I finally got to go to
No 35 last Thursday evening - kind of as a catch up, and kind of as an early celebration for my upcoming birthday. I've been talking about going to No 35 for a while, since Stuart McVeigh (of ex-Botanical fame, which received a 16.5/20 in the Age Good Food Guide) came on board in October this year. Friends of friends who know Stuart have said that apparently he has brought in some interesting dishes and ideas.
For some reason, I haven't been able to find any reviews of No 35 as yet - only a few random online comments about the food being expensive, small servings, etc - but that was all before Stuart's tenure. I was pretty excited being able to check this out and being one of the first people to review the food (as amateur as I may be).
The Atrium Bar on level 35 of the Sofitel had long been one of my favourite places in Melbourne. The bar is in the middle and so you can't see the external views directly, but No 35 had replaced Cafe La on the outer edge of the floor - with floor to ceiling views of the Melbourne city.
We had a reservation at 8:30pm (I think you can either go for a 6pm or 8.30pm sitting - not sure if this was just an arrangement due to it being Christmas season.) I was quite excited and so dressed up slightly for the occasion, but my dress got slightly splattered by the rain on the way from work.
The venue: The venue is beautiful and perfect for an intimate dinner - appropriately dimmed lights, elegant and relatively minimalistic decor, high ceilings, tables angled in a way to enhance your view of the dazzling nightview of Melbourne.
We were lucky that the rain gradually subsided and the water gradually rolled off the glass windows over the course of the evning to enable us a clearer view. It was so beautiful I could have stayed there the whole night if it wasn't a weeknight (we both had work the next day).
I'm a firm believer that good views + good food + good company makes for a perfect night out. We probably had 2.5 out of 3 that night - you'll see why below.
The people: The service was efficient, polite and professional, but I found that the different staff who presented our dishes weren't very confident/well-trained to present and explain what each dish was. But I must say that Sommelier (Kyriacos Christodoulou) was great - after we had ordered our bottle of '07 Rusden Driftsand Grenache/Shiraz (Barossa Valley, South Australia), he came up to us and alerted us to the fact that a small minority of people may experience discomfort (e.g. upset stomach) when having oysters with Shiraz. I never knew that - and I thought it was really good of him to alert his patrons of this fact. Thumbs up to Kyri! But we said we should be ok anyway.
The food:
We opted for ala carte instead of degustation that evening - we had started dinner late already, and degustation was bound to take longer, and also, it would give us an opportunity to come back to try the degustation next time.
Starters: To start, we were given a bit of a pre-teaser -
lumps of mozarella in a green (spinach?/pea?) (cold) soup concoction.
:( To be fair, maybe I just didn't get it.
We then shared a
dozen of oysters with three different tastes, which wasn't great either (unfortunately). If you look at the website, you can find out the different tastes (
Claire de Lune, Moonlight en Surface, and the third is sort of like a "flavour of the day" oyster). But the girl who served us our oysters didn't explain what the differences were or which was the appropriate dipping sauce for each. There were bits of broken shells stuck to the oyster flesh. And to be honest, I couldn't see or taste the difference between the three styles at all (besides from actual size of the oysters). Sigh.
I avoided having more than a few sips of Shiraz with the oysters due to Kyri's advice (above). But even so, we thought the wine tasted funny all of a sudden. The oysters (or maybe the cold spinach soup thing) must have affected our palettes/taste buds - the red wine suddenly tasted very acidic and sort of "off" - it tasted and smelt amazing when the bottle was first opened. We had been warned of potential upset stomaches, not upset taste buds... So yes, note to self - red wine and oysters don't go well together! - should have ordered champagne or white wine to go with the starter dish...
No 1: Next, my entree was the
Hiramasa kingfish and scallop ceviche with watermelon, avocado and sesame. The scallop and watermelon were cubed and placed sparsely on the kingfish sashimi, which was quite fresh, but slightly too liquid-logged (not sure why). There was also a small crisps and creamy avocado structure on the kingfish (tasty enough but bore a slight resemblance to avocado dip from the supermarket??). Overall, the dish was ok.
My friend had the warm quail salad with duck parfait and roasted onion for entree. I tried a bit - it seemed more tasty than mine....
No 2: Next, we both had some sort of
aged grain fed sirloin with organic vegetables - probably the best dish of the evening. But at $46 a pop, it was not the best steak I've ever had (however beef quality was good and tender), and I found that my vegetables were salted unevenly. But it did go very well with our medium bodied Rusden Driftsand Shiraz (our taste buds had evidently recovered).
No 3:
For dessert, I went for the
No 35 trifle, while he went for the burnt orange creme. Both ok. My "trifle" was a colourful array of cream/icecream, jelly and berry "stuff". At this point, I must say that it's sad I can't even remember it well enough to describe it properly. Sigh. Even I am bored with my own review.
The verdict: I'm glad we didn't go the degustation option this time.
Stuart McVeigh, please please please do what we are all expecting you to do with No 35. Transform it, bring out your gastronomical genius. We know you are capable of it. Next time I go back (I'll give it 3 months at least), hopefully, you would have had some time to settle in your new kitchen and work some cullinary wonders.
In conclusion, the food could have been much much better given the price we paid, but I had a wonderful evening anyway because of the good view and company.
