February 12, 2011: Merrijig Inn II

Our friend Jo is currently sojourning in Warrnambool so Mike, Cindy and I packed up a hire car for a long weekend in south-western Victoria. Our weekend feasting included home-made pancakes, old-school burgers (at Kermond's, trading since 1949) and several country bakery stops. But the centrepiece of the weekend (food-wise at least; op-shops and sheepdog trials were the non-food highlights) was a Saturday night degustation at the Merrijig Inn, scene of one of our favourite fancy meals.

Cindy and I made exactly the same order as on our previous visit - starting with Pimms for her and gin for me.

Then it was the six-course vegetarian tasting menu ($90) , with matching wine ($70) for me. The Merrijig have shuffled their menu around a fair bit in the course of a year but we started with the same amuse bouche - a fresh and buttery asparagus soup.

The first course had the same name as last time, "surf & turf", but was a little different in composition. They were both a combination of root vegetables and ocean-inspired vegies but rather than the amazing hash-browns we had last time, the root vegies were more conventionally roasted. Still, their earthiness matched well with the tangier 'surf' components (seaweed, some herbs and a salty foam).

Next up was a dish featuring heirloom carrots, crunchy quinoa bits, a black garlic paste and some greens called salad burnet.

This was a cute dish, combining a couple of different types of carrot and really set off by the rich black garlic paste. This was followed by the prettiest dish of the night: summer vegetables, nuts and grains, herbs and flowers and Shaw River mozzarella.

Just look at all the colour! It lived up to its look - the vegies were delicate and fresh, with the nuts adding a bit of crunch and the cheese some delicious saltiness.

Next up was a beetroot-based dish, featuring apple, walnut, horseradish and the leaves of a succulent called aptenia. As with our last visit, the beetroot dish was my favourite, combining the sweetness of apple, earthiness of beetroot and sharpness of horseradish into something pretty special.

Our final savoury dish was different to what was listed on the menu (something fantastic sounding including both broccolini and brie). Instead, we got asparagus and kipfler potatoes, with more cute little greens and some excellent ewe's milk cheese.

This was Cindy's pick of the savouries; as close as things got to hearty, and a good way to finish off the savouries.

Our palette cleanser turned out to be one of the highlights of the night, a combination of creamy peach icecream and amazingly refreshing pear sorbet.

I was just sad it was such a small serve!

We had a fruit-hater amongst us and so the staff obliged us in swapping the set dessert of flowers, nectar and petals with a chocolate-hazelnut number from the extended degustation.

We were all pretty pleased with our decision. Beneath the ground-hazelnut layer you can see above was a hodge-podge of chocolate brownie pieces, meringue, caramel chips and icecream. Much more satisfying for Cindy's sweet-tooth.

Things finished up with this cute little plate of petite fours - lemon meringue on shortbread, choc-hazelnut truffles and vanilla cupcakes. What with the matching wines, I was pretty liquored up by this point but Cindy assures me that the lemon meringues were the best of the bunch, but that everything on the plate was pretty great.

As on our last visit the service was friendly and efficient, the wine was excellent and each of the dishes we had offered up something special. The overall menu didn't quite excite me as much as last time - I really noticed the lack of protein across the veg dishes, and nothing quite lived up to the 'surf & turf' or 'onion family' dishes from our first visit. Still, this is a restaurant that clearly knows how to prepare vegetables - it's inventive, fresh and delicious and pretty damn impressive.

Read our previous review of Merrijig here.

Given the masses of reviews that Dunkeld's Good Food Guide winner the Royal Mail Hotel has picked up, it seems strange that only a few bloggers have visited the two-hatted Merrijig. Both A Food Story and 6lumens give it rave reviews, so hopefully it'll make it's way onto the blog radar eventually.


Merrijig Inn
1 Campbell St, Port Fairy
5568 2324
fully licensed
veg 6 course degustation $90, add matching wine for $70
www.merrijiginn.com

Accessibility: As you can see from the top photo, entry requires traversing uneven ground and a small step. Tables are well spaced; toilets are on the same level and quite narrow. All service is provided at the table.

January 25, 2010: Merrijig Inn

Michael mentioned that Port Fairy seems to have a high density of Good Food Guide-hatted restaurants for a country town and after having such a lovely experience at Beechworth's Provenance, we made sure to set aside some time and money to give one of them a go. Merrijig Inn took our fancy, based on an informative website that mentioned a dedicated vegetarian menu. We fancied them even more when, on our arrival, our waiter listed gin and tonics and Pimms with lemonade amongst the drinks we might start with. They also offered rainwater as well as the bottled stuff - much more pleasant than the soapy-tasting tap water in town.

Though there were a la carte options, we were sold on the vegetarian tasting menu - 6 courses for $75 - as soon as we saw it. It began with an amuse bouche of asparagus and truffle oil soup, as well as the requisite classy bread and butter. The soup was a thin non-creamy broth with very pure flavours - I couldn't taste anything but fresh asparagus, aside from the silky truffle oil resting on top. Very spring-like!

The first official course was called "Surf'n'Turf". I loved that they'd reappropriated this meaty meal name for a vegetarian plate, and was impressed all over again by the dish itself. The 'turf' is smoked, fried potatoes - like hash browns from heaven - cloaked in a thick sauce that I think included more potato and truffle oil. On top is a 'surf' of sea vegetables - samphire, sea parsley and sea lettuce. I have a tenuous relationship with seaweed (e.g. my sushi fondness vs the wakame dish at Provenance) but this hit just the right note for me - subtle saltiness, some crunch from the samphire and a gentle herbiness. No rubbery textures at all!

Surf'n'turf was followed by 'asparagus, Shaw River cheese, parsley'. The parsley, as well as making a pretty garnish on top, also made up the puree base. The cheese formed a thick custard, like a luxuriant savoury scrambled egg, and there was also a little more grated over the top. Thankfully, amidst it all, the asparagus spears were cooked lightly and simply. These flavours always meld well, and there were enough contrasts in texture to keep it interesting.

This is '"The Onion Family", smoked potato, roast garlic'. Most prominent are the four or five onion varieties, all cooked to tenderness - some still retaining firmness and a little astringency, others meltingly soft and sweet, one even pickled, I think. Underneath, standard and black garlic cloves were presented as purees. On top, tiny crunchy croutons. I don't remember there being more smoked potatoes, actually (and based on how much I loved them the first time, I think I'd remember them!). I love me some soft, caramelised onions and this dish brought some nice variety to that theme.

"Beetroot, apple, croutons, chard" was probably Michael's favourite amongst some terrific dishes. The beetroot arrived raw, cooked, as a 'soil' with pine nuts and as a dehydrated powder. The chard appeared as dainty sprigs, nothing like the boisterous bunches we've been eating at home! But it was the apple, some roasted some pureed, that had Michael moaning with appreciation. I think of beetroot as more of a winter vegetable, but some light touches ensured this wasn't too heavy on a warm night.

To close the savoury part of the meal, we were given 'carrot, hazelnut, brie, flowers and herbs'. It was so pretty and cheerful looking, but beneath that festive veneer lay an overpoweringly rich cheese. Nothing could stand up to it! I wished for a glass of matched sweet-and-sour wine that might cut through the cloying brie.

Dessert was 'orange, sheep's milk, basil'. The sheep's milk had been churned into a thick icecream, surrounded by orange segments, orange jelly, dehydrated orange meringue drops and grated orange cake, then covered in a green snow of basil granita. It was very refreshing, just barely sweet, and an ideal palate cleanser - Michael loved it, though I found the basil a bit overwhelming.

We finished up late with coffee, tea, and little hazelnut chocolates. It was a fine, even exciting, meal. Though it was a little short on protein, I didn't feel a lack of anything as I ate - the onions, beetroot and cheese were all substantial and there was overall a feeling that this chef loves playing with vegetables. I liked that most of the dishes had relatively simple flavour themes, with variety coming from the preparation methods and resulting textures. As a dedicated sweet tooth the dessert didn't quite meet my expectations, but it upheld that same standard of fresh flavours and contrasting textures.

Glancing a neighbouring table and looking now at the menu online, I can see that the vegetarian menu has been created almost independently of the standard tasting menu - only the beetroot dish looks like it might be a 'same, but without the meat' imitation. Even better - it's $30 cheaper per person than the omni version! The only drawback is that we weren't offered a set of matching wines (these are available with the standard tasting menu).

I don't know if or when we'll find ourselves eating extravagantly at Port Fairy again, but if we did I'd find it hard to choose one of the other hatted restaurants over a repeat visit to the Merrijig Inn.

Address: 1 Campbell St, Port Fairy
Ph: 5568 2324
Fully licensed
Price: vegetarian tasting menu $75 per person
Website: www.merrijiginn.com

January 23-26, 2010: Port Fairy

Cindy and I, like the majority of Australians, decided to turn the Australia Day holiday into a four-day long-weekend, and trekked off to Port Fairy to laze around. It's a nice little town - clearly well set up for foodie tourists, with possibly the highest density of Good Food Guide hats per capita of anywhere in Victoria. We didn't focus too heavily on the fine-dining (although there is another post coming about our one fancy meal for the weekend), instead surviving on a heady mix of local cafe food, trail mix and chips.

The weekend started off with a wander around the town - it's an interesting mix of historical buildings, trendiness and natural beauty. We focussed mainly on the natural beauty, heading through some nice little wetlands on the way to Griffiths Island.

Swamp wallabies popped up anywhere undeveloped - they're very cute, and quite used to people.

Griffiths Island nestles up against the south-east edge of Port Fairy and is connected by a short causeway. It's an old whaling station, although it has more or less turned wild again, with just the lighthouse still standing.

The main attraction of the island (for me at least) is the shearwater colony. Tens of thousands of short-tailed shearwaters use Griffiths Island to nest, with the whole island riddled with their burrows. These little birds head off to the Aleutian Islands near Russia in March each year and fly back across the world to breed in Australia around September. By January, the chicks have hatched and the adult birds spend all day out at sea feeding. Right on dusk they come flooding silently back to their burrows, the sky filling up with dark, swooping shapes in minutes. It's pretty spectacular.



Of course by the time the show was over, it was getting towards 10pm and Port Fairy had shut up shop - luckily we'd pre-packed some leftover haloumi and grape salad, which got us through until morning.

On Sunday, I somehow convinced Cindy that hiring bikes and riding for thirty-odd kilometres was an awesome idea. So, after a fairly forgettable breakfast we set off for Koroit on two of the hardest bike-seats ever built. They were basically just hard-plastic. Throw in a pedal that fell off within the first kilometre, and things weren't looking good. Luckily, the rail-trail between Port Fairy and Warnambool is a pretty easy ride - it's flat, relatively smooth and keeps you away from terrifying highway traffic.

The scenery is mostly farmland, but it's an interesting enough ride - you cut through a few bits of native bushland and there are the requisite farm animals along the away to keep things interesting.



Bike seats aside, there was only one problem with the ride - flies. As soon as the wind died down or you slowed down slightly to negotiate a yet to be completed bridge, the flies swarmed all over you. I stopped to read the map at one stage and could barely see it through the cloud of flies on my face. Not nice.

Still, with a last push up the first tiny incline of the ride, we found ourselves rolling into Koroit, our intended destination. First stop: chips.

The original plan had been to ride from Koroit another five kilometres or so down into Tower Hill Reserve, the crater of a volcano that erupted 7000 years ago and is now rich with native wildlife. But by the time we got to Koroit we were a bit sunburnt, had throbbing bums and were already feeling the ride back in our legs. So we just wandered down to the rim of the crater and looked across it. It's pretty impressive - I'm excited about going there properly one day.

The ride back to Port Fairly felt easier than the ride out but we were still pretty spent by the time we got back to the hotel, and the afternoon was spent mooching around reading and dozing. We decided to reward our endeavours with dinner that was a step up from the local pizza place, so we wandered into Saltra Brasserie to sample their grazing menu. They weren't laden with veg-options, but we managed to come up with: the warm artichoke dip with goat's cheese and ciabata ($11):

The grilled and battered saganaki with lemon ($8):

And the pizza with Shaw River buffalo mozzarella and tomato:

Throw in a couple of local beers, and this was a very satisfying post-ride dinner. None of it was outstanding but everything was well cooked and tasted great, which is all you can ask for really. We capped things off with an icecream from Rebecca's, the one icecream place open after 8pm.

After an early night, we woke up on Monday realising that we were both actually very sunburnt, so our original beach-based plans were swapped for a day of lazing about indoors. A disappointing wander through the op-shops and quick stroll to the wharf for more hot chips were our only outings as we hung out inside generating our own heat, doing crosswords and getting helplessly drawn into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

All we had the energy left for was a dinner outing, which will be the subject of its own post shortly. Our Port Fairy jaunt was a pretty ideal long weekend - a bit of physical activity, lots of reading, too much sun, some good food and a little bit of nature.