Lenna, take 2

The work Christmas Dinner was held last night at Lenna – a place where I was returning to eat in trepidation.

If you remember my last visit to Lenna was a direct result of what I deemed to be an extremely tough review in The Mercury by GP. I went along there the week after Graeme’s review with the specific purpose of disproving his claims, and intended writing about my experience later on this blog.

I was astounded (and devastated) when I found my experience there matched Graeme’s, and I had to publicly say that.

Hence my hesitant feelings of last night.

But it was fine, in fact it was impressive. Lenna more than managed to redeem themselves in Rita’s humble opinion.

It was a private function with a set menu with 3 choices on each of the 3 courses. I chose the Tasmanian Ocean Trout Gravlax (Lenna trout gravlax, spinach & horseradish roulade, brioche crouton and chilli oil dressing) for entrée; Groenwald’s Chicken Breast (free range chicken breast supreme, potato galette, spinach, snow peas, white wine and grape sauce) for mains, then finished off with Tasmanian Apple Tart (apple frangipan tart, raspberry sauce & King Island double cream).

The choices themselves were a fine cross section of foods which encompassed most people’s tastes. My food was excellent. The roulade, which (I have to come clean and admit) I ordered with the most fear, was beautiful. The horseradish/cream cheesey filling which was rolled inside the roulade was perfectly “horseradished”. This can be the most boring and mundane dish out, and I’ve had it quite a few times over the years where it has indeed been quite unremarkable, but Lenna’s was definitely not unremarkable. The combination of tastes was well matched, and I loved it, so was eagerly awaiting the mains.

The chicken breast, which I consider another test case where a restaurant can quite easily take the boring and predictable way out, was also a fine match of flavours, with the grape sauce completing it along with the way they’d cooked the breast itself.

The apple tart wasn’t that startling but to finish off the meal it was absolutely fine.

The service was excellent, with our two waitresses complementing each other, and working together in tandem very well – something relatively rare in todays Gen Y generation. I was seriously impressed.

So – Lenna – you’re a star. You’ve regained your footing on the Rita-scale and Head Chef Graham Smith is to be heartily congratulated.