Immerse Cafe - February 2013

Immerse Café – February 2013  

Immerse is our favourite café and since we have just had Valentine’s Day, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than go to a winery for lunch. In Dixon’s Creek, Immerse boasts great food and great wine, surrounded by amazing gardens and is the ideal place for a lazy Saturday or a wedding. Whilst we were sitting inside enjoying our lunch and the peace and quiet, there are plenty of others racing around getting ready for the wedding that evening. 

Once I had my glass of Oscars Reserve Chardonnay I then had the time to sit and relax, play a little with Archie (our 10 month old), with the only pressing thing deciding what to eat off a menu where everything looks amazing. Decisions made and Archie changed we sat and had some bread, oil and dukkah.

I had the pan fried gnocchi with prawns, roasted pumpkin and gemello and Roz had calamari, smokey eggplant, spiced chickpea crunch, lemon yoghurt, fennel and mint salad. I think the gnocchi was perfect with great flavours. Roz thought the calamari was melt in the mouth but thought the smoked eggplant was a bit strong.

For the main I had a pork belly with potato and fennel cream, apple salad and a cider and mustard jus. I’m a big fan of pork belly and have never found a restaurant that can make it this good, everything just works so well together and the crackling is so crunchy. I had it matched with Oscars Reserve Shiraz, and whilst not the recommended match, I was still more than happy with it. Roz had the Salmon fillet with zucchini, capers, raisins, pinenuts, potato and Persian fetta. It was perfectly cooked salmon, great crunchy skin, and apart from the rushing because Archie was getting tired, it was another great meal – matched with Oscars Reserve Chardonnay.

For dessert, I had the lemon verbena pannacotta, pistachio cake, raspberry sorbet and strawberries. The lemon in the pannacotta worked very well and was a nice fresh flavour with the raspberry sorbet. The surprise was the pistachio cake – I want the recipe. Roz had the warm dark chocolate fondant, with a salted caramel ice cream and raspberries. Amazing!!! The popping candy on top was a nice surprise and worked well, the fondant was perfect and just the right amount of ooze.

 I finished with a latte and a stroll around the amazing gardens with almost every variety of rose. The ducks were playing in the pond and apart from the heat outside would have made a lovely relaxing afternoon just sitting and playing in the garden on the grass.

Again, it remains one of our favourite restaurants in Melbourne and our favourite in the Yarra Valley.

Dan