Mushroom Mania 2013: Red Cabbage Food & Wine Mushroom Degustation

"Cep macarons" "mushroom macaron" "olive snow" "white chocolate snow" "parsnip ice cream" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"

Some of you may think I’m a bit insane throwing myself head first into the Mushroom Mania celebrations every year but I can assure you I am not the only one. In addition to a number of bloggers from around the country, there are many local chefs and food producers that join in the mushroomy celebrations. Last week I introduced you to Cris from Perth City Farm who is totally mad for his mushrooms, nurturing them carefully from spores to fruit with tenderness and loving care. And it shows; his mushrooms are packed full of flavour and were so meaty I swear they nearly tasted like chicken. For the second post in my Mushroom Mania series this year, I wanted to take it beyond just eating one or two mushrooms dishes. I wanted to find a talented chef who was willing to make me a whole mushroom themed degustation.  I approached Chef Scott O’Sullivan from the award-winning Red Cabbage Food and Wine in South Perth to see if he was keen. It turns out that he and his wife are big mushroom fans and he jumped at the opportunity to join in the fun!

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Our mushroom journey!

On arrival we were greeted warmly by Hazel O’Sullivan and shown to our table where our own personal mushroom menus were laid out ready for us. As my eyes gazed over each delicious looking course I knew we were in for a special treat. To start us off for the night, thickly sliced and toasted gluten free sour dough with olives and truffled honey were brought to the table. There was also some fresh brioche for the boy to eat that wasn’t gluten free.  The sour dough was soft with a lovely slightly sour after taste and it soaked up the truffled honey thirstily.

"Truffled honey" "gluten free sour dough" "brioche" "olives"  "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Truffled honey, GF sour dough, brioche, olives

The truffle honey was, as I’m sure any of you who have tried it before, totally exquisite and was further enhanced by the addition of some fragrant fresh thyme. I was glad I brought my glucose tablets to counter act the fructose content in the honey so I could enjoy it liberally with minimal consequences. To be honest…even if I had forgotten those glucose tablets, I would have happily endured the suffering anyway. The honey was THAT good.

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Secret surprise!

Our second course arrived under a large glass dome filled with smoke. I love theatrics when I’m out dining; it makes the whole experience so much more of a show and brings some of the magic that happens in the kitchen out to us at the table.

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Mushrooms, toast, egg
"shiitake" "chanterelle" "Mushrooms" "smoked mushrooms" "toast" "egg" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Mushrooms, toast, egg

The richly earthy flavours of fresh smoked shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms were the ideal amuse bouche for the commencement of this mushroom journey. The gluten free croutons were crunchy without being overly hard and left a sumptuous lingering buttery flavour in my mouth.

"shiitake" "chanterelle" "Mushrooms" "smoked mushrooms" "toast" "egg"  "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Two of my favourite mushies: shiitake and chanterelle. Such strong flavours!
Pig's ear mushrooms (photo courtesy of thebaldgourmet.com)
Pig’s ear mushrooms (photo courtesy of thebaldgourmet.com)

Our next course of duck lasagne and seared scallops were a creative play on textures. Pig’s ear mushrooms were dehydrated to dry them out and then deep fried so that they had the consistency of potato crisps.  Combined with the velvety soft scallops and duck this was truly a wondrous dish. Being truffle season here in Western Australia, I was so pleased to see these fabulous fungi made a recurrent feature across our evening meal with some truffle jus drizzled romantically over this dish. Sorry you don’t get a visual on this one folks!

"black truffle" "manjimup truffle" "perigold truflle" "black truffle" "Marron" "sunchoke" "salmon pastrami" "shiitake" "shimeji" "soy caramel" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Marron, sunchoke, salmon pastrami, shiitake, shimeji, soy
"black truffle" "manjimup truffle" "perigold truflle" "Marron" "sunchoke" "salmon pastrami" "shiitake" "shimeji" "soy caramel" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Marron, sunchoke, salmon pastrami, shiitake, shimeji, soy

I love it when food is synonymous with art and as our evening progressed I began to understand that Chef Scott shares a similar passion. Each dish was presented in a precise and methodical manner with every component so carefully planned and prepared. The marron and salmon pastrami matched well with the stronger flavours of the shimeji and shiitake mushrooms. There were crisp fried nuggets of sunchoke, dollops of carrot purée and mushroom ketchup along with lashings of sticky sweet soy caramel.

"Marron" "sunchoke" "salmon pastrami" "shiitake" "shimeji" "soy caramel" "black truffle" "manjimup truffle" "perigold truflle" "black truffle" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"

Most excitingly, my truffle obsession was fuelled furthermore with generous shavings of fresh Manjimup truffle falling across my plate like millionaire’s snowflakes.

"Cep macarons" "mushroom macaron" "olive snow" "white chocolate snow" "parsnip ice cream" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Cep macaron, olive parsnip
"Cep macarons" "mushroom macaron" "olive snow" "white chocolate snow" "parsnip ice cream" "Perth Restaurant Reviews" "food photos" "Perth food blog" "food blog" "Chompchomp" "Gluten free" "Fructose malabsorption" "Perth bars" "Perth restaurants" "Perth food reviews" "Red Cabbage South Perth" "red Cabbage Restaurant" "red cabbage" "scott O'sullivan" "fine dining" "mushroomm mania" "degustation perth" "gluten free degustation" "mushroom degustation" "south perth restaurants"
Cep macaron, olive parsnip

Like many, I am a macaron addict. These little morsels are as good a pick-me-up for me as a block of chocolate and the very thought of eating them always makes me all girlie and excitable. Over the years I have tried all sorts of macaron flavours as they are such a versatile little treat with the incredible capacity to contain a wide variety of flavours. However I have never eaten a MUSHROOM macaron before so I was so impressed with this course. A gorgeous little cep mushroom macaron sat perched on a parsnip stalk laying on bed of olive and white chocolate snow with a scoop of parsnip ice cream. Too cute!

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Venison, chanterelle, foie gras, cherry & pistachio
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The cherry “bomb” discretely hiding in there
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Close of of those flavourful chanterelles

For our final main course those distinctly flavoured little chanterelle mushrooms featured alongside succulent venison and creamy cubes of foie gras.  On a bed of celeriac puree and scattered with pistachios and fresh cherries, the sweet and sour aspects of this dish complemented the venison magically. Buried in amongst all the treasure was a cherry “bomb”. Cherry puree and cherry vinegar encased in a thin film made from a seaweed gelling agent exploded with a POW in my mouth releasing so much flavour my eyes nearly watered. Incredible!

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Pumpkin, pear, blue & cheddar

Our next course is one of my favourite parts of a degustation; the cheese course. This cheese course was like no other I have tried before.  Expecting some slivers of cheese, crackers and slices of fruit I fascinated to see that Chef Scott put just as much creative thought into this course as he had the rest of the meal. A smear of subtly sweet pumpkin puree was sprinkled with crumbled Irish Cashel Blue cheese and Lancashire cheddar. Instead of some comparatively boring slices of pear there was a scoop of soft pear sorbet.

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Apple, quince & rhubarb

As our degustation started to draw to a close I reflected back on what we had eaten so far and was surprised with the modest size of dishes. This is a degustation for the hungry; they are quite generous with portion sizes considering we had nine courses to get through yet I wasn’t feeling excessively overindulged. I was chuffed to see that two of the nine courses were desserts and I recall the desserts at Red Cabbage being very memorable. Our first dessert course was called apple, quince and rhubarb.  This relatively messy looking dish interestingly gave a different sensation with each mouthful by alternating with textures, temperatures, sweetness, creaminess and tarty sourness.

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Chocolate coffee and wattle

You cannot go wrong serving me a dessert that is based on chocolate. It is (one) of my true Achilles heels and I struggle to avoid binging on it if it is in the cupboard at home. For our final course in this evening of excellence we were served a soft cube of chocolate mousse surrounded by chocolate and coffee “rocks” and accompanied a velvety scoop of brown butter ice cream. This was such a wonderful way to end our evening.

The service to our table for the whole night was absolutely seamless with Hazel providing me with some excellent wine matching recommendations. Having visited Red Cabbage a number of times some year ago, I was impressed to see how this restaurant has grown and matured to have their own signature style of artistic food that I expect from other top venues in Perth such as Restaurant Amuse. Their passion for quality and service shines through and we both look forward to returning again in the near future.

This restaurant was reviewed as part of Mushroom Mania month which is happening all across Australia during July 2013. Head to the Power of Mushrooms website for loads of mouth-watering mushroom recipes plus if you write your own review on a mushroom dish you could win one of 40 $100 restaurant vouchers!
 
Disclosure: Chompchomp dined at Perth City Farm with compliments of the Australian Mushroom Growers Association.
 
Red Cabbage Food + Wine
49/15 Labouchere Road, South Perth WA 6151 | (08) 9367 5744 | http://redcabbagefoodandwine.com.au/

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15 thoughts on “Mushroom Mania 2013: Red Cabbage Food & Wine Mushroom Degustation”

  1. Chomp!! This is so unfair! Back then when I paid for my degustation, the food did not even look half as good!! I am so drooling over your pics now despite being able to feast on all the Malaysian goodies in Malaysia!

  2. A mushroom DEGO??!!! Brilliant! I also love the theatre of food – give me a small plate of beauty rather than a huge plate of food anyday!

    1. It was as fabulous as it looks! A wonderful chef who despite his fame is humble and friendly. You have to eat here!

  3. I’m currently licking my screen. Very unimpressed that I can’t taste any deliciousness!

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