WOAP: Burger, burger, bugger!

TL:DR: we ate two pret­ty decent burg­ers and will nev­er return to Fox­glove.

Pig Mac at the Featherston

On Fri­day at lunchtime I knew I had to eat some­thing WOAPy in order to keep up the reviews, but was crav­ing fresh­ness. I thought I might be able to get into Annam with­out a book­ing, because I’m just one per­son and per­fect­ly hap­py to sit at the bar, but it was not to be. With­out want­i­ng to go too much fur­ther or waste more time, I popped into the Feath­er­ston and they were hap­py to have me, even though the place was heav­ing. No news­pa­pers or mag­a­zines in sight to read, but I got a com­fy table and my water topped up reg­u­lar­ly.

Slowsmoked pulled pork with red cab­bage, fen­nel and apple slaw in a brioche bun with house­made bar­beque sauce, smoked apple frit­ter and fries (NF)

Pulled pork may be so a cou­ple of years ago, but this was a very tasty ren­di­tion of it, not over­ly sweet and with a decent amount of smoke to it. I would have appre­ci­at­ed a lit­tle more spice, and the bun could have been hot­ter, but the apple frit­ters on the side were gor­geous (and it was smart not to put them inside the burg­er). The chips were stan­dard pub chips, well cooked, and the whole thing decent­ly priced and the ser­vice was good. Noth­ing ground-break­ing but burg­ers don’t always have to be. I will def­i­nite­ly go back to the Feath­er­ston for lunchtimes when I am in the mood for pub food done well.

Sterling Burger

Awa­toru veni­son burg­er with beet­root rel­ish, hous­esmoked cheese, juniper pick­led cele­ri­ac and Ster­ling secret sauce, with truf­fled shoe­strings

Plen­ty of peo­ple all over social media have been lov­ing the hell out of this burg­er, but I thought it was just okay, though it’s the only burg­er I’ve had that I could pick up and eat eas­i­ly. The pat­ty was too thin for the veni­son to stand out over the beet­root, and the fries were just like luke­warm offer­ings from Mac­Don­alds, no sign of the truf­fling. I would have sent them back, but I was already aware that we were dick­bag guests, giv­en that we were a tip­sy group who’d booked for ten peo­ple, changed that to five peo­ple and then had two more peo­ple show up 20 min­utes late.

Foxglove Secret Garden Winemaker’s Dinner

Enchant­ment and sur­prise awaits in Foxglove’s Secret Gar­den. Enjoy a deli­cious five-course degus­ta­tion din­ner or lunch with an espe­cial­ly designed menu accom­pa­nied by out­stand­ing Mar­t­in­bor­ough Vine­yard wines. Award-win­ning wine­mak­er Paul Mason will talk you through his select­ed wines to accom­pa­ny every course. A tru­ly mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence cel­e­brat­ing local gar­den pro­duce, great wine and a secret after- par­ty through the wardrobe.

So, clear­ly I had hos­pi­tal­i­ty kar­ma wait­ing for me, but I don’t believe the oth­er 101 patrons deserved the incom­pe­tence and inhos­pi­tal­i­ty of this event. Tick­ets were $155 which is not cheap, but I talked my sis­ter and friend into com­ing along think­ing that it would be a lush affair full of fun. It’s great copy, after all. Does­n’t that sound like a good event?

When we got to the ball­room at 6.30pm — the time on the web­site and con­fir­ma­tion emails,  we found it adorned beau­ti­ful­ly with chan­de­liers, strings of lights and flow­ers every­where. So far so good. But nor­mal­ly at a din­ner like this, you’d walk in and be hand­ed a glass of bub­bles. We were point­ed to the cash bar. I took one look at the flim­sy fold­ing chairs and asked for some­thing more robust, which they very kind­ly fetched from the bal­cony. So glad I did, giv­en that din­ner took until ELEVEN PM to fin­ish. I feel sor­ry for how uncom­fort­able every­one else would have been even if the din­ner had run at a nor­mal pace.

It was 7.15pm before we had our first glass of the wine­mak­er’s wine in our hands, and with nine tables of 12 peo­ple in the room, food was just as slow to come out. We’d tweet­ed ear­li­er in the week about how impressed we were that Fox­glove were email­ing guests to find out their food aller­gies. The first course was cray­fish with sal­ad leaves. Or, if you’re aller­gic to shell­fish, you received just the sal­ad. Not even any extra oys­ter mush­rooms to bump up the pro­tein tex­ture. That seemed odd giv­en the advance notice they had of peo­ple’s dietary require­ments, but it turns out that was one of a con­tin­u­ing series of poor hos­pi­tal­i­ty choic­es.

Not only were we assigned tables, we were also assigned seats, pre­sum­ably to help with the dietary require­ments. Obvi­ous­ly the peo­ple you sit with have an impact on how much you enjoy the night*, espe­cial­ly when there is so much time to kill in between cours­es. It was a good half hour or more before the sec­ond course, anoth­er dish that was actu­al­ly sup­posed to be served cold, came out. The salmon gravlax was love­ly, and did go very well with the chardon­nay, although most glass­es were near­ly emp­ty by that stage because of the wait. The woman next to me asked for more chardon­nay, and was point­ed to the cash bar. She said “Not at a $150 din­ner I don’t!” and she was giv­en more wine. No one else at the table was asked if we’d like any more. We all would have liked more wine.

We def­i­nite­ly would have liked more wine in the HOUR it took for the first main course to come out. The fault was def­i­nite­ly in the kitchen giv­en how the wait­ress­es were lined up wait­ing for the food to come out, but they were also some­times car­ry­ing one plate at a time. Wine glass­es were cleared off tables (no offer of more wine), washed, and then returned to the tables emp­ty, and then they were filled. The lights were too bright and there was no back­ground music. Our beef was sup­posed to be hot but was cold. An hour lat­er, our pork bel­ly was also stone cold. And we were sober. Very sober.

A full quar­ter of the room had left by that stage, giv­en it was 10.30 and the event had start­ed at 6.30pm. The dessert wine was deli­cious, but how it took an hour to bring out a slice of cheese­cake is beyond me.  There was no chance we would go to the exclu­sive after­part because it was after 11pm and we were dis­grun­tled, cold, tired, hun­gry and sober.

The wine­mak­er told us to “dri­ve home safe­ly”. You should nev­er be able to dri­ve after a wine­mak­er’s din­ner, espe­cial­ly one that takes SO LONG between cours­es. Glass­es should be kept full. Enter­tain­ment should be pro­vid­ed.  I regret buy­ing tick­ets to the event. I regret mak­ing my friends buy tick­ets to the event. I regret any mon­ey I’ve ever spent at Fox­glove before. What a cold inhos­pitable room that was, and what a strik­ing con­trast to the (cheap­er) amaz­ing event at the Bolton and the very cheap wine quiz at Avi­da the week before. This was their first Wine­mak­er’s Din­ner, but they have large events in the ball­room all the time, sure­ly they aren’t run this poor­ly? Paul the wine­mak­er said on Twit­ter that the delays were out of his con­trol, but unfor­tu­nate­ly I’m always going to asso­ciate Mar­t­in­bourgh Vine­yard with Fox­glove’s incom­petance.

The woman next to me told me that the “well-paid” peo­ple in the pub­lic ser­vice will just pop into David Jones for a thou­sand dol­lar hand­bag and shoes, and then maybe buy a lit­tle black dress. I sug­gest­ed that actu­al­ly peo­ple in the pub­lic ser­vice aren’t paid that well com­pared to in the pri­vate sec­tor (even if they can afford $155 din­ners if they ratio­nalise them care­ful­ly),  and she told me I was wrong. Then she com­plained about hav­ing to pay cus­toms duty on her $350 skin­care pack­ages. One of the two of us works in the pub­lic ser­vice. Guess who?