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Sharing plates at a local restaurant

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Sharing plates is the new thing to do at restaurants these days which is great as it’s nice to be able to taste lots of different items on the menu.  So with that in mind, I had friends visiting from the south coast of New South Wales and they are ‘foodies’ so we decided on a restaurant where most of the dishes are for sharing which suited us all.  We chose ‘Temporada’ as it has a lovely laid back atmosphere and open eatery and also it’s also one of the newer restaurants.

When we arrived we were seated at the end of a large communal table which was quite lovely and casual.   The only male in our group ordered a boutique beer and us three girls ordered a lovely bottle of French Sauvignon Blanc to share.

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The restaurant is in the centre of Canberra and about a ten minute drive from my home, but on this occasion I decided to walk in and it took me exactly fifty-eight minutes; bit cold but I was rugged up.

The menu at Temporada is extensive [for meat and fish eaters] and we all started off with house made sourdough bread with cultured butter followed by a huge plate of  kipfler potatoes with gremolata which we all tasted and found delicious.  My friends also ordered the chicken and leek terrine with crispy chicken skin salad and chestnuts, the marinated sardines on toast topped with cherry tomatoes and parsley and the spiced lamb cigars with sumac yoghurt.  All non-vegetarian dishes were tasty as told by my friends.

My friends then ordered a few more dishes to share so back to the menu they went and ordered the black pudding with pickled chilli topped with crumbed artichokes and the BBQ king prawns with basil and mayonnaise.  One of my friends told me that the crumbed artichokes were really good so she kindly asked the waiter to have the dish made without the black pudding; which the chef did – and I must say the artichokes really were good!!

Then my hungry and thirsty friends and I ordered more wine and beer; followed by our main courses.  I ordered the herb and garlic gnocchi which came with zucchini and [way too much] pepita cream whilst my friends ordered two mains consisting of the grilled jurassic quail with pumpkin, sage and speck, which I learnt was a pork fat and certainly not my ‘cup of tea’ but my friends liked it, and finally the the grilled bungalow pork cutlet with black garlic and apple.IMG_2663

We were all so very full by this stage, but still thirsty so ordered more drinks then asked to see the dessert menu just in case there was something delicious on there; there was!!

We ordered the banana, hazelnut parfait with rum soaked dates, the caramelised white chocolate mousse with strawberries and brik pastry AND the chocolate ganache, liquorice custard with mandarin sorbet.  I look back on what we all ate that night and it was so much, I must say I was glad I made the effort to walk into town and whilst there was not much vegetarian choice I did consume lots of lovely French wine and the company of my friends made for a lovely evening!!

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