Wednesday 14 September 2011

Spring into Crap courses @ The Albert Park Hotel

The Albert Park Hotel
83 Dundas Place
Albert Park VIC 

On a Sunday lunch, Teddy and I made a journal slightly out of our usual route to Albert Park.  It kinda random for us to go all the way there but the aim for lunch today was for the Spring Graze menu ($55/ pp) that Albert Park Hotel had on Special for the weekend - only 10 & 11 September 2011.  Teddy spotted this special menu from The AGE newspaper and they claimed that the special menu had five crab courses.  Not just one, or two but FIVE crab courses, so I decided that Albert Park Hotel would be our lunch destination on Sunday.





We walked through the glass door and was greeted by the staff.  After we told them about our reservation, we were guided to our table.  Overall ambiance, it was quite pack, I guess most of the diners were there for the crab courses just like us, 'cause they were having similar dishes on their tables.  And yes, we also went there for the crab courses.  After advising the staff, we then went straight for the drinks.  Teddy ordered Kirin on tab ($6.50), while I had my eyes set on a bottle of Yebisu ($9.50).


After few sip of beer, our first dish from the crab course arrived - Sweet corn & spanner crab laksa.  My sight told me that this was so not the usual laksa that I had.  Well, since I knew fully well that Albert Park Hotel is a bistro, so I didn't really mind much about their take on recreating Asian dish.  To my surprise, the only portion of crab that was in this dish was just a tiny piece of crab meat put in the middle of the soup bowl.  Teddy also pointed out that there was no trace of noodle in the soup.  The noodle lookalike pieces were thinly sliced/ chopped vegetables.  Surprisingly, I also found sliced green mango in my laksa.  The laksa tasted kinda OK, I would prefer it without the sliced green mango, the soup base was a bit thick compared to other laksa that I usually have.

  
Next came our second crab dish for the day, Crab croquetta with romesco sauce.  The croquetta was crispy outside and filled with with the soft mix inside.  Yet again, I could only taste a hint of crab from this dish.  Apart from no being able to taste any crab inside the croquetta, this dish happened to turn out quite well.  I supposed it was the croquetta itself and the romesco sauce that actually made this dish quite enjoyable.


Soft shell crab taco, spicy tomatillo salsa was served on our table.  The very first thing that I noticed was that there was no consistency in the portion size of this dish.  Teddy's taco had bigger piece of soft shell crap compared to mine.  Though, the piece on Teddy's plate was quite small, but mine was even smaller.  My disappointment on the crab course started to build up, but I told myself, there are two more courses to go, so there could be a total turnaround.  When both of us put the tacos to the taste, the taco base was quite soggy, but overall taste was quite good.  The tomatillo salsa was nicely seasoned, it gave out the fresh feeling after the first bite.


After the tacos disappeared from the plate, we were then given small dessert spoons, I knew it straightaway that they were to be used for the gratin...and I was right.  A few minute later, Blue swimmer crab gratin with morels & asparagus were served.  Yet again, they were quite small and Teddy and myself started to have doubts whether we would be able to locate any crab meat inside.  Yes, we did find it, but it was very little piece of crab meat mixed inside the gratin.  The gratin was quite salty, but overall taste was on the OK scale, thanks to the ingredients that they put in.  The crunchiness of the asparagus rescued the dish by giving it few millimeters away from the bad dish scale.

 
After having four crab courses with very small amount of crab meat, my disappointment degree was skyrocketed.  I no longer had any expectation left on the last dish that was left to come.  Mud crab noodle roll with black beans & young ginger was delivered to us at last.  First impression, this was an interesting looking little dish, Teddy and I did not know what to expect of this anymore.  This mud crab noodle roll looked like a metamorphosis of a rice noodle roll from a Yum-Cha menu.  Crab meat radar - no crab could be tasted nor sighted.  We could only taste the springy prawn mixture in the noodle roll.  Both Teddy and myself were left unimpressed by the so-called 'five crab courses' that the Albert Park Hotel put on the Special menu.  We felt that our $110 on the food bill alone here had gone wasted, I would rather spend the money at other seafood restaurants. 

+Disclaimer: The commentary contained in this blog is purely based on my own opinion and experience at the time of visit. Taste is a subjective and yours and mine can be differed.

2 comments:

msihua said...

That's a tad disappointing to now have a proper crab dish at all! Was the $110 for the full meal or for each of you?

Pinkswoon said...

$110 was for the full meal. Initially i thought it was a reasonable price but when each dish was served, I barely get to taste the crab! what a waste of money!

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