Alphutte
This place is widely regarded as one of Adelaide's best restaurants. The previous two times I've been here, I've had excellent, simple food.
Tonight, there's a set menu. One of six entrees, then one of six mains, then one of six desserts.
Swiss brown mushrooms filled with sautéed leeks and bacon. Topped with grated cheese.
This is mostly mushroom, which doesn't have a huge amount of taste. The only real taste comes from the bacon and cheese on top, which gives this entree a slight pizza flavour. The sauce in the dish is cheesy, but a mushroom can't absorb it.
A tender, juicy chicken breast filled with that famous Swiss cheese, crumbed and fried, topped with hollandaise sauce.
The hollandaise sauce isn't on top of the chicken, so I transport it there. It's somewhat superfluous, however, given its similarity to the cheese inside the chicken.
The chicken is nicely done, but as always, it needs something with a stronger flavour. A layer of fairly bland crumbs doesn't add any flavour at all.
The mustard is good, but there's already a lot going on here.
The potato cake on the side is a bit crispy on the outside, but is just slices of boiled potato on the inside. The texture isn't particularly appealing, and it doesn't have much of a taste.
For some reason, there's plain white rice on the plate. I abandon the boiled potato and giant chunk of chicken, and wait for dessert.
A pancake folded over ice cream topped with hot chocolate sauce.
Ice cream wrapped in pancake provides an interesting texture and temperature contrast. The topping over it has a nice marshmallowy taste, but is not too different from regular chocolate topping otherwise.