Tasting notes: Open up that bright orange bottle and prepare to be met with the pumpkin spiciest scents you've ever encountered.
I had pumpkin gnocchi, spicy chicken in a moscatel sauce and crema catalana with baked apple.
Mr. Quinn shows flair with an appetizer of grilled prawns, served with roasted corn, spicy pumpkin and fried leeks.
"It has a slightly burnt character that plays well with spicy pumpkin". The same pairing idea works with pecan pie, he adds.
The eponymous "sticky walnuts" served with roast baby beets, spicy pumpkin seeds and fresh goat's curd are now poshly named "walnut praline", but they're still there.
Saucy by Nature offers eight sauces — Polish Kimchee, Cider Braised Onion, Spicy Pumpkin Ginger, Tomato Apple Chutney, Roasted Beet With Horseradish, Cranberry Pear, Spiced Tomato and Smokey BBQ — in six-ounce jars.
Spicy pumpkin ginger spread with curried notes will elevate a chicken salad, and mellow cider-braised onion relish can go on flatbread under a blizzard of grated cheese, or lend new personality to a sour cream dip.
Our wooden bowls fill – marinated aubergine with bean powder; pickled plum with zanthoxylum; pumpkin stuffed with spicy tofu – each delicate and intricate in itself, yet part of an overall symphony of flavours effortlessly conducted by Kwan.
Desserts here are basic and terrific, from an old-fashioned, elemental rice pudding turbocharged with cinnamon through a gently spicy pumpkin cheesecake through an apple cobbler that is more like a collapsed apple pie.
There are mini menus available for "voyageurs" (gingered fruit salad with foamy aloe vera), small appetites (spicy pumpkin soup with a cool dice of scallops and artichokes) and for those seeking noble ingredients (terrine of venison with fig chutney, above).
