Cork and Cleaver

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ENTREE: MEATBALLS
6/10

I’ve never been given meatballs upon arriving at a restaurant before. These meatballs had a very fine texture, with no chunks. They seem to be comprised of almost pure beef. They’re not particularly interesting, but there’s only four of them, so it doesn’t become a slog. Their sauce is a thin, mildly spicy tomato sauce.

BLACK ANGUS CORK & CLEAVER SPICE
6/10

300g Scotch fillet flame grilled with pepper and hickory.

The menu is pasted onto an actual cleaver.

The steak doesn’t come with any significant vegetables, so I order some pan fried vegetables.

I’m told that I’ll need to like hickory, in order to like this dish. I’m given a sprinkle of the dish’s seasoning to taste. It’s a bit spicy, but has a nice taste.

The meal I receive has a thick coating of this spice (or a coarser version of it), and is bathed in chilli.

After using the chilli water in the bottom of the plate to wash off the remainder of the seasoning, the steak becomes less spicy.

This is a nice, juicy steak, with some nice crisp to it, but it’s just a bit too spicy for me. After tasting the slightly peppery garnish, I thought it would be okay. However, I hadn’t counted on the thing being infused with chilli as well. Maybe I made a mistake ordering this, but it wasn’t all that well explained on the menu. I know other people might like this, so I won’t rate it too lowly.

Three different staff ask me how my meal is going, within the same minute.

The baked potato is nice. Its cream is very thick, and has only a slight taste.

The side serve of vegetables is pretty good. The vegetables are baked or grilled, and are full of flavour. They might also be full of butter.

After the bread and unnecessary meatballs, the steak, potato and vegetables, I’m very full. I take a long break, and prepare for ‘zert.

LIME AND GINGER BRULEE
6/10

With roasted coconut wafers & lemongrass syrup.

Through a haze of tiredness and bloatedness, I consume my brulee. There’s nothing wrong with the brulee. It has a thin, crispy top, and the custard has a nice, pasty texture. However, the taste of the custard is just acceptable. It has a slight ginger taste, but it’s very faint, and feels like eating a regular brulee.

The coconut shards have an interesting crunchy texture, but no real taste. They’re somewhat interesting when combined with the ice cream, but the really strong component is the super-zingy lemongrass syrup. The only problem is that there’s about half a teaspoon of this syrup amongst the coconut flakes.