Cheese And Wine

An email arrives mysteriously from Café Polo in Miramar, containing an attachment announcing

“Polo’s 1st ever Great Wine & Cheese Degustation!!!

Five courses of cheese-dominated heaven exquisitely matched to wines from around the globe.”

Well, who could resist that, I ask you? Certainly not me!

So we phoned, we booked, we turned up. We were greeted with a glass of domestic bubbles, the inestimable Quartz Reef methode traditionelle from Central Otago. Before we began, the owner, Josh, gave a quick welcome speech professing his love of cheese, hoped we all liked cheese as well (we were in the wrong place otherwise!), and his belief that you don’t have to just drink red wine with cheese, as the menu then showed. Our glasses were refilled and we went into the first course, a cigar of crushed Jersey Benne potatoes, peas and mint, served with a pea velouté and parmesan sprinkled over. It was, in fact, cheesey peas!

Next up was crumbed and deep-fried Chèvre with spiced almonds, honey and fresh thyme. You can’t really go wrong with that – the addition of the thyme was a nice touch. This was served with a dry alvarinho/trajadura blend, from Portugal’s northernmost wine-growing region, Minho :

Third course was a kiwi classic, mac & cheese (macaroni cheese to Northern hemispherites), made with Pont l’Évêque cheese – a wash-rind cheese from Normandy, not dissimilar in style to Normandy’s other famous cheese, Camembert. This was served with a tasty chunk of maple-cured bacon, quince jelly and a curried crumb topping, which added a different dimension and texture to the flavours. This was served with a richer, stronger wine – a gewurtztraminer from Alsace.

Whew! Pretty cheesey so far, and time for a break. We had a lemon thyme sorbet between courses, before embarking on what was the “main” course, sliced beef fillet or tagliata, with rocket and a raspberry vinaigrette, and the evening’s only red wine accompaniment, a Hawke’s Bay cabernets/merlot blend from New Zealand’s oldest winery, Te Mata. The cheese accompaniment was Quickes cheddar, a strong and sharp cheddar from Devon.

Feeling pretty stuffed by this stage, we embarked on the final course – a dessert accompanied by cheese. Poached pear crumble with Shropshire blue, served with home-made lavosh, and a 2011 Sauternes to chase it down. This course eventually defeated us.

I think my favourite course was, in fact, the first. It's possible that by the end I was suffering from cheese fatigue, and would probably have appreciated the latter courses more if I'd had them singly. That's not to say I didn't enjoy them...but I should probably have skipped lunch!

 All in all, a very good night out, and we staggered out the door and up the hill home. A quick chat with Josh revealed that there may be another event on March next year, and of course there’s always Wellington On A Plate to look forward to as well.

We really must get to Café Polo more often. As it happens, there’s still an Entertainment offer to be used, so we’ll be back at least once more, sometime soon.