Flint at the Vines Restaurant – Shaw Winery – NSW – Australia – November 2015

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Australia, Murrumbateman, New South Wales, Shaw Winery

Lunch at a local winery near Canberra

A couple of weeks ago I organised for a group of friends to have lunch at a local winery which is about a thirty-minute drive out of Canberra.

When we arrived, our table was not ready so we stood at the bar and partook in a wine tasting; well not me as I was driving but my friends tasted every one of the wines available.  All were not that impressed with the wines really, apart from the Riesling which some friends liked the sweet and others (like me as I had a glass at the table) thought the non-sweet Riesling was ok.

There is also a huge range of pottery to buy and olive oils/dukkah/balsamic vinegar and jams…on this occasion I didn’t buy anything but have bought some olive oil in the past.

It was a very busy day for the restaurant so we were seated about half an hour over our reservation time – more time for my friends to taste the wines.  We ordered a range of dishes as our main course but started off with the pizza bread; which was very nice topped with rosemary…I forgot to take a photo until it was nearly all gone.  One of my lovely (and dear) friends [Nat] who reads my blog religiously, kindly reminded me to take the photo.

I ordered the baked Moroccan eggplant with split pea and fig stuffed cabbage roll, dried truss tomato, chilli jam, coriander riata and dukkah spice….I loved the eggplant but didn’t really love the stuffed cabbage roll, it seemed a bit soggy – so I didn’t eat any more than one bite.  But the dish looked fabulous with all the vibrant colours on the plate.

Some of my friends shared a pizza and a couple of others ordered the salt and pepper battered fish, the char grilled sirloin with beetroot puree and crumbed herb mushroom with herb butter.

One other ordered the dukkah pork with the almond humus, zucchini, spinach with pomegranate glaze and chorizo oil.  All the meals were aesthetically pleasing and everyone enjoyed their dishes which were really plentiful…so much that none of us ordered dessert…this was probably because we ordered two bowls of fries – which had some sort of salt/herbs on them – delicious!

But some of the group did have a little space left to eat/drink the coffee and liqueur with ice cream (I think it’s called Affogato)..

All in all a really nice afternoon to catch up with friends over good food.