Society
23-29 Bourke St, Melbourne
(03) 9639 2544

It’s been a while since I last visited Society, where the horrors of the bar manager left little to be desired.  This time, Hubby and I went on a quiet Tuesday night.

For entree Hubby had Ostriche Natural w/ cucumber and mint sorbet $20 for 6.   Hubby said the oyster smelled a bit too fishy but it tasted OK.  The cucumber and mint sorbet is a bit too sweet for their liking.

I had Quaglia in Padella $19-a quail served with figs with a fried quail egg on top .   It is really tender and it tasted nice.  I just wish that they have deboned it wholly as it is extremely hard to eat.  The fried egg makes a yummy, quirky touch to the dish.

Sides included Caprese $10- extremely small for $10 to be honest.  They also skimp on the basil!!  Everything is fresh and all, but the sizes are just not good enough.

Roasted potato with herb $9- This is small but it’s really nice.  Soft pillows of hot potatoes are accented with rosemary.  I can’t help but pop one after another into my mouth.  Awesome!  I guess although I did say it’s quite small, it’s really the right size for two people, you probably don’t want any more than that for a side dish.  But the caprese, they can give me double of that!

Hubby had a Misto di Agnello al Forno $37- oven baked lamb saddle & braised lamb shank w/ garlic mash potato  & red wine & shallot sauce.  Hubby only offered me a tiny tiny piece, but it’s really flavoursome and tender- Hubby said it was much much much better than my braised lamb shank- he rarely said that so it must be good!

I had an entree sized Paccheri alla Luciana $21.  I am not entirely sure how big the main is, but this is quite large for an entree.  Large tube pasta served with squid, baby octopus, capers and black olives in tomato sugo.   The seafood was very fresh and the squid and baby octopus is very tender.  The sauce is really flavoursome, although slightly salty.  It’s definitely not just tomato sugo, the sauce is infused with yummie fresh seafoody taste.  YUM!

We were debating whether to have dessert when dessert was served to the table next to us.  Of course when we saw other people’s dessert we wanted some too!

Hubby chose Ravioli di cioccolato con crema pasticcera $18- BAD CHOICE.  This dish is like a chocolate ravioli, uncooked, hard, doughy lumps of stuff.  It felt like it should be a savoury dish but it’s weirdly chocolatey.  I shudder at the thought of that chocolate ravoili urrrgghhhhh

I chose the dessert special-lemon curd tart with vanilla bean icecream $18.  It’s really tangy and just what I needed after quite a heavy meal.

Overall, Society is not too bad, there are some hits and misses and the food service was quite slow for a quiet late night.  5.5/10