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What’s the first thing that you think of when you hear the word Huxtable? The Cosby Show family right? I’m not familiar with anyone else with the name so we have Cosby Show episodes on the mind when we walk into Huxtable on Smith Street in Collingwood after a short pleasant fifteen minute stroll from the Park Hyatt. The space is modern although no, it’s not a replica of the set (although a part of me thinks that that might be fun but perhaps taking the theme a bit too far).

And like Central Casting has placed some extras inside from the couple with the retro glasses-thick rimmed enormous white rims for her and Bill Lumbergh style glasses for him. There are three families in the immediate eye view, all with young children. Apparently naming your place after one of televisions most famous families has families coming in early on a Saturday night. The interior is fitted out using a lot of browns-there are brown vinyl swivel chairs and what looks like dad’s garage tool holder which in this case holds cooking tools. And playing in the background are songs such as Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher.

Why is it called Huxtable? We ask the waitress. Well it seems that it is called Huxtable as a nod to The Cosby Show. The three guys that head it up are from New Zealand and they thought that it would be a fun name. They are Daniel Wilson in the kitchen (the chef), Dante Ruaime formerly of MoVida (the restaurant manager) and Jeff Wong who owns 19 Squares, a St Kilda cafe (the coffee guy). “And it’s just a coincidence that everyone that works here is from New Zealand” our NZ accented waitress says.

The menu is designed to share. It’s broken up into little bites-and some from bite sized morsels to slightly more substantial entrees, to share plates which are broken up into sea, land and earth.

Huxta bubbles $8

We start with the huxta bubbles which is a sparkling wine made especially for them. We ordered it for the name-who could resist it? Even Mr NQN who doesn’t like sparkling wines quite likes this fizz.

Rice flour crusted oyster po’boy, iceberg, sriracha mayo $6.50

The oyster po’ boy comes a mini crunchy fresh baguette filled with two oysters. The baguette is crunchy, like those Vietnamese baguettes that are earth shatteringly good and give the soft oysters inside an appealing crunch on the outside. There is a shredded iceberg lettuce salad tossed in sriracha mayonnaise, sriracha being that omnipresent Thai hot sauce that you see on tables in large plastic red bottles so there’s a bit of spice along with the creaminess. And I could have eaten lots of these.

Jalapeno & cheddar croquette $3.50 each

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With bonus shin bruising!

Good Sunday to you Dear Reader! So from my earlier story on Thredbo, where was I? Oh yes my shins were bleeding and bruised from my morning ski lesson and incorrectly put on boots (that would be my own fault). I have managed to slowly hobble my way onto the shuttle bus and back to The Peak where we are staying. I punch in my number and slowly remove my boots and clothing. My thermals which seem to cling tightly to my shins and ankles feel like peeling off a bandaid from a wound and I hobble around the apartment like I’m starring in the movie Misery and Kathy Bates is slowly chasing me around the house with an axe.

I hang everything wet (and it’s all pretty much wet from the rain) up in the drying cupboard which is a huge cupboard with a heater blowing in there that dries all the ski gear. High heeled boots would not do for the night and I make the quick decision to suspend my “no ugg boots out of doors” rule and wear my fluffy new fur tipped ugg boots and outfit from Birdsnest.com.au and we are going to drive down to dinner. But not before the crackle of fireworks are heard and we watch skiers with red lights shushing down the mountain to the burst of fireworks.

The skiers heading down

Fireworks display

We make our way to our dinner degustation for the evening, Segreto restaurant at The Thredbo Alpine Hotel. The restaurant itself is tiny and when I walk I to the door I have to ask if I am entering through the right entrance (I am, it just doesn’t look like the correct entrance) and I take a seat and wait for Chris from Toyota and his partner Charles. After not being able to find a park Mr NQN drives back to The Peak to park the Toyota Prado Kakadu and walks down. And this is where you rally feel sorry for me as I have the second Veuve Clicquot degustation dinner that weekend.

There are five courses including one amuse bouche so really it is more of a slightly more comprehensive dinner than a full blown degustation. Service is generally good although from one waitperson it borders on brusque and alternates between pleasant to curt within the one interaction which is just all kinds of odd. However we do notice that our champagnes are regularly topped up whereas the other night they weren’t. A Veuve Clicquot representative gets up to speak about the brand and it is a similar speech to what she told us but this time she also tells us that they invented the riddling table where the champagne rests so that the yeast settles to one end and is then extracted from the champagne. Veuve Clicquot is also a Pinot Noir dominated champagne which is a signature trait of theirs.

Raspberry juice acidule, wasabi emulsion served with Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut NV

Served in a shot glass our amuse is a raspberry juice acidule with a wasabi foam on top. The first sip of course yields much wasabi foam while the second and third are more balanced with the chilled raspberry juice sweeten with mirin. The wasabi foam is nicely balanced and not too sinus clearing.

Tuna and scampish with puffed cereals, mustard seed sorbet, miring dressing served with Veuve Clicquot Vintage 2002

This was undoubtedly a favorite with everyone at the table. A large tuna fillet seared on the outside was topped with a multitude of things. At first thought to be too many, and even though there were many components, they all did blend together nicely. There were little puffed cereal pieces, sorrel and celery leaf salad, what appeared to be crab salad (scampi was mentioned on the menu and there was no correction given but I would say that it was certainly crab), as well as the piece de resistance, mustard seed sorbet which was divine. It was sweet most certainly but there was just the right amount of mustard seed so that it wasn’t hot but had the trademark mustard taste.

Iodized asparagus, mollusc juice, roasted pork belly, celeriac mousse served with Veuve Clicquot Rose NV

Sadly this dish in contrast wasn’t a favorite. The iodized asparagus and mollusc juice ended up becoming a semi set jelly that dissolved easily and became quite watery. The pork belly as a result ended up tasting quite wet and losing all of it’s juicy unctuousness.

Roast Duck Magret, savoy cabbage purée, preserved lemon mayonnaise, cardamom crumble, chestnut beignet served with Veuve Clicquot Vintage Rose 2004

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So after my judging and eating hijinks in Port Douglas where’s a girl to go but south, literally in search of some of the Tablelands most well known producers including two coffee plantations, a distillery, a Swiss Italian restaurant, a coffee museum, cheesemakers and a rain forest retreat. Come along with me for a ride Dear Reader, but do have a cup of coffee ready for this is a long story (and the coffee will help with the coffee cravings, trust me!).

Skybury Coffee Planation

I always thought that one would have to travel overseas to see a coffee plantation but apparently I was so very wrong. We are at Skybury Coffee Plantation, Australia’s first and largest coffee plantation in the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland which is about 1.5 hours drive from Port Douglas. We have just enough time to have a coffee (and a very good one just as one would expect) before we get onto a bus to take a tour of the coffee plantation. Curious coffee connoisseurs can take a 45 minute tours which depart two to three times a day and cost $25 a person.

John our guide first drives us for a drive through the farm that also grows papaya and lady finger bananas as well as coffee beans. When a banana flower appears on a banana tree, they wrap it in a sack and allow it to grow bananas for a period of 16 weeks. There is a mother and a child or a sucker tree which is the smaller one and a banana tree can only produce one lot of bananas in its lifetime. After that they need to cut it down and they will grow the bananas off the child or sucker tree. Who knew right?

We are next onto where the coffee bean trees are growing. Coffee is a tropical plant and here they only grow arabica beans (as opposed to the robusta which is an inferior bean used in less expensive coffees). This arabica coffee bean comes in both red and yellow and is best grown at altitudes of 500-1500  metres high (it is 525 metres here). Did you know that coffee trees are said to produce the best beans between the ages of 5-10 years and these trees are currently even years old. They are thirsty trees indeed requiring 1 litre of water a day each.

A coffee cherry

Inside a coffee cherry-two beans

We pluck one of the cherries and they are a rubied red and resemble small, hard berries. There is a thinnish but firm outer layer, like a thick grape skin and inside is a very, very sweet, thin juicy layer which is similar to a longan or lychee. Inside this is the actual coffee bean which is pale yellow in colour and covered in a slippery membrane called a mucosa.

To pick the beans they use an automated picker from Brazil which is very similar to an olive harvesting machine. Fibreglass rods rotate through the trees and the cherries fall off and harvesting takes about two months in total. Per hectare they get about 1 tonne of wet cherries which are then dried out and lose 75% of their weight to make 250kg of beans. They then lose another 17% in the final drying process to remove as much moisture as possible as moisture can cause mold.

They sort these first through water and the premium beans float to the top. Most of their beans are exported overseas to markets such as London, Paris, Berlin and even Italy and they export a special bean to Japan called a peaberry as it is a whole bean rather than two halves and the Japanese like it because it has a sweeter taste.

The coffee roasting machine

These are then stored in a 40 tonne storage tank and can be kept for years there or shipped out straight away as green beans. At Skybury they also roast on site using a coffee roaster and the beans get roasted twice and they take out the beans just before they reach 212C for a medium roast whereas they have an extra minute or two in the dark roast. They have three trays of coffee which you can use a spoon to taste and to do so you suck or aspirate it over your tongue (like wine or olive oil).

It’s lunch time and having missed breakfast I’m starving! There is a cafe style menu available with a caesar salad with a twist, instead of offering it plain with bacon or with chicken, there is the option for salt and pepper squid so I take that up along with a papaya shake and a slice of bannoffee pie.

Creme de Papaya shake $7.50

The drinks are not cheap but the papaya shake is delicious without that really strong papaya aroma that divides people. There’s just the right amount of creaminess. I rarely have more than a sip of a milkshake as they can be meals in themselves but I find myself drinking half of this.

Lime crush $7.50

The lime crush using their Mexican limes with a distinctive orange skin is refreshing. The limes aren’t sold commercially because their skins are hard to keep clean and they have too many pips but they taste just like regular Tahitian limes.

Salt and pepper squid caesar salad $17.50

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