One of the best things about the change in seasons is that menus across the city change their lineup to take advantage of the best seasonal produce available. This means we’re lucky enough to get a new suite of dishes featuring the best that our farms grow. The new Autumn and Winter menu at Saké Restaurant and Bar makes the most of seasonal produce in its menu and we were lucky enough to sample some of the amazing dishes that they are producing.
If you’ve never been to Saké, then I would add it to the list. I’ve been here a few times before and it’s definitely one of those restaurants that always delivers beautifully delicious dishes. On this occasion, we sampled four dishes with matching drinks. The great thing about the menu is that you can share or have on your own and you can test out a huge array of drinks from their extensive drinks list.
For entree we started with Aburi Hokkaido Scallops with a white soy brown butter sauce with tofu skins and fresh tofu, dried scallops, salted capers and lime. Beautifully cooked sweet scallops matched perfectly with that salty butter sauce. The different textures of tofu, sourced from Byron Bay, soaked up the beautiful sauce and the lime gave a zesty twist to the dish. This was matched with a light and floral Amabuki Junta Daigingo sake, perfect for a light starter.
Second course was a flavoursome Wagyu tataki with soy egg, charred onion and Korean miso. Created with a nod to Korean BBQ, this beautiful dish was amazing. The saltiness of the soy egg melded with the charred wagyu and the sweetness from the onion and miso just made it a perfectly balanced dish. The dish was matched with a Kozaemon Junta Going Bien Omachi sake which was a fuller and bolder flavour sake that worked well with beef.
The last savoury dish was the Fragrant duck breast with red den Miso, snow pea tendrils and Mina Marmalade. Perhaps this was a nod to the traditional French duck l’orange, with a Japanese twist. The duck breast was basted in fragrant aromats such as cinnamon and star anise and the aromatic flavours was complemented with the saltiness of the miso and the sweetness of the Mina marmalade (Mina being a Japanese mandarin). A dish that plays on the sweet and salty flavours. The perfect accompaniment to any duck dish, I think, is a Pinot Noir. For this meal, the Tarra Warra pinot noir was the perfect match.
For dessert, goma featured salted 70% south american chocolate mousse with caramelised white chocolate and sesame ice cream. An amazing chocolatey dessert that wasn’t too rich and heavy, largely due to the freshness of the sesame ice-cream that helped to cut through the dish. Definitely one to add to the list.
The dessert was matched with a plum wine, a Kokomo umeshu, not too sweet and perfectly chilled to have with the coma.
I really enjoyed my tasting of the Autumn/Winter at Sake. Having been here a few times before, it once again delivered beautiful and delicious food, perfect for any occasion.
Saké Restaurant & Bar (Hamer Hall)
100 St Kilda Road
Melbourne VIC 3004
Ph. (03) 8687 0775
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