'Variety Meat'

That's the delightfully euphemistic name for part of my dinner on Saturday night but let's start with lunch. 

On Saturday I was lucky enough to have J. and T. over for lunch while they were in town from Adelaide (a.k.a. The Promised Land). As sustenance for many excellent hours of conversation I made the Onion Tart featured in last week's Winter Food supplement in the Sydney Morning Herald. This was the first time I've been tricked by a recipe for some time; you know those recipes that have about six ingredients so you merrily commit before discovering that the preparation of each element requires chopping, blanching, seasoning, roasting, shaving and a special dispensation from the pope. The pastry was a very, very temperamental short crust that needed to be handled with extreme care after it had had a nice lie down in the fridge for an hour or so and the six medium onions involved had to be cut into "paper thin" slices. My knife is a little blunt. There was a reasonable quantity of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It looked great but, in retrospect and after a slice for lunch today, I'm not totally convinced by it. Maybe my onion needed to be more thinly sliced.... The salad was great though - just greens with pan-fried and torn pancetta and fresh parmesan, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Simple and spot on with a bit of heat and acid to balance the creamy sweetness of the tart.  We then moved on to Manchego and Roquefort with muscat grapes and biscuits  - cheese is very hard to beat in most circumstances and these were two prize-fighting examples. The Roquefort especially was utterly luscious and oozing.

Eventually, we moved the party to A'Mews in Glebe where we met I. and F. for dinner. It's a beautiful restaurant physically; they've maintained the terrace structure resulting in three intimate dining rooms on three levels and waiters with seriously good quadriceps.  The dishes were complex and intricate with, as F. pointed out, at least three animals involved on average. I started out with scampi ravioli - little bundles of sweetness in a buttery sauce cut with just an edge of salt - and then went on to the stuffed pig's trotter. Feeling very brave I anticipated a hairy, gnarled trotter sitting on a plate with bits poking out the top where you'd expect a bone. The actual dish was unidentifiable as feet. One circle of black pudding topped with various things and one circle of pure fat (delicious but deadly) embracing very tender meat. I guess that with the bones removed it's really just a cylinder of flesh. The desserts looked great and I was particularly taken with a sample of the turkish delight icecream. The chocolate terrine was so rich that it would make Rupert Murdoch nervous. Wonderful experience and great company. I retreated eventually, groaning softly.