Perth Food Review

T his was our second visit to Jackson’s, and the last time we were there we thought all the food was so good that we had to come back and try the 9 course tasting menu.

The first item we consumed was our complementary ‘gazpacho soup shooter’. The soup was brilliant, a room temperature creamy garlic tomato flavour.

Graveyard salmon with anchovy ice cream & sevruga caviar

This dish was the first of the 9 courses and was a great cold appetizer to start the meal. This was probably the smallest dish of the night, and we thought that 9 of these should fit in no problems. We thought that the anchovy ice cream may be a little odd, but it was mainly salty, which went well with the salmon.

Grilled Pemberton marron & "vanilla slice"

This dish is a bit deceptive, as they have a small stack of pastry which resembles a vanilla slice, but it is very neutral in flavour and definitely has no vanilla in it. The aroma of vanilla was very strong, but the vanilla was in the sauce that accompanied the marron. The marron was cooked perfectly, and amazingly the soft marron flavour worked with the vanilla.

Surf & turf with coleslaw

The surf component was a serving of poached lobster. And the turf component of this dish was a duck liver foie gras. Once again I was surprised at this combination, but even more surprised at how well they went together. The lobster eaten with a bit of foie gras on top was delicious, the two strong flavours combined and the result was very enjoyable. For me I think this was the most enjoyable dish of the night.

Grape & almond soup with amaretto cream

This was one of the items I was a bit sceptical about. At first it was almost sickly. The sweet grapes submerged in a perfumey almond amaretto soup seemed out of place. But persistence paid off, as I kept stirring the soup and kept sipping away, the dish really grew on me. By the end of the cup I had a pleasant taste coating my mouth.

Fish, chips, peas & carrot

The fish was gold band snapper, which has a great tasting flesh with quite a firm texture. The chips were potato strips fried together to form a small lattice piece. And the carrots and peas were pureed and the fish was placed on top. A very clever dish. And naturally all the ingredients were made to go together so the dish was very tasty.

Duck with rosemary pear & black pepper sauce

We knew this dish was going to be superb because my partner had this for main course on our last visit. Tonight was no exception and the duck was great.

Tongue in cheek with truffle potato mash

My partner was worried about this dish as she has a problem with eating cow offal. Once again this was a very clever combination; it consisted of a marinated slow cooked beef cheek and a small slice of veal tongue on top, accompanied by truffle mash and red wine jus. The serving was quite large, and we had been noticing with exception to the soup, the dishes seemed to get bigger as the night went on. I forced my partner to try the tongue, and she agreed it was quite nice, just a slice of salty meat. The beef cheek was dark in colour, and could be eaten with just a fork, inside the meat was sticky and extremely tender.

Banana Split

By this time we were quite full, and had had enough savoury dishes. But as the waitress explained this dish was a combination of sweet and savoury to gently ease us into the last very sweet dish. The Banana was wrapped in pancetta, and the ice cream that was served with it was truffle ice cream. One taste of the truffle ice cream and I was done. I could not eat any more savoury food, especially as the previous dish was mostly truffle mash.

Passionfruit soufflé

The soufflé was so light and airy; they kept it ‘up’ and hot and managed to get it to us like that. With the soufflé was a passionfruit sorbet. This was a straight desert with no hint of truffles! Needless to say I polished this one off.

Overall the service was fantastic; all the wait staff knew all lot about the produce, and the ideas behind the food. It was great to hear about the food from people who seem as interested in food as us.

The price was $90 each, and even though this is quite a lot, we thought it was definately worth it.

It was really refreshing to eat slightly alternative food that you would not see on a lot of other menus. And I am amazed at how well all the different components came together in each dish. I fully recommend this restaurant it you are a little adventurous and enjoy gourmet fare.

Reactions (11)