Garfish, Manly held a blogger’s dinner last night to introduce their new autumn menu and to meet their executive chef, Stewart Wallace. It was a lovely opportunity that I couldn’t let pass.

The evening was a very civil affair, a selected range of ‘arrival’ tasting portions was served with pre-dinner drinks: treacle cured yellowfin tuna, atlantic salmon tartare, crisp fried zucchini flowers to get the taste buds excited.  They were introduced wonderfully by our waitress as you can see in the video above.

Entree was seared hervey bay scallops, served with fennel remoulade, orange reduction and bacon crumbs. The presentation was simple but stunning.  Stewart described the dish in detail in the video below.  It was a complex dish, the fennel fresh and crunchy, working really well with the orange reduction. 

The scallops were perfectly cooked, nice texture, I found the bacon crumbs a bit of a distraction.  Overall though, a very adventurous, intriguing start – for me, challenging and very exciting.

You’ll have to watch the video above the see Stewart’s mouthwatering description of our main: prawn and scallop cannelloni, with avruga caviar and shellfish bisque.

As Stewart said, the cannelloni was made and steamed separately and not braised in sauce.  This gave it an independence from the bisque, allowing you to savour it and its prawn and scallop filling.  And the filling was wonderful, full of flavour, yet not over powering.  But for me, the bisque is by far, far, far the highlight, bursting with flavour, complex and incredibly addictive… we joked at our table that we could have drunk it from a glass!

Finally, Stewart mentioned in the video above, the assiette of desserts were delightful tastings of three of Garfish’s new autumn desserts: nougat and honey semifreddo, hazelnut pavlova and belgian waffle with banana and rum and raisin ice cream. 

My favourite was the semifreddo, just because the soft half ice cream consistency was easy on the palate.  Although, I could be easily persuaded to have the other two desserts any day.

Last night Garfish, Manly was pretty much full, an impressive feat given it was a cold Monday night.  That didn’t surprise me, Stewart shows a lot of respects to his customers, serving up complex, intriguing fare that challenge and delight.  And what customers don’t  like to be taken seriously?

Noodlies Sydney food blog and guest dinned courtesy of Garfish and The DMA digital agency.  We loved the company of other food bloggers including: Citrus and Candy, Jenius, Spoon, for and chopsticks, I dream in chocolate and dumpling girl and cheesecake boy. 

Garfish
39 East Espl, Manly
(02) 9977 0707

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