Avert your eyes if you are veg­e­tar­i­an, have an aver­sion to meat prod­ucts, or if you’ve had a pet bird and now chick­en is not a menu option. What fol­lows is a dis­cus­sion of a delec­table degus­ta­tion din­ner con­sist­ing of game birds.

Unless you belong to one of the three groups above how can you turn away an invite­ to eat five cours­es, laden with NZ game, matched with wine, at one of Wellington’s best Cafés? We couldn’t say no, so we said yes!

Lau­ra, of Hun­gryand­Frozen fame, and I were two of the lucky ones to be inside when Prav­da Café shut their doors at 7pm, leav­ing the grand space to be enjoyed over three and a half hours as course after course was served.

We were greet­ed at the door and offered a glass of fine wine and a range of canapés. The warm Pea Soup shoot­er with truf­fle oil and parme­san – silky smooth with the full-mouthed good­ness that only truf­fle oil can offer. There were also Beet­root and Pine Nut cre­ations, bare­ly set with – I pre­sume – gela­tine, explod­ing with flavour and leav­ing you won­der­ing “what just hap­pened in my mouth” and reach­ing for a sec­ond (and third.)

Glen Hous­ton, restau­rant man­ag­er for over three years, explained how head chef Adam Rick­etts had worked on the Pop Up degus­ta­tion at the Embassy in May this year and want­ed to do some­thing sim­i­lar on his own turf.  Adam worked with New Zealand Game Birds and Church Road Win­ery to cre­ate a menu that gave us a chance to sam­ple game at its finest and also a new series of wine that Church Road had added to their range.

Adam plunged us into the world of game birds with Par­tridge Ter­rine, Tamar­il­lo Chut­ney and Per­sim­mon Bread. Ter­rine isn’t for all but this was exquis­ite – rich and smooth and full of gamey flavour, bal­anced by the sharp­ness of the chut­ney and the cakey bread. It was well matched to the cit­rus ele­ments of the Sauvi­gnon Gris 2011 from the Church Road McDon­ald Series, the new series between their Clas­sic and Reserve ranges offer­ing a few dif­fer­ent vari­eties of wine.

I blame the can­dle light for the poor pho­to and thank Insta­gram for mak­ing them more palat­able.

Sec­ond course con­sist­ed of game con­som­mé and truf­fled mush­room tortelli­ni paired with the Church Road Reserve Chardon­nay 2010. The com­bi­na­tion of the rich yet del­i­cate con­som­mé and more aggres­sive­ly flavoured truf­fle was excel­lent- full of uma­mi.

The breast of Pheas­ant stuffed with Chest­nut and Sage along­side Saute of Cavo­lo Nero and Cele­ri­ac Puree was our third course. After the con­som­mé this was a far lighter flavoured dish. The pheas­ant breast itself was not ultra gamey. A “So, you’re want­i­ng to dip your toe in game” type of game flavour rather than a “What, you’ve nev­er had a Tur­duck­en!?” kind of thing. How­ev­er when matched with the spicy fin­ish of the McDon­ald Series Marzemi­no it real­ly was grand, and the vel­vety puree made me won­der why I’d nev­er sought out cele­ri­ac before.

Hawkes Bay artist Free­man White had a few paint­ings on dis­play. Free­man has had inter­na­tion­al res­i­den­cies in Edin­burgh, at the Staffel­ter Hoff win­ery in the Mosel Val­ley in Ger­many and has twice been invit­ed to exhib­it in the Ger­man “REAL Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium for Fig­u­ra­tive Art”. He was also vot­ed Wellington’s Top Artist in 2010. He explained to every­one how the game birds paint­ed in rich detail had not died in vain – describ­ing the meal and accom­pa­ny­ing wine each paint­ed bird even­tu­al­ly became part of.

The penul­ti­mate course con­sist­ed of Con­fit Leg of Duck, Heir­loom Beet­root, Jerusalem Arti­choke, Hazel­nut and Mus­tard, paired with the full-bod­ied Reserve Syrah 2010. The meat was so ten­der it prac­ti­cal­ly leapt off the bone and onto my fork. The rich and earthy com­bi­na­tion of flavours and tex­tures con­trast­ed per­fect­ly with the sharp­ness of the mus­tard, which dis­solved like icing sug­ar on the tongue and woke up the palate.

And final­ly; the dessert. Oh the dessert. Rhubarb and Apple Mille-Fueille with Salt­ed Caramel and Rhubarb Cream. There is not much in this world that I love more than salt­ed caramel and this was some of the best I’ve tast­ed – thick, prop­er­ly salty and full of tof­fee good­ness. The wee balls of crisp apple, cou­pled with rhubarb and lay­ers of wafers were, with their tart, light flavours, an ide­al fol­low up to the game cours­es. The pho­to does not do it any­thing close to jus­tice.

We feel the night was a great suc­cess – every­one at the tables around us seemed to be hav­ing a grand old time, aid­ed by the excel­lent ser­vice. Hat tip to the per­son in charge of our table, who was jovial, knowl­edge­able, and made sure our wine glass­es were nev­er emp­ty. Final­ly we’d like to thank Prav­da for host­ing us, it real­ly was a fan­tas­tic evening.

We’ll be keep­ing an eye on Pravda’s web­site and Face­book for future events — there were whis­per­ings of a seafood themed din­ner as we left