Bécasse – Let’s Do Lunch ’09

Bécasse is a gorgeous modern French restaurant on Clarence St, in the heart of the city. It has two chef’s hats in the 2010 Good Food Guide, and its head chef and owner, Justin North won SMH 2009 Chef of the Year.

Accordingly, you can expect to pay $45 for a main course. Not outrageous, but a little bit out of reach (for someone like me). This post is a prime example of why I love Let’s Do Lunch so much, and why my friends and I save up all our pennies until October, when we can spend them together in style.

I’d never been to Bécasse before! The room was so pretty and elegant. Sometimes I get a bit nervous at the prospect of fancy restaurants, and feel like I am barging in like the dilettante I am, but the atmosphere was really relaxed. The waiters could see that my two girl friends and I had dressed up for the special occasion, and did everything to make us feel welcome. There’s nothing worse than feeling nervous and then meeting snobby waiters!

The Bécasse Let’s Do Lunch Menu was: Linguine of Kinkawooka mussels provencale, wine and coffee. From what I’ve le googled, Kinkawooka (love that name!) are seafood suppliers in South Australia.

I tried very hard to make sure it didn’t look like we ate at “ASSE”

The meal started off with the waiter bringing us canapés! Here we had an olive biscotti with lemon chive goat’s curd – crisp olive-studded toast with a small blob of goats curd cheese. If any of you know me, you know how much I love cheese. I could have easily eaten ten of these on my own. It’s so nice to have these little extras – and makes the meal feel very special.

On top of that, we were given an amuse bouche (literally: mouth amuser in French) – Spring Vegetable Velouté with Coriander Salt:

How cute is the little teacup

The only other velouté I’ve had was a few years ago at Aria (another Let’s Do Lunch meal, I might add), and after having the first sip there – I was in love. This véloute definitely matched up! Sweet, rich, creamy and pure deliciousness. I could happily drink a whole bowl of this (are you sensing a theme?).

For the main course:

Linguine of Kinkawooka mussels provencale

I loved how the linguine was so carefully rolled and placed onto the plate, like a skein of delicate wool. I thought it would hurt me to mess up the thoughtful presentation, but after the first bite – all consideration went out the window! NOM NOM!

The little mussels were soft and cooked perfectly! The herb crumbs were delicious and added an interesting texture to the entire dish. I’m not usually a huge fan of cherry tomatoes, but they added a lovely tartness that cut through the richness.

Halfway through our meal, we noticed little platters of cute bread being delivered to the table next to us. As soon as we were done gawking and had turned our nosy little heads back to make eye contact with each other, we knew our decision was clear. We had to have it.

Selection of Becasse breads – $6. Forgive my rad focus skillz. I was really excited at this point.

Like each of the dishes preceding it, our bread platter was given an introduction by one of the waiters. The long stick was sourdough, the delicate leaf shapes added extra surface area, which as we all know – means more CRUNCHY CRUST (hooray!), the double decker bread was herb and garlic, and the one at the back with the pumpkin seeds was pumpkin bread – by consensus the table’s definite favourite. It was sweet and soft and bright orange in the middle. It tasted sweet like a pumpkin flavoured brioche.

The two little dishes accompanying it were: a quenelle of butter sprinkled with salt flakes, and a block of olive oil (covered in kombu possibly! I forgot to ask 😦 ). The olive oil block was so interesting! I’d never seen anything like it! It was very cold, and eventually melted into a little puddle of bright green olive oil (delicious).

I can’t wait to go again! (but perhaps to Plan B next time 😉 )

“Let’s Do Lunch” is part of the Sydney International Food Festival and runs on weekdays through the month of October

Bécasse
204 Clarence St
Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9283 3440
Open Monday – Friday lunch from 12:00pm – 2:30pm
Monday – Saturday dinner from 6:00pm – 10:30pm