TOYS Collective - again

K: So mate, our second TOYS. Monday, 21 November at Cutler and Co., with Russeth, Rumpy, David and Welly.

J:  Let me first say that I was so effing excited about TOYS that all Monday it was all I could think about and by 5PM I was feeling as if I was about to go on a date with someone I had had a crush on my whole life. It is fair to say perhaps I was too excited

K:  Oh sure. I felt the same way. We had been talking about it for days. We loved TOYS Part 1. We had every reason to believe that TOYS Part 2 was going to be even better. Lets talk through the dishes and see whether it was, shall we?

J:  Yeah, because it cost so much money. But yes, let's talk food.

K:  Ok, shall we begin with the COCKtail? Chesapeake Bay Punch, made from aged stolen rum, cognac, peach liqueur, fresh lemon and sparkling wine.

It looks so innocent, but it really packed a punch. Bam!

J:  Yes. The COCKtail. Now I think it is not fair to compare TOYS 1 to TOYS 2 (or TOYS 6 to 8 if you are anyone other than us) BUT at our first TOYS we had a foggy PB&J COCKtail. This time we had a champagne peach one. Nice, but when you have had Strawberry COCK with peanut butter fog in your mouth not much can compare 

K:  Its true, not much can compare.

  

J:  It was nice enough.

K:  Yeah, but It didn't start my night with a mind blow (?)

  

J:  No. I would have gagged for a mind blow!

  

K:  I was kind of jonesing for a mind blow. But that's more about us than the Ramjets I guess.

J:  I don't think so. I think those guys present themself a certain way and that if we want a mind blow from them it is only cause they were asking for it.

K: Ok let me just say this before we go in to details of the meals...Due to an unfortunate seating placement issue, I did not have a menu describing the different dishes I was eating. And because I like surprises, I avoided reading the menus around me. And frankly, I think it was the best decision I made all night. It's hard to feel good about the words some people use to describe their food. It's like the more they can blow your mind with food, the more they can make you want to slap your forehead with the words they use.
 

J: I didn't read the menus much either, but I actually wish I had more. I guess I like anticipation

Anyway lets move on to the first course.

K:  Yes. Scattered, not stacked by Daniel Wilson and Andrew Blake. Cucumber and vodka cured kingfish smoked salmon roe, pickled samphire, buffalo fromage blanc, potato and wakame paper.

That salmon roe is being so coy

J:  OH YEAH! Things started to get real real here! That wakame and potato paper! YEAH BOYYYEEEE! Also I loved the samphire. Like a fresh spring sea vegetable!

K: Samphire tasted to me like green beans that had been living in the ocean. I loved it. And I loved that salmon roe that went pop in my mouth

J:  Yeah. You know because I asked for vegetarian meal I had beetroot instead of kingfish and roe and the beetroot did nothing much for me but everything else on the plate was delicious. Also I 
tasted roe from Russeth's plate and it was YUMMMMMMM!

K:  It was a pretty great dish really. A good start.

  

J:  Yes. It was very very good. And then we had...

K:  New Michelins by Brad Simpson and Michael Lambie. Quail and foie gras ballotine, pistachio crust and sauternes jelly, pear and ginger chutney, toasted brioche. At last, we mention brioche on MSC.

Bunny ears by Rumpy.

J:  FINALLY! Welcome brioche! I did not have brioche though. I had silken tofu with ginger and pear sauce, garlic chips and chilli.And it was delicious! So fresh and tasty!Russeth even said it was better than the meat dish.I loved it. I wish I was eating it now.

K:  It was indeed delicious, but for my money, the meat version was the dish of the night.

J:  Oh, that is interesting!

K:  Look, its probs a tie with the next dish. But lets focus on this one. Biting into crumbly brioche, smeared with that velvety foie gras, and set off with that tiny little pear that tasted EXACTLY LIKE CHUTNEY is kind of the enduring sensation of that night, pour moi.

J:  Oh yeah that chutney-tasting pear was really a mind-bender!

K:  It was a pear, but it tasted like chutney! How does that happen?

J:  Magic happens in those kitchens!

K:  It sure does.Like the next dish: Vue of View I by Nic Poelaert and Shannon Bennett. Confit ocean trout, cheval osso bucco sauce, cauliflower custard, pickled marmalade.This fucking dish!

J: This fucking dish! For me this was dish of the night! I mean I loved my fresh silken tofu but this guy! The way the pickled lemon marmalade played off the cauliflower! Shit! I had no idea cauliflower could do anything like that!

K:  For real.

J:  Oh, BTW readers I had asparagus instead of ocean trout and horse osso bucco sauce and it was still the bomb!

K:  Did we get confirmation that it was horse osso bucco sauce? So like, horse shin sauce? It doesn't matter I guess because it's not like I am going to start cooking with horse shins. But now, when I go out, I am going to want all my ocean trouts to be confit, and in horse shin sauce.

J:  HAHA. Eeewwww.

K: They've basically ruined me for other ocean trouts now. But that's the chance you take at TOYS, right?

J:  You said it mate. What goes up must come down.

K:  And down we came, to the Pig in the Pound, by Josh Murphy and Andrew McConnell. Wood grilled pork chop, salted lemon and cucumber, anchovy relish.

J:  Um, this is embarrassing but I have no idea what I ate here. I guess it was not that good. And because I forgot to photograph it and photographed Russeth's armpit followed by the spot on the table where my plate had been after I ate it I have nothing to help me out. Mate...?

K:  Shit mate, I have no idea either! I was just wondering that myself. But what I can say is that I think at this point we became kind of drunk.

J:  Yes, I guess it was about this time we started tweeting things like "@AlecBaldwin even you are not eating as well as us tonight #toyscollective"

K:  Yeah. We had to draft that tweet about three times too, because we kept forgetting to hash tag that shit.

J:  Well, was your pork good?

K:  Pork is always good, so I guess so. I don't have much more than that and I don't have a photo of it. Look, I think it's fair to say that this dish came at the point that Miss Soft Crab was taking five. From our brains.

J:  Yeah we were. But when the cheese dish came back we were back on it!

K:  Back on the shit out of it! The dish was: Bushfire, old forest, new forest by Aaron Turner and Corrine Blackett. Handmade goat cheese, buried, burnt. This cheese blew my effing mind.

This is the photo TOYS took.

This is the photo we took. It's all the same delicious cheese though. 

J:  I loved that. I loved it hard and I loved it good!

K:  People, imagine you are eating the smoothest goat cheese ever, and it is coating your mouth like nobody's business.Then imagine it tastes like a fire.Like the best parts of fire, and none of the dud parts.

J:  I seriously woke up on Tuesday thinking about it! How can bushfire taste so good. Shit I can practically feel that cheese in my mouth right now!

K:  And it kind of tasted like if Australiana fire.

J:  Yeah it did. In that really good way! What?!

K:  I know, stay not on fire please Australia. But we can't help what we felt when that cheese was in our mouths, right? And the dreams it gave us? Forgetaboutit.

J:  I have eaten so many great cheeses that it seems crazy to say there could be a best one. But seriously, I think that was the best one.

K:  I think it was the best one. What a thing!

J:  I know! Also, maybe that is what made us tweet this: "We love all the courses. Shut up they are bringing out desert #hilariathomas" And also think it was the funniest thing we have ever written.

Or maybe that was all the perfectly matched wines (except that first red one, a beaujolais, which was ill-matched if you ask me).

K:  Yeah. the wines. Now that I am reflecting on what came next, I realise that this cheese was not only the best cheese, but it somehow pulled us out of the matched-wine fog that meant we can't really comment on the pork course, and all I can really say about dessert was that it was there and I ate it.

J:  It was yummy. A tart sorbet with some chocolaty deliciousness.It was good. But you are right. TOYS had me at the cheese course.

K:  For the record, dessert was Bloody Beetroots by John Paul Twomey and Paul Wilson. Chocolate ganache, blood orange, beetroot and almond.

J:  Oh yeah. It was good!

K:  It was good, but I was pretty overstimulated at this point and could barely take it on. We had kind of lost it, right? Note the placement of Rumpy's head in this picture and understand where we were at, guys.

Top right. That's a head.

J:  It's true. We'd been on a journey and we were pretty far gone by the time dessert  arrived.

K:  I ate all of it, of course.

J:  I ate seconds!

K:  Oh jeez. I think I had a dip at seconds too. Oh well. Better to regret the things you've done, than leave food on the plate. That's a thing, right?

J: Its definitely a thing! And I live by it!

K:  Well that's good enough for me mate. So that was TOYS 2.

J:  Yep. That's it I guess.

  

K:  I think next time I am going to anticipate less and drink less.

  

J:  I will definitely anticipate less, and I hope I drink less but I am only a human.

K:I'm really human too.