WOP: Give me shelter

So, Wel­ling­ton on a Plate – it’s quite good, yeah? While Joanna is a (deli­ciously) seasoned pro, this is my first year sampling the culin­ary delights of the fest­iv­al of nomz. So I figured I should share my find­ings. Here are my first two exper­i­ences – Mar­tin Bos­ley’s and Fox­glove.

Martin Bosley’s

While Mar­tin Bos­ley’s has a Wel­ling­ton on a Plate menu (two courses plus wine for $45), the Boz is also par­ti­cip­at­ing in the Bur­ger Wel­ling­ton com­pet­i­tion with a cre­ation is called the Crab Shack Stack. It strangely reminded me of the Krabby Patty bur­ger from Sponge­Bob Square­Pants, which is one of the reas­ons I chose it.

Now, the res­taur­ant isn’t huge and it did­n’t seem full, yet we waited almost an hour for our meals to arrive. Early on we were brought some nice bread rolls with whipped but­ter and sea salt. Then a bit later we were brought an amuse-bouche of a sal­mon-based salad and as a way of say­ing “Soz for the late­ness of your mains, guys.” But that stage I was so hungry, the wee salad actu­ally got my stom­ach into action and made me feel even more hungry.

Finally my Crab Shack Stack arrived. It’s made up of a fish cake, avo­cado, bacon and tomato, and served on “hand-cut cheesy fries” with “Marty’s bull­dog sauce”.

The bur­ger was good, but with the etern­al fancy-bur­ger dilemma – hands or cut­lery? I should have eaten it with my hands – it would have been so much easi­er – but as Mar­tin Bos­ley’s is such a classy joint, I felt obliged to (awk­wardly) knife-and-fork it.

I’m not too sure about the inclu­sion of bacon in the bur­ger. While it was excel­lent bacon, it just seemed a little over­power­ing. As Mar­tin Bos­ley’s is known for excel­lence in sea­food, I’d have pref­ered the fish cake to have car­ried the bur­ger on its own.

The fries were good, but it did­n’t quite work hav­ing the bur­ger served on top of the fries. They ended up get­ting a little mushed, which made me sad. I like good hearty chips, and these ones were a little too thin to hold much heat.

But Mar­tin Bos­ley’s is in an amaz­ing loc­a­tion. We had a spec­tac­u­lar view of parts of Wel­ling­ton unusu­ally covered in snow, and saw the dra­mat­ic weath­er sweep in and out of the har­bour.

And as a bonus, we were seated at the spe­cial table designed by artist Simon Ogden. Its top is cre­at­ived from old lino­leum pieces, cut into inter­lock­ing shapes, and that was almost enough to take my mind off the wait.

Foxglove

Anoth­er har­bourside res­taur­ant, Fox­glove’s Wel­ling­ton on a Plate menu (slightly dif­fer­ent from the one lis­ted on the fest­iv­al web­site) has a choice of three entrees and three mains, each course served with a matched glass of wine, all for $35.

But first, the bread. It was a nice hot sour­dough roll, served with an amaz­ing her­bed marscapone and a lovely fruity olive oil. By the way – do y’all break your bread roll or do you cut it with a knife? I used to be a cut­ter (#emo), but now I’m a break­er. Cut­ting seems to squash the break, and break­ing feels all European.

For my entree, I chose the cauli­flower and gor­gonzola risotto with “tem­pura cel­ery heart” and “truffle potato foam”. You know how vile and cold the weath­er has been lately? Well, this was the com­plete oppos­ite of that. It was lovely and warm and cheesy, and it just made all thoughts of rain, hail and thun­der melt away.

I had a wee taste of one of the oth­er entree options – steak tartare. I’ve always been a little afraid of this (raw mince!), but it was good qual­ity steak, and the foie gras added to its palat­ab­il­ity.

And then for my main course, I had grilled groper, served with a clam sauce and a little salad. The fish was per­fectly cooked, nice and moist, and was­n’t over­shad­owed by the accom­pani­ments. It was kind of small, but coupled with the entree, I was left pleas­antly full – the right kind of full­ness for a lunch. I mean, you want to be able to get some work done in the after­noon.

Like­wise, the two glasses of wine served were both well matched with the mains*, but wer­en’t enough to send one into a dozy after­noon slump. Though per­haps that was also war­ded off by the 70% dark chocol­ate truffles we fin­ished with.

I was really impressed with Fox­glove’s Wel­ling­ton on a Plate menu. It’s good value and is worth explor­ing.

* I lit­er­ally know noth­ing about wine-match­ing so this might be a com­plete lie.