Kingsleys Australian Steakhouse: Certified Australian Angus Beef (CAAB) celebrates 15 Years, CBD Sydney (20 Oct 2011)

29a King Street, Sydney NSW 2000
http://www.kingsleysauststeak.com.au

Celebrating 15 years of CAABing

“Certified Australian Angus Beef is Australian's most awarded brand of beef. It has been a medal winner every year fro the last decade of Australia's most prestigious branded beef competition, the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales Fine Food Show, including two medal in the recently announced 2011 awards”

Thanks to Shab Pourbozorgi from Vardis Venues for inviting me as a guest to this Crave dinner event of six courses with matched wines ($140). Be aware Kingsleys at Woolloomooloo is not the same company which I discovered earlier this week — it can get confusing. To start the plump St Helens Pacific oysters used in the Oyster beignet, cucumber pearls & champagne sauce went well with the Tyrrell's Pinot Noir Chardonnay Brut 2008. I loved the look of the Slow roast sirloin, yorkie duff, onion rings & tarragon but found it just a bit too awkward to eat as a canapé while holding a glass. I wondered if some dressing over the Seared flat iron steak, frisée, croutons, speck, quail egg & parmesan would have combined the dish better and I think a soft boiled egg would have worked better than the hard boiled to provide some moisture. I enjoyed the matching Tyrrell's Moon Mountatin Chardonnay 2010 with its buttery notes.

Nice flavours to be had in the Tomato consommé with a king crab sandwich although I think a softer white bread would have worked better to make it more elegant to eat. I even wondered if centering the king crab meat in a shallow dish on a bed of cucumber and having the consommé around it would have worked better. I bit like the ocean trout tartare I had at The Restaurant in the Art Gallery of NSW. The Assiette of CAAB was a meat lovers dish, thus vegetarians nightmare. The sous vide mustard fillet was wonderfully tender although was missing the smokey grill flavour I often enjoy. It's a cooking technique that Terry Durack questions at Black by Ezard. The braised short rib was a table pleaser and I reckon you could sell these alone as a bar snack like chips. I enjoyed the Tyrrell's Lunatiq Heathcote Shiraz 2009 which was a nice match to the dish.

For pre-dessert I wasn't a huge fan of the Goats curd, beetroot, walnut, homemade oatcake. The strong flavours certainly helped to match the Tyrrell's Rufus Stone Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2009 but perhaps I'm just not a big fan of goats curd. I think I would have just preferred some simple slices of hard, soft and blue cheese with wafer crackers. The lovely tasting Tyrrell's Special Aged Tawny Port was carefully distributed to match the Chocolate tart, Grand Marnier ice-cream & chocolate jaffa sauce. I really enjoyed the richly flavoured and silky smooth tart with its nice thin base that had some crunch. I wasn't totally convinced about the ice cream which had melted too quickly to fully appreciate perhaps. I think flavour of the dried orange slice would have worked really well if I could have actually eaten the whole thing. The rind wasn't quite fully edible so maybe less rind would have worked better unless it was just supposed to have been for decoration.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Nice decor, Enjoyable wines, Friendly event service, Smooth running event although 4 hours on a week day might have been a little bit long

CONS: I think I prefer the flavour of steaks that are grilled and rested rather than sous vide, Confusion over Kingsley restaurants in Sydney with the same name

MUST TRY: Revisiting to try the normal menu because these dishes were specially designed for the event

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A night of CAABing

Tyrrell's Pinot Noir Chardonnay Brut 2008

Oyster beignet (St Helens Pacific), cucumber pearls & champagne sauce

WORTH TRYING :-)

Look at the size of this one

Slow roast sirloin, yorkie duff, onion rings & tarragon — I found a bit awkward to eat as a canapé and there was a lot going on

A two step canape — inject the yorkie with red wine jus

Bread and butter

Tyrrell's Moon Mountatin Chardonnay 2010

WORTH TRYING :-)

Seared flat iron steak, frisée, croutons, speck, quail egg & parmesan — would have liked some sort of dressing and the egg to be soft boiled to help combine the flavours in the dish

Tyrrell's Stevens Semillon 2007

Tomato consommé with a king crab sandwich

Nice flavours although because of the firm bread the squash factor made it a little messy to eat. If a softer white bread was used I think it might have worked better as a hand eating dish. Perhaps a little bit of cucumber would have been nice too.

Tyrrell's Lunatiq Heathcote Shiraz 2009

WORTH TRYING :-)

Assiette of CAAB - sous vide mustard fillet, oxtail choux farcis, braised short rib & potato puree WORTH TRYING :-)

Side of peas, cabbage, speck with stock — nice flavours with peas that retained their pop

Tyrrell's Rufus Stone Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2009

Goats curd, beetroot, walnut, homemade oatcake — strong flavours helped match the red wine although would have preferred just some slices of nice cheeses

I discovered the beetroot chips were kitchen made — at first I was thinking they might have been Thomas Chipman Organic Beetroot Chips

Tyrrell's Special Aged Tawny Port

WORTH TRYING :-)

Chocolate tart, Grand Marnier ice-cream & chocolate jaffa sauce

I was hoping the dried orange slice was fully edible but it wasn't quite — perhaps without the rind it would have been or dried a bit longer like the lemon I had on the confit king salmon canape at An Evening of Molecular Magic

Head Chef Paul 'Mick' Micklewright

Susie Chisolm (CAAB cattle producer) and Jane Tyrrell (Tyrrell's Wine)

Meat loving guests and service staff

Preparing the canapés

If your camera is bigger than mine then you must be the official photographer

A nice selection of scotches

Meats and wine

Cute illustrations of cows

Goodie bag CAAB 650 g Rib Eye on Bone

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