Joanna had a lot of (Silere) lamb (at Hummingbird)

A cou­ple of weeks ago, I went for din­ner at Hum­ming­bird, and as well as eat­ing fish tacos with my girl­friend (oh grow up!), we ordered the Lamb for Two.

What we got was lamb shank with cous­cous, char­grilled flat­breads, the creami­est hum­mus ever, baba ganoush, some pick­les and the most amaz­ing­ly ten­der and flavour­some slow cooked lamb shoul­der. Hon­est­ly, the shoul­der tast­ed like the lamb had eat­en all the oth­er lambs in the world, that’s how intense the flavour was. It was out­stand­ing. I have since learned that the rea­son the shoul­der tast­ed so amaz­ing (apart from being cooked so expert­ly) was because it was Silere Meri­no.

“The nat­ur­al, for­ag­ing lifestyle of the Meri­no and the influ­ence of their high coun­try envi­ron­ment cre­ate defined flavours in the meat, along with a silky-smooth tex­ture, suc­cu­lence and appeal­ing den­si­ty. Din­ing on SILERE alpine ori­gin meri­no is to expe­ri­ence taste ele­vat­ed.”

What this means is that you get all the flavour with­out any of that greasy mouth feel lamb can some­times have.  Hum­ming­bird’s lamb for two was $75, I think, and total­ly worth it. Frankly, with a side of the most amaz­ing roast pota­toes ever, it would hap­pi­ly be lamb for three. If you like lamb, you should def­i­nite­ly go and try it for your­selves. You can also order a vari­ety of cuts of lamb on the Silere web­site to cook it for your­self, as I’m look­ing for­ward to try­ing. It won’t be the cheap­est meat you ever buy,  but it might just be one of the best.

I could­n’t stop think­ing about how good it was, so imag­ine my hap­pi­ness when Hum­ming­bird’s chef invit­ed me to a Silere degus­ta­tion match­ing six cours­es with Nau­tilus Estate pinot noir last week.

I’ll put the menu here, then I’ll hide the rest of the pic­tures under a jump cut for those of you who don’t think you’ll be able to han­dle the jeal­ousy.

We (a mix of old media with pen & paper, new media with Insta­gram and big­ger appetites, and hos­pi­tal­i­ty insid­ers) were led down to the kitchen table under­neath Bet­tys [sic], where we got to watch our food being cooked in front of us, hear about what we were eat­ing and drink­ing, and ask ques­tions as we went along.

Fil­let, oys­ter cream, cucum­ber, dill, rye served with Nau­tilus Cuvee Mal­bor­ough Brut NV
The first course was fil­let served with flavours like  steak tartare,  topped with an oys­ter cream that made me realise that I do actu­al­ly like the taste of oys­ters, but not their tex­ture. The Silere brand­ed stones on the table were excep­tion­al­ly pop­u­lar with the din­ers too, being great to fid­get with between cours­es.  The Nau­tilus bub­bly was a love­ly wine to start with as well.

Sweet­bread, salmon, beet, cheese, horse­rad­ish served with Nau­tilus Mal­bor­ough Pinot Noir 2010
I had nev­er had sweet­breads before this, and when I saw them on the menu all I could think about was Don­na and Bren­da in Paris. Turns out I am an idiot (who knew?) because sweet­breads aren’t actu­al­ly brains. Glen described them as the best chick­en nuggets ever, and I think that’s a pret­ty good descrip­tion. In fact, oth­ers around the table rem­i­nicsed about how you used to be able to order crumbed sweet­breads at Home­stead Chick­en. In the old­en days. I’m wor­ried though that oth­er sweet­breads will pale in com­par­i­son to these mag­nif­i­cent yums, so I don’t know if I’d order them any­where else.

Sad­dle, cray­fish, grains, raisin, pome­gran­ate, spice served with Nau­tilus Mal­bor­ough Pinot Noir 2009
This was the first time that I’ve ever had cray­fish, and it was firmer than I expect­ed it to be. The lamb sad­dle was suc­cu­lent, but I wish it was­n’t quite so lean because the tiny bit of fat on it was so deli­cious, I want­ed more. I was also amazed at how juicy the raisins were, because usu­al­ly I curse their very exis­tence and mourn the wine they could have been.

Pot au feu, rack, bel­ly, shoul­der, car­rot, peas, served with Nau­tilus Mal­bor­ough Pinot Noir 2008
Did you know that the best way to clean a frenched bone (heh heh heh) is appar­ent­ly with string? I pre­ferred to suck on mine. The car­rot cus­tard was as smooth as a Ryan Gosling meme, but I think the best part of this course was actu­al­ly the bel­ly, because it incred­i­bly rich and unc­tu­ous.

Short­rib, shal­lot, pota­to, BBQ, miso served with Nau­tilus Mal­bor­ough Pinot Noir 2007

My pho­to attempts at this dish com­plete­ly failed, which is a shame because it was served up on beau­ti­ful pohutakawa boards that Hum­ming­bird will be using from now on for its char­cu­terie, with a beau­ti­ful bright green pud­dle of spinach. The meat was gor­geous­ly smoky, so luck­i­ly the ’07 Pinot Noir was up for the chal­lenge.

Par­fait, lemon thyme, blue­ber­ry, elder­flower
There were SO MANY beau­ti­ful things going on this plate (lat­er on Twit­ter, Glen said “lemon thyme, wood sor­rel, blue­ber­ry, elder­flower, lilette, rasp­ber­ry, fresh meri­no curd”) and yet some­how it all just worked.

What an amaz­ing evening. Obvi­ous­ly it was a one-off I was incred­i­bly lucky to be invit­ed to, but you can go get the Lamb for Two at Hum­ming­bird, order Silere meri­no to cook for your­self, buy Nau­tilus in a bunch of places, or even book out the pri­vate din­ing room and ask them to recre­ate the whole evening for you. I bet they’d be up for the chal­lenge!