Among the many quirks and oddities about Australia, one is invested with much pride by all Australians: the fact that all the animals on their coat of arms can be had for dinner. This may not sound like much but imagine the Brits having a lion steak for tea. Or even trickier, a unicorn stew. (You didn’t know the British coat of arms has a unicorn on it? Ah, the more you know…) Anyway, so the Aussies are very proud to eat their coat of arms. Kangaroo and Emu can be found on most meat-oriented restaurant menus but we hadn’t really planned to indulge in either until Emma came along.
Emma, from Sweden, is a pescetarian which means she’s a vegetarian but she eats fish and seafood as well. She’s been a pescetarian for many years with very few lapses into carnivorous territory (most recently a piece of Christmas ham indulgence about 6 years ago). But despite all that, Emma decided she wanted to try kangaroo. “When in Rome…” and all that. Obviously, ordering a whole steak was a bit daunting so we stepped in as the culinary white knights we are and offered to order a steak to share. I believe in legal parlance this is referred to as ‘aiding and abetting’.
After a bit of research we found two places that sounded promising: I’m Angus and The Meat and Wine Co. The restaurant with the stupid name lost and we headed to the Meat and Wine Co. for dinner.
We had a lovely bottle of red from Margaret River, WA (Sideways, chosen purely for its name) when the crux of the evening arrived in form of a delicious-looking kangaroo fillet accompanied by sweet potatoes and pumpkins with a black cherry sauce. The meat was very good, slightly sweet and perfectly cooked. Not only did Emma try it, she had seconds! HA! And just in case her family in Sweden reads this and doesn’t believe, we’ve got proof:
Emma has decided to become a vegan for the next 30 days but I’m sure that has nothing to do with the ‘roo…
Was it like the horse meat we had in Sweden? Tough? Tell me. I’m sure they also had koala on the menu.