On Valentine's Day, Dany, the Boys and I headed to Provenance for a berry degustation. The original plan had been to hold the event as a picnic in the Edinburgh Gardens, but with the weather forecast predicting showers, it was held inside the restaurant - picnic style on astro turf!
Thanks to Dany for the pic!
All the tables and chairs had been moved out, the entire floor astro turfed, and everyone sat on "picnic blankets" (I think they may have been tablecloths!) for the duration of the meal - fun!
The theme being berries, everything we ate involved berries of some kind. When we arrived, we were greeted with a bottle of Point Leo Road Salmon Blanc de Noir, and warmed ciabatta along with raspberry infused salt and strawberry infused olive oil.
I couldn't really taste the raspberry in the salt - it just seemed really salty! But it was a lovely colour. The olive oil did have a faint strawberry flavour, and the bubbly went down rather well.
Next up were grilled chicken skewers with strawberries, balsamic vinegar and rocket salad. I'm not a huge fan of fruit with meat, but found that the balsamic vinegar really brought the strawberries and chicken together.
After that we received venison skewers on celeraic mash and blueberry sauce. I wasn't too sure about the venison and blueberry sauce combo, but I LOVED the sauce with the celeraic mash.
After that it was time for dessert - not one dessert. Not two desserts. THREE desserts.
The first dessert was a divine summer pudding. Summer pudding has always sounded odd to me - white bread soaked in berry juice? How could that possibly be good? Well, it was. Really good. The bread was all moist and juicy with the berries, and just lovely with a dollop of cream. (I ate all that cream. Hell yeah.)
Dessert #2 was pannacotta with berry compote. It was a good pannacotta - creamy and smooth, with the berry sauce providing some tartness.
And finally, dessert #3 was a bluberry tiramisu topped with shavings of white chocolate. It was a berramisu really, as there didn't seem to be any coffee in it? It was my least favourite of the desserts, but that could have been due to already eating two rich desserts and three bottles of bubbles (between the four of us). Phew. I was a bit weary by this stage and ready for a nap!
We had a great time though - hopefully there will be another event soon to look forward to.
Provenance
288 Smith Street
Collingwood
Phone: 03 8415 0700
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