On Saturday evening Bron and I ate at Podfood in Pialligo

Podfood is well known for breakfast and we’ve enjoyed breakfast there before. This was our first dinner there on a cold cold Canberra night.

I made the booking through Dimmi and as we arrived we were greeted enthusiastically by one of the friendliest waiters ever 🙂 

We were shown a table for two along a wall away from the door which on a cold night was appreciated.

The menu on the night is a little different to the one on their website but not too different.

After a short discussion we went with the Chef’s suggestions five course degustation.

Not only do you get five courses (including dessert) you also receive an amuse bouche and a palate cleanser before dessert.

I loved the salmon tartare. It had a lovely refreshing kick to it. The bread was warm and lovely and that truffle butter was whipped smooth with crunch from charcoal salt crystals. I’m so happy they brought out more bread later in the service. 

This image was a little blown out originally and has required a bit of extra processing. The scallops were perfectly cooked. We loved the morcilla which is Spanish black pudding. 

The little spatchcock leg looked so cute when it came out. The pumpkin was smooth and full of flavour. The chicken skin was crispy and made you want more.

We call this the Dexter special. Notice the blood splatter on the plate from the beetroot. The pork was quite rare and a little chewy but it was tender and had a great flavour. The olive added a fantastic contrast of flavour to balance the sweetness of the apple. 

This beef dish isn’t on the on-line menu and we can’t remember all the details. Of all the dishes this was the one which didn’t seem to have the same balance. Don’t get me wrong. The beef was beautifully cooked. The onion cups holding the balsamic reduction were superb. The whipped potato was amazing. It’s just at the end there was a lemony bitterness that lingered for a little too long. 

The lemony bitterness didn’t last long though because…this!

This was a delightful palate cleanser. I could have inhaled it as dessert 🙂 

The final course was dessert. Again this dish isn’t on the on-line menu. It has orange sorbet plus a carrot bread and soft almost marshmallow nougat like column. In the bottom left hand corner the hint of green is a slice of celery which was cooked by sous vide and had a lovely sweet crunch and only a hint of celery flavour. 

The other highlight of the evening in addition to Bron’s lovely company was another diner recognised me and came up and said hello. She mentioned she likes reading my blog. I was very chuffed by that. Thank you 🙂

Now for the rating

I reckon it’s a four colonies out of five. Really good. We’ll aim to return. 

More information

Pod food http://www.podfood.com.au/

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Other blog posts on Pod food

http://mouthlessmutters.net/2014/05/08/pod-food-breakfast-degustation/ 

http://thecanberran.com/2013/08/07/truffles-and-wine-at-pod-food-in-pialligo/ 

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2010/08/15/podfood-petting-a-cheetah-and-the-poachers-trail-canberra/ 

http://talesofaconfectionist.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/podfood/ 

http://garydlum.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/wednesday-work-christmas-meals-a-baker-new-acton-and-pod-food-pialligo-ping-abaker_newacton-in_the_taratory/ 

http://lisasimplyme.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/lunch-review-podfood-pialligo-plant.html 

http://inthetaratory.wordpress.com/tag/pod-food/ 

Photography details

I shot the food with my Canon PowerShot G16. It was set at aperture priority (f/2.8) and automatic ISO. I learnt that if I don’t use the MACRO function there is a lot less noise in the images. The restaurant was very dark and I wasn’t confident that I’d capture the images at a quality that could be used on the blog. I was pleasantly surprised.