The Currant Shed experience

During our recent visit to Adelaide on Anzac Day we took our daughter and husband to McLaren Vale for lunch. We dined at The Currant Shed, Ingolby Road McLaren Flat.

What an eye opener this establishment was, we had astonishingly good food, great service and lovely wine in a beautiful relaxed atmosphere and to boot it was extraordinarily good value.

There were so many gastronomic highlights as the four of us shared an array of dishes that I could ramble on for ages, so I am only going to list only my best of the best - and  choosing was difficult.
 
Their home cured Currant Shed marinated olives were divine and the salt cod fritters with smoked paprika aioli were light tasty melt in the mouth treats.
My highlight - and only just - was the hiramasa kingfish with edamame, corn puree, sesame crisps and Japanese plum dressing. My son in law, a chef and I were seriously contemplating another serve of this, however we were reminded by our better halves what we still had yet to come!
The grilled forest mushrooms with white polenta, asparagus, radicchio and pepper pecorino was simple and awesomely tasty. These fungi were cooked to perfection.
Slow cooked pork cheek with fennel, shaved calamari and tapenade and black garlic sauce, had us wondering how these flavours would come together when we ordered it. But we were glad we did, the flavours melded together beautifully, an eye opener of a dish.
The saltbush lamb with smoked eggplant, braised mustard seeds, watercress sauce and a kamut cous cous with preserved lime was superb, the lamb you could cut with a butter knife, flavoursome melt in the mouth stuff.
Of the side’s the chickpea chips with eggplant pickle were delish, but far too scoffable!
And as yours truly has a penchant for chocolate we shared the dark chocolate and olive oil cake with Pedro Ximinez ice cream and licorice macaron which was a great way to finish a wonderful and memorable meal.

We drank Pressing Matters R0 Riesling 2012, clean, crisp and so very good we had to have a second bottle and a bottle of Shottesbrooke Estate Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, a seriously undervalued wine that worked a treat with the mushroom, pork and lamb dishes.