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Wednesday May 23, 2012

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Ten Minutes By Tractor

Posted by: Ela Carte | 23 July, 2010 - 9:00 AM
Ten Mins By Tractor

Ten Minutes By Tractor
1333 Mornington-Flinders Road Main Ridge  03 5989 6080
www.tenminutesbytractor.com.au

In the heart of the Mornington Peninsula wine region, Ten Minutes By Tractor is just a few hundred metres down the road from the ever popular T’Gallant vineyard and restaurant. It’s a great name, and harks back to the fact that it was formed in 1994 by three families whose vineyards lay 10 minutes apart by tractor.

10X is a bit more modern, even slick, than it’s well known neighbor, but it’s still a warm, welcoming cellar door and restaurant that greets you. There’s a great, light, airy dining room. Timber floors, white tablecloths, huge windows with a perfect wine country view - hills, vines, and even a handful of sheep doing the gardening under the grapes.

This is regional fine dining, all class and nice little touches like real towels and Aesop soap in the bathrooms, crumb scraping, and staff actually ironing the linen in between diners!

The food? French-inspired, a simple menu of five entrees and five mains, plus a couple of specials on the day, along with suggested wine accompaniments.
Importantly the wine list is an absolute tome, it’s huge, and as such not at all limited to 10x wines. It’s a veritable doorstop with brilliant information on different types of wine from around the globe.

The menu items come under simple one word titles that give you a fairly good indication of what you’re about to eat, so here’s what we tasted:

EEL: Smoked eel consommé; eel custard, flathead and sea scallop. My South American friend who’d grown up on the stuff and desperately missed it here was suitably impressed.

PARTRIDGE: I hate to admit it, but sometimes it can be a competition when you’re eating out – everyone one wants to order that dish that at the end of the night everybody else wishes they’d ordered. And at 10X, I did that. My “Partridge” entrée was Partridge breast, chesnut tagliolini (noodles), ham hock, pumpkin and rosemary veloute (one of the four French “mother sauces”). A stunning combination of flavours - moist Partridge breast, super smooth pumpkin puree, shredded smokey hock, and noodles drowned in the tasty stock. It looked as beautiful as it sounds, with edible flowers and all.

BEEF: Huge beef fillet, with a rich red wine jus, but I was more excited by the golden beef cheek and horseradish croquette, little crunch on the outside then melt in your mouth creamy meat and potato.

RABBIT: Gorgeous, balanced dish with poached rabbit loin, slow cooked leg and impressive tortellini – much lighter than my big meaty main which I think was an advantage.

SIDES: We ordered cauliflower gratin and kipfler potatoes but that really was a bit ambitious, they barely had a dint in them by the end of the meal.

PRICE: It’s not cheap – but then not many restaurants in the heart of Peninsula wine country are. Entrees $18-22 … Mains $38-40. 

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