TAXI

Transport Hotel, Federation Sq (03) 9654 8808
Score: No score
The story of this meal at Taxi Dining Room is a complicated one, but one I absolutely have to tell. I came here for dinner with the family for my brother’s birthday. I’m not going to go into details, but it was a meal I’d rather forget. The service was shocking, the food was disappointing and the whole experience was a bit of a disaster.

After much thought, I made the decision to call the restaurant and have a word with the Maitre D. Not only did he listen, he understood, took the complaint seriously and asked us back for a complimentary meal to make amends.

Sometimes restaurants get it wrong – we all do. But the making of a good restaurant is not just whether they can get it right. It’s whether they know how to fix it when they don’t.

So with much trepidation, we ventured back to Taxi Dining Room for our complimentary meal. I’m not going to score the meal, but I’m going to tell you about our second venture. It was one of the best meals I’ve had in Melbourne.

The first dish was scampi with truffle oil, with salmon roe, witlof and chervil. It was an absolute triumph. I adore witlof – the peppery flavour set against the richness and warmth of the truffle oil and saltiness of the roe. The scampi were small, sweet and succulent.

The second dish was smoked mangrove duck breast with apple and Asian mushrooms with balsamic reduction. The duck was juicy and tender and the balsamic wrapped itself around everything like a sweet, sticky, cuddly blanket.

Third up was sticky pork belly with seared scallop, red chilli sauce and a young coconut salad. The rich, fatty pork was lightened up with the fresh, crispy salad and the scallop was completely rare and tender inside – it melted away with no chewing required.

A tom kha with lightly seared kingfish, enoki and chilli was rich and flavoursome. It wasn’t too rich, which is a risk with some soups that have been over-developed. It left me wanting more.

Pan-fried wild barramundi with a cucumber and prawn salad, with king prawn tail and orange miso paste. Barra isn’t my favourite fish, but the dish was good and the serving extremely generous.

Wagyu porterhouse with king brown mushrooms and a yakuniku dipping sauce was completely divine. The meat was tender and soft and cooked rare. But the real triumph was the dipping sauce which made the meat sing with happiness in my mouth. It consists of mirin, Chinese rice wine, nashi, sesame and soy. Divine.

After quick palate refresher of orange and sake granita with strawberry jelly, we were into dessert. The dessert was a strawberry sorbet, cherry granita and strawberry soufflé. The ices were beautiful, but the piece de resistance was the soufflé – classic and utterly perfect. It tasted like an old-fashioned tea party.

We chose a 2008 pinot blanc ($90) to go with the meal.

As I said, I’m not going to rate this meal, because to be fair it would have to be a hybrid review of the first and second visits. But I will say this: they set out to win us back and they did. If this is what Taxi is capable of, then I hope they keep doing it because it was one of our best meals this year.

Also, apologies for the terrible photos – the restaurant was one of the darkest I’ve been to, but the views were phenomenal.