Four savoury things, two sweet, a wine list that rarely leaves the Riverina, and a kitchen that shuts at midnight.
In the kitchen
Everything within twenty minutes
The interval is the constraint that shaped this menu. If a dish cannot leave the pass inside twenty minutes it does not get written up, however good it might be.
That rules out most of what a restaurant would do and leaves the grill, the rice pans and a pastry section that works ahead.
Beef is dry-aged four weeks and cut thick; rice is cooked to order in small pans; dessert is citrus in some form nine months of the year.
Grill
One beef cut a week, plus a vegetable dish worth ordering on its own.
Rice
Three ways, one meat-free, all finished at the pass.
Sweet
Citrus tart, or whatever the pastry apprentice has been practising.
The cellar
What is on the list and why
Whites from the high country south of here, because they suit a hot room.
Shiraz from the Hilltops and one heavier red for the winter ladder nights.
A single sparkling, bought by the pallet from a grower near Gundagai.
Four beers on tap, two of them brewed within an hour's drive.
Non-alcoholic options on the same list, at the same prices, with no fuss about it.
Over eighteen?
The Ventix is a licensed supper room and card floor for adults, in the old picture theatre on Baylis Street.
