Glass Brasserie, George St, Sydney

Glass Brasserie, George St, Sydney
Monday 22 January, 2007

This evening we were off to see Madeleine Peyroux at the State Theatre. During the day it occurred to me that we might be able to get into one of the Fast Festival Feasts restaurant partners. I fished out the brochure I had acquired and looked up the restaurants in the vicinity of the State Theatre - one stood out - Glass located inside the Hilton.

I had dined at Glass last year and loved it. But the dinner was wasted on my date that night. Tonight however my Italian travel buddy and I welcomed the fabulousness of this great place. Upon entry (we were at least 20 minutes early) we were welcomed to have a seat at the bar or go directly to our table.

We opted for our table that was positioned in front of the floor to ceiling wine cases - very impressive and looking across to the bakery. Let's just say I would have eaten anything at that point! We chose a granache from the wines by the glass menu and also enjoyed the full bread basket that was delivered to our table. Unfortunately, the bread basket was served with rock hard butter. As regular readers know this is a pet peeve of mine - how can anyone spread rock hard butter?

The Fast Festival Feasts offering was Confit duck leg, cauliflower puree, pickled papaya and cucumber salad with star anise plus a glass of wine for the princely sum of $25 - serious bargain. After my disappointment at Wildfire over the weekend, I was a little dubious as to how Glass would handle the influx of bargain hunters. But, they handled it with the utmost professionalism and made every single guest welcome.

The duck was sensational - it fell off the bone and had a small amount of crispy skin that was just perfect. The puree was creamy and the salad was such a lovely accompaniment - it offered a mildly bitter taste to compliment the creamy, sweet flavour of the puree. Look, I loved it as did my dinner buddy.

We were having such a great night that we succumbed to dessert. I sought advice from our waiter for a choice between the Strawberry souffle with soya ice-cream and the Vanilla creme brulee with vanilla shortbread. Without hesitation he recommended the souffle. Done.

My dinner buddy ordered the Chocolate assiette: dark chocolate fondant, white chocolate raspberry mousse, milk chocolate parfait and was not disappointed. The souffle was exceptional - I've never really been a fan of anything strawberry but tonight's dessert was truly brilliant and everything you could want from a souffle - raised top, spongy, moist middle and light, soya ice cream that captured the sweetness I was craving.

This was a great experience and we left with 10 mins to spare before Madeleine took the stage.

Glass - L2, 488 George St, Sydney - (02) 92856068

http://www.glassbrasserie.com.au/