European
March 12, 2009 | 
Author Portello Rosso
15 Warburton Lane, Melbourne
03 9602 2273
France
Portugal
I know egg is like, a five cent thing, but both Hubby and I love eggs so this is disappointing. In saying that, the prawn- once again I don’t eat prawns, but I was sucking on the head of the prawn- it’s not very lady-like but it was soooo yummie.
Spain
Italy
Which is so sad- for me. Happily I got this yummie citrusy biscuit when I really need something tangy to finish off my meal. I didn’t like the vanilla cannolli as much- still feel like something citrusy. But chocolate binge- well chocolate binge I can’t resist. Chocolate porfitroles with chocolate oozing out of it… yummmmm
I love talking about service so here is my opinion. We came in 15 mins early and got turned away cos they are “almost ready”. Then when we sat down at 7pm they told us that there’s a second sitting at 9pm so please excuse us if we are rushing you off- well I supposed at least they tell us, but it really felt like a naughty girl trying to juggle two dates in one night, which does not make a good first impression. The first 4 courses came at a leisurely pace of 1hr20mins, leaving us with 40mins to eat our last four courses and pay the bill. Of course there were no time for “would you like some coffee or tea?” which may disappoint some but we didn’t really mind. In saying that, overall the wait staff remained calm and courteous, it’s just that in the last 40 mins it felt like someone has pressed the fast forward button- the staff and speed of food came out in a comical speed. Don’t think that patrons can’t feel the heat rising, not only did we feel it but the table next to us did, no matter how calm they have presented themselves. Doesn’t help when every 5 seconds they have to shoo off the 9pm crowd who are impatiently waiting outside either. Overall, the food is great and I would really love to see all those dishes in their regular menu from now on. The pace of the food needs to be quicker if they have double booked themselves. 7/10
78 Williams Rd, Prahran, VIC 3181
(03) 9525 2178
Excuse the bad pics, I thought that they don’t allow photo taking, until everyone starts using flash -_- …and then my camera started to half died (the lens didn’t fully open)… Anyway back to the food.
As an appetizer we were served this Beard Papa puffy cheese thing, this is obviously much fresher, slightly warm, crunchy on the outside and soft and melt in your mouth on the inside. Yummm
We selected a degustation menu, $150 per person, good thing is we got the Entertainment Book- and we get up to $50 discount- Whooo hooo!
Dark chocolate- really really yummie, although Hubby thinks it’s a bit too sweet
Lemon tart is very citrusy- only for people who likes sour
Currant jelly- soft and squishy- very sweet
The raspberry something is very light, very yummie
Overall the food is very very tasty, I am a fan of rare cooking, so bloody meats don’t faze me, however some guys complain that it’s too rare. Service-wise, most of the waiters are very smooth and attentive, unfortunately there’s one lady there who is extremely obnoxious. She only acknowledge the presence of Hubby but not myself, when I ordered sparkling wine she assumed I wanted the cheapest, Yarra Block whereas I would like a Moet Chandon. One of the pleasing thing is to meet Jacques Reymond himself, who greeted each table so warmly. Oh and Hubby wanted more comfy chair, cos his arse was numb after a 4 hour dinner 9/10
Movida
1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne
(03) 9663 3038
I’ve always wanted to blog Movida, cos the food is soooo yummie. Movida is always bustling with activity, you’ve got to book months in advance for weekends.
San Jacobo de Cordoniz $7.50-Hunter Valley Quail, partially deboned, crumbed & filled w/jamon & Mahon Cheese- this was really good, the cheese all squish out when you bite into it- be careful of the bone though! It’ s only partially deboned!
Patatas Agrugadas $11.00- Canary Islands new season wrinkly salted potatos w/ spicy Mojo picon. Doh Just realised I didn’t take a pic of this. This is a dish where even the potato lover, Hubby, is not impressed with. Potato is a potato, no matter where it comes from, boiled potato with some sauce shouldn’t cost $11
Sorry Canary Island potato with maybe some exotic sea salts
Hot Ganache $12.50- served w/ vanilla bean ice creammmm & nougat- OMG… the hot ganache is HOT and Yummy! Crispy outter layer, molten hot dark chocolate inside, coupled with subtly sweet vanilla icecream, even Hubby who claimed that he’s totally full grew another stomach and ate more than half of that dessert. Noice.
Service is good, smart waiters changed our dirty dishes at appropriate times. 9/10 again- too bad for the ordinary potatoes
Posted in European, French, Melbourne | 
Tags: Degustation, French, Melbourne, spainish, Tapas | 
2 Comments »
Ca de Vin
350 Bourke Place, Melbourne
The Margarita Pizza arrived and it’s full of cheesy goodness- hot, thin, melt in your mouth slices of pizza- highly recommended!
I ordered seafood pasta. I normally order their crab linguine, but for the sake of the blog I thought I’d try something a little bit different. Unfortunately, it’s not really that fantastic. I mean, it’s still yummie, but half the clams are closed and the mussels are not as fresh as I would like it to be. I was tempted to order extra chilli on top of it, but I was a bit scared of the extra $0.5 it’s going to charge me
Ca de Vin had the weirdest sounding/looking dessert. VS ordered Creme Brulee for dessert, I’ve never seen Creme Brulee with cranberry(?!) jam, but it’s actually very yummie with the creme brulee.
RL & I shared a piece of beetroot chocolate cake. Yes, beetroot chocolate cake. I should really ask them- why beetroot? Where did they get that inspiration from? Perhaps it’s because they wanted to add some vegetable content to the otherwise unhealthy dessert?? Nevertheless this is really yummie- it didn’t bleed out red stuff :S (thank god!) and it doesn’t taste like beetroot at all. It’s not too sweet which suits me perfectly 
Salon European Dining
Cuisine: European, Tapas
www.salon.net.au
Shop 5A
Cnr Florence, 110 Macquarie St
Teneriffe, Brisbane, 4005
Phone: +61 (0)7 3252 3911
This restaurant made me want to buy a place in Teneriffe and eat there every day 
Their menu is not very extensive, but I love the food and the decor and the atmosphere. You can relax and spend a whole evening there without putting a huge hole in your pocket.
Salon is a place of sharing, and they generally advised you to order 2 share plates per person for ultimate enjoyment. We worked out if you wanna try a whole lot of food, you need 5 people cos most things comes in fives. We have three people today which means we can almost try two of each- which is pretty good too
We started off with
Those who have “enjoyed” supermarket bought salmon would know that it has this huge fishy taste, but this house cured Altanic Salmon is really fresh, absolutely melts in your mouth, with a hint of saltiness from the capers makes this a perfect dish.
Very simple dish, but very powerful when everything is fresh. It’s a make-your-own so you can put as much or as little as you like.
You can have a beer or their huge selection of cocktails and wine and spend a whole evening devouring this. We are totally arguing that zucchini fries is much healthier than potatos fries so dig in! This is a suprising rich dish but it is lightly salted and beautiful with the lemon aioli.
Now to the mains, or what they called shared plates:-
Deep fried balls of risotto and wild mushroom- I was moaning with pleasure upon the first bite (mmmm sounds a bit porno but true!). The outer layer (aka deep fried goodness) is not as good as Solarino, but the creamy risotto and mushroom is just perfect.
By now you must know I love mushroom and I’ve just tried the best mushroom salad with a perfect balance of earthiness and sweetness. 10/10!
This dish has a good balance of lemoney and chicken flavour and it does have a tiny bit of chilli kick in it. I reckon to make this dish 10/10, more chilli would be nice, and it would also be nice to debone the chicken so us ladies don’t have to eat this dish by hand.
Almond pannacotta with fresh strawberry syrup and strawberries – $12.00
We are EXTREMELY full by that point but Monkylicious had insisted that we should try with pannacotta. There wasn’t much insisting after our first bite as we enthusiastically devoured the creamy vanillary pannacotta with a hint of fresh almond flavour. Fresh strawberries dotted the dish, making it creamy yet surprisingly light and refreshing. This dish is a perfect end to our feast.
Overall, the service was very friendly, the food is great and the bill came down to approx $90 for the 3 of us. 10/10 and a must-go if you’re ever in Teneriffe!
To read about Monky’s Salon experience – Click here
43 Block Place, Melbourne
Us old grads decided to have a pasta lunch. If you recall from my other blogs, I have had a love hate relationship with Block Place. Some places were nice, but some places were just bad. Well unfortunately this one is one of the worst I must say, in Block Place.
On the exterior, they have fabulous menu boards that really tempt your tastebuds, but when you order your food (I ordered clam linguine), what came out wasn’t that great. The clams in my clam linguine are not fresh at all, at one point I wondered if I was going to get food poisoning. Thankfully (or not), half of the clams actually consist of clam shells without clams, which I guess meant that they’ve halved the chance of me getting food poisoning.
On to the sauce- very watery, tasted a bit sour, yet again I wondered if I was going to get food poisoning. Overall, very tasteless. Normally when I encounter a tasteless dish I will sprinkle a bit of pepper in it to enhance the taste a bit and normally, this would improve the dish quite a bit. Unfortunately these are not a normal circumstances and I even had to add a bit of salt- and it’s still tasteless.
It’s not just my dish. All the pasta dishes that the grads had needed to be sprinkled with tons of salt and pepper. I think the only OK dish was the calamari salad.
In conclusion- don’t go there.
Salon
Cuisine: European, Tapas
www.salon.net.au
Shop 5A
Cnr Florence, 110 Macquarie St
Teneriffe, Brisbane, 4005
Phone: +61 (0)7 3252 3911
When I was small enough to still get children’s meals, Teneriffe was the home of Paddy’s Market and derelict woolstores and warehouses. Today the woolstores are still there, but inside they have been converted into stylish apartments and the river is lined with more homes (that I cannot afford).
So tucked behind some trees, underneath an old woolshed is Salon. Inside there’s a bar and a warm glow bounces off burgundy and cream curtains. Outside you feel like you are sitting in someone’s garden filled with fairy lights and candles. The benches have comfy cushions and even though you are only a few metres from the street, you feel like you are hidden away.
It was a warm night when we were there and while we were sitting outside, the breeze was coming from the wrong direction. Happily though I realized that this is what the drinks menu is for.
One Strawberry Soda, with Chambord, fresh strawberries, lime & Vodka O, muddled and served tall. Oh and some mint, which made this almost like a strawberry mojito, refreshing and sweet.
The Salon menu is made up of mostly sharing plates for tapas style dining. They recommended 2 sharing plates per person, but it was difficult to pick only 4. Instead we opted for their FEAST! For $50 per person (or $95 with wines, $80 with beers) it seemed reasonable and we would then get to try almost everything on the menu.
Our first course was a scrumptious “make your own” bruschetta. Fresh sourdough bread (soft on the inside with a crispy crust) with vine ripened tomato slices, basil and Persian fetta.
Three more dishes were then brought out as our second course.
House cured Atlantic salmon, mayonnaise and baby herbs. I don’t eat a lot of salmon… but I loved this melts-in-your-mouth salmon.
To your left, baked ricotta tartlets with caramelized onion, cherry tomato and shaved prouscuitto. While these were tiny, they were packed with mmm’s. Another tick for Salon.
To your right, wild mushroom risotto cubes with aioli. The outside was crisp, the risotto inside was perfectly cooked and oh I want more! But no, if you have committed to the feast, you need to leave lots of room for the other dishes.
Maybe the chef absent mindedly cooked too many items, or perhaps we made so much mmm’ing and ooo’ing over the other dishes, but when our very friendly waiter presented us with our second course we were given a nice surprise. “The chef has decided to give you extra.” It took a lot of self-control not to simply scream out “Woohoo!” but we said thank you gracefully and turned to the food to work out what to eat first.
Roast pumpkin and goats cheese ravioli with spinach, almonds and beurre noisette (which I now know means a brown butter sauce). The pumpkin, cheese filling was sweet and the pasta was soft and of course delicious!
Italian meatballs with tomato coulis, full of flavour and meat of course.
Spanakopita – filo pastry layered with spinach and Greek feta served with minted yoghurt. Oh I was so happy that the chef was kind enough to give us extra of these. This was my favourite of this set of three.
Course three, and first there was the seared king prawns in chilli garlic and butter sauce with herb salad.
Next up, Portuguese spiced chicken cutlets with lemon and herb dressing. Yummy chicken, just remember to dip it into the bed of dressing.
And our favourite of this three, the sautéed Swiss brown mushrooms with roasted shallots and a truffle rocket salad. Very tasty mushrooms and the shallots were soaked in the flavour from them.
The final course before dessert was the rosemary lamb souvlaki, baby Greek salad, Tzatziki and grilled flat bread. By this point we were struggling a bit, while we love the chef for giving us extra bits along the way, it means you need more stamina for the end. We managed to get through most of this, to leave just enough room for…
Churros with chocolate sauce!! Soft and cinnamon-y, and we tasted a hint of citrus. Was it in the sauce we wondered as we each took a spoonful, no.. oh, its in the churros!
Finished off with a tea or coffee of your choice (mocha for me thank you), it was a lovely way to end our three hour culinary journey at Salon. Yes, we were there for three hours, though we barely realized it until the final hour and by then we were just appreciating the little rest we were given before the final courses.
It was such a beautiful evening and to be honest I’ve decided to bring a couple friends to lunch there on Saturday. I will let you know how it goes, or you could try it yourself if you like.
Posted in Brisbane, European, Sharing Plates | Tags: Brisbane, European, Tapas, Teneriffe | 3 Comments »
Postal Lane, 350 Bourke Street
Melbourne
. First up was to celebrate Rach’s 30th Birthday, we went to Ca de Vin, a restaurant in the middle of a laneway, and due to the fact that there was constructions next door, they have sealed off this semi alfresco dining area, making it more romantic by just using very soft lighting(and I am sure it is also less chilly during winter).
Mains: $16-$27
Dessert: $7-$12
I don’t think I am too demanding with food but when I eat out I would like to think I have four reasonable criterias. 1) Food 2) Service 3) Speed 4) Cleanliness. This normally works on a sliding scale for me- cheap price= less refined food, not-to-flash service, still hope the food will come fairly quickly but definitely don’t expect startched linen napkins etc… this way I am hopefully being fair to all cafes and resturants concerned. Now Cafe Segovia, has failed on most counts under my medium price ranged criteria.
Had a linguine tossed with clams, chilli, garlic, white wine, fresh tomatos & herbs, lemon & cream $21. Asked them whether the clams were fresh, they said yes, but when it came out, most of the clams were closed. The 3 or 4 that was actually opened were OK, 1 was awful. They should probably not say that there’s chilli cos there is no kick at all, as was my Bloody Mary. The pasta sauce is watery. Overall it didn’t taste too bad, but in that price range, it could have been much better- at least they could have not lied to me so I can make a more informed choice, or better still just get fresh ingredients (or take out & replace the bad ones!) 4/10
Alan had the chicken and bacon risotto which is pretty good, standard fare that you get from any cafes. 7/10
Service, cleanliness and timing
Other than LYING to me and saying that their clams are good, they also took ages to give us water. When it did arrive, the glass has tea leaves in it and when I asked for a replacement glass, the waiter plonked down the water jug on our table & never came back with my glass. When I asked them once again for my glass, they gave me the SAME glass with the tea leaf in it. Uh huh.
Our food also came a whole 30 mins after we’ve ordered it. When enquire about when exactly our food will be arriving, they told me that the dish that I ordered was the first clam linguine dish ordered for the day and they are “freshening up the clams”. Maybe it’s just me but that sounds a bit worrying. I would be happier if they are telling me they are out at the sea catching me fresh clams perhaps?
When it comes to paying bills, THAT took a long time too. I almost did a Vanessa and just say that’s it, I am not paying for that. Cos it took them quite some time to log onto the system, then they put the wrong orders in- they actually forgot to bill my clam linguine and I kindly informed them that (and now I am kicking myself), then they decided to charge me $26 instead of $21 for that. Grrrrr
Toilets- I’m sorry but the floors are a bit wet. That normally indicates sloppiness or someone just peed their pants.
Look. Totally understand if this is Asian cheap eats joint or HK which charge you $10 a meal, but I am paying good money here and let me tell you now, don’t waste your time & money there!
