Sweet excuse to lunch at the Gastro Park

Gastro Park opened in April 2011 but already earned 2 hats and many rave reviews such as this one. How exciting! A 2 hatter restaurant for our dessert tour - our senses were in for a massive treat today. Then again, it's the creation of ex-Pier (now Sailors Club) chef Grant King. I'm sure if I enjoyed Pier, I'd like Gastro Park too.

(**KT dear, stop reading now. Go study your Spanish. Or bake your famous "proposal cake". Just don't torture yourself with further reading!!**)

The drinks menu consisted of a page each of signature cocktails, classic cocktails, liquors and spirits, and then what seemed to be an endless list of wines from all over the world. Pity my companions are not drinkers... I promise to revisit with vino aficionados and share a bottle or two!! Just for today, we settled with an orange juice, mojito and a berry mocktail.

And no, I did not match my drink to my sunglasses.

The deceivingly simple A4 page of food menu didn't bother me at all - we all know it's all about quality and not quantity. In fact there were many exquisite-looking dishes to choose from, where the only limiting factor was the size of our stomachs ... or to some extent, the depth of our wallets.

The first thing to single out of the menu was what sweetness shall I indulge in at the end of my meal. And then I choose my main based on how heavy the dessert will be (eg, if I opt for a chocolatey dessert, I may choose a fishy main). I am an efficient orderer ... restaurant staff usually loves me for it. And my speedy decision doesn't have anything to do with the short menu - just that I know what I want, and I want it NOW..... (read - feed me, feed me!!)

Heavenly flavoursome mushroom and
onion macchiato with veal sweetbread
on a rosemary skewer

I once got reprimanded for posting savoury meal photos on this dessert-only blog. However, as this was truly an extraordinary experience, it's sinful not to share what I thought was a total sensual indulgence! Not only did it all taste divine, we also feasted with our eyes! It was there we fully appreciated how vital the presentation is to the enjoyment of a meal. It was awesome that we had the restaurant to ourselves (highly unusual for a Saturday) so that we didn't embarrass ourselves with our paparazzi behaviour.

In fact our waiter probably wanted to strangle us as we sacrilegiously allowed our food to go cold before we devoured them!! Still divine, thank you chef!

My gorgeous venison which I sliced with just a normal knife, not a steak knife ... tender juicy goodness!! Seriously can  you bear to destroy it? Gotta immortalise in photos before devouring it!

We don't normally choose dishes just because it was made famous by popular TV cooking shows. For example, we knew Adriano before TV made him insanely popular that we had to queue for 30 minutes to get in his patisserie. But we serendipitously selected a crispy scaled snapper with squid ink 300 ways (or was it 3... I'd lost count) as seen on TV and again were delighted with the many textures and flavours spectacularly arranged on the plate.

Edible art ... texture and flavour galore. Sorry chef we let it get cold!

OK, the REAL reason we came out - desserts! Simply looking at the description got me excited. I wish we tasted more, but one of my companions didn't bring her dessert stomach along so we settled with two - the nitro pavlova, pineapple, coconut and papaya, and the fresh cherries with hibiscus ice cream, bolero milk snow, chilled rhubarb and cherry broth.

[KT: Whoever that participant was that didn't bring the dessert stomach shall be banned for the rest of the year!!!]

I could have died there. And I would be happy.

Again we allowed our desserts to melt a bit because they were so gorgeously presented, we had to immortalise it. The paparazzi session was no longer simply a record of the tour, but a photography practical class, and our subjects were the top models of the food world.

The nitro pavlova was like a fluffy semifreddo covered with coconutty foam and these gel-encapsulated seeds (like basil seeds soaked in water). The flavour was subtle but distinct, really refreshing and summery.

The papaya though, was it because it's out of season? Or that it was just not a rich flavour? This didn't really work for me. But who cares, the rest of the dessert was fab.

Stunning and a bit whacky, described as "Parc Guell"-like, it makes me want to smuggle liquid nitrogen or dry ice out of my lab to have a play in my kitchen....

Berry gets me. Or I should say that I have a soft spot for anything that has berries. It took me about 5 seconds to decide that I'm having the cherry and hibiscus ice cream dessert - love at first sight it was, and continued to be an affair to remember. It's another summer dessert, and with the warm weather we've been getting in the past few days, very fitting!

Tangy, refreshing and dare I say sexy! Can I call this the Miranda Kerr of desserts? And can I get a straw please... it's all melted.....

We had an awesome time. This makes the "divine" in divine dessert tour. Not only were they pleasurable to all our senses, but this kind of experience also reminds me how much more I have to learn and how far I have to go in the kitchen arena. Extraordinary experience, very humbling at the same time. No regrets for having bread and water for the next 4 weeks while the wallet recovers!

CS.

ps Many thanks to JD and SW for sharing this memorable foodie experience with me! And thanks to the lovely Gastro Park staff for a beautiful afternoon!