Royal Mail Hotel

The Royal Mail Hotel is a three-hat restaurant which has taken Victoria by storm. It's booked out for months ahead. As it's 300 km from Melbourne, one has to be fairly committed to eat there. But it's gorgeous.

Here is the menu for the night we were there (Saturday 15 December). It's a nine-course degustation (plus little bits and pieces) so you have whatever the chef decides is on the menu.

I didn't take photos of everything but here are some of the dishes. This was the most delicious Jerusalem artichoke that we'd ever eaten.

Egg yolk, teeny tiny baby potatoes, salt fish and fish crackling. Looks like a piece of modern art!

I loved this next dish. Little pieces of flathead nestled under an edible leaf, with crispy quinoa and edible flowers. We had a long discussion about how we would replicate the crispy quinoa at home.

Another piece of modern art. Look at these beautiful little lightly pickled vegetables -- the yellow and pink heirloom beetroot, the radishes. The eel is at the base of the dish and the meaty blob on the bottom right is lightly cooked bone marrow.

Salt grass lamb, broad bean puree, spinach leaves (three) and sorrel seeds. The salt grass lamb reminded us (the older Justuses) of Karoo lamb, which gets its flavour from the arid bushes of the Karoo. This lamb comes from one little island off the coast of Victoria, where the lambs graze on salt bush ... and then we eat them.

Now we move on to the sweeter stuff. This is a parsnip shell. Isn't it beautiful? Those are blueberries on a honey glaze, nestling inside the parsnip shell like blue peas in a pod. The apple is that little splodge to the left.

I failed to take photos of the quandong dessert (quandongs are a native plum) but this is the carrot, coffee and cardamom dish. We're glazing over (like the carrots: ho ho) at this point.

And an extra, not listed on the menu: fresh fruit. Sour plums and the first of the season's boysenberries.

Here we are, at midnight, absolutely full of delicious food and wine. Another culinary adventure under our belt (literally).