Cliché Exhibition @ Adelaide, South Australia

Today we visited a newly opened restaurant called Cliché Exhibition. According to waitress, the restaurant has only been opened for three weeks. We had dinner very late that day at 8:30 and surprisingly the place was packed out. We probably wouldn’t have had a table if I didn’t do a booking. The place had a modern feel with many interesting paintings and decorations. One of the special decorations were a circle of upside down trees on the ceiling. Downside of this place is that it is really noisy. We could hardly hear each other if we were too far apart.

The waiter and waitress at this restaurant were friendly efficient and well trained. They were able to answer all the questions we have on the menu (surprisingly this isn’t a common thing in Adelaide). The food was cook quite quickly and the order they came out was perfect. Although the waiting staff were extremely busy, they didn’t cut back on service. They regularly check our table, refilling our water glasses. they were also efficient at cleaning and replacing our used cutleries and plates.

Being a French restaurant they did well with their complementary bread. Luke warm, not too hard and smells wonderful. The butter that came with it was soft and creamy. Shortly two entrees came. Unfortunately they made their first and only mistake which was delivering the popcorn squid which we didn’t order. The waitress was quick to fix this mistake and was apologetic. I did a sneaky taste of the squid before it was taken away. It tasted quite normal but just to be fair, I didn’t taste it with their home-made sauces.

The first of our entree is called “Coquilles Colour-Field”. It contains scallops, pea purée, cucumber with crispy enoki mushroom and salmon roll. The scallop was well-flavoured and the sauce was refreshing. The combination was done well.

The second of our entree was to die for. This is probably the best dish I had for a long time and it was the cheapest of all the dishes we ordered. The description of the dish didn’t sounded very flash and we almost didn’t order this dish. The dish was called “Frickin'”. It contained abstract chicken frog legs (essentially chicken legs) with spinach and pea puree. The chick drums were extremely delicious and with the mixture with pea puree and mash potato… it was a piece of heaven. Yes the combination does not sound amazing but you will regret not ordering this dish when you come to this restaurant.

The third of our entree was a bit of a letdown especially after the Fricklin’ dish. The description sounded amazing and it was the most expensive of dish out of all the entrees. The dish was called “Crepes Aux Langoustine”. It is a dish with lobster and prawn filled crepes topped with parsley, chive and spiced cream. The sauce was probably the outstanding part of this dish but the crêpe with the seafood wasn’t a good combination in my opinion. The prawns didn’t taste fresh and the lobster was a disappointing slice which didn’t have its usual sweet taste.

We only ordered one main to share as we discovered that most restaurants make more unique entrees than mains. The main we chose was called “Francey Pig”. It consisted of pork hock with baby veg, beetroot puree and quince aioli. The pork hock looked like a dark piece of meat in the following picture but the looks doesn’t justify its taste. They took out the bones in the pork hock and combined all the meat in a loaf. They cooked this loaf with some very delicious sweet sauce. The sides on this dish were well made and tasted well when combined with the meat.

Winny wanted to try its Dark Chocolate Souffle but the dark chocolate had run out. The waitress said that they could replace it with lemon curd flavouring. However Winny wasn’t a big fan of lemon flavoured food and we were quite full at that point so we decided to give the desert a miss. Overall we really enjoyed our meal. The pricing was reasonable cheap considering the quality of the food we have received. We would definitely be back to try again but would probably have to book a few days in advance. I could see this place getting a lot more popular.

Cliché Exhibition

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