Anniversary dinner @ 9inety 2wo

5 years ago on the 27th of September, Richard and I got married. For better or for worse it has been a quick journey. We have discovered alot about ourselves and each other. I am always grateful that he moved out to the country and we could date not long distance and later after we got married also found a job in the country.

We spent alot of our anniversary day working. I worked in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to hire a floor sander and sanded the floors of our deck - I guess we might be getting more like country folk than we think! I recall watching a show on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation - the documentary channel) when they interviewed women who worked on a property ( thats the local name for farms or ranches) about relationships and romance. The lady replied, " Well we work on fencing posts together... I guess thats pretty romantic."

Well the city part of us got all dressed up after a hard days work and went to another modern Australian restaurant in town. Our favourite, The Treehouse seems to have lost its chef. We have learnt this is quite common in country restaurants ... the food business has quite a high turnover in staffing and chefs and owners.

Anyhow, this to us is a second favourite and we come here for their lunches when Richard is on school holidays as I work across the road on Wednesdays. It has a creative name 9inety 2wo as its address is Ninety Two Bentinck St.

As you can see it has quite an extensive menu to suit most tastes. We started off with some appetizers.
The cumin roast olive salad - we thought it was an actual salad but the olives were quite tasty and although a generous amount, went quickly. The semi dried tomato and rocket pesto dip with flat bread. This was freshly made, the dips full of flavour and again a generous serve for the price.
Here is a shot of the room which shows it has nice ambience. It wasn't too crowded so it was quite romantic. In the winter, the double sided fireplace is always going.

My main, the braised lamb shoulder in tomatoes with buttered kipfler potatoes, green beans and lemon gremolata. I began to understand why this restaurant is not as popular as it could be. In the past we must have ordered all the hits. For the first time, I got a miss. This was quite an oily mess in the pot. Whilst the lamb was quite tender, it tasted like the stews my mum used to throw in the crockpot before work. There was no hint of lemon gremolata. The best part of the dish was the beans and potatoes and I couldn't finish any of it because the stew was that dense. The potatoes were really well baked with crispy skins and tender flesh, the beans were firm and tasty. It was a pity that for the first time, I had to leave half a main. We ordered a side of steamed vegetables. The portion seems to have shrunk since the last time, however, they were well done and still firm and crunchy yet not underdone.

Richard's main of chicken breast kiev with Oberon black truffle and herb butter, kipfler potatoes,cabbage and green peppercorn cream. The chicken was really well done, not overcooked. I tasted a bit of it but it was very quickly finished so at least one of us had an enjoyable main!

Ahh the best part ... dessert. This was pure genius of layered chocolate cake with fudge and a shot of espresso poured over it topped with ice cream affogato style and served with pistachio biscotti. We were pretty full but shared this. It really made you want more but our tummies had no more real estate.
A trio of coffees. Our dessert, my irish coffee which is really well done here and Richard's cappuccino. I'm glad that Bathurst has pretty good dining options for a town of 35,000. Hopefully we can touch on a few more before the end of the year.

P/S That was a shot of one of our mini- wedding cakes saved from 5 years ago which lives in a tin at the back of our freezer. We contemplated eating it this year but thought we might save it for our 10th!

9inety 2wo

92 Bentinck St
Bathurst NSW 2795
+612 63321757