6th July 2013 - Dinner 7pm-ish
I rather like kangaroo, it's not something I cook often, as I am prone to messing it up, usually over cooking it or getting it a little too rare.
I order it when I go out as that's something for me, to order stuff I'm not good at or couldn't be arsed cooking at home. So unless it's a very nice sounding carbonara, herbed lamb rack or something chicken based I'm unlikely to order it as it's something I'm pretty capable of cooking up myself.
Kangaroo though is on a lot of menus, the other thing is salt and pepper calamari (more on that and 'trio of dips' another time). Often though kangaroo seems to be the alternative red meat, there’s steak and then there’s kangaroo. It’ll have a jus on it, because everyone likes a jus, it’s like a sauce, only minimal and stylish.
I’ve eaten at several places where they’ve done kangaroo...well enough. It’s not been messed up, but I’ve very rarely walked away going ‘wow that was an amazingly well prepared and cooked piece of meat’.
At the Royal Mail on Spencer on corner of Stanley and Spencer Street in West Melbourne I had a amazing piece of kangaroo, it was tender, amazingly so, flavoursome, while still maintaining its own flavour and well cooked.
Initially I thought it had been cooked sous vide, and then finished off on the grill it had such a wonderfully tender texture and flavour to it.
But I found out when paying that it gets marinated for a week, which would explain its tenderness. It was tender enough that I fancy I could have cut it with a butter knife and if pushed could have pulled it apart with a spoon and fork.
It was served with pickled beetroot, chickpea puree, kipfler potatoes and sour cream.
Earthy flavours are what goes well with kangaroo. Beetroot being one of those marvellously earthy and sweet vegetables it was present, pickled (making it take on a somewhat ‘tinned beetroot’ flavour). Personally I’d prefer it to have been boiled or baked, the segments would have been small enough when whole to have been boiled, retaining their sweet flavour.
The kipfler potatoes were searingly hot, well cooked and provided a nice about of heat to what was a somewhat cool assortment of items on the plate.
Chickpea is a flavour that goes well in small amounts in some places, with pork belly it helps to cut through the porky richness. But its spicy heat here, it does have the a familiar earthy sensation as the beetroot and potatoes do, but it seemed to challenge the kangaroo’s flavour a little too much rather than complement it.
The sour cream was actually a rescue on this front, with a touch of this with the chickpea and potatoes or beetroot helped to temper the chick pea’s flavour somewhat.
I also ordered, mostly out of curiosity the "crispy pigs ears" (prior to the kangaroo). I don't know what I was expecting. Pigs ears aren't exactly a go to ingredient. What I got was a bowl of thinly sliced pigs ears resembling pork crackling. The bowl, a "to share" item was rather big and lacking anything to dip or anything like that. I think these needed to be paired with something to make them somewhat more...fulfilling.
Maybe an apple salsa or maybe a salsa verde, something to add some greenery to it. Rather than what it was served with; a lime.
I had one drink with my meal, a 2 Brothers Gypsy Pear Cider.
One thing, I was sat down and handed the drinks and food menu and asked ‘would I like something to drink, a beer or wine?’. Okay, so I said ‘not for the moment I’ll have a look through the menu’, that thing I’ve had placed in front of me. The man seemed a little perturbed by this. Or perhaps you are meant to order a drink without looking at the menu?
The Gypsy Pear Cider was one of two ciders on their menus, the other was a Bulmers Apple Cider.
The Gypsy Pear Cider was good, fresh, not overly sweet as some pear ciders are.
The Royal Mail on Spencer is interesting in that it doesn’t really seem on the path to much, their site says “The Royal Mail on Spencer is a classic pub with a traditional bar 10 minutes from Southern Cross Station, Docklands and Telstra Dome.” Which is true, except Telstra Dome is now Etihad Stadium. It’s 1.28km from the stadium and around the same amount to Southern Cross Station. Although I do think that walking from the Royal Mail to the stadium/station would take 10 minutes (or so) the reverse wouldn’t as there’s something of a gradient change between the two which would slow you down.
The Royal Mail sits on the corner of Spencer Street and Stanley Street. Stanley Street is convenient for Festival Hall in that it has a lot of street parking, but is 2 blocks up from Dudley Street (which Festival Hall is on) / Rosslyn Street to which Festival Hall backs onto. Which means it’s far enough away so that you can easily enough get a parking spot on the street.
Also if you go further north up Adderley or Spencer Street the streets that cross them going east and west; Roden Street and Hawke Street also offer good opportunities for off street parking, and these are still closer to Festival Hall than if you parked in the Docklands.