MASH Brasserie – Mash Brewing Review – Sunday 7 October 2007
Sunday was the perfect day for us to go and taste the delights of the Mash Brewing out in the Swan Valley. It was a cool, yet sunny day for this spring expedition and we couldn’t wait to see what Mash had to offer, especially in light of their award winning beers!
When we arrived we were seated outside, the perfect setting to drink beer, eat good food and soak up the beautiful weather and always green scenery of the Valley.
Beer!
We started our lunch with a pint of Mash Mex – a light clean and crisp beer brewed Mexican style – it was quite similar in character to say a Corona and was balanced nicely with fresh slices of lime. The boys also ordered some Mash beer tasting platters and let us girls have a little taste (by little I mean little!). I am not a big beer drinker, however I found all of the Mash beers, in general to be easy on the palette, not too bitter, and all with distinct unique, yet pleasant characteristics about them.
My favourite was the Honey Pils as you could really taste and smell the honey aroma in the beer which wasn’t overpowering, yet simply tasty and clean in the mouth with a slight bitter aftertaste. The Mex will always be a good beer for any occasion and I was happy to learn after our meal that they sell it by the carton. From memory I think it was $55 for a carton of Mex – no preservatives, no artificial anything.
The Mash Black Lager was a really nice beer, nothing that you would expect from a dark lager. On the nose you could smell coffee and chocolate and it almost had a slight creamy texture to it. Something definitely worth trying if you are connoisseur of fine beer (or like to think you are, like my male friends at our table)!
Food!
Now on to the food! We really wanted to get a feel for Mash’s culinary offerings; if their beers were that good then surely they knew what they were doing when it came to food, we hoped. Thankfully Mash delivered nicely in the food department.
Starters
We ordered the Mash Tasting Plate – which was a lovely antipasto style tasting plate balanced with good fresh produce and flavours. The tasting plate consisted of delicious mussels in a sauce of Mash beer sauce. These mussels were absolutely beautiful – they were fresh, plump and juicy and not over-cooked! Also notable on the Mash plate was the semi sundried tomato and prosciutto salad. The semi sundried tomatoes were plump and sweet cherry tomatoes and the prosciutto was good quality; perfect mix. There were also mixed marinated antipasto vegetables, such as roasted capsicum in oil and artichoke with olives. Very tasty indeed. Then a stack of courgette with roast capsicum, baby spinach and bocconcini – this was really yummy! Finally the sausages with a Mash beer gravy; the sausages were a tad plain on their own, however they matched with the gravy really well. We found the tasting plate a good size for two.
In addition to the Mash Tasting Plate, for entrée, we ordered a caramelised leek and aged cheddar tart and crab and coriander cakes. My hopes about this tart were probably a little high-fetched, as I had tried similar at a very well renowned restaurant recently as part of their degustation menu (which was to die for and was more like a quiche). This tart had a base of puff pastry and the cheese and leek were all melted nicely in the middle. The puff pastry was nice, it was light and crispy and matched well with the melted cheese and leeks. It came with a mesculin salad with yellow grape tomatoes and a pesto dressing. I found the salad and pesto dressing lifted the flavours considerably.
The crab cakes were really good! They were light and not too ‘stodgy’, cooked nicely and were easy to eat. Light and tangy with a well matched dipping sauce.
Mains
For main I ordered the lamb cutlets with roasted vegetables and caramelised beetroot jus. I’m really glad I was able to taste this dish, as it really stood out for me. This dish is a great ‘anytime meal’, and consisted of perfectly cooked, and juicy lamb cutlets, the right amount of (stacked) roast vegetables with a tasty beetroot jus. The vegetables matched nicely with the lamb and the slightly sweet, caramelised beetroot jus, so overall it was a well-balanced dish. (Everyone at the table voted my lamb as the best main!)
Joel tried the 350g scotch fillet steak with ratatouille, smashed potatoes and a black beer jus. Probably a bit large for a lunch meal, however any hungry person would certainly appreciate this lovely thick and juicy steak. The ratatouille was very tasty and the black beer jus nicely complimented the bold steak flavours. Our only criticism about this dish is that the smashed potatoes were a little dull. If they had been roasted/baked and allowed to go crispy, you’d get a strong flavour and added texture. Still the dish was very much appreciated by my sexy friend Joel!
Lou decided on the Chilli Mussels as her main. These mussels were almost the same as in the Mash Plate, however they sat in a tomato and chilli broth with thick slices of bread for dipping. They were still fresh and plump, juicy and delicious, however we found them a little salty and the flavour of the chilli was slightly overpowering. Mussel lovers would still have been very happy with this dish thanks to the quality of the mussels.
Finally, Dan had the veal osso bucco with gremolata (parsley, lemon zest and garlic) sprinkled over to lift the flavours. For not being an Italian restaurant, we think they did quite a good job of the osso bucco. It sat atop creamy mashed potato. It was tasty, however would have come out a lot better if it was cooked longer and the flavours allowed to develop more. It was tender enough, but the meat could have been a slightly more ‘melt-in-your-mouth’.
On the side we all shared the field mushroom risotto with a slice of La Bouche d’Affinois (a delicious and pungent creamy soft French cheese, almost a brie). This cheese (my favourite) made the risotto. The pungent creaminess of the cheese flavoured the risotto nicely. Unfortunately they were out of porcini mushrooms for this dish and had to use field mushrooms which didn’t give off as powerful a taste, but when they get their hands on some porcini, you can be sure it’ll be a great dish, especially for the vegetarians.
Desserts
We were all quite full by this stage, having spent the afternoon drinking beer and stuffing our faces, however I couldn’t leave without at least trying something small and sweet to cleanse the palette! We decided to share two desserts. One, being the lemon lime tart and the other, the sticky date pudding.
Ok, this tart was good. The texture was really creamy and easy to eat, however not too sickly, and the pastry was a lovely soft short pastry, it was moist and melt-in-the-mouth. It was nearly the perfect dessert, just lacked a tiny bit of zing from some lemon zest or incorporating some more lemon juice into the mix. We ended up eating the lime garnish along with the tart, which lifted the flavours considerably and solved the little zing problem, made the tart taste divine!
The sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce was however a little disappointing. It came out like a muffin, was rather large for a dessert. It wasn’t drenched or swimming in a pool of butterscotch sauce – it merely had a thick sauce which had almost set on top. If it were smaller and moister, it would have been great. Both desserts came out with a generous dollop of good quality double cream which finished both off really nicely.
All in all – we found Mashed Brewing really does what they are supposed to as a brewery/brasserie. Good food that goes well with great beers, and then those great beers went down very nicely! Definitely recommend heading up there for a lazy Sunday lunch.
Service was flawless and always came with a smile or a joke, good touch to the sort of atmosphere they offer.
The venue still looks new and tastefully done and has a comforting casual feel, with a band playing some older tunes throughout the day.
A very positive experience overall and I will definitely be visiting Mash with all of my friends sometime soon!
Emma Jade
