Red Spice Road
@ Red Spice Rd- Chinese Whisper!
Not only do they have a fantastic $20 lunch menu, they also have really really noice cocktail. This is not a great as Murmur’s Mitch’s Martini, but it’s still really yummie. Chinese Whisper- pama pomegranate liqueur, palm sugar, lemon juice, cranberry… yummo… it’s very refreshing with sweet and sour flavours.
Solarino
Howey Place, Melbourne
One day, as I was walking down Little Collins St, I glanced into Howey Place where all the fashion boutique nestled in this little lane. What I saw was not fashion, but a small cafe which is open in this normally deserted after 5pm lane! Out of curiosity I checked out the menu, and found that the menu is cleverly projected onto the white wall behind the barrista area. I am loving what I see- lots of tempting pasta selections and extremely mouth watering salad choices, I am determined to go back there.
So one Friday night, with a couple of friends, we head down to Solarino after work. As we are starving but waiting for a friend, we decided to order antipasto platter ($18.9). As I’ve just had an antipasto recently in Journal Canteen, I wasn’t too excited as Journal had the yummiest antipasto I’ve ever tried.
Breadsticks, olives, artichoke w/fetta, yummie cheesy balls, oysters, lightly fried sardines below those crispy honeyed prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella balls….
But nup, this came and I am pretty impressed! These yummie bite size morsel makes me unstoppable and it is just enough to sate my hunger- well, until the main course anyway!
Time to order the mains. OMG what should I choose- there’s Gnocchi ovenbaked w/ mozzarella, Rigatoni aurora-styled with pork bolognese, fusilli w/ sausage, chilli, tomato, red pepper & fennel ragu… decisions decisions. In the end, I chose Linguine Vongole, clams with wine, lemon & chives $20. It was a good choice- not only was the clams fresh, there were a lot of clams. The pasta is a bit dry without lots of sauce or olive oil (perhaps less fattening?) and I would still prefer Fitz Cafe or Ca de Vin’s seafood pasta, however this is still really good. I also tried some of the gnocchi and that was really yummie too- they are huge and very filling!
Classic Curry
597 Elizabeth St, Melbourne
Due to the overspending during xmas and new year’s time, we had to curb our spending and get cheap Indian delivery.
(front to back): Aloo Palak ($8), Lamb Vindaloo($9), Fish Masala Curry ($9)
ICK. As you can see this is pretty oily. We ordered Aloo Palak-Fresh potato in a smooth spinach sauce. It was not too bad, but I can taste the butter and oil in every slurp… yikes.
Lamb vindaloo (extra hot) is not extra hot to me. It’s merely quite hot. Once again not too bad but you can certainly see the layer of oil which makes you wonder what would come out of the other end tomorrow (or perhaps all night tonight?). The meat is reasonably tender and the dish is quite flavoursome, although it lacks the plethora of spices that is used in traditional Indian curries.
Oh this is BAD. This fish masala curry… *shudder*. The fish is like chinese salted fish (or perhaps a huge chunk of anchovies?!) *spewwww*. Why is it so salty? Well, there is only one reason- it’s not very fresh so the cook had to use lots of salt to hide the awful fishiness.Yikes.
We ordered Garlic Roti ($1.5) and Aloo (potato) Parantha ($3) but they are both mediocre. All up $30.5. What do we expect?
February 1, 2009 | 
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