Restaurant Reads – JACS Restaurant

Imagine this……

Its Friday night and you’re driving down a dimly lit road in a manicured, beautiful, quiet and influential suburb with your partner. There’s boutique shops, expensive real estate agencies and gourmet supermarkets nestled between expensive houses. As you come to the end of the road the light seems to get brighter and you see a row of cars lined up in front of a small yet elegant restaurant.

You park the car and your partner gets out and comes around your side to let you out. There, standing in front of you is the man of your dreams and he is taking you on a date night to your favourite local date place, JACS Restaurant in Applecross.

As you walk into the restaurant hand in hand, there is a few people who look up and acknowledge you walk past. Its like you’ve become part of a secret club and these locals (like us) have found a little oasis tucked away from the hustle and bustle of a very close main road.

Walking through the main doors, the light washes over you and your eyes adjust from the darkness outside. We are greeted by a smiling and neatly dressed waitress who takes us into a dimly lit room to the left. She gives us a choice of two tables, one near the window over looking the quiet street lined with blooming Jacaranda trees or a table located to the left of the room which is tucked away. We choose the table located to the left of the room as its a bit darker and seems quieter (it is date night after all).

Entrée

Looking through the menu we decide to have the chorizo, slow cooked beef cheek croquettes and deep fried camembert for entrée. My partner orders these items for us (which I love him doing on date night) and my favourite bottle of wine (Cape Mentelle) and settle into talking about our day. It might have been that time flies when we are together but it felt like we didn’t have long to wait for our entrées to arrive at the table.

Each dish had a character of themselves, the chorizo had a beautiful smoky flavour that hit your taste buds while the creamy and enriching deep fried camembert oozed its naughty centre over crisp, golden bread and the slow cooked beef cheek croquette centre just melted in your mouth.

We ate ever last morsel on our plates and the waitress came to clear our table and asked how the entrée was. We of course said it was terrible (just joking), we told them the truth that it was divine! Once the table was cleared, we ordered our mains (my partner ordered smoked BBQ steak with coleslaw and fries from the specials menu and I ordered the grilled chicken salad with pumpkin, feta and crouton) and we sipped our wine while our entrée started to digest.

Main

The mains took a little longer than the entrées did but we didn’t mind as my partner and I were deep in conversation (plus I was a bit full already from sampling the entrée items). As we had a little more time on our hands, my partner and I started our favourite game of “people watching”. I noticed immediately that the demographic of people varied a lot. To the left of the room in the corner was a rather large group of approximately 14 guests, varying in age, all dressed up, celebrating a birthday. There was also a rather well dressed couple with two children beside us who looked like they were having their own little family date night and a table of 4 teenagers in smart but casual clothing located near the window having dinner together.

As we were “people watching” I saw the waitress coming with the main meals and I looked at my partner excitedly as the waitress arrived at our table and placed the meals down in front of us. We tucked into our meals and I was glad that I ordered something light and refreshing as the richness of our entrée decisions started the catch up on me and I started to feel rather full. My partner (who can be a fussy eater) was really happy with his food decision as well. The smokiness from the steak, the freshness from the coleslaw and the crunch from the chips complimented each other perfectly.

My partner finished his main meal a lot sooner than I did and the waitress came along and took his plate from him. After a few more minutes I felt that I couldn’t eat anymore of the salad so the waitress offered to box up the JACS main in a takeaway box which today in the restaurant scene, with health and safety laws scaring everyone, is a very rare occurrence that this service is offered and I can tell you from how full I was feeling I was glad that they did give me option to me as it was way too good to throw away.

After my main meal was boxed up (or what I now affectionately now name “the JAC in a box”), we decided that we were having too much fun to go home just yet so we decided to go one last food round and get a dessert to share and an after dinner beverage each. We agreed upon a chocolate gelato with nut crumbs from the specials menu to share and my partner ordered his favourite date after dinner treat, the JACS Affogato and I ordered a JACS Raspberry Beret to cut through the richness of the dessert we were about to share.

Dessert

I love the anticipation of waiting for the dessert to reach the table so that you can tuck in, for me its like a kid in a candy store!

The Affogato came to the table first and looked a picture of perfection, all the elements were lined up in a row giving the guest the control of adding the ingredients as they wished. Then my beret came to the table, the lime and cranberry juice really came through in this cocktail and added personality. Once we had or drinks the shared chocolate gelato dessert came to the table, it had a beautifully rich chocolate flavour however it wasn’t overpoweringly sweet and the nut crumb added texture to the dish.

As we finished our dessert and drinks, we smiled at each other and knew what we were both thinking, we were full but very happy!

 If you would like to have a similar dining experience as our Friday date night. Please visit the JACS Restaurant page below.

Its certainly worth it!

http://www.jacsapplecross.com.au/index.html