Universal; u⋅ni⋅ver⋅sal
–adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of all or the whole: universal experience.
2.
applicable everywhere or in all cases; general: a universal cure.
3.
affecting, concerning, or involving all: universal military service.
4.
used or understood by all: a universal language.
5.
present everywhere: the universal calm of southern seas.
6.
versed in or embracing many or all skills, branches of learning, etc.: Leonardo da Vinci was a universal genius.
7.
of or pertaining to the universe, all nature, or all existing things: universal cause.
8.
characterizing all or most members of a class; generic.
9.
Logic. (of a proposition) asserted of every member of a class
Would Christine Mansfield’s restaurant of the same name be of any of these descriptions? Tucked away under the Republic building on Palmer Street, (Quality location, we used to live across the road) it’s hard to miss, the light washing over the oranges, reds and pinks that cover the walls and spilling out into the courtyard of the Republic.
Plopping ourselves down into one of the banquettes that face out onto the street we get the run down from one of the very knowledgeable and enthusiastic waiters, it’s so nice when the staff give off the feeling of wanting to be, and enjoying being at work.
We’re told most people have three courses then a sweetie maybe, well, definitely in our case. A browse through the menu gives us some little shivers of excitement, there’s some really interesting sounding things going on, the flavours come from across the board and around the globe (maybe the Universal) really modern Australian, noice.
We begin with an aperitif, which is always essential when for beginning a dinner of this magnitude, we want our taste buds to be nice and awake now don’t we? Well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. Kat has “The Big Tease”, it’s a mix of blood orange sorbet, campari, pineau des sharentes and vouvray sparkling, it’s lovely I’m told. I’ll be sticking to my Hendricks martini. Mmmmmmmmmmm, Hendricks smooth and with just a hint of cucumber. (Wow, and we’re not even getting paid for this, hint hint Hendricks)
As we get down to the deciding we are delivered fat slices of sour dough with olive oil in tres cute dinosaur design dishes.
In the end (oh decisions, decisions) we pick four things each and share each one. Told we’re better off having the dishes two at a time rather than using share plates as it gets messy, we don’t understand but agree anyways.
First to the table Wagyu tongue with ginger pickled cherries, roasted walnuts and prosciutto, and the Kingfish cerviche with heirloom tomato and green chilli salsa.
These dishes that were setting the bar for the evening set it high, so high. The beef, thin shavings of braised tongue topped with a small salad almost like a punchy slaw of red cabbage, punctuated with the cherries, and crispy shards of prosciutto. It was so hard for me hand over at half time, I wanted it all.
Kat was having similar troubles with the kingfish, lightly cured and cut into a rectangular block, the green heirloom tomato and chilli relish/salad tangy and spicy, extra texture given from a scattering of garlic chips. It was really hard to pry it from her grip whilst keeping hold of the Wagyu tongue.
Having finally come back to ground after the dizzying heights of these first dishes we were presented with our second choices; Fried sardine, white anchovy and black olive sandwich, and a Surfaced ripened goats cheese with black truffle mushroom tortellini and a gruyere Chantilly.
I don’t know what I was expecting for the sardine sandwich but I figured I love all those ingredients so it should be all good, it wasn’t. The sardine just seemed bland and that carried though the whole dish, it just didn’t come together, well ya win some ya lose some.
The tortellini arrived sitting atop a wheel of the ripe goat cheese, a gloriously luxuriant gruyere infused Chantilly slowly melting over it and the few enoki mushrooms draped across the top. Here all the flavours were much more classical, cheese, mushroom, pasta, given a twist, but the tortellini let the team down. The pasta of the tortellini was thick and chewy, the filling quite under seasoned; again it left a big bland hole in the dish.
Well with one super high and one so so it was with mixed feelings we went into the third round. Slow braised lamb shoulder with lamb kibbeh and spiced chickpeas, and a Sichuan spiced duck breast with chilli blackbean, tofu and caramelised blood plum.
The lamb was a triumph (hooray), a parcel of the braised shoulder sitting under the kibbeh topped off with a few onion rings fried pakora style, around the base the spiced chick peas mixed with cauliflower and greens. A wonderful middle eastern/Indian flavoured dish, nothing over powering, all blending harmoniously.
The duck cooked to a crispy perfection carried the flavours of the black bean and chilli nicely, the caramelised plum was not so sweet that it over took the dish, but the tofu was un-noticeable, a few cubes in the greens under the duck, not enough for the texture to be felt, you wouldn’t have missed and didn’t need them.
We’ve had added to this course a glass each of Charles Melton sparkling Shiraz, from the Barossa. After all these years I’ve gone from dislike to acceptance to a like and appreciation for sparkling shiraz.
Now for that sweetie I mentioned a little earlier, Kat opts for grilled white figs with lemon marshmallow and pashmak, and I go “totally nuts” with Hazel nut mousse, caramel parfait and salted hazelnut praline accompanied by a liqueur de Chataigne Massenez .
The nuts is crazy. So decadent, a great play of temperatures, cool mousse the cold parfait and the warm nuts. Sweet. The accompanying liqueur is lush, a warming golden nectar soon to be reappearing in our future. Again Kat has to wrestle the plate from my hand in order to swap but she soon understands why.
Her choice of the grilled figs is excellent. Soft ripe figs, feather light marshmallow hinting lemons with wisps of that adult fairy floss pashmak topping it off, just not as excellent as mine.
So is Universal really Universal? While some of the dishes rocked my universe and the flavours came from all parts of our universe, were they thinking of something else? I really got the feeling if you wanted you could come to Universal and eat a full meal as we did, but also that could just drop in a get a plate and a glass of wine or a just a dessert on the way home. I would, quite a lot I imagine.
