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Recommended Reviews - Pins on Lurline
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My new favourite place to eat in the mountains! I have to admit, I was pretty excited to see unwavering 5/5 yelp reviews, and all I can say is that they are well deserved! This little restaurant is located on Lurline St in Katoomba. It's recently started doing lunch on Fridays and Saturdays (from 11:30am), which is when we went. We started off by having the freshly baked Pinenut and Rosemary bread. For our entree we split a serve of the Scallops ($18) which were amazing. We could not fathom how they managed to get scallops so right, when they are located so far from the sea... but trust me, they did. For mains I had the Pork Belly ($32). This was based on a previous Yelp review and I'm so happy I ordered it. It was perfection. I'm drooling at my keyboarding thinking about it. My wife had the Crispy Skin Salmon ($29.50) which was cooked to perfection. Salmon cooked this way is not an easy thing to get just right... but they did it. We also ordered a side of Chat potatoes ($9) because who can resist roast potatoes cooked in duck fat? They were great, lots of flavour. I highly recommend that everyone looking for a place to eat in Katoomba (or the mountains) makes the effort to come have a meal here. It was a highlight of our weekend away, and we will be back (many times!). read more
11 years ago
This is the no. 1 restaurant in the Blue Mountains on another famous travel site, and the rainy weeknight we visited, the place had a full house. I was wondering why as the food did not seem as sophisticated on photos as, say, Garage or Solitary. I got my answer alright. Basically, and despite the website's claims to Italian-Japanese fusion, the cooking style is pre-nouvelle-cuisine French ("cuisine bourgeoise" as Houellebecq might call it) as "preserved" by the Japanese; that is, a style that is easy to find in Japan but almost inexistent in France these days, except in the homes of old (bourgeois) families where the tradition is passed down. Like mine - grandma is a Colonel's wife, and spent her life perfecting her skills in the matter, as she needed to feed 8 children. Of course, this old style of cooking with elaborate sauces at the centre of rich dishes is very tasty and tends to be well received by just about anybody in the dining public, and here it is done well with excellent Australian ingredients, so no wonder this place rates so highly. It also happens to be easy to screw up, which is why few places outside Japan (which has insane quality standards and perfectionist chefs) still do it, so it's a testimony to how well Pins' kitchen is run that they can do this kind of thing so reliably. My fillet was an inch thick and very wide, nicely scorched on both sides yet medium rare in the middle. The Diane sauce, made with brandy, tomatoes, peppercorns, mushrooms and cream (I'm guessing; could have been butter) was rich and wonderful, a true expression of a style of cooking I rarely get to enjoy these days, that you might have found in the auberges in the countryside before cheaper and simpler "put some leaves on top of a bit of meat" took over the Western world, ironically (as the Japanese are now custodians of cuisine classique) thanks to the influence Japanese kaiseki-ryori had on Bocuse, Troisgros etc. - in fact I don't think I've ever had a Diane sauce this good. The duck fat roasted potatoes tasted like exactly like their name suggested: dense, well cooked, ummami like there was no tomorrow. The garlic prawn spaghetti were not, as might have been expected in Australia, spaghetti and prawns tossed in olive oil in which garlic was fried. Instead, again came a cream and tomato based sauce, this time with complexity added by lightly fried leeks (genius! I'm borrowing this one for home) and of course the large prawns and al dente (!) linguine (not spaghetti, but I think that's an improvement). Dessert (pictured) was the Bombe Alaska. Ever since watching the final scene with Mr Wint and Mr Kidd in Diamonds are Forever I've wanted to order this, but nobody ever offers it on their menu. Well again, we find the cuisine bourgeoise impeccably executed; the macaroon had the perfect texture, easily breaking apart under the fork but retaining its chewiness under the tooth; the textures moving from hard (macaroon) to soft (meringue) as you move up, yet belonging to the same family of flavours (roasted sugars). It was rich, and we were already full, but we still managed to eat most of it. The wine list was fairly simple, in that everything was $7.50 a glass. I only had a glass of desert wine, but it was predictably both excellent and a good match for the dessert and the style. Service was, of course, excellent. The interior is a work of art, a balance between delicate artworks worthy of fine dining establishments and the level of comfort one expects of one's local. I am very inexperienced in my understanding of Japanese art, but I think I saw some artworks in the style of the Rinpa school; perfectly appropriate, philosophically, to the food presented, in tying it with a period characterized by a shift from the Spartan minimalism of the early Edo period towards hedonistic decadence and a tendency by the daimyo ruling class to start imitating the Japanese bourgeois merchant class... Quick mention of the garden which is well kept and with many Japanese elements (such as the gravel path and round bushes). I have to confess to having had food poisoning on the day BEFORE coming to Pins; I thus arrived utterly not hungry, still going for it mostly not to waste our long drive and hotel night and give my wife a nice date night. Yet, the food was so well made and comforting that I couldn't help but finish all the dishes and still order dessert. This place absolutely deserves its reputation and we will probably return for our next trip. It's the kind of restaurant where one wants to try everything on the menu, because it is probably the product of long years of work iterating towards perfection and so everything will be a hit. Do watch out for the 2% credit card charge - bring cash. read more
13 years ago
Had gone there earlier at around 7pm today and was asked to come back at 8pm due to there been no tables so we drove around and took some more scenic pictures before heading back and were told to wait another 30 mins for a guaranteed seat, my mum was loosing her patience and so I decided to order my food as take away however at 21 mins into our 30 a table was ready so I had my take away in instead and was also able to take the tiramisu which is what I wanted really badly. The pork dumplings in my picture were fantastic the sauce really suited and made it a very delicious dish! The miso soup was probably from the packets you buy at the store cause its flavour was exactly the same as I remember :p The tiramisu on the other hand was insanely good everything worked well together and the kahlua cream with a slight hint of baileys flavour oddly enough was a match made in heaven together with the Maltesers ice cream. We also took the bread and butter pudding but we haven't tried it yet however we will be back tomorrow cause we made a booking at the time when we didn't think we'd get a table and so I'm looking forward to ordering something else with the Bombe Alaska this time :) By the way your going to want to reserve because without it these guys are packed to the rim and you could be waiting a very long time for a table! Edit 1: So we went again today took the tsukimi soup cause I've always wanted to try that soup and it wasn't bad but not really my taste, my mum took the crispy duck leg which she loved and I also took a Bombe Alaska which was heavenly :p so despite the soup we will be back again tomorrow for the seared tofu steak and maybe the creme brûlée. read more
9 years ago
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10 years ago
Read about PINS in other reviews and decided to make reservations on our road trip to the Blue Mountains. First challenge - getting reservations because the place pretty popular! We arrived around 6pm on a Thursday evening and were promptly seated by "Jody" - a friendly woman who introduced herself as one of the new owners. The restaurant is small and had homey feel to it. The smells from the kitchen were incredible and we had a hard time trying to decide what to order. My boyfriend and I finally decided to try the Gyoza dumplings and Zucchini Flowers (which I had never tried before). The first thing we noticed it that everything is handmade from scratch and fresh. The flavors were rich and presentation first-class. For mains, I ordered the chicken breast stuffed with goats cheese (W-O-W!!) and my boyfriend ordered the pork belly, which he was hesitant to do because it is usually hit or miss with PB. However, both dishes were beyond expectation and the pork belly in particular was melt-in-your mouth delicious! We ended the meal sharing a white chocolate cheesecake that I thought we would not finish, but did so without hesitation. Since we are visitors and our first visit to the Blue Mountains, we decided to try something new and special (and romantic). The experience was first rate from beginning to end and because we may never make it to the region again, I wanted to write a nice review and let everyone know the positive comments are legitimate and we highly recommend! read more
10 years ago
