One Tree Grill

One Tree Grill attempts, and mostly pulls off, some fancy stuff. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Herald rating * * * 1/2

Yes, all right, it was Madam's birthday and she does scrub up quite nicely. And her charming 79-year-old uncle Wally was over from Melbourne.

But calling her "our lady" was a bit beyond the pale. I don't know why they do obsequious at One Tree Grill.

Even I was referred to as "our lady" - as in "would our lady like more wine?" - and this is patently ridiculous. It's a bum note when they do almost everything else so very nicely.

The grill - I guess No Tree Grill, or Holmsey's One Tree for One Night Grill doesn't have the same ring - is a comfortable, airy room. It is all done out in inoffensive browns and beiges. It is very clean and subdued and you immediately feel that you will have a nice evening without any silliness. And so we did.

By the time Madam and her husband, the Physicist and Uncle Wally arrived we had been put on the couches and served a drink. Which, presumably, gave the Physicist the excuse to say, "They always know which one's the alkie" when a waitperson attempted to give me his glass of red a bit later.

Uncle Wally said he didn't eat much these days. Not at his age. To which I replied: "At your age you might as well eat as much as you can, while you can." This is my philosophy of food and no doubt means that I will not live to eat as long as Wally.

We ate well, and far too much, at One Tree Grill. But in the interests of making it through to pud without early collapse we shared two entree tasting platters between four of us while Madam had the chicken and lime-leaf consomme with prawn and coriander dumplings. She quite liked this but she wasn't too impressed with the extra offerings of stalks floating in the soup.

The entree tastings were very nice things to share if you are of a competitive nature. They each had two skewers of venison on a little mound of glorious parmesan mash, two ravioli filled with mushrooms, and a small pile of seared scallops with pomegranate something.

Uncle Wally claims to be a dab hand at cooking pork fillet in the microwave so we both had that. The Television Critic had what I wanted: the pork belly special. The Physicist had brain food: the sesame-crusted salmon with citrus-scented Israeli couscous. Great fish, he said. Great belly, said the TC. Not such great spinach and pistachio-stuffed pork fillet, said Wally. It wasn't. It was dry and tough. So we ate great dollops of mash which was no great hardship. They know how to do mash at the grill which I reckon is the test of a good restaurant. Madam had the "special" chicken which she said wasn't special but was perfectly good.

But she had her eye on pud, which must be chocolate. She and the Physicist shared a chocolate mousse with Cointreau and summer berries. She likes her chocolate things to be more chocolatey, but managed to get a fair bit of it down her throat, I noticed. The TC loved his white chocolate semi freddo so I swiped a bit. It was a fine semi freddo ruined, I thought, by the rosemary and rosewater marinated oranges which tasted how I imagine those sachets my nana used to put it her knicker drawer tasted.

But I was keeping half an eye on Wally. We were sharing a coffee-bean and pineapple pannacotta. It arrived wobbling wonderfully which gave Wally an opportunity to wonder whether it might not need a shot of Viagra. That was the last thing he said for a while because despite declaring he didn't eat much he did quite well with his half. My half was very good indeed.

We had a very nice birthday dinner at the grill. The service is excellent and the food's pretty good too. They attempt, and mostly pull off, some fancy stuff here.

But if you can't cook a piece of pork to perfection, take it off the menu.

Why, you can get a better bit of pork round at Wally's.

Address: 9 Pah Rd, Epsom

Phone: 625 6407

Owner: Guy Malyon

Head chef: Andre Carnachan

Open: Lunch, Mon to Fri; Dinner, seven nights

On the menu: Soy seared beef carpaccio, baby cress, sesame dressing and wasabi twist, $18.50; harissa spiced-lamb fillet wrapped in filo on roasted aubergine, capsicum, olives and potato with Greek yoghurt, $29; banoffee, coconut and chocolate chip bread-and-butter pudding with mango ice cream and Malibu anglaise, $12.50.

Vegetarian: You could take one here and they could eat mash (and a couple of other things) but they'd have to fight me for it.

Wine list: Decent by glass, good by bottle.

Bottom line: Jolly pleasant neighbourhood restaurant which is a cut above most neighbourhood restaurants. They can move to my neighbourhood any time.



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