Xanadu, Margaret River, WA

Margaret river is approximately about 4hrs away from Perth (Western Australia) it's really actually about 3hrs away (if you drive like hell) but this only works if there are no speed traps along the way.

After a continuous drive, it was pretty good to lay back and enjoy this huge fireplace in Xanadu's winery's Restaurant. I came to this place a few years ago and really enjoyed the food but I heard that their chef had changed and wasn't so sure if the food was still as I remembered it to be.

Still, it's always good to give the new person a fair go so we decided to stay and try out the new menu.

Well, we ordered the spinach and ricotta tart with blue manna crab, pumpkin soup and their Dragon Plate for starters. The servings had really shrunk, everything was still arranged to look pretty but the taste was only passable and the servings were definitely way too small.

We could only hope the desserts would be slightly more impressive...


If Xanadu had a saving grace their desserts would probably be it. To be fair to them, the flavors in all their desserts were pretty good. From left: The first one was a cream cheese cake with a very nice citrus tang and was topped off with something that reminded me of dragon beard candy. The second one was the only one which did not leave much impression, it tasted very similar to a malay cake (kuah bangkit?), third was the typical super moist and rich chocolate cake which I had little complaints about and the last was a pretty tasty crème caramel with smooth vanilla icecream on top.

All in all, I'm not sure if I'll come back here for lunch again because M.River does have a lot of other eateries to offer. This is just the first of my M.River series, so hopefully the other restaurants I review later on will make this trip alot more memorable.

D

p.s: Oh, the other thing probably worth mentioning here was their rosè which went pretty well with everything and was quite refreshing since it had a slight hint of sweetness and wasn't too dry.