GEELONG

Le Parisien
15 Eastern Beach Rd. Geelong Ph: 03 5229 3110

Fishermen’s Pier
Yarra St (Bay End) Eastern Beach. Geelong Ph: 03 5222 4100

 

It was a bit of an exaggeration from Mrs. Nosebag. But I knew what she meant. She was wondering why they weren’t more seafood restaurants in Australia. Especially along the East Coast.

Our coastline stretches from ‘here to breakfast time’. Our oceans are full of fish. Our shorelines packed with molluscs and crustaceans. In fact, we have some of the best seafood in the world.

And yet seafood is NOT our dominant source of food. Restaurant menus are still crammed with steaks and chicken and pork. And when restaurants do serve seafood they tend to ‘trick it up’ too much with sauces.

Before the e-mails of protest come in I’ll admit I have had some great seafood meals in Sydney and Melbourne and Glenelg and Fremantle and Cairns and on the Gold Coast. But the principle still stands.

Recently though we hit seafood harvest heaven. It’s easy to say ‘in Geelong of all places’ but that’s unfairly putting down a place that some people see only as a polluted industrial burg thankfully an hour away from Melbourne.

The seafood we were served at Le Parisien and Fishermen’s Pier was as good as any seafood specialist in Sydney or Melbourne. That’s not to say Jean-Paul at le Parisien ignored more Gallic dishes. There was Le Lapin, L’Agneau, Le Boeuf, Le Veaux. Even Le Kangaroo!

But we were on a seafood mission, sitting on the restaurant deck overlooking the fishing fleet and Corio Bay.

For starters Mrs. Nosebag had the Salade Aux Fruits de Mer. A warm butter lettuce salad with generous portions of fish, prawns, scallops, mussels and calamari.

I had half a dozen deep fried prawns with a creamy lime dipping sauce. ‘Deep fried’ sounds like heart attack country but these were plump, sweet  prawns fried in a light, almost Tempura, batter.

The warm, fresh asparagus wrapped in smoked salmon and served on watercress also sounded good.

For a main course I was tempted by the whiting fillets covered in  crushed, roasted Macadamia nuts  but the seafood casserole got me in.

Nearly forty bucks but it was worth it: Prawns, scallops, oysters, mussels and fish in a seafood-scented light white wine sauce. It was almost au gratin with a Swiss cheese topping on the earthenware bowl. If I had any complaint it was that there was a bit too much cheese and cream sauce to wade through to get to the seafood gems.

Despite what she had had for an entrée Mrs. Nosebag had the same. And then we pigged out with a rare dessert treat described as  ‘a chocolate lover’s platter to share. A very romantic way to end your meal.’ And it was.

The Le Parisien wine list is huge and not expensive. They have heaps of wines by the glass including Penfold’s Bin 389 and 407.

From Le Parisien’s balcony we could see another white-painted nautical-looking waterfront eatery called Fishermen’s Pier. That was the target for lunch next day.

It sits right on the water with a backdrop of bobbing boats and fishermen tinkering. Apparently it has only had two owners in more than 30 years.

Mrs. Nosebag is a chowder freak. They claimed their seafood chowder was ‘famous’. She was impressed because it was all seafood. Not a one cube of potato to be seen. Too many restaurants skimp on the seafood and ‘ beef up’ a chowder with heaps of spud. I think that’s the Manhattan version of clam chowder but it still tastes like the chef is cheating.

I had a mound of diced raw tuna with wasabi mayonnaise. Shouldn’t have. There were better entrees on the menu. Sure, the seaweed salad and the pickled ginger was good but increasingly I feel sashimi should only be served in Japanese restaurants with full-on sinus-clearing wasabi paste and some soy.

All was forgiven with the Fishermen’s Pier bouillabaisse. A huge bowl of seafood stew with a tomato and fish stock plus the juice from mussels in

the shell, prawns (king and small) scallops and  tubes of calamari. Topped with a whole crab and enough tools – shell-crackers, leg forks. knives etc – to perform major surgery. We both had it at $38 a serve.

She accompanied it with several glasses of local white wine – from Scotchman’s Hill – and I took along a bottle of Edenvale non-alcoholic chardonnay.

All ‘fished out’ by dinner time. Not bloody likely. It was my decision but Mrs. Nosebag’s treat. Where did we go?

Back to Le Parisien to share a salad of walnuts, pear slices, croutons and Meredith goat cheese and then some more of the succulent, lightly-fried prawns.

The maritime excursion got me thinking. I could eat seafood and only seafood (as well as fresh fruit) to the exclusion of everything else for the rest of my life. And Australia is the place to do it.

April 16, 2007