Cumulus Inc

Well, Cumulus Inc, another one of those restaurant, bar, sharefood type of places. The space is relatively open, with varying heights of seating. Interestingly, the open space is flooded with natural light, and given we're in Summer allows it to slowly dim with the setting sun. After a bit of a wait in the corner, with a drink, (maybe 30mins) we were given seats at the bar right next to the kitchen - which is my favourite type of seat!

It amazed (and still amazes) me how such a small space can pump out so much food and how mechanically exact a professional kitchen needs to run to keep up with the restaurant.

The food of course was excellent, with some dishes just making me wonder, WHY did I wait so long to eat this?

We started off with some smoked eel skewers. There was definitely no mistaking that it was smoked, as the small morsel screamed loud and clear in terms of intensity of flavour.

 

The dish of the night would definitely have to have been the soft shell crab. DAMN it was good. The mayo and chilli made it so much better. It was really THAT good. I'm salivating thinking about it right now. If you love soft shell crab, this has to be the place to have it. I have not had better soft shell crab - anywhere.



The dishes that were more substantial were perhaps not as exhilarating. Not to say they had 'faults' but they were nothing spectacular to write home about. We ummed and arred over whether or not to go for the WHOLE leg of lamb, but thought it was a bit much as it was massive, trust me, it was MASSIVE. Instead we opted for two smaller dishes. Starting with a whole flounder, which was nicely cooked but lacked the strong flavours of the last two smaller dishes.


Similarly, there was little to fault on the roasted veal rack, but it could have had more guts to it. Given how much I LOVE cauliflower and how I continually look for ways to prepare it , I was pleasantly surprised at the side. It was strong and packed a punch - just how it should be.





 The dessert menu wasn't extensive or intriguing, so we opted for the coconut custard with tropical fruits and a rum baba with aged rum. The coconut custard was very familiar to me, with what we used to make at home, but perhaps where something spectacular happened was when we started eating the rum baba and coconut custard at the same time. For a moment, we could've been in Cuba drinking cuban rum (given they gave us free reign over the rum.......we sort of...soaked the cake with it, yeh too much of a good thing...). The two desserts when eaten in tandem, matched so well together that I think Cumulus should change their dessert menu and make that one dish (albeit, a massive dish) simply because  I said so.


Where?
Cumulus Inc, 45 Flinders Lane Melbourne