WOAP overload: a plum and a duke

I love Wel­ling­ton on a Plate, espe­cially when I ignore my bank bal­ance and focus on tick­ing off as many lines as pos­sible on my spread­sheet.  I’ve got a couple more places to review still, but in the interests of actu­ally get­ting to sleep tonight, I’ll just give you two – Plum and Duke Carvell’s. If you’re look­ing for the tl:dr, I’d say go to Duke’s. Oth­er­wise, read on…

1. Plum

I’ve had the odd cof­fee or drink at Plum in the past, but I can­’t think of when I’ve actu­ally sat down and had a meal there, so I headed along one lunch­time, lured in by the sticky pork belly offered up by their $35 dine menu. The haloumi starter was nice enough, the bal­sam­ic glaze being a high­light, but it was a smal­ler por­tion than this pic­ture will sug­gest:

The pork belly was also a small por­tion, and while it was tasty, I wish it had been crisper on the top and less dry in the middle.

My favour­ite bit of the meal was the Johner Estate Moon­light Pinot Noir because Johner are very good people. Ser­vice was friendly and I was in and out in under 45 minutes, which is great for lunch. I do wish I’d ordered the bur­ger instead though, because the ones at the table next to me smelled amaz­ing, and Jeremy Taylor enjoyed his so much.

2. Duke Carvell’s

Duke’s was my first week­end exper­i­ence of a Wel­ling­ton on a Plate menu, which was lucky because it was a meal that took a long time to eat. The Jer­u­s­alem artichoke (a root veget­able, not related to the spiky thing you may be think­ing of – the ever-accom­mod­at­ing Enzo even went to the kit­chen to fetch one to show my com­pan­ion) soup was deli­cious – not quite Ti Kouka soup of dreams, but def­in­itely some­thing I want to eat more of. Although it was rather plainly presen­ted and I had to ask for but­ter for the bread (which was really really good but­ter , but was really hard to spread. Swings and round­abouts).

It was a good filling por­tion, so if you’re veget­ari­an, you could have the soup and the dessert and be happy. But I went for the main instead, Wair­ar­apa lamb neck fil­let tagine with prunes, Lot Eight olives and Greytown Gold saf­fron rice.

It came out very very hot, per­fect for a cold day. The lamb was cooked to melt in the mouth, and sprigs of cori­ander were a good coun­ter­bal­ance to how sweet the prunes made the tagine. The rice needed a lot more salt in my opin­ion, but per­haps that’s just because I have a very salty pal­ate. I’d sug­gest actu­ally that the soup and the tagine togeth­er might be more filling than some people may care for at lunch­time, but you will know your own appet­ite bet­ter than me. Oh, and there was only chardon­nay on offer, not the Croft Pinot Noir lis­ted that would have been bet­ter with the tagine, but still, I enjoyed my meal thor­oughly.