A Very Long Dinner at The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel

My family came and visited me a few weeks ago, and I decided to try out The Brasserie by Phillipe Mouchel. I read about this restaurant on the Age good Food Guide 2007, and it seemed to be much more reasonable when compared to the pricey Vue de Monde. When I called to book, I was told that the table was only available at 8:30 pm as it was a Saturday night. I was pretty excited to taste an actual French food from a French Chef!

When we arrived at the restaurant, the place was buzzing with people. We were guided to our table which was on second floor, there were so many people that I almost forgot it was a fine dining.

Anyway, to make things short, I was not very happy with the service here. It was a long time before the waiter started taking our orders. Our drinks were very slow too, we were left waiting there for almost 40 minutes without any drink! Each course were very slow too. By 10:30 pm, our main course hasn't even arrived! My family were all starving, we tried to make conversations until we ran out of things to say. We finished the whole dinner at nearly midnight. It was probably one of the longest dinner I've had, with only 3 courses! We ended up watching 4 fire shows that night!

Hope I did not bore you with all the complaints. Anyway, regarding the food, some were impressive, while others were just mediocre.

I read in an online review, and on a newspaper review that the traditional fish soup was good so I decided to try it out. It was nothing spectacular though and I did not think it was worth the price. My dad's snails was, however, amazing! The puff pastry complemented the snails very well. I was very impressed with the dish, considering it was the first time I've ever had snails.

Snails Provençale tomato fondue, garlic and parsley butter, puff pastry
This was a really worthed for its price!


Tasmanian salmon gravlax, spelt blinis, crème fraîche and condiments

The above is my mom's Entree. This dish was quite nicely decorated and tasted pretty good too.

As for the mains, I decided to have the duck and I must say I did not regret my decision. The duck breast itself was juicy and flavorful. the poached leg was really tender, almost falling off the bone. The green lentil ragout was the perfect partnerfor the duck.

Medley of duck
– roasted breast, poached leg and handmade sausage with ragout of Victorian green lentils

My sister ordered the Grilled Sirloin. I thought this dish was a disappointment as the steak itself was quite dry.

Grilled beef sirloin with béarnaise sauce

However, my dad's dish seemed to have saved the day again. Well, maybe it's because he had ordered the Wagyu, which was almost triple the price of the grilled sirloin. I really enjoyed the steak, it was extremely tender, very flavorful and had a creamy taste!

Grade 9 Wagyu Sirloin

Medley of lamb, Navarin jus, sautéed Winter vegetables
(My mom ordered this dish, I personally do not like lamb so I can't give any comment)

That was the end of our main course. For desserts, here are what we've tried.

Chocolate marquise with pistachio Anglaise and vanilla sorbet

This was what I ordered. The vanilla sorbet was good, I thought that the chocolate marquise was a bit too rich and wasn't able to finish it.

Vanilla crème brûlée
This dish was divine! It was perfectly done! We all really enjoyed it!

Traditional baba soaked in Cointreau liqueur, citrus salad, orange marmalade

This was not bad, but not fantastic either. Basically it was just a cake soaked in orange liquor.

Warm chocolate fondant, coconut emulsion,griottines sorbet

This was amazing too! I thought I had ordered the wrong dish when I did not see any chocolate. However, the warm chocolate fondant was hidden underneath the sorbet. The warm, rich chocolate center was fabulous!

My experience at The Brasserie has been quite interesting as you can see. I don't think I'll be going back there again though, considering the hours we had to wait. But if you are on a hot date, where an hour feels like a minute, do try it out!