Valentine’s Day
Inspired by Woody Allen’s Oscar nominated film – Midnight in Paris – this Valentine’s Day the Middle Park Hotel transports you, and your love, to the dreamy city of lights.
Indulge in a four course menu that includes artisan Moonlight Flat oysters, Chateaubriand Beef Wellington with Madeira sauce, croquette potatoes and Parisian salad and, to finish, champagne and wild berries with wicked, hot, white chocolate sauce.
What happens at midnight, though, is completely up to you.
Midnight in Paris - Valentine’s Day at the Middle Park Hotel.
Dinner: 4 courses, $70 (excl alcohol)
Accommodation: Queen deluxe $155, including breakfast to the value of $40, of course.
A winning brekkie
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we all know it, and that goes double on Derby Day.
So join us as we partner with Lavazza to host the Derby Day breakfast. Enjoy mouth-watering brekkie bites, heart-starting Lavazza coffee and, of course, Louis Roederer champagne.
There are cornflower lapel pins for the boys, we’ve got your transfers to Flemington sorted and then, when the day is done, we’ll bring you back to the Albert Park Hotel to celebrate. Who knows what the night will bring.
Tickets are $75 – call (03) 9690 1958 to find out more.
Good grazing
Welcome the coming of spring, and its beautiful bounty, by enjoying the finest Victorian produce at the Middle Park Hotel on Saturday September 10 and Sunday September 11.
To support the Put Victoria on Your Table initiative, developed by the makers of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, the Melbourne Pub Group is pleased to support The Spring Graze at both the Middle Park Hotel and Albert Park Hotel by showcasing the strengths, and passions, of each property.
The Middle Park Hotel will celebrate the field and paddock with a three-course menu, prepared by chefs Paul Wilson and Dave Marshall, featuring new season morels, local asparagus and milk-fed rare breed lamb. Try slow cooked milk-fed lamb in hay with peas, Madeira and morel mushrooms, caramelised spring cipollini, Meredith cheese and potato gratin matched to the wines of Hoddles Creek or Victorian beer.
Graze or feast – why not both! - on spring’s bounty and support the Victorian food and wine industry, for $55 per person, lunch or dinner.
a happy marriage
There’s an art to any successful partnership and to a magnificent marriage, well, there’s art and all manner of unseen magic. A blissful union of food and wine is the same.
On Tuesday August 16 we’d like to invite you to a wedding, a marriage really, that of Bannockburn wines and a four course menu developed by our own Paul Wilson.
To whet your appetite imagine together the truly intense and classy Bannockburn Chardonnay 2008 coupled with plump ravioli, filled with sweet, juicy WA rock lobster and bathed in lime leaf sauce. And that’s just the second course.
Tuesday August 16 at 7pm. $110 pp.
We now pronounce you … mad to miss it.
Weekend sweetener [recipe]
Make the long weekend even sweeter with this warming, comforting recipe for Upside Down Apple Tart, from Paul Wilson, inspired by the French tarte tatin.
Quick tip: what’s most important is to get the caramel to the right stage, using a sugar thermometer will help.
Ingredients
Caramelised Apples:
1.5kg granny smith apples
½ litre apple juice
1kg sugar
1tbsp glucose
250g unsalted butter, sliced
25ml calvados
50ml vegetable oil
Cinnamon Ice Cream:
2 vanilla pods split & scraped
3 cinnamon quills smashed
20ml calvados
500ml whole milk
500ml double cream
12 large free range egg yolks
Tart Base:
150g caster sugar
70g cool melted butter
2 whole eggs
65 - 70g crème fraiche
120g plain flour
65g sultanas pre-soaked in calvados or cider
Method
Caramelised Apples
Combine sugar, apple juice, calvados and glucose and bring to the boil for roughly 15 minutes to a rich caramel, 350 degrees on a sugar thermometer. Add butter and reduce the heat slightly and keep warm.
Peel and slice apples. Cut width-ways in half, leaving the core which you can remove once the apples are cooked.
Heat a large frying pan with vegetable oil and fry the apple halves on both sides for about 30 seconds until evenly browned, in 2 or 3 batches. Drain the apples in a colander as you go.
Once they are all lightly cooked increase the heat of the caramel to 375 degrees, then place the apples in a deep heatproof tray and pour the rich caramel over the apples. Allow to steep in the caramel for 15 minutes. Don’t leave the apples in the caramel too long, otherwise they will overcook.
Take your individual baking tins and lightly butter and line with a greaseproof paper circle.
Drain your apples from the caramel and place a generous spoon of caramel in each mould. Place the apple in the centre, top with a little more caramel and allow to cool. This can be done a day or so in advance if you wish. Now prepare the ice cream and tart mixture.
N.B Any leftover caramel can be used to make caramel sauce or ice cream
Cinnamon Ice Cream
Warm milk, cream, vanilla and crushed cinnamon quills with 50g of sugar, do not boil.
Add calvados to egg yolks, sugar and whisk until pale and creamy.
Almost bring infused cream to the boil. Ladle small quantities into the egg yolk mixture, whisking as you go. Complete this gradually or it will scramble the eggs.
Add mixture to a wide deepish pan so the heat is transferred evenly. This is important and will ensure you don’t overcook the mixture.
Gradually warm the custard, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until it begins to coat the back of the spoon. You should be able to make an impression on the back of the spoon with your finger. Pass through a fine sieve and chill quickly, over ice is best.
Churn as your ice cream manufacturer machine recommends.
Tart
Combine eggs, sugar, butter and creme fraiche, whisk until smooth.
Gradually sieve flour and mix to a thickish batter. Add your soaked sultanas. Allow to rest for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees. Pipe a 2cm high round of cake mixture on top of the apples in the moulds and bake for 15 minutes.
Allow to settle once cooked, then invert on to serving dishes. Glaze with some caramel and top with ice cream.
Queen’s Birthday Queen package
There are two reasons to make the most of this long weekend. It’s somebody’s birthday – the Queen’s – and, more importantly, it’s the last official long weekend you’ll get until … Christmas!
We’re here to help.
Stay for two nights or more in, fittingly, a Queen room and we’ll come to the party with complementary breakfast for two each morning and late checkout.
$159 per night twin share.
You know what? We’re as keen on extending birthday celebrations as anyone so this offer is available even before the long weekend; it’s available for your stay from today through to Monday June 13.
To book just call (03) 9690 1958 or email: reservations@middleparkhotel.com.au
EAT DRINK SLEEP
For the fairer sex it’s Eat, Pray, Love … for the boys it’s Eat, Drink, Sleep.
Get a pub meal, a pot and a pillow and enjoy the ultimate blokes night away, whether it’s for business or pleasure.
Our Eat, Drink, Sleep package includes overnight accommodation in a Queen room, a pub meal, a pot in the bar and breakfast in the restaurant the following morning.
Phone us on (03) 9690 1958 to suss it out or check prices and availability here http://www.wotif.com/hotels/middle-park-hotel.html
12 bucks is cashed up
With $12 in your pocket you’re cashed up at the Middle Park.
Order from our autumn counter meal menu, in the public bar, at lunch and dinner every day … everything here’s 12 bucks.
No. 1 - Florentine
Smoked Haddock with warm poached egg, spinach and parmesan
No.2 - Irish Stew
Diced corned lamb shoulder with root vegetables, colcannon potatoes and white onion sauce
No.3 - Soup & Sandwich
Warm pastrami, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut on rye with pumpkin soup
No.4 - Coq au Vin
Red wine poached chicken thighs with mushrooms and Paris mash
No.5 - Pork Cordon Bleu
Rump schnitzel filled with ham and cheese with celeriac remoulade.
pork + pinot = perfect
If, like us, you adhere to the adage that too much pork is just about right we invite you to a very special dinner at the Middle Park Hotel on Tuesday 17 May.
The William Downie Pork and Pinot Dinner is a four course Paul Wilson feast matched with carefully selected Pinot Noir from Victorian winemaker William Downie.
Downie, a former Gourmet Traveller Wine Magazine Young Australian Winemaker of the year, produces wines of purity and detail that reflect their place of origin. These are wines made in the most natural way possible, not pushed or shoved in any direction.
And then, of course, there’s the pork. Picture roasted Downie Estate suckling pig with morels sweetbreads and celeriac gratin … and then phone (03) 9690 1958 to book.
$110 per person.
