Leinster Restaurant

Press, 8 September 1982, Page 18

Leinster Restaurant

Merivale Village cnr Leinster and Papanui Roads Phone 558-866 8.Y.0.

A. K. GRANT)

This is a good time of the year to have dinner at the Leinster because, as those who have already been there will know, there is a most agreeable fire in the middle of the dining-room which gives the diner a pleasant feeling of warmth and security on a cold night. No doubt this will have to be replaced by a picture of a fire once the wowsers and loonies of the clean-air movement achieve their final, miserable, life-denying victory. The menu at the Leinster is really rather grand, “haute cuisine” at its haute-est. You can, for example, have "cuisses de grenouilles,” or "frogs legs,” as they are called by Anglo-Saxon frogs. Neither my wife nor I were in the mood for these but I started with an absolutely first-rate French onion soup, while my sharer ol

life’s burdens ordered a soup described as “creme Cleopatra,” the principal ingredients of which were carrots, oranges and white rum. She said it was superb, and although one presumes that white rum was not available in Cleopatra’s time, this dish would appear to do no disservice to the memory of that most voluptuous and libidinous of the Ptolemies.

(The Ptolemies’ practice of keeping sex within the family is alluded to in the popular song, “My Momma Done Ptolemy.”)

I followed my French onion soup with a wonderful prawn dish, "crevettes a la Francaise." The'prawns were marinated and served in a French egg mayonnaise which had a clear, almost sharpish taste, very different from the sickly pink goo in which prawns are usually dished up. • While I was addressing

myself to the prawns (my habit of talking to prawns has got me into a lot of trouble over the years) my wife was concentrating on "anguille fume,” smoked eel. She is very fond of smoked eel, certainly a great deal fonder than smoked eels are of her, and said that this dish exemplified all that could be asked for from a smoked eel. As her main course, she then had what in fact is another entree, “gratin de crepes farcies,” crepes stuffed with seafoods and served with a Mornay sauce. This, she felt, did not quite achieve, the heights attained by the smoked eel and the

“creme Cleopatra.” I, meanwhile, was luxuriating in a roast saddle of hare, or “Rable de Lievre St Hubert." The saddle was marinated, roasted and served with a cranberry sauce.

When I ordered the saddle of hare, I was asked how I would like it dope, in the same way that one would be asked about a steak. This is evidence of the care and skill with which food is prepared at Leinster: hare is like duck, one of those meats which can taste like sacking if it is badly cooked. This hare, when it arrived, was spot on —

moist, firm, delicious.. My wife had a sorbet for dessert. It was a very good sorbet, managing, as good sorbets do. to be both sweet and astringent at the same time. We then had four glasses of coffee fortified with certain substances. The bill for the whole meal came to $49.40; the hare being the most expensive dish at $12.40. The Leinster is a very good restaurant, setting itself high standards and achieving them. There is a lot about the so-called Merivale Village which is phony but the Leinster is a credit to the district.