34
Last week I got to enjoy Claypots Evening Star's food two nights in a row, winner! On Tuesday L had the spontaneous idea to have dinner at the South Melbourne Market restaurant. On Wednesday we were invited to Georgie's Harvest's Annual Truffle Party, also at the Market, where Claypots was providing the food. Lucky girl!
Claypots Evening Star serves delicious seafood at the corner of York Street and Cecil Street. On the weekends the street is lined with people enjoying their amazing looking seafood lunches while sipping on a glass of wine. On the inside the space has a cosy atmosphere with lots of wood, big communal tables and cray pots hanging from the ceiling.
I was a little overwhelmed with all the delicious sounding choices on the menu and specials board but in the end we decided to have a few smaller dishes and one fish from the specials to share.
The quail eggs with delicious and rich with a lovely minty yoghurt dressing. A little warning, there is garlic in almost everything, and I think that's great. That is if you don't plan to go out dancing afterwards!
The crispy skin John Dory from the specials menu came out as a whole fish which looked amazing! I spent about 10 minutes at the end of the dinner, just trying to get even the tiniest bit of flesh that we might have left behind. It was juicy and the skin had a great salty flavour to it. (The kind where you want to lick the plate because it was just so darn delicious!).
We had also ordered a side of crushed potatoes with wine vinegar & black garlic as well as the Evening Star Greek Salad with Horseradish Dressing & Olive Jam. You may now be thinking, ah great, potatoes and salad, how boring. And I have to agree with you to a point, I usually find Greek salads my least favourite, they often have big chunks of watery tasting tomato and flavourless cucumber. But this was the absolute opposite! The horseradish dressing and olive jam were super yummy and we finished the whole bowl pretty quickly.
The crushed potatoes were equally great, I loved the subtle flavour of the black garlic. It's much softer than it's white counterpart!
At the end we had two fantastic skewers, probably my favourite dishes of the night.
The octopus pinxto consisted of super tender octopus layered with red capsicum and was then char-grilled. The cuttlefish pinxto with chilli squid ink was again super, super tender. A little word of caution, the squid ink stains your teeth for a moment, so when I was smiling at L because I was in food heaven he gave me a very strange look. But hey, the food was so worth it!
Claypots Evening Star Corner of York & Cecil Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 03 9645 5779
I was so excited knowing that the night after I would get to enjoy all this great food AGAIN! In my opinion, Georgie's Harvest is one of the prettiest stores at the South Melbourne Market and I love going there to get my spuds and other things that grow in the soil, like purple carrots, celeriac, spaghetti squash, etc.
A few weeks ago Georgie invited us to her Annual Truffle Party, which she and her husband Michael were hosting for the 4th year in a row.
I was so excited! I love winter events and her party sounded like a great get together, celebrating her and her beautiful produce with delicious food from Claypots Evening Star and Proper & Son, as well as wine from Prince Wine Store and some live music.
It doesn't get much better than that, does it!
When we arrived at 6:15pm, only 15 minutes after the party had started there was already a long line at the buffet. But I had a feeling the wait might be well worth it. And oh boy it was. Platters full of pasta marinara, prawns, oysters, whole fish, purple potatoes tossed with octopus, octopus and also cuttlefish pinxtos, and so much more.
The plates just kept coming out! I don't think anybody went home hungry that night, it was amazing. Just when I thought I had tried everything and couldn't fit any more in, L spotted the Truffle Mac'n Cheese. Are you kidding me?! Of course I still had room for that. Big trays with cheesy Mac'n Cheese with generous shavings of truffle on top, prepared by Proper & Son.
It might have just been the most decadent and most delicious Mac'n Cheese I have ever had. It will be hard to go back to just normal Mac'n Cheese now...
Thank you so much again Georgie for inviting us, we love your store and produce and had a great time at your Truffle Party! Georgie's Harvest South Melbourne Market 322-326 Coventry Street
