Yesterday for lunch my parents and I went to The Brasserie by Phillipe Mouchel at Crown to celebrate my birthday.

This is one of my favourite special occasion restaurants, but I really think you don't need to save it for special occasions, especially if you go at lunch and get the 3 courses plus a side dish for $40-ish deal. Which we always do.

So, when you sit down, they give you fab bread rolls with olive oil and deliciously salty dukkah.


bread, oil, dukkah

Here are our entrées.


Mum's wagyu beef carpaccio - I think it had slivers of apple on top.

Dad had his usual escargots, which were delicious.


escargots

I had confit vegetables with a poached egg on top. I was planning on having a VERY BIG main meal, which took 40 minutes to come out, so the waitress recommended that I have a light starter so as not to be bored waiting.


confit vegetables

And onto the mains...

Dad's was duck with figs. He said it looked small on the plate, but was extremely filling.


duck

Mum had snapper!


snapper

I chose the cassoulet, which comes with a warning that "it takes 40 minutes to prepare and is very filling". It had toulouse sausage, duck, pork and lamb in it, with white beans. Wowza!


cassoulet

Here are our side dishes...


Chips - good God, I love fries!


beans


salad

Watch me work my way through that cassoulet. I did my best, but couldn't finish it.


cassoulet 2


working my way through


with apologies to phillipe mouchel

Unsurprisingly, being the greedy ho that I am, I still had room for dessert.

I had a chocolate tart with mango sorbet. The tart was very rich, very chocolatey and not sweet at all. It contrasted very well with the light and tangy mango sorbet.


chocolate tart

Mum had this fab looking frozen honey nougat terrine thang. It was gorgeous! On reflection, even though my chocolate tart was nice, I probably should have ordered this.


nougat frozen

Mmm... coffee!


coffee and petits fours

This was such a fabulous meal. I adore The Brasserie!