Dinning with Elrond

It was nearly seven on Thursday night and we just been turned out from Movida... it was fully booked, even the bar section also booked out. So, we moved... I just blindly followed LS into Oliver lane.

Are you booked out? Yes, we did... So, what time should we come if we don't book in advance? LS asked meekly with her pitiful eyes. We finally were let into the bar section at last, thanks to the lovely waitress. I think she took pity on us two hungry girls :P

We started with a glass of Pinor Gris and each before we studied menu... heavy Asian influence... eg. beetle leaf, rice paddle leaf, galanga...

I left the ordering to LS 'cos I sure she 'd make a good choice :P So, she grabbed spanner crab, scallop, bone marrow, kingfish, snails, and rabbit saddle.

When the spanner crab came, first I notice about beetle leaf.... I was so excited about it since I haven't had it for age and it made me thinking of home... this tapas 's very refreshing, with pomelo and ginger... but we hope it should be a little bit more spicy... LS said she thinks it should be more spicy, which 's wield coming from her :) while, I can't detect chili in it at all :( Judging from this tapas...we agreed that the foods here 's promising, it has potential.. so we were very excited for the next tapas

The next one 's scallop in white sauce and salmon roes... good, decent, a bit salty.

And, then come the bone marrow and kingfish dish. We started with cured kingfish dish...a salty of the cured fish is well balanced with yuzu dressing, fried sliced spring onion and carrot pickle. We 're happy now... foods 're not just promising to be good...they 're actually good :)

Then, we moved to bone marrow wrapped in Vietnamese rice paper roll with shitake mushrooms with lemon and white pepper dressing. The best way to enjoy it 's break it in half before pouring the dressing into it, no....we didn't discover it by ourselve...but were told to do so :P

When springroll was broken in half, the earthly, smoothly fragrant of mushrooms came up. I 'm happy to eat it plain while LS like hers with the dressing. Nothing wrong with the dressing, though. I just like my springroll plain. In this case, I topped my springroll with the garnish...rice paddle leaf...it added another dimention to springroll...with lighter and fresher taste.

And, then the snails came... baked snails and puff pastry with a twang of lemon white sauce. We techniquely licked this dish, don't waste good sauce :P By this time, we started giggling over foods... so happy to come back here again by this stage.

Cassoulet of rabbit (rabbit saddle, rabbit liver paste, and other part that we still fought over whether it 's a liver or kidney..haha...) and white bean looks typically western style food but after chewing, I feel I need rice. It 's gingering, zingling dish.

We then decided to order one more dish, steak tartare with quail egg and mustard leave. It came with melba cracker... NO...it 's not a cracker but I forgot that word...still thinking... :( Anyway, it 's suprisingly goooooooooood. Saltiness of anchovy and melba beautifully completes this dish. Can I say it 's better than Guillaume at Bennelong's one? I know it 's not fair, it just like compare Ping Lady with Gala apple... it actually depends on what is our liking. But... I compared it in the sense that I can keep eatting steak tartare here and not bored with it, really... I 'll come back for this dish. It is so great that we had to sparingly shared the last melba :P

Steak tartare 's perfectly married with Cotes du Rhone '04, Grenache. The Somelier offered Grenache because of rabbit and snails dishes, which we happily accepted. My first monthful feeling 's I 'm happily drink it as a dessert... it 's not sweet, just my though...

To wrap up our dinner, we chose the dessert taste plate; lemon tart with yuzu mashmellow and chocolate pod with pumkin fome....so cute, isn't it?

Lemon tart is a little bit too sharp but the chocolate pot is extremely good. So good that we have to rearrange our dessert preferences :) The coffee 's not bad neither. They use Gravity coffee which made LS reluctantly order her latte and mine is Mocha. The coffee 're doing o.k. it 's much better than Sevenseeds house coffee, no kidding.

After we went through all dishes, we also spied other tables nearby to see what they had :P We notice that our somelier 's good. While I wandered away, LS notice that he busied over one bottle of Red... starting from warming the bottle up, opened and smell...then started pouring wine into the decanter...in order to let wine breathe. After these process, it confirmed itself that this wine is the expensive one, so we 'd like to know which table this wine 'll go ...nosey, aren't we?

It turned out to be a good nosey though. That red went to the table next to ours, Hugo Weaving's table...we sat next to him for nearly 3 hours and didn't know...hahaha... we too obsess in foods there, I think :P

In case you don't know who he is, I confess I don't which made me gain a disapproved look from LS... he 's an actor who played a role of King of Fairy in Lords of the Rings, Matrix, etc.

Coda Bar+Restaurant: Basement 141 Flinders Lane (Cor Oliver Lane) Tel: 9650 3155

Chef: Adam D'Sylva