It’s buffet time again at the Australian College of Applied Education – where I work in the IT department – and this time the theme was “Semana Santa”, the Spanish celebration held in the week preceding Easter Sunday. Regular readers will remember that ACAE buffets are a major assessment for the culinary arts & hospitality students, as well as a key promotional & public relations event for the college.
You can see my reports on previous buffets here, but now it’s time to head through the restaurant doors to an enthusiastic chorus of “hola!” and see what the students have prepared…
There’s always plenty of preparation to be done before the guests arrive.
The buffet focuses as much on the provision of a high level of service to the diners as it does on the food.
Each table had its own entree selection including chicken liver parfait, quail galantine, pâté en croûte, brioche and peach chutney. This was popular with the diners, and also helped to prevent guests being trampled in the rush to the main buffet.
The terrine selection at an ACAE buffet is always outstanding, in both looks and taste.
This ice bowl filled with refreshing cucumber gazpacho was a great talking point, and a hit with the guests.
The seafood selection included ballotine of salmon, mussels and ceviche of snapper.
Make your own sandwich at this station, with a choice of peppered lonza (with pickled chillies & grilled peach), brawn (with pickled zucchini & grilled cucumber) and pickled ox tongue carpaccio (with slaw & chipotle mayo).
The restaurant was beautifully themed, and the unfortunately named Enrique Ponce was definitely there in spirit.
Ah, there’s one of his conquests.
There’s always pork belly to be had at an ACAE buffet, and this was slow cooked for 18 hours and served with avocado, jalapeno, apple and croquettas de jamon. So good.
Marinated chicken with (absolutely delicious) corn, coriander and buttermilk.
A great deal of care is taken by the students to ensure that everything is perfect.
Roasted carrots with cumin, harissa and yoghurt.
It wouldn’t be a spanish buffet without patatas bravas.
I’m not sure whether he should be allowed to hold that knife.
Time for dessert, and as always there was too much to fit into one picture.
I tackled these two – chocolate mousse with orange, honeycomb & white chocolate, and a rich banoffee creation with malt balls. Yum.
This was my favourite ACAE buffet so far – the theming was spot on and the food absolutely top class. The students and trainers outdid themselves, and they’ve set the bar extremely high for the next batch of students. I can’t wait!
ACAE was Australia’s first private Hotel school, and has been in operation for over 25 years. It caters for international and local students, and many of its courses are VET FEE-HELP approved, so if you’d like to learn commercial cookery, channel your creative flair (or sweet tooth) into a career as a pastry chef or gain advanced hospitality skills, then you should check out ACAE’s website and Facebook page, and come along to the next open day.
ACAE is located at 641 Wellington Street (across from Perth Arena and opposite Kings Square) and the college’s cafe is open to the public from 7am to 3pm Monday to Friday. It’s a great place to get a reasonably priced coffee, breakfast or lunch.
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