This Merimbula restaurant is a real treat. The setting is lovely - all wood and stone and glass - and the seafood isn't limited to oysters.
Of course you'd be a fool not to order oysters. I ordered a mixed selection with Singapore, Rocky, and Plumrick oysters.
I ate the "Singapore" oyster first - a brisk ginger-and-spring-onion slap to the taste buds. It kind of burned, and I kind of liked it. The oyster looks mighty fine in Oriental dress - subtle and mysterious amongst the ginger.
I followed up with the "Rocky" oyster - a neat natural bowl of tomato, basil, bacon, onion and cheese. It was oddly homely; a mouthful that reassured the palate by reminding it of cheese on toast while simultaneously slipping in the rarer oyster taste and texture, and making it seem perfectly ordinary too - like mushrooms, but not like mushrooms at all.
Finally, I ate the "Plumrick": a liberal pile of bacon with sweet and spice plum worcestershire sauce. Oh! All the flavours met at once - the lingering bite of the ginger; the reassuring plainnness of cheese and tomato, and the sweet sustaining fusion of crisp bacon and nuanced fruity sauce.
