My dining companion Gordon Zola and I were very pleased to be invited to another
Southgate Melbourne event as we’ve enjoyed the others we attended. This time we were there to sample the upcoming
Southbank Progressive Dinners which offer a three course dinner at three Southgate Melbourne restaurants.
The Winter Trail will be running from Sunday-Thursday nights from 12 August to 6 September 2018, with two sittings at 6pm and 7pm. To make it interesting, the restaurants will work on a rotating basis for the courses being served each week (read on to find out more details!).
The evening started at Italian restaurant La Camera with a colorful glass of prosecco mixed with Aperol, Midori, or Chambord liqueurs. We were then served a delicious and enormous range of antipasto. The vegetables included olives, roasted pumpkin, grilled and marinated capsicums and mushrooms, and our favourite the creamy textured grilled eggplant. The salumi offerings included mortadella, moist prosciutto, and a tasty and spicy sopressa.
There was also some hot food including deep fried polenta croquettes with aioli, and moist chargrilled calamari strips. It was all so good that I fear we overate and didn’t leave enough stomach room for the other courses.
It was then time to move on to Chinese restaurant Red Emperor for our main course. Gordon layered up against the cold only to find that all three restaurants were on the same floor and only metres apart!
On arrival we were offered a glass of St Hallett wine and we both found our choices (rosé and riesling) to be very good. We could choose from five dishes and mine was the fried eggplant stuffed with beancurd, walnuts and shiitake mushrooms. The serving was huge and it was actually deep-fried and a little heavier than I thought it would be. The eggplant had a lovely creamy texture and the accompanying sauce was tasty and lifted the subtle flavour of the stuffing.
Gordon enjoyed his dish of battered prawns with salty duck egg yolk and butter. The prawns were large and succulent and the batter was light and crispy. It was served with some great deep-fried battered green beans. Service was very attentive but unfortunately the restaurant struggled to serve all the dishes at the same time because of the large size of our group.
Our final stop was at the German restaurant
Hophaus for dessert. We started with a shot of schnapps and we then chose from a selection of three dishes. I had the Nutella cinnamon bretzel (pretzel) served with vanilla Chantilly cream and vanilla bean ice cream. The bretzel was a little dry but the delicious ice cream helped to counter this.
Gordon had the apfelstrudel (apple strudel) with sour cherry sauce, white chocolate crumb, and vanilla bean ice cream. We were also served tea or coffee with our desserts.
Overall
The
Southbank Progressive Dinners are great value events as it includes three generously sized courses for $89 with a glass of wine with entree and main, and tea or coffee to accompany dessert. There are gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options available.
On the night we went the dishes unfortunately lacked consistency but hopefully this can be improved upon. Having each course in a different venue and meeting new people at each one makes for a very fun night out.
The Eat and Be Merry Crew were guests of Southgate Melbourne.
Click here to
book your tickets. The program is as follows:
Week One - 12-16 August
Entree - La Camera
Main - Red Emperor
Dessert - Hophaus
Week Two - 19-23 August
Entree - Hophaus
Main - La Camera
Dessert - Red Emperor
Week Three - 26-30 August
Entree - Red Emperor
Main - Hophaus
Dessert - La Camera
Week Four - 30 August - 6 September
Entree - Hophaus
Main - La Camera
Dessert - Red Emperor
Find it at
Southgate Melbourne
3 Southgate Ave
Southbank VIC 3006
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