River Cafe
This place is underneath Red Ochre, where I fed the other night.
Being a Friday night, the place is full. I have to sit out on the spacious balcony, on a balmy 18° night, overlooking the Torrens.
With celeriac & fennel purée, zucchini, fennel & caper salad.
The fish is nicely cooked, but too salty. Salty skin on salmon is nice, but this goes too far.
I'm a fan of celeriac purée, including this one. It's much nicer than mashed potato or an equivalent. It just has that touch of herbiness.
The purée covers the slivers of fennel, adding a nice flavour to the faint licorice-y taste of the fennel.
Soft centred chocolate pudding with chocolate ice cream & hazelnut toffee swirl. (please allow 20 min)
Not sure what that's about. I could easily eat this within 20 min. :]
The chocolate ice cream has a nice strong taste, enhanced by the even-sweeter pieces of chocolate in it. However, the budino itself is at best, a chocolate cake, but with less flavour. Its walls are thin, and inside is warm chocolate goo. This goo looks like it should have a strong chocolate flavour, but it actually doesn't. It's somewhat disconcerting.
I'm also not sure about the whole idea of this dish. "Chocolate lovers" dishes are common. However, I'm not sure I want to eat four different chocolate components at once, unless there's something really contrasting between them. I would've been happier with regular vanilla ice cream here.
Not a big fan of decorative toffee.