Bistro Lunch for Two, Must Winebar

Now that I’m on a break from my full-time job, I can squeeze in the occasional week day restaurant lunch. An invitation from Must Winebar to try their new $80 Bistro Lunch for Two (two courses and a glass of wine per person) was the perfect excuse to invite my mum on a lunch date – something I haven’t done in years.

Mum was thrilled to come to lunch and declared that she wouldn’t eat breakfast that day.

The Bistro Lunch for Two menu provides a choice of a glass of sparkling, white or red wine, and three options each for entree, main course and dessert. As I suspected, my savoury toothed Mum preferred to go entree + main rather than main + dessert, which was fine by me.

We both chose the white – Pio Pio Chenin Blanc 2013 (Margaret River) – and then showed superhuman restraint by not attacking the bread basket as much as we both wanted to. We love good crusty baguette spread thickly with butter but it’s too easy to fill up on it and then struggle through the rest of the meal.

For entree, Mum chose the portobello mushroom tart, visibly laced with mushrooms, topped with rocket and crispy prosciutto. This on its own would make an excellent light lunch.

I chose the potato and leek soup, garnished with a delicate sprinkling of chopped chives and a Gruyere crouton. In typical mother-daughter style, we swapped dishes at one point. I even shared my cheesy crouton.

We talked about my upcoming travels and about Mum’s recent trip to Europe, a group pilgrimage encompassing Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. Anticipating 17 days without Asian food, Mum packed a secret stash of four packets of Indomie Mi Goreng and cooked her noodles using her trusty portable kettle to boil water. I’ve never felt the need to take instant noodles on any of my trips as I want to eat as much of the local food as I can, but I confessed when returning from trips where I’ve eaten mostly Western food, my first meal at home is usually Maggi mee with an egg broken into the hot broth.

Our main courses arrived. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the chefs at Must cook a magnificent steak. Mum’s sirloin was a juicy medium rare, with that delicious charry flavour most of us would love to replicate at home.

As soon as I laid eyes on my dish, I wanted to jump in with fork and fingers. I had half a rotisserie chicken on my plate, salty and succulent, sitting on a raft of tender green beans and silky sweet pumpkin puree, splashed with a rich glossy Madeira jus. Once again we swapped tastes – Mum thought the pumpkin puree was a little too sweet, but I found it balanced well with the savoury chicken. I was more than happy to help Mum finish her frites.

I’ve found Must Winebar very noisy at Friday/Saturday dinner, but for a leisurely week day lunch, the ambience was perfect for noodle confessions at the table.

We’d rather ambitiously talked about ordering a dessert to share but by the time we finished our main courses, there was no chance we could fit another thing in. Mum didn’t even need dinner that night (she even slept through her favourite TV game shows that afternoon!). I can’t say the same for her glutton of a third daughter though…

We sampled the Bistro Lunch for Two compliments of Must Winebar. Bookings for the Bistro Lunch for Two are being taken until the end of October. The Bistro Lunch for Two is available 7 days; the menu may vary each day.

Must Winebar
519 Beaufort St
Highgate WA 6003
Telephone: (08) 9328 8255

See my previous blog post on Must Winebar (August 2013).

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