I recall the first time I walked into Neil Perry’s Rockpool Bar & Grill about 6  months ago. You see my Inner Burmese (no road sense) had struck again and I promptly got lost and I meant to walk into Spice Temple. I felt like a child walking into an adult’s domain. Everything was incredibly tall and silver and sleek, like New York’s Chrysler Building. The pillars were sky high and reached to the higher than high roof. I in turn felt like little I was little more than 80cms tall and a child in high heels. Waiters in white jackets bustled about, men in suits lunched and I almost expected Don Draper to walk past me. I vowed to come back. One day. Maybe when I was grown up.

Fast forward to a few months later and I was lucky enough to be taken here by Winston and Sandra. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was newly minted by the SMH’s Good Food Guide as the Best New Restaurant. On the table are four books plus the large paper menus that are printed out each day. There’s the Red Wine menu, the White Wine menu and then there’s also a booklet that explains the differences between the types of meat.

Lastly there’s the cocktail menu with a page of “Rockpool Bar & Grill House Rules” which may be terrifying at first for a split second before you realise they’re meant in an amusing way. Things such as “Gentlemen, do not approach ladies, and if you’re lucky enough to have one approach you, endear her as you would your Mother”; “Don’t look fiercely at people, or talk loudly or  harshly, but cultivate a smiling countenance and a quiet, but firm tone of speech” and of course ” No hooting, no hollering”. And to add to the retro Mad Men vibe, service is old school deferential and unfailingly polite.

The House Rules

There is much indecision when faced with a menu like this. There are cold plates, hot plates, salads and then there’s the grill section. And who’s kidding whom? The grill section is where you want to plant yourself firmly. It is however an expensive patch of Real Estate with steaks heading up towards $110. This is why this particular restaurant is off limits on most corporate lunch lists. Neil Perry advises people to share steaks to try and taste the differences between them. The cynic among us would think this was to help repay the way for the reported $35 million fitout for both the Bar & Grill and Spice Temple. Yes in Perry’s world there’s no such thing as a GFC and I chuckle at the last House Rule “Remember, nothing is on the house, except for the roof” .

Bread and butter

The bread is a lovely crunchy sourdough baguette slice and the butter is sublimely creamy like a lovely French butter.

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Despite how it sounds being Tweeted is not a bad thing. Particularly when you’re tweeted things such as “2 Prime rib into the oven for 4 hours. Tonight’s take it slow dinner.” and “bone marrow roasted, mixed with chopped parsley and into sauce” from Chefmumu (aka Craig MacIndoe) who is busy preparing the night’s dinner and whetting our appetites with what he has in store for us. He is also the brains behind a great offer for you readers (read on!).

Polin & Polin Hunter wines

The Lamb Oven

Duck Fat potatoes: worth the applause

When I arrive along with a gaggle of other hungry, excited bloggers, we get another quick impromptu peek into the kitchen, past the furiously hot ovens to reveal the delicious Duck Fat potatoes, the other oven which has slow roasted the Lamb for 13 hours and the display of wines from Polin & Polin wine.

Kumatoes which then become…

Kumato relish

18 month Jamon

After our little tour, we’re ushered into the Tapas Bar where we’re fed delicious, delicately laid sheets of 18 month Jamon Serrano while watching a short documentary featuring a visit to Graham Strong’s Arcadia Saltbush Lamb farm which he runs with his parents and how the drought tolerant plant Saltbush makes such an impact on farming.

Slow Roasted Arcadia Lamb done 2 ways: View 1

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All meat is just not meat, that much is clear from our first turn of the Mumu Grill’s menu page. It is a place that takes its meat very seriously. Sustainable and organic produce is their focus and it serves only grass fed beef, a beef that a lot of restaurants eschew because of the variability in quality due to the reliance on things such as rainfall which in turn affects the grass. To overcome this they have 4 beef suppliers. We read that grass fed beef is also said to contain more Omgea 3’s than grain fed beef and is said to have 3 times more Omega 3’s than farmed salmon although of course the salmon farmers would disagree on this point.

All of the pork here is Sweet Bangalow Pork and the Lamb is Arcadia Saltbush. For those unfamiliar with Saltbush Lamb, it is free range lamb that has been fed on a diet of “Old Man Saltbush”. This Saltbush is a hardy, drought tolerant perennial that also helps reduce soil salinity which means that it has the ideal characteristics for Australian soil. There is also a distinct taste from the Saltbush plant. Both the grassfed beef and saltbush lamb are lower in fat because most beef and lamb are “grain finished” which means that they were fed grain in order to fatten them up quickly before they are sent to the abattoir whereas these are not resulting in a leaner meat and therefore one that is best cooked below a medium level.

Decor is very nice indeed as is service here and we look forward to our meals, particular the Kona Coffee crusted Beef and Saltbush lamb. We start with a selection of Tapas dishes – and for tapas lovers, to the left there is a tapas bar where diners can sit with a cocktail or drink and nibble on all sorts of Spanish goodies. We have ours at the table.

Jamon Iberico de Ballotta $25

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