Hammer and Tong (dinner)

It pains me to write this, but this is how I feel about my beloved Hammer and Tong’s dinner menu. If you are a diehard fan, read no further, this will only bring pain.I was so excited to return to Hammer and Tong after gushing about it to pretty much everyone I know, so when the dinner appointment was made I was keen-bean.

 

We were seated easily for a Thursday night and received complimentary bread and butter (win!). I am always impressed and a bit chuffed with restaurants which do this, so kudos H&T. Though it turned out to be sourdough (not my favourite) with lemon herb butter, it was a strange but appreciated starter.

My bloody mary turned out pretty deliciously, if I do say so myself.

We ordered the soft shell crab burger ($12), which of course, remained amazing and delicious.

The fish & chip burger, pickled fennel, capper mayo ($12) was something we couldn’t go past on the menu. However, I felt the fish was not tasty enough, or rather, just tasted of oil and was overpowered by everything else in the bun which came off with a sweet taste. The chips on their own were weird and tasted freeze dried but perhaps as they were sweet potato chips?

Don’t bother with the kingfish ceviche, melon & barberries ($17). The kingfish was fresh and nice, but nothing special. The yuzu sorbet was beautiful but didn’t meld with the dish. Ditto with the rockmelon. I feel they still need to tweak this one.

I find it hard go past any corn on the menu, due to the first time I tried Fonda’s corn and my tastebuds lost their virginity. So we tried H&T’s bbq corn cob, chipotle, popcorn butter, pecorino and lime ($9). As you can see the presentation was crazy-town tribal, which was cool, and to top it off it is on par with Fonda and Mamasita. The corn butter was very nice; there was adequate parmesan and a whole tonne of chipotle aioli, which I will never say no to. Best dish of the night.

Then the main came along in the form of goats butter linguini, cured egg yolk, chilli pecorino, friend parsley, bone marrow ($22) – for some reason I thought this would have meat in it, first mistake, it didn’t. For some reason I thought it would be amazing, based on the fancy-pantsy description, second mistake, it wasn’t. The pasta was done al dente so I can’t fault that, but it was just so tasteless. Really not worth the calories and another reinforcement of why I could never be a vegetarian.

And so ended the meal, I left feeling incredibly let down and unsatisfied with my dinner.

TL;DR If I had come to H&T’s dinner first, I would never have returned for their brunch.