North Otago Eating Odyssey

Chicken with tarragon and braised lettuce and peas - Riverstone Kitchen

I had had my eye on an eating trip to Oamaru and its friends for a long time. There has always been Fleurs Place (the lack of apostrophe, while frustrating, is authentic) of course, the legendary fish restaurant in Moeraki. Then Riverstone Kitchen won the 2010 Cuisine Restaurant of the Year. And then Fleur opened a new place in Oamaru, called the Loan and Merc Company. Well, that sealed it. Plans were made, appetites were whetted and fellow travelers were enticed.

By way of whetting the appetite, I made the Herb and Pork Rillettes from the Riverstone Kitchen's new cookbook (I don't have the book, but the recipe was in November 2011's Cuisine) as an entree for Christmas lunch. (Picture here). They were awesome. So at the very least, I had to know how they stood up to the original playing at home (very well as it turned out!).

We booked for 3, being me, Pav and Steph our friend from Christchurch, but by the time we had spent 5 days in Christchurch we had acquired 3 more eaters. Brilliant!! First to Fleurs where the windy, bumpy road did its best to put us off, but this place's reputation preceded it and we were hungry after a drive from Christchurch.  Lucky too as Fleur does not skimp on meal sizes.

The restaurant is in a building right at the foot of the wharf. From the tables you can see the fishing boats coming in, seagulls circling and the one-gloved-guy scaling and gutting all the fish for the restaurant. Lunch and a show!

View from our table at Fleurs Place

Fleur is a charming host; she popped over to say hello after we had sat down, offering answers to menu questions. She made us feel special for just being there. No wonder she's a legend in the food world and none other than Rick Stein insisted on making a special trip to eat at the restaurant.

Half a muttonbird with spinach and potatoes (and flower)

To the eating: none of us having tasted muttonbird (Maori name: titi) before, we shared half of one for a wee entree. It was salty and fatty, as it always is apparently, but very flavoursome. You can see why it's referred to as 'mutton' – the flesh is a dark red/brown and full of oomph. The texture was to me like an older rabbit or a turkey leg – more fibrous than chicken. The spinach and plainly boiled potatoes served with it were no doubt an attempt to soften down the inherent saltiness of the flesh.

Sole with lime and caper sauce (in paua shell!)

Then we got serious with our fish. My fried whole sole with lime and caper sauce was unbelievably good. They sure know how to cook fish here and each of our dishes, all different, were perfectly cooked. The sole was served with one side of the skin cut out like a picture frame to the tender, luscious flesh below. There isn't much to say about about such well cooked fish except that it's retained its moisture (regardless of the buttery sauce I ate it with) and every piece of it fell off the carcass perfectly.

Remember I said that they don't skimp on portion sizes, well, the chef was apparently concerned that the fish for the whole terakihi dish which Steph ordered were too small, so 2 were delivered. On a plate that you or I would serve nibbles for 10 on! 

Steph was good enough to let me try them (well, actually, she insisted we all help finish the massive meal). The almond butter with fried capers was a triumph. She would have been satisfied with one fish, two was a bit overboard, but luckily we were there to help!

Because we were sea-side, we were careful to remove the spines from our whole fish, rather than turning the fish over to access the other side. The latter method apparently sinks ships. Lucky we know the etiquette. I'm saving you from the photo of the spines piled on a plate!

Here's a shot of the Shellfish Hot Pot:

After the fish course, we retired to Oamaru to rest up for dinner. And what a dinner it was!

Riverstone Kitchen is on State Highway 1 just north of Oamaru. It's more than a restaurant, it's a garden, a play area for kids, a store and no doubt an expression of how the Smiths who own and run the place want to live. The main building is surrounded by a beautiful garden which they are quite happy for diners to wander around.  Pav and I got some ideas for our own garden and one of our companions says she saw the zucchini for my soup being picked just as we arrived.

The menu is a treasure of North Otago produce. The meat is apparently butchered on site and certainly most if not all of the vegetables and fruit are from the gardens just outside. Another example: the menu lists “Havoc pork with jasmine rice, spouting broccoli, chili, soy + garlic”, but the exact cut of pork is determined each night by what is available.  For us: loin.

All diners were happy to play the 'try not to order double ups' game, so we tried pretty much all the menu. Again, everything was cooked to perfection. The vegetables were captured at their peak, the meats were cooked just as they called for. Nothing was out of place. And yet, there wasn't anything show off-y or complicated about the food. It's the sort of food you imagine you could cook at home, but of course is difficult without daily access to a plentiful, well-loved garden, the very best of everything else and a serious but not stuffy, deft touch in the kitchen. This is how restaurants in a garden country should be.

The rillettes (ordered by a companion) were smooth and soaked in flavour. My soup was 6 or 7 ingredients blended exquisitely to make a zucchini, basil and parmesan masterpiece.

Zucchini, basil and parmesan soup

Capellini with broadbeans, lemon, mint and ricotta

The goats' curd tart was announced 'light as air'. The pasta was passed around excitedly as if to say 'I'm so proud I ordered this!'

The smoked salmon was declared 'pretty large for an entree' and delicious, even after all that fish.

Our mains were all fine pieces of meat, cooked exquisitely and treated to accompaniments fresh and pleasurable enough to make one squeal with delight, and squeal we did. My Wakanui beef steak was cooked just as I asked and the smoked almonds are coming home with me!

Pav's chicken, served on braised lettuce with tarragon, made him smirk with joy. The lamb at the far end of the table, with couscous, caponata and pomegranate molasses will live on in the memory of all who tasted it, especially the very pleased orderer who got to eat almost all of it. Even the kale side dish (one of us, who shall remain nameless, is kale-obsessed) with more smoked almonds was worth dipping into three times.

The lamb that will enter into legend

Then there was dessert. Pav and I made room (just behind the sole and muttonbird, under the smoked almonds, hiding next to the steak in my case) for Chocolate Nemesis, a famously difficult* chocolate cake with its origins at the River Cafe in London. With the blackcurrent ice cream, it was to die for. The panna cotta with roast rhubarb sent the eater muttering with happiness and Steph bought the restaurant's cookbook almost on the basis of the Panettone Pudding with Zabaglione Ice Cream alone.

Panna cotta with roasted rhubarb

We almost died with pleasure.  Or overeating.  One or the other.

Then to bed.

Next day to Steam in Oamaru for caffeinated beverages and then after a walk around the alternating steampunk and 19th Century old town before a quick visit to Whitestone Cheeses. Cool story: their Windsor Blue was a favoured cheese of the 'Scrubs' cast and crew for their weekly wrap parties. So much so that when the LA supplied stopped selling it, a mercy email was sent to Oamaru to fix the problem. Which it duly was with a hand delivery!

Then off for lunch at the Loan and Merc.

Fleur herself had warned me of the below par service and she wasn't wrong. It's not that they were rude or silly, just that they didn't seem to know what they were doing. Someone else warned me of the small portion sizes, but that had been fixed.

Osso Buco

We were down to just 4 eaters by now, the other 2 having returned to Christchurch to do something as frivolous as buy a house. We doubled up on meals here, because we struck some of our favourites. My osso buco was cooked well, the traditional accompaniment of saffron-flavoured risotto alla milanese replaced by couscous, which did it not harm at all.

I love slow cooked almost anything so this was a treat for me and would have been for any other meat eater too.

The cottage pie Pav and Steph had wasn't the best thing they had ever tasted.  Pav says it reminds him of family cooking, OK, but not great.  

And then, suddenly, our eating was over and we were thrust back into wobbly Christchurch.

You should definitely start planning your own North Otago Odyssey. Riverstone Kitchen or Fleurs Place are both worth the travel time alone. Go early and walk around the garden at Riverstone.

* don't tell Pav it's difficult because he's made one without realising its alleged difficulty and in the absence of that sort of pressure pulled it off magnificently!