When Chef Rob Feenie feels inspired to create a new dish for Cactus Club Cafe, he is immediately drawn to memories from his childhood, “Every dish I have created for Cactus, I have a story behind it, and a story that means something to me.” For Feenie, his childhood memories are of meal times spent with his Japanese neighbours, where he was introduced to a variety of tantalizing new eastern flavours and textures. “They fed me miso soup, but they put matsutake, or pine mushrooms, in it and I was like ‘what are these things?’ I was nine or ten years old. All those flavours just developed on my palate and that’s influenced how I cook right now. All these flavours eventually make it back.”
When it came to developing the Tuna Stack dish for Cactus Club Cafe, Feenie wanted to bring his principles around creating simple, clean and delicious flavours to the forefront. “My whole philosophy on food is: simplicity is much more difficult to achieve than complication.” With this in mind, Feenie started to reconstruct a dish at Cactus which truly reflected his culinary ideals, “I didn’t think it (the Tuna Stack) would really make it to the menu because it was so simple. Now I believe it’s one of the best things we’ve done in eight years – because it’s so simple…”
Light, bright and perfect for sharing, the Tuna Stack features hand-diced OceanWise™ albacore tuna, tossed in tamari vinaigrette and chili garlic. Served on a bed of avocado and topped with crispy tempura, daikon radish sprouts and micro cilantro – it’s a perfect play of flavours and textures.
Available now – come in and give it a try!