do not regret not asking for them to swap this dish into another. The meat was pink and succulent, and had that melt-in-your-mouth sensation.

Highland venison like a warm carpaccio, horseradish mustard
dressing, butternut pumpkin with honey and bitter chocolate beignet

This was pretty good too, but not one of the best in the whole menu. The meat was once again perfectly cooked and the flavours of the dressings and the meat just went so well together.

Western plains suckling pig and tamarind, celeriac and bitter almond,
dashi apple veil, dancing bonito flakes and rosella chutney salad, cavalo nero

The skin of the suckling pig wasn't the actual skin of the pig, but was artifically remade with other ingredients but it tasted really quite similiar to the real thing. It's amazing how some chefs can come up with such creative ideas!

Pacific rim martini of pineapple, passionfruit, and banana

liqourice ice-cream and honeycomb

As I am totally against eating bananas, I had mine remade without the banana without a fuss. The waiter was quick to respond and had my dish remade in minutes. It was great! I have no idea how the original tastes like, as mine was without the banana - but still, it was pretty good. The creaminess of the ice-cream and the little crunchy bit was a really nice surprise.

Millefeuilles of chocolate : white chocolate mousse, pure
Caribbean chilli ice-cream, dark chocolate mousse and praline ice-cream

Oh my god... that Caribbean chilli ice-cream is to die for! It tasted like your usual chocolate ice-cream but a little touch of chilli and then before you know it, it hits you with a bang. Absolutely heavenly. If there is only one dish that I can have again, I would choose this without a single doubt. We were both staring at each other at how amazing it tasted.

Petits fours

By the time we were done with dinner, we were almost the only patrons left but there was no hassle on time and I am pretty sure that if we had wanted to, we could have stayed longer. What I loved besides the food is the ambience. The dim lights, the fireplace, it was cosy but still romantic. Plus, we had the seat next to the window which was really nice. It was an amazing experience!