Back onto birthday dinners, and this time I was at the Brasserie with my best friend. We don’t get to catch up as much as we’d like these days. She’s busy, I’m busy. So grabbing dinner with her & her boyfriend was a good way to celebrate my birthday. We’d been to the Brasserie together before, but it was while they were doing renovations, so this time we were down in the proper restaurant.

I met them in the bar, and we decided to start with a cocktail. I chose a lychee cocktail, Roxy went more tropical with passionfruit and pineapple, and Rowan’s kiwi fruit cocktail was set alight. We hadn’t quite finished when we decided to walk over to our table.



We actually all ordered the same thing, a surefire way to eliminate food envy. Usually I try and con people into ordering separate dishes, and I’ll often sacrifice my first choice if someone else wants to have it. Tonight wasn’t about writing a review, or sampling an entire menu (or so we thought), it was simply about enjoying good food with some of my favourite people at one of my favourite restaurants.

We started with the pork belly buns. I’ll admit that I was a little sad to see the Brasserie menus change, they no longer had the details about where the various foods were sourced from. There was still a lot of local produce, so their practices haven’t changed, but I used to enjoy sitting back and dissecting the menu. But, back to the pork belly buns. One of the things I am excited about is that the new menu seems to be having a little bit more fun. It takes on a few ‘trends’ and does them so well.



The pork belly buns were actually quite light, and there was a great freshness that came from the cucumber and the herbs. I would have loved a little more pork belly inside, but hey, is there ever a time that I don’t want more pork belly? At the end of the dish we were craving more, I joked to the waiter that we could order 10 more, but we didn’t want to spoil the rest of the dinner.

Next up were the ribs.



Sticky and sweet, the meat was falling off the bones. I was expecting good things with this dish, considering the delicious ribs I’d eaten the week before at Eat Drink Blog. The style was different, but the meat itself was just as good. We got some green veggies on the side, and the ribs also game with thick wedge like chips. We couldn’t even finish our chips, even though they were crunchy and delicious. The ribs and the pork bun were more than enough, and I was glad I hadn’t ordered a second bun.

Before we could take a look at the dessert menus our waiter came over and told us that the kitchen had a special dessert for my birthday. It’s times like this that I’m thankful I have a second dessert stomach.



We had a sample of every dessert on the menu, all to share between the three of us.

To be honest, we were a little scared. It was epic, and being dessert freaks we knew there was no way we were leaving a speck of dessert on that plate. There was lemon curd and meringue with native Australian berries, delicious caramel filled profiteroles, a hazelnut ice cream sandwich, honey bombe alaska, some kind of cherry ripe dessert, and a creme brulee.

My favourite would be a tie between the bombe alaska (they’re always a favourite of mine), and the filled profiteroles.

We managed to finish the platter, and felt like we would roll out of the door. I remember being amazed by the desserts when we were there for my 21st, but this topped it.

I’m hoping to head back to the Brasserie soon to try some more of their buns. They also do a kim chi and a pulled pork bun, and I’m all for food trends when they’re tasty. It’s a bit disappointing that the kim chi bun isn’t available at lunch, I’d love to be able to go in and order a trio of the buns during the day, I’d feel a little weird going into the restaurant at night just to order three starters by myself.

The Brasserie remains one of my favourite places in Adelaide, but it’s not somewhere I get to very often. Thanks to the Entertainment Card I get there about once a year, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.