Friday 8 October 2010

let's do lunch at etch

A food blogger has three simple tasks: photograph the food, eat the food, write about the food.


Today, I failed.


As I walked to Etch Dining to enjoy my Let’s Do Lunch special (part of the Crave Sydney International Food Festival) I realised I’d left my camera at home. Epic fail!


Luckily for me my work phone had a decent camera and even a flash!


So . . . .


Etch is a great little restaurant and I’m annoyed that I haven’t visited it before. The space is a perfect combination of light and elegant, something that CBD venues often get wrong. The huge round lamp shades are a hit with both me and my little sister, Stinky.


Our glass of Brown Brother’s Vermentino (inoffensive) and meal arrives promptly and the aromas wafting from the plate are quite intriguing.


The marketed dish is “Caramelised pork and Cloudy Bay clam spaghetti with Thai vinaigrette” ($35)but today our clams are replaced by five plump prawns. Fine by me!


The pork is ultra-crispy crumbs of crackling, providing salty-sweet texture the way pangrattato would in an Italian-style pasta dish.


Atop the swirls of pasta, like the jewels of the crown, are fat prawns dusted in an almost crispy salt and pepper crust. They are wonderful.


The finishing touches are coriander, mint and basil leaves to add fresh zing and an almost Italian aglio olio tasting dressing clings to the pasta strands.


It’s an interesting union of east and west.


I like it, a lot, but I don’t love it.
Stinky loves it. She wants to marry it.

But I want to marry dessert!

We order Etch’s speciality dessert ($15) which our waiter tells us its been on the menu since opening.
We are not disappointed!


A shortcrust pastry tart case is smothered with soft, sweet date puree then topped with a luscious caramel custard, set to the texture of a crème caramel. Earl grey syrup and rich burnt butter ice cream are excellent accompaniments.


But that tart just rocked my world.


We farewell our waiters, who were the perfect mixture of attentive and friendly, and make sure to leave a good tip (12%). Being married to a professional waiter I know how much they loathe Let’s Do Lunch because the restaurant is busy with people spending very little and tipping even less.


I’ll be dreaming of that tart for months.


Etch on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

  1. hehe i fail as a food blogger all the time too for the same reason too - never seem to hv my camera whenever i need it - that's why i prefer writing about the food i make at home rather than reviews :)

    that tart looks amazing..your descriptions make me wanna fly back to syd just to have that!

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  2. oh no! well good thing you had your camera phone with you and that tart is making me awfully hungry at this time of the night!

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  3. I did Etch LDL last year, so I thought I'd try some newbies this year - looks great though. I'd be fine with the praw swap too ;)

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