While staying in Bowral, we dined in at Birch in Mossvale for dinner one night – just 15 minutes down the road. Street parking was easy to find and we were greeted, and led to our table by the window. Birch offers a choice of a la carte or the 7 course degustation. We both weren’t that hungry, having had fish and chips for lunch in Kiama earlier in the day, so we just opted for a la carte.
Mr FPJ chose a white wine, while I chose one of the elderflower and mint mocktails on the menu ($8). An amuse bouche arrived – a beef carpaccio for Mr FPJ and a sun-dried tomato and basil on a cracker for me.
For entrees, we both ordered the same thing – the scallops with spanner crab salad, and beetroot aioli ($28). A set of three scallops arrive on the table, all smothered in a bright pink beetroot aioli. They were beautifully cooked with a crunchy green herb breadcrumb over the top. I thought there was a lot more aioli than required and scraped most of this off but I did enjoy this dish with a fresh cold spanner crab salad.
I ordered the trio of lamb ($42) for my main. This came with rolled and roasted loin, braised shoulder, confit leg with regional baby vegetables and mint jus. The leg was nicely tender, but I found both the roasted loin and braised shoulder were overly salty. The loin in particular was far too salty, though there was an attempt to balance it with the lightly whipped potato puree in the bowl. Overall, I found the dish very meaty without any balance. Although there were three baby roasted carrots on the plate, that was it for vegetables. I felt like it needed more. I also ordered another mocktail, this time a blackcurrant one.
Mr FPJ ordered the black angus beef with potato fondant, spinach puree, porcini butter, confit eschalot with baby vegetables and jus ($40). He asked for it to be on the rare side of medium rare, and it was cooked exactly to that order. We were both suitably impressed. Perfect peas still in the pod and wonderful flavours made this dish really stand out.
For dessert, we shared the peanut butter parfait with dark chocolate and peanut praline crumble ($16). This looked like a magnum with a thicker chocolate coating, a super light almost mousse-like peanut butter parfait in the middle, and crunchy and salty crumble that really tied in the entire dish. There was a white chocolate sauce drizzled on the plate but I didn’t think it was needed.
One thing I didn’t like was that my mocktails weren’t muddled and I wasn’t given a straw/spoon/muddler to stir through it. I didn’t realise I needed one until I got to the end of my first mocktail where it got sweeter and sweeter from the elderflower syrup/cordial used that had sunk to the bottom. I learnt my lesson for the next mocktail, and stirred that thoroughly however it was more soda water than anything else. Disappointing.
Though I didn’t quite like my main, both entree and dessert were fantastic. Mr FPJ also loved his Black Angus steak.
Bookings essential.
Birch
2/249 Argyle St, Moss Vale NSW 2577
Foodgasm 7/10
Value for money 7/10
Service 6.5/10
FPJ score 20.5/30
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