Omerta and Gelato Messina

ღHAPPY YEAR OF THE BUNNIEღ

Ello peoples~today is Chinese New Year Eve so is everyone making dumplings, watching the New Year Celebration Show (新年联欢晚会) and eagerly waiting to get your red packets? I know I am!

祝大家新年快乐，万事如意，肚皮满满，红包拿到手软！

If you are following me on Twitter, you may already know that I've had a pretty rough week with my brobro having neurosurgery, relationship problems and losing a lot of money on a holiday that I didn't take! If you're not following me then please do cause my life is pretty entertaining (as said by some people :P).  If you don't have twitter then you should sign up just to follow me haha!

Anyway! When Spreets had an offer for a 6 course degustation and a glass of Prosecco at Omerta for only $69, a massive tweeting frenzy happened and in the end, three hungry bloggers and myself bought the voucher and booked for a seat to try out the menu for the one hatted restaurant.

We were promptly seated in the middle of the restaurant with three rows of cutlery and the degustation menu in front of us.  The degustation was in fact 7 courses! Yeppie! No complaints there haha :D and we awed at the details they put into the menu as the paper border is the same colour and pattern as the wall paper.


Degustation or, degustazione

While we were busy looking at the menu and taking our cameras out, the waiter has already started to pour our wine.
  

Prosecco

Rye? and Olive Sourdough with Olive Oil

Yummy soft bread with spots of olives in between.

Stracciatella, White Peach, Tarragon

A super creamy stracciatella drizzled with olive oil tasting somewhat like cheese stringers.  The peach adds a bit of sweetness and crunch which gave me many textures in my mouth.

Beef Carpaccio, Fig, Radish, Watercress

I was really really looking forward to this dish as I love beef carpaccio, figs and radish.  The dish didn't fail to impress as the beef was super tender, figs really fresh, radish zesty plus drizzles of olive oil and vinaigrette and garnished with watercress.  The elements combined was a visually appealing and taste bud popping dish.

Market Fish (Swordfish), Fregola, Salmoriglio

We were all guessing on what the market fish would be.  I was a bit afraid they would give us some ordinary snapper or dory fish but it turned out to be swordfish! How awesome! I was also scared the fish would taste really bland as most western ways of cooking fish is really tasteless but they proved me wrong.  The fish was super flavoursome and the fregola is soft and buttery. 

One suggestion is I hope they can provide a spoon for the fregola.  We were all having trouble scooping the last bits of fregola up with a fork!  We didn't want to leave any bits in the plate.  It was that good.

Gnocchi, Braised Veal in Port, Green Olive

I've ate a lot of gnocchi in my life and most was chewy and hard which made me weary of this gnocchi as well.  Oh how Omerta likes to prove me wrong! This was the best gnocchi I've tasted in my life! It was really soft and almost dissolved in my mouth.  The braised veal just fell apart with a tiny jab with the fork.  'One particular blogger' tried to lick the plate clean.  You know who you are!

Pork Loin, Parsnip, Mustard Plum

There was 5 elements in this tiny dish to show how much effort went into this.  On the bottom we have a creamy parsnip mash, asparagus, then a juicy pork loin on top decorated with a rich mustard plum and string of potato skin crisp (that was awesome).

Watermelon Granita, Mint, Lemon Sorbet

As the sun went down and the lights lit up, I was troubled by the terribly orange hue.  After I finally got the right settings, the granita has semi melted :(

The lemon sorbet was smooth in texture but zesty in taste.  I think the watermelon granita could be more 'watermelony' but Viv thought it was fine. The refreshing pre dessert cleansed our palate for the much richer one to come.

Chocolate and Hazelnut Cremino

My face has saddened as I thought it was some kind of cappuccino but this place proved me wrong on so many occasions.  The top is covered by a cool and super thick cremino, so thick that I had to use some force to push through the layer.  On the bottom is a bed of warm, rich chocolate and hazelnut cream.

Rich Rich Chocolate

When I pulled my spoon out, the chocolate cream oozed out and the sight is mesmerising.

The whole degustation was served up at lightning speed and we hardly waited in between dishes.  It was usually one dish after the other and the whole 7 course ended in 1.5 hours! Talk about speedy service!  We left happy and satisfied and thinking about our gelato fix...

Gelato Messina

We have already agreed to visit Messina before we went to dinner (no surprises there) and the feeling only got stronger after dinner as we didn't have enough of the lemon sorbet plus we needed something to wash the sweet and rich chocolate away.  Gelato Messina is only 2 shops down from Omerta and I have only discovered today that it also belongs to the same family. 

I was shocked by the massive line as it has already went out the door but soon I discovered why it was so popular.

Massive Line

I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices in flavour.  There was more flavours on the other side but I think I already have difficulty deciding just on one side.

Awesome Flavours

Our Prize

I ended up getting the Pear and Rhubarb and Poached Figs in Marsala (only $4.90 for two flavours!).  The gelatos were bursting with flavour and seeing how many fig seeds I chewed up, I reckon that the amount of figs used probably cost more than the gelato lol! Other flavours we got were Salted Caramel, Pandan Coconut, Mango and some other which I cannot remember :P

Omerta

Location: 235 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Phone: 02 9360 1011

Website: http://www.omerta.com.au

Gelato Messina

Location: Shop 1/241 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Opening Hours: Sun-Thurs 12pm-11pm, Fri-Sat 12pm-11:30pm

Phone: 02 8354 1223

Website: http://www.gelatomessina.com.au



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