Feel at home at the Park Royal Darling Harbour's Abode, set in the big city. It's a lovely little corner restaurant that feels comforting and warm. The scene was set on an early Saturday evening with the dying natural light bleeding through the restaurant lighting it up nicely.
The upper bar and entrance welcomes guests with a warm spacious area overlooked the dining area and looked out onto the bustling city outside
The restaurant's interior boasted clean, white lines yet maintained its warm 'family dining room' feel. The Australian flavour was intertwined in the silhouette design. The overall ambience is lovely.
We were seated with by friendly and always professional waitstaff who kindly went through the menu with us.
The menu had a great variety with changing specials, Abode has chosen very fresh and unique flavor that makes their meals really stand out.
We started with a Barossa Valley Shiraz and a glass of Crown Lager with a hot roll of bread and butter. The bread was fresh with a fluffy centre and nice crust, the combination with the butter was fantastic.
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| Yellow Fin Tuna Cocktail, Bloody Mary jelly, avocado Puree and shaved radish. |
To start we had the Yellow Fin Tuna and the pork belly.
The Tuna was generous and fresh, the combination of all the elements together was bursting with flavour from the spice kick of the jelly to the creamy avocado puree. The textures together melted in your mouth and really allowed the flavours to stand out.
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| Pork Belly, Seared Scallop, Organic carrot two ways |
As soon as the dish was placed on the table I was so excited to see a delicate piece of crackling on top of a well cooked piece of pork. The organic carrots were cooked deliciously and held a lot of flavor to counterbalance the saltiness of the pork. The scallops were sweet and cooked to perfection. The pork was good however not as tender as I would usually have liked it.
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| Rack of Pork, Parmesan crust, Caramel apple, spring onion, frisee |
The Rack of pork was complimented nicely with sweet caramelised apple chunks - a very fancy twist on the cliche apple sauce. Without the apples and crust though, we found the pork slightly bland, it really depended on the other elements to lift it. The lemon salad dressing overpowered the sweetness of the apples and on it's own, far too sour.
Whilst it was a great dish, it fell short of expectations set from the fantastic entrees.
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| Blue Swimmer Crab angel hair pasta, lemon, chilli & garlic, basil oil |
The pasta came in a huge serving with a generous amount of Crab throughout the dish. The pasta was moist and not overly greasy however it lacked a real citrus punch. It was however cooked to perfection and had nice fresh flavours throughout the dish. The portion size did surprise me though, it was a pretty heavy helping of pasta and as much as I tried, I couldn't finish it all.
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| Abode's Opera cake |
A classic Opera cake is always a good choice and Abode does it well. they really emphasised the texture of the cake and it's full flavors paired with a heavily citrus-ed sorbet. The balance between the two was perfect and really left the stomach happy.
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| Pandan Sponge cake, Coconut sago broth, coconut & lime sorbet |
I was contemplating between the Apple Mille Fuille or the Pandan, I eventually chose the pandan as I thought it'd be a nice rounding finish to the sequence. The pandan sponge was cooked with a pandan flavour well through it. The combination of Sago, sorbet and the caramelized pineapple chunks was to die for.
They really made this classic Asian dessert a star!
Overall the mains were a little disappointing from Abode but they started and ended on strong points. The atmosphere and service were fantastic and really set a good tone for the evening. I highly recommend having an early dinner in the late afternoon so you can catch that lovely glow through the restaurants windows.
xx.
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