Zucca Greek Mezze
Everything’s a bit quiet on Mondays. My previous choice of restaurant was so quiet that they decided to change their opening hours, and not tell anyone on the internets.
At Zucca. A number of restaurants are clustered here, at the base of Glenelg’s monolithic seaside apartment buildings.
Certainly the fanciest Greek restaurant I’ve been to.
Eavesdropped conversation of the night: a woman wants her group’s $1,095 bill individualised. A five minute mathematics conversation ensues, during which the woman regrets some of her expensive purchases.
Horta, smashed patatas, walnut bread saltsa.
I likes me patatas.
It’s a bit dark in here, so I need to use the camera’s flash. Will factor this into future seating decisions.
The beef is a big lump of nicely-cooked beef, though it’s cooked far less on the inside. I eat it with the unappetising-looking “horta” on top. The Horta has a herby, garlicky taste. It has the consistency of something that’s already been chewed, but it’s mild taste is a pleasant addition to the giant chunk of meat.
The wasteland of destroyed potato (Kipfler potato, I think), has a lot of fried surface area. This gives it more taste than would be expected for pure potato, and there’s a strong cumin taste here. I don’t want to eat four whole potatoes worth of this, but it’s a good use of potato, and better than chips.
Halva crumbs, dark chocolate ice cream.
Dessert menu is all the usual Greek desserts, do I take thus opportunity to try the recommended Metaxa fig brulee. Metaxa is a Greek alcohol.
I can’t say I’ve had halva with ice cream before. I assume the strategy here is to roll the ice cream in the halva crumbs , much like a muddy pig rolling in straw. The combination of these two flavours was somewhat interesting. The halva is sweeter than the ice cream, and adds a nice crumbly texture to the outside of the ice cream.
Next, I attack the brulee. I often complain about creme bruleex (my spelling) having too much toffee, or a burnt sugar taste. Thus one has a very thin layer of toffee. It’s very difficult to taste, and I can’t identify the Metaxa here. It either burned off, or the chef quaffed it. The custard is fairly solid, grainy, and not sweet enough. The bits of fig hiding in the custard are really rather odd, and unrelated to the rest of the dessert. Ahh. I think I excavated a bit of Metaxa at the bottom. There’s a hint of alcohol there.
The waiter is apologetic for my weak brulee, and offers me another dessert or coffee, but I’m ready to go, so he deducts the dessert from my bill, lowering it to $40.