Moon over Wellington Street

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Tonight we celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, but not in the company of our families. I haven't seen much of Kutsuyama since she moved back to Hong Kong, and we decided to catch up after spending some time together in Seoul last month. Foursheets heard about the lunch I enjoyed last week at Medora and decided that she wanted to check out the place for herself, so I dutifully booked us a table for dinner.

As I was being shown to our table, I managed to see a big paragraph of text next to my name on the pad carried by the staff. It quickly dawned on me that these would have been notes from Chef Vicky Cheng, maybe in the same way that someone had entered the words "prima donna" in the system at Amber under my name all those years ago. Uh-oh...

We were informed that Vicky had instructed for the staff to pour us glasses of Champagne to start, and there would be a few dishes coming our way. Well... maybe I should have had Foursheets make the booking so no one would need to make a fuss about us, and I did get dirty looks from the wife that I had rebuffed her original suggestion. Anyway... as we already have brought Champagne ourselves, I declined the generous offer so that I wouldn't get too toasted tonight.

We started with some bread selection.

18 vegetable salad: roots and greens - we are always happy to eat veg, and we've got a good mix of raw and cooked ones, including seasonable mushrooms. We would totally do this again - especially Foursheets.

Thanks to a miscommunication during my lunch last week, I had missed out on tasting these lobster rolls. I'm so grateful Vicky decided to send us some tonight.

There's something about the happiness one can generate just by wedging a few pieces of cooked lobster covered in mayo into a thick cut of toasted, fluffy, squishable milk bread. We all finished with smiles on our faces.

Grilled cheese: mortadella, burrata - this was not the kind of grilled cheese I was expecting, but when I see mortadella and burrata together, I just gotta order it up. The combination with pickled peppers is always nice, but I'm not sure I cared for the jus.

Mediterranean red prawn linguini, prawn head sauce, tomato confit - how could I resist when there are beautiful prawns on offer, with amazng sauce made with prawn heads and shells? This was, of course, delicious and satisfying. Unfortunately the heads of the prawns were under-cooked for my taste, and I didn't enjoy the goodies inside those heads the way I usually would.

Clams and sausage pot: mixed clams, fennel pork sausage, ratte potato - an interesting combination with mussels, manila clams, and short-necked clams (貴妃蚌). and I really liked the sausages.

Mayura rump cap steak, green pepper sauce, gem's lettuce salad - now THIS was a thingy of beauty. I've always been a fan of the wagyu from Mayura Station, so I was pretty happy when Foursheets asked for it.

This was... simply lovely. So tender and buttery, and plenty of meaty flavors. Grilled nicely for the charring on the outside, and still wonderfully red and juicy inside. The thick cut made it particularly satisfying to chew on and squeeze the juices out.

Barbecued chicken, fermented habanero chili sauce - Vicky very kindly sent us half a roast chicken despite our protests that it would be too much food. This was very nicely done, and the accompanying pickled peppers together with the habañero sauce added a little kick to it.

Tater tots, boiled egg tartar sauce - Foursheets requested these because, well, it's been a while since we've had tater tots. And who doesn't liked deep-fried fried potatoes?!

I brought along two bottles:

Laherte Rosé de Meunier, dégorgée en Mars 2023 - this always has a good level of acidity in addition to those juicy red fruits.

2001 Arietta Hudson Vineyard H-Block - started drinking 1 hour and 15 minutes after decanting. Still pretty concentrated on the palate, although the tannins have become softer now. Still got some of the vanilla oak.

And we had to finish with some ice cream from Liz and Tori, of course!

Watermelon lush, salted plum powder - the staff seemed perplexed that I chose the same flavor for the two scoops that come with each order, but I really didn't want to have something else contaminate the watermelon flavors - other than the salty plum, of course. Pretty happy with this.

This was a very good way to spend Mid-Autumn Festival, and I'm glad we went with the non-traditional option. I'm happy to see the restaurant serving up delicious fare at very reasonable prices, and we definitely need a few more places like this around town. And many thanks to Vicky for the extra goodies!