Dubrovnik 360 Dinner

I promised to tell you about the meal we had. I mentioned in the original Dubrovnik blog that we’d had a lot of good food there including Sushi and fresh fish but we had treated ourselves to a night in their Michelin retaurant because we’re both real foodies and we love tasting both ordinary, wonderful, tasty, local cuisine and high end cuisine. It’s a great pleasure and often a huge amount of fun.

The restaurant, 360 ( http://360dubrovnik.com ) boasts 360 degree views of the bay but actually it was rather cold when we were there so we were eating inside. This didn’t bother us particularly but some geusts audibly comlained. I’d have liked to have seen if they’d still complained if they’s insisted on eating outside, lost most of their food to the wind and the sea and been absolutely frozen. Surely they were there for the food. There were many accessibly panoramic day time views from Dubrovnik of the sea  and town etc.

In terms of it’s internl ambience there were a couple of things we didn’t like. We were seated on a table that wasn’t actual separate from another couple. There was a sort of foliage thing going on in the middle of the table presumably aimed at creating some kind of privacy but it didn’t hide the fact that you were only a foot and a half away from the person sat next to you. The other thing was, whilst I loved the lamps which were made up of cascading glass bulbs it was all a bit too dim and that’s a problem when you want to see what you’re eating. We went for their traditional tasting menu, the one that had resulted in their michelin star and matching wines. We always go for the matching wines if we can because there are wines we have never heard of and would never have ordered but usually go absolultely perfectly with the food you’re eating. Sadly I didn’t note the wines down so you’ll have to forgive me for that. Next time!

The first dish after the amuse bouche was a variety of ways f cooking carrots including slow cooked, chipped and creamed served with pine nuts and black garlic. It was tasty but not something that would make me rush back to eat again. Maybe I’m being unfair to the elevation of the humble carrot but it didn’t wow me.

One thing that does always wow me, however, is the presentation. Look at that. Sometimes it feels rude to destroy these things with your fork and I have seen people desimate the things on their plate without so much as a glance at the creation or indeed looking as if they’re enjoying themseves at all.

Next up was a scampi capuccino with jerusalem artichoke. Normally I say I hate jerusalem artichoke but this was providing the foam rather than in whole bits which made it much more palatable to me and was delicious. I was so pleased there was sea food and fish on the menu. You’d hope so being by the sea.

A little brown looking this dish but it tasted lovely. But there was better yet to come.

We then had a fish dish. Turbot with cauliflower cream, clams and a dark fish sauce. I admire any one who can cook fish to perfection (scared myself tonight by baking some sea bass perfectly but it isn’t something I always get right.) The fish was cooked, moist and succulent and the flavours gorgeous. I could certainly have eaten that fish dish again and again and again.

Then it was meat. Black pork neck (a partiuclar bread) with a beetroot and sour onion tart, pork skin chips, sweet potatoe and some cream of mustard. Yum. I’m a huge fan of beetroot and everything on the plate went together beautifully.

Isn’t that beautiful too. in contrast to the brown dish the colours were spectacular here as you can see.

After this I went for a comfort break. Whe I came back there was a very camp gentleman in the courtyard area. He happened to be japanese and wearing a white bomber jacket that had gold lurex swirls all over it. He was exclaiming loudly, whilst waving is arms around, about how dissapointed he was that they didn’t have a table for him in the restaurant. They were very patiently saying he was welcome to sit in the receeption area but the restuarant was full as it books out weeks in advance. I haven’t seen anyone flounce on a sofa to that degree for a long time. Back at the table I was talking about what I witnessed when who should I spy but the same gentleman only with a couple of other Japanese people. He seemed to have persuaded them to allow him to join them. The funny thing was the couple looked so ‘ordinary’, quiet by comparison, not extravagantly or indeed elegantly dressed and totally at odds with him and yet they had agreed for him to join them. I lost interest after that as more food was arriving and all seemed to be going well in their part of the restaurant.

The desert. In terms of presenattion I thought this was breath taking. I know from watching masterchef how hard it is to curve chocolate perfectly etc etc. This tasted very good too but I really didn’t want to disturb this plate although I did of course.

Coffee and chocolate mouse and rasberry sorbet..obviously some rasberry crumb on there too.

Having eaten all that I find I have a photo of another dish not described on the menu and I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. it’s a bit out of focus too. I blame the wine!

I’ll have to ask my companion when I get a chance.

Do you know one of the most memorable things about the meal. They made their own bread. Most of these restaurants do and they served it with two packs of butter. One was a pepper butter and the other a truffle butter. We both raved about the truffle butter and I confess we ate every last bit of it. Funny how sometimes the little things really matter too.

Digestion not easy after that number of courses. I have had taster menes with more but you only want tiny bites then so that you can enjoy it without feeling uncomfortable. After all that there’s always hand made chocolates and fruit gells as well as biscuits etc and often too hard to resist even if you are full so you have to allow enough time for all that to go down before sleep. Oh I do feel lucky experincing these things. Great fun.

More soon. Toodle ooh.