Time saver: Phil is a hypocrite and tries to impress you with a fancy menu.

After claiming to be pragmatic and a fan of simple, tasty food, I have to go and make this my first real post… before I get into all that normal food though, I want to start with my best meal ever.

This time last week we had a couple of friends over for dinner. I felt like going a bit overboard, so laid out a set menu of restaurant style food. The theme was a tribute to Retour, my favourite restaurant in Christchurch, now sadly closed because of damage from the earthquakes. I borrowed heavily from my memories of eating there, and came up with this menu:

Retour Degustation – A Tribute

• Amuse bouche – a Thai fish cake served on a small cucumber salad with a lime and sweet chilli dressing
• House baked artisan bread with a selection of dips – hummus, basil pesto, olive oil & dukkah
• Pan-fried haloumi with balsamic roasted tomatoes & pine nuts on a fresh salad
• Interlude – fresh lemon sorbet
• Grilled eye-fillet steak glazed with kikorangi blue cheese & miso, with seasonal vegetables & mushrooms
• Crème brûlée with almond tuiles & raspberry compote
• Tea or Coffee – served with chocolate ganache filled vanilla macarons

Everything went amazingly well, it took over 3 hours to get through it all, but the food turned out brilliantly, the wine flowed, and the company was excellent. Over the next few days I’ll be posting and linking recipes for each of the courses.

Before you go getting the wrong idea, I won’t be cooking that much food again in a hurry…