“Mother, I’m dropping off something in a few minutes” I said on the phone one night.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A pig’s head” I said bracing myself for the inevitable.

“A whaaaat?” she asked, aghast.

Allow me to explain how a delivery of a roasted (not raw) pig’s head came to come about. You see I was dining with Mr NQN, Dave and Sarah at The Montpellier Public House. It is the new restaurant from the team at Restaurant Balzac still in the sandstone building in Randwick. The changes are seen in a completely different idea and menu but because it was a while between visits, I don’t know if the interior had changed much or not. Instead of the fine dining room of Balzac, downstairs has turned into a busy, buzzy bar and upstairs is the dining room. The menu has also changed with a mainly modern British menu as befits the origins of the chef Matthew Kemp. And we note that prices are very reasonable indeed with most mains under the $30 mark.

The friendly waitress lets us know that tonight, there is only one pig’s head and it will be about an hour until it is ready. Sold! One pot roasted pig’s head to the crazy table of four in the corner! We take her recommendations for the entrees and mains too.

Montpellier Brawn with Crisp Pigs Ears and Tails $18

The brawn with chunks of meat in a jellied broth, set in a tin and sliced is delicious. The meat and jelly are soft and they come with two slices of charred bread and some finely crumbed gelatinous pig’s ears and tail portions.

Potted River Trout, Soda Bread, Pickled Cucumbers $16

The flavour of the trout was good with the added dill and creamy texture and fresh, soft trout although I have to be honest, I have a slight affliction when dining out and that is if I think I could make something similar at home, I tend to dismiss it slightly. Is that an illness? Perhaps… Nevertheless the soda bread and trout go well together alongside the pickles.

Fried Duck Egg, Black Pudding and Baked Beans $18

The baked beans with an enormous soft yolked fried duck egg is how to lure anyone out of bed on an early morning. The beans are sweet and smokey and full of flavour with little cubes of pork belly and the salty, rich black pudding and duck egg provide the perfect foil for this. And I may have just started drooling again after reliving this dish.

Salad of Spanner Crab, Mussel, Cos, Fennel and Dill $20

This dish was the polar opposite of the above dish in terms of richness. It was light, crunchy and delicate this was about subtle flavours with delicate mounds of crab meat and mussels on cos lettuce leaves with thinly sliced fennel and dill.

Mid meal, a table of eight settles down next to us and we find the noise level very high in this sandstone and wooden dining room. In fact, it gets quite uncomfortably noisy in our section we can’t imagine if the other two tables were full.

“Pie, Mash and Liquor” $30

Now as we were sharing, the table that we had for four wasn’t quite big enough for the mains so luckily the table next to us was empty and we could spread out. The pie changes and today’s pie is a beef one with jellied eel juice on top. And before you think that is sounds awful, it was actually very nice. The eel flavour was subtle and we were all confused as we thought that there was eel meat but we could only find chunks of tender beef. The eel juice which is jellified yet still warm sits on top of the beef layer and on top of this sits a layer of lightly crunchy mash on top. There were some very crispy, large croutons strips of crispy pancetta and deep fried parsley.

Shoulder of Lamb Braised on the Bone, Crisp Sweetbreads, Barley and Spring Vegetables $27

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I’m certain that we’re in the naughty corner. When Gina texted me to tell me that she was sitting in the back of the restaurant at a very small corner table she wasn’t kidding. Just a few minutes earlier at 6pm she walked into Bar H and asked for a table for three people. Asked whether she has a booking (she doesn’t, as bookings are only for 6 persons or more) they call over the manager who tells us that we can have a table until 8:15pm where there is an existing booking. So the moral of the story? Grab five friends and make a booking or be prepared to haggle for a table (or wait outside as we see many outside do) because being a table of three that walks in at 6pm on a Friday night in a restaurant that seats 40 may not net you a space.

Wedged underneath a mural and the kitchen Gina and I perch on the banquette, Teena sits on the black plastic stool and we examine the menu. It’s a good sized menu with a nice choice of entrees and mains. Chef Hamish Ingham is behind the counter and we are directly facing him. Formerly with Kylie Kwong at Billy Kwong, the menu has an Asian influence to it (and the tables and stools are tiny, much like those at Billy Kwong). Teena, Gina and I haven’t caught up for months so a catch up and Happy Hour cocktails are in order but girl talk must halt momentarily while we order our food and drinks lest we overstay our two hour dining time.

Meiwei $10 (centre)

I’m not driving tonight so it’s cocktail time! The Happy Hour menu has four cocktails at $10 each (normally $14.50-$15.50).  The Meiwei is utterly drinkable and I take the waiter’s recommendation for it as it is a sweet cocktail comprising of vodka, pomegranate juice, rambutan and fresh lime. I normally sip at cocktails and pass them on but this is deliciously sweet with a rambutan at the bottom. We do a circular round tasting each other’s cocktails-Gina and Teena have the Gin Chi and the Ren Chen, both tarter but also good. And at 7pm our waiter helpfully lets us know that the happy hour is almost up and asks us if we want to order another cocktail.

Now the issue with the table was that there was no way that any more than one plate of anything would fit with the three of us crowded around it. Not a problem they tell us as each dish arrives just one at a time and they’re all meant to be shared. We breathe a sigh of relief that we didn’t bring the boys-the close quarters would have annoyed Hot Dog and Philippe doesn’t share so he wouldn’t have liked the sharing.

Steamed pork wontons with shellfish and chilli oil dressing $4 each

The wontons come out first. They’re sitting in a slick, dark pool of seafood and chilli oil and they’re silky, slippery and generously filled with pork mince. The seafood and chilli oil gives an interesting dimension to the wontons.

Prawn filled eggplant $6.50 each

I do love eggplant and this reminded me of the yum cha prawn stuffed eggplant but this one has a deep and rich with a dark, sticky sauce redolent in dark soya sauce.

Braised beef short rib with betel leaf $6.50 each

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There are certain challenges when trying to introduce a cuisine into a country especially one largely unsampled and unheard of. And for years native Peruvian chef Alejandro Saravia has toiled trying to introduce his country’s cuisine to Australia through his Taste of Peru dinners and cooking classes. There is the struggle against using ingredients like guinea pig which many people associate with Peruvian cuisine, lest it become a gimmicky cuisine. There is also the wider misconception that Peruvian food is just like Mexican food or Spanish food.

Fast forward to a few years later and after working in kitchens across Sydney (Pier, Sails and El Bulli) and biding his time, Alejandro has finally stepped out into the spotlight with a restaurant of his own making the food that he wants to, with Morena serving modern Latin American cuisine.

Chef Alejandro Saravia

What does Morena mean? Alejandro explains that Morena is a Latin American woman, brunette specifically, and a woman that can fill up a room with her presence. She is sexy, fun but  elegant. And this is the sensibility that he is trying to impress upon us-it’s Peruvian fine dining but with a Latin American warmth to it. Part of the St Margaret’s development it sits where Guru and The Battery used to.

The front entrance is an eye catching verdant scene glowing with hydroponic lights. The scene is a joint venture between Morena and Queensland’s Kendall Farms. They grow them the very important “Aji Amarillo” or the Peruvian yellow chile pepper which up until now, they had to use dried or in a paste form. It took the farm just two crops to get it just right.

Morena has Australia’s first pisco bar, pisco being that eminently drinkable grape brandy that lends itself to sour flavours without being too mouth puckeringly sour. Here they experiment with many different cocktails including Pisco infused with coca leaves (the leaves that are used to make cocaine but have actually been part of the Inca and Andean diet for many years-and no the end result bears no resemblance to cocaine! ).

Pisco Sour $17

The Pisco sour is a frothy foamy drink made with Santiago Queirolo Pisco, lime juice, sugar syrup and egg white shaken vigorously and served in a wine taster with a couple of dashes of bitters and has a distinct aniseedy taste to it. It is finished off with some finely grated kaffir lime zest. Limes are sweeter in Peru while they are more acidic here so to compensate they also use some lemon juice.

Morena Chilcano $18

The Morena Chilcano is Alejandro’s favourite. He predicts that when the Summer weather hits and they open up to the courtyard outside in February this refreshing cocktail with Pisco infused cucumber, lime juice and ginger ale will be the hit.

The bread is baked on the premises daily and is a lovely, warm round roll with quinoa and it comes to life when paired with the coriander seed and black pepper infused Italian olive oil. Service is sweet and they explain things to us. However as we’re dining early (way too early for the Surry Hills crowd) and are the only customers, we feel a little claustrophobic as two wait staff hover over us.

Peruvian ceviche with kingfish, cancha and caramelised sweet potato and seaweed $20

There’s a degustation menu with 6 courses for $105 or with matching wines for $135 but we went a la carte as we wanted to try some other dishes. We start with what has to be the signature dish, a Peruvian ceviche. Although ceviche is a dish that spans many countries, the difference between others and Peruvian ceviche is the use of aji amarillo and it is not considered a Peruvian ceviche without it. The waiter tells us that the fish today is kingfish instead of the pink snapper on the menu and it comes in even sized cubes dressed with lime and lemon juice, balls of sweet, caramelised sweet potato and cancha which are crunchy, dry roasted Andean corn-corn being another item that is used extensively.

The flavours are tart, moreish and the texture of the kingfish is sublime. There was some brown seaweed at the bottom which was quite strong in flavour and I didn’t really go for this as I preferred the fresh flavour of the kingfish and I felt that the seaweed detracted from the fish. They key to good ceviche apart from fresh fish is using freshly squeezed juice as storing lemon and lime juices overnight can turn them bitter.

Causas 3 $18

Causas 3 is actually based on the historical dish of causa. When Peru was fighting for independence they used to feed the troops on what they could get their hands on which was potatoes. It is a dish based on mashed potato and historically they mixed with aji and lime and as named Causa as it would sustain the troops to fight for the “cause”. The causa here consists of three quennelles of mashed potato and each is flavoured with a different ingredient.

The top one is flavoured with parsley and other herbs and is topped with a creamy avocado and tiny, crunchy cubes of fish (and is my favourite of the causas). The yellow causa is the original causa and is desiree potato mixed with aji amarillo to give it a more golden colour and topped with large kernels of Andean corn. The third orange causa is given blush with roasted capsicum and topped with tender, braised octopus. And all of these dishes are plated very prettily and as per my resolution after the photography class last year I love playing around with the manual settings on the camera and using  my favourite Sigma lenses to try and capture these.

Andean Garden $18

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