BearBrass

Location: Southgate
Link: www.bearbrass.com.au
Cuisine: Modern Australian, Tapas
Previous Reviews: BearBrass

Tasting plate 2

One of the entree platters consisting of:

• Chicken pâté, toasted brioche, onion chilli jam
• Prosciutto and sage stuffed veal medallions
• Lamb kofta balls in spicy tomato sauce topped with bocconcini
• Lemon pepper calamari with homemade aioli

The pâté and onion chilli jam were full of flavour. The pâté was smooth, creamy and easy to spread, the onion jam was sweet and chunky. There wasn't quite enough bread so we ordered more turkish bread to finish it off.

The veal medallions weren't too bad, although there was a lack of prosciutto. The lamb kofta balls were pretty average, but full of flavour. The bocconcini on top was a hit though.

Then there was the calamari - always a favourite with us. The aioli was nice and garlicky, the calamari tender and crunchy on the outside. Perfect!

Spicy chorizo pan fried with olives, garlic and roasted capsicum served with grilled flatbread

The chorizo tasted quite nice, not too spicy and not too dry. There was possibly too much sauce and too little flatbread, but the extra turkish bread we ordered helped us finish it off too.

Pan seared king prawns with a celeriac remoulade and crispy prosciutto

This was both a hit and a disappointment. Disappointingly, the prawns were not peeled, and therefore all the flavour remained on the shell rather than on the flesh of the prawns. The flavours themselves were amazing - smokey and tangy after a squeeze of lemon juice. The celeriac remoulade was crisp and fresh and went well with the prawns. The prosciutto was also a slight disappointment as it was not just crisp, but was dried and quite solid.

Baked spinach fettuccine with lamb meatballs in a spicy napoli sauce and buffalo mozzarella

This was interesting... the fettuccine was green (spinach) and the mozzarella wasn't stirred through. Once we mixed it all up, it actually tasted quite good! The fettuccine was cooked to 'al dente', the napoli sauce was very tomato-ey and the cheese very stringy and tasty.

Smoked chicken with double brie, cranberry jam and spring onions

The waitress managed to get our orders wrong (that's what happens when you don't use a notepad and try to show off your 'fantastic' memory). We actually ordered the salmon pizza, but when this came out we couldn't be bothered arguing and then having to wait for them to make a new one. The pizza wasn't too bad. The cranberry jam worked very well with the smoked chicken, and the brie was melted nicely into the rest of the pizza. Would have been nice to have slightly more brie though.

All in all, the food was great, the service was relatively good (except when she got our pizza wrong) and the atmosphere was nice.

Overall Rating: 9/10