WOAP2015: Charley Noble
Where? Charley Noble Eatery and Bar (Wellington CBD, Wellington, New Zealand) Map Menu
When? Friday August 14, 2015
Who? Juliann, Tim, Jordan, Nic, Rob
Food Style? Contemporary European Woodfire Grill
Tucked away in the Huddart Parker Building at 1 Post Office Square, through some glass sliding doors and an unassuming entrance, you'll find Charley Noble Eatery and Bar. Charley Noble is the sailors' name for the galley chimney, a nod to the shipping history of the building that they are situated in. The galley chimney is responsible for drawing the heat from the stove and carrying it safely above the ship deck. The woodfire grills are in full force at the back of the restaurant, and you'll see exactly why they've named the restaurant Charley Noble.
Last year they served the "Shooting Charley's" burger: Taylor Prestonʼs beef patty with On Trays Monterey Jack, bacon and pickles, with house cut chips. For their efforts, they were crowned Burger Wellington champions of 2014, and rightly so, in my opinion. The burger was a solid 9.5/10 in my books, so when WOAP came around this year, they were the first to go on my list. However, their choice of burger this year was odd; they're very good with their meats and I've enjoyed my past dining experiences here, so when I saw that they were offering a fish burger (The Ebisu Burger: Moana Pacific fish burger with house chutney and Japanese mayonnaise in a Brezelmania squid ink bun with shoe string fries), I was a bit skeptical. Nevertheless, their Dine menu seemed quite appetising, so I went for that instead. To maximise the variety, I recruited my good friend Juliann and we split the menu and shared.
Starter: Urlar Sauvignon Blanc cured salmon
With Florence salad
The salmon is perfectly smooth and silky, and the salad is nice but could have used a bit more acidity. The snippets of coriander and mint are subtle but enjoyable. I had a similar dish at Matterhorn two months ago, and would rate that better than this.
Mains #1: Middle Earth rotisserie lamb shoulder
With pumpkin and Zany Zeus yoghurt
From the moment this appeared on the plate, you could see how beautiful and richly coloured the pumpkin puree is - absolutely fantastic and wished there was more of it. The sprinkling of pumpkin seeds gave it a wonderful crunch. The lamb itself was cooked perfectly - you can see the pink in the photo - and was juicy and flavoursome. The smoothness of the yoghurt and puree worked well, and the dish as a whole had a nice set of varied textures. There were some great bits of fat on the lamb - rendered perfectly and oh so delicious. Very enjoyable, and my favourite dish of the meal.
Mains #2: Charcoal-roasted Turk's free range chicken breast
With cauliflower and truffle butter
While the first main took 15 minutes to come out, it was more than one hour before this appeared. Despite the unfortunate wait, the chicken was well cooked and full of buttery goodness, with the truffle oil adding that wonderful finesse and decadence to the dish. The meat itself had that nice smokey grill flavour to it, and the accompanying bacon added to that as well. Pretty good, but not worth the wait.
Dessert #1: Spiced, baked Greytown apple
With Eco-Egg custard and candied walnuts
Elegantly presented, with the walnuts being the star of the dish - really nicely candied, sticky and crunchy like hokey pokey. The apple itself is nice, but just doesn't pack a lot of flavour to it - perhaps it would have been nicer if it had been baked a little longer. The custard was good, but wouldn't have minded it being a bit thicker.
Dessert #2: Greytown Gold saffron rice pudding
With rhubarb sorbet and freeze-dried raspberries
Almost two hours after being seated, the final dessert arrived - except it wasn't what I ordered. So they had to take it back and get me the rice pudding, which took another 15 minutes. Anyway, I'm not really a fan of rice pudding in general, but was interested in the saffron combination. Though each element was pleasant - the rhubarb and the raspberries had a lovely tartness and the saffron had its own savoury overtones, it just felt like the dessert as a whole didn't work and didn't really wow me.
All in all, the food was pretty good but the service really let them down that day. They even called me up the day before to ask how long we wanted our lunch to be (I said 90 minutes). They themselves admitted they were unable to cope with the pressure of Wellington on a Plate, and they were very apologetic about the slowness of the dishes coming out. We got some free tea and coffee for our patience, but it was hard to overlook the fact that lunch had taken 2.5 hours. Hopefully they'll improve as the festival goes on.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:59am on Monday August 17, 2015 :: 0 comments :: 