The moon in all its glory!
by thefoodbooth
As the sun slowly set on a Saturday afternoon, the girls and I found ourselves at La Luna in Carlton after weeks of deliberation of where we should have dinner. Now, don’t let the French-like appearance of the restaurant fool you, when it comes to food,La Luna doesn’t have a single pretentious bone in its body. It seasonal menus and constant high standard of produce is what impressed me at the end of the night.
Having made a early 6:00 booking the girls and I all looked forward to a longer than normal dinner session to chat and catchup on the weeks haps.
J and I arrived on time with the waitress happily greeting us and opening the door to let us in. we were seated next to the window and within minutes brought the drinks and food menu.As X arrived, the topic of choice was much of what should be ordered. We deliberated and seriously considered the $85 degustation choice but decided against it as we didn’t think we would do that large amount of food any justice.
The waitress was more than happy to expand on the daily specials and catered to our every need throughout the night (cups of ice and various cutlery drops onto the floor…) We decided on 1 entree, 3 mains 1 side and 2 desserts. Our meal service throughout the night was prompt and the wait was at most 15 minutes. very impressed.
Giant prawns bathed in garlic butter, chilli and parsley. the pool of buttery goodness was delicious with the accompaniment of extra slices of bread which the waitress offered. lemon did well to cut through the richness. Prawns were flavoursome and fresh. No complaints.
Crispy duck leg, Braised red cabbage, hazelnut and celeriac salad. The duck leg although slightly overcooked to crisp up the skin, still had the moist tender meat as we cut through. The tang of the braised cabbage was amazing and surprisingly the pieces of hazelnut worked well with every assemblement.
One of the special mains on the night: braised lamb shank with various greens. Subtle in taste, the lamb fell off the bone well enough, accompanied by peas, baby asparagus, mint and broad beans. As I like my flavours strong, adding a dash of salt to the lamb really brought out the flavour for me.
The last, but nonetheless, one of the best mains I’ve had in awhile. Crackling Wrapped roll of roast pork accompanied by capsicum, zuchini lemon herbs and herbs. The crackling smothered in salt was crispy, and the pork was tender and well cooked. Everything on the plate sang in harmony and was a definite crowd pleaser.
Our crispy fried polenta with chilli salt. The chilli was very mild and lacked seasoning. but otherwise ok.
Meticulously knowing that we had to try dessert here, we left plenty of room to do just that. pig out on sweets.
We decided to order the tasting plate for 2 and the bombalaska.
Pretty bombed that they didn’t light it up in front of us, still it was as delicious as a bombalaska gets. A tad on the sweetside, the rich creamy texture of the meringue was sinfully delicious and became addictive with each bite even to a non-sweetooth like me.
Our Sharing plate came out next with various ice creams, sorbet, crème brulee and mousse.
Overall the meal marked all the tick boxes for me. From the coarsely chopped parsley in the prawn entree to the last blueberry on the top of the mousse, all flavours of the ingredients were respected and put together with much thought and care. Definitely a new favourite!
