WOP: The taste of happy

So, a cou­ple more excur­sions to restau­rants with Welling­ton on a Plate menus. I’m con­sid­er­ing going to the Ware­house and buy­ing a pair of elas­tic-waist­ed track­pants for the rest of Welling­ton on a Plate.

Most recent­ly I paid a vis­it to Cuba Street icon Florid­i­tas and Hip­popota­mus at the Muse­um Hotel.

Floriditas

Florid­i­tas had a Welling­ton on a Plate menu — two cours­es and a wine for $35, and also a Burg­er Welling­ton entry for $18 or $25 with a beer. My eye was drawn to the dessert menu this time, so I decid­ed to go for a main and dessert.

Unlike the oth­er restau­rants I’ve been to this week, there were no bread rolls at Florid­i­tas, so I was forced to fid­dle with my nap­kin and — gasp — make con­ver­sa­tion as my table­mates with entrees enjoyed theirs.

But I did learn that the grilled hal­lou­mi with an olive and lemon sal­ad and flat­bread entree was real­ly good. The olives in par­tic­u­lar — green and sliced length­ways — looked amaz­ing.

My main course was grilled chick­en with white bean puree, radic­chio and mint slaw. The bean puree was like a run­ny hum­mus and was maybe a lit­tle slop­pi­er than I would have liked. The grilled chick­en was great — a slight­ly smoky taste from the grill, but good and ten­der. This cou­pled with the vibrant top­ping of radi­chio made it all seem like quite a healthy dish, though I’m secret­ly hop­ing there was some but­ter hid­den away in it.

As for dessert, what caught my eye was a milk and dark choco­late meringue with hazel­nuts, served with orange-tof­fee sauce.

Choco­late, hazel­nuts, orange? Yes, go on.

It was as good as it sound­ed. A love­ly crisp meringue with choco­late and wal­nut bits through­out it. It was also topped with what I think was mas­car­pone. This helped bal­ance out the flavours and sweet­ness of the meringue, as well as com­ple­ment­ing the dark choco­late. The orange sauce, like the white bean puree, suf­fered from being a lit­tle run­ny. But maybe that’s just some­thing I don’t like.

Please note: I did not actu­al­ly think all this when I was eat­ing it. I was more con­cerned with get­ting it in my mouf.

My table­mates enjoyed their selec­tions from the menu, includ­ing the burg­er. It was an enjoy­able lunch at Florid­i­tas, and bonus points for them arrang­ing a big table for our expand­ing-shrink­ing group.

Hippopotamus

On the third floor of the Muse­um Hotel, the set­ting for Hip­popota­mus is a lit­tle bit eccen­tric, stuffed full of art, chan­de­liers and lady couch­es. But the man in the kitchen, chef Lau­rent Loudeac, brings good French cui­sine to the menu.

One unwant­ed side effect of going to a French restau­rant — the French wait­ers call me ‘madame’, which sig­ni­fies not just mar­riage but is used when a woman is of a cer­tain age. I want to be like an old maid going, “Non! Non! Je suis made­moi­selle — and don’t you for­get it, son­ny!”

I ordered the burg­er, named the Skin­ny Hip’. It’s veg­e­tar­i­an and gluten free, con­sist­ing of gar­lic-roast­ed mush­room with toma­toes, rock­et, bal­sam­ic syrup, a corn frit­ter, hal­lou­mi and a poached egg on a bun, served with fries.

But first — bread roll watch. We were offered bread rolls, with a choice of either plain or wal­nut, with slight­ly firm but­ter on the table. But not only that — there were roll refills. I had three. Arrgh! Why did I have three? I need an iPhone app called Table­Mum to alert me say­ing “Now, you’ve already had two and you still have to have the burg­er. Do you real­ly think you can fit anoth­er one?”

There was a glass of wine served with all the meals — a choice of a sauvi­gnon blanc or a pinot noir. So bonus points for includ­ing wine with the burg­er.

My table­mates enjoyed the creamy cau­li­flower and blue cheese soup, with one exclaim­ing “This tastes like hap­py!” Also liked was the beef cheeks main, as well as the goat’s cheese croustil­lant cig­ar, though one per­son was slight­ly dis­ap­point­ed that it was­n’t a smoke­able cig­ar.

Now, the burg­er is tra­di­tion­al­ly a hand­held food, so it does­n’t always trans­late well to the plate. But this burg­er was­n’t real­ly pre­tend­ing to be a tra­di­tion­al burg­er. The top bun was served to the side, and the burg­er was topped with a poached egg. It was so much eas­i­er to cut like this.

The burg­er had a bit of a brunch feel to it, and indeed the corn frit­ter, mush­room, poached egg and grilled hal­lou­mi would not be about of place on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing plate. But it worked togeth­er as a whole, and is eas­i­ly the best veg­gie burg­er I’ve ever tast­ed.

As for the fries — O M G:

They were nice fat chips, crisp, gold­en brown, not greasy, and served good and hot with aioli. There weren’t a lot of them, but they were thick and sub­stan­tial and that’s when I real­ly start­ed regret­ting all those bread rolls. These are chips to be proud of — well done, Chef Lau­rent and the Hip­po’ staff.