The Press Club
72 Flinders St, Melbourne
03 9677 9677

Three girls stepped excitedly into the lobby of The Press Club, only to be stopped by a strange man with a clipboard.  “Have you got a booking?” Is the first thing he asked.  Checking his clipboard, which we have reserved a table of 5, “Are there only three of youse tonight?”  Three of YOUSE?  Is this The Press Club?  Once we are allowed into the door, another man greeted us with the same question “Have you got a booking?”  So much for the website description “The (Press Club) team thinks of the venue as a home and welcome all guests as such.”  Hrmmmm…I understand the need to see whether we have booked or not, but there’s a better way to do it, and George, perhaps invest in a walkie-talkie, so the bouncer dude out in the front can communicate with the snotty gentlemen in the front of house that the beautiful ladies booked for a table of 5 has arrived.

Enough about the service for now, let’s talk about the food.  We heard that George recently came back from Greece, and brought back with him a new dishes that are inspired from his journey, so  We starved ourselves just so that we could try his Symposium, 7 course ($95) or 9 course ($115) degustation inspired from Greece.  We barely read the menu when we decided yup, the 7 course dinner would probably fill us up.  Mr Vroom Vroom is a vegetarian, and after making sure that there’s a vego Symposium also, we ordered.

Not to give anything away, but George certainly cooks what he preaches.  He certainly took us “on a journey” through taste, smell,visions, sound and even touch.  Read on.

1. Toursi of vegetables, chilli, honey and garlic
   To be honest, I would hardly have considered this as a course.  Vegetables pickled with honey and vinegar served in a jar that was explained to us as a palate cleanser.  Nonetheless I thought it was quite nice, as it’s not extremely sour and has a hint of sweetness.  Some of the others like sour though and didn’t like it as much.
2. Trahana perfumed with mastic oil, crispy chicken stick
   Octopus and white anchovy kalamaki
   Trifle of chicken parfait, chocolate tsoureki bread
   I really like the plating of this cute trio.  The waitress presented this dish to us then pour  the warm Trahana onto the springroll like crispy chicken stick.  This Trahana is made by George’s mum, a dried fermented sour milk which is rehydrated with chicken stock.  The crispy chicken stick is forgettable, but I love the Trahana.  It didn’t taste sour at all (yes I was initially worried) and with the crunchy chickpeas and plump juicy saltanas hiding in the bottom, it’s kinda yummy. Though it’s not to everyone’s taste.
   The octopus and sardine is too salty and fishy for my liking, but the others love it.
   We were all quite hesitant with the chocolate tsoureki bread, and once again the jury is out on this one.  I love it because it has a play on texture.  We have the crunchy, not too sweet chocolate bread on top of a frozen feta “snow”, and underneath a subtle tasting chicken liver pate.  Perhaps it’s to Press Club’s advantage that I don’t eat much Greek food, and therefore did not have a preconceived idea of what should be eaten when and how.  The others find that having the chocolate tsoureki bread is weird as an entree, but I am loving it.  Tiramisu also thought that the pate is quite tasteless, but I love it cos it matches the subtleness of the feta snow.
   
3. “Chips and tarama” olive oil cous cous
   Once again the playfulness of this dish attracts me.  Tarama is like a fish roe dip, beautifully presented in a pearly shell.  What’s special about this dish is that the olive oil cous cous.  Olive oil cous cous is olive oil frozen to -185 degrees so it looks like powdery snow.  The waitress put a small bit onto the Tarama, and it slowly melts.  Posh, isn’t it?  Of course, a dip means that there’s something we need to dip it with.
   What came out is chips, served in a paper cup, like the ones you have in a normal fish & chip shop.  Once again I love that contrasts, poshness of the roe vs cheapy chips; the hot, crunchiness of fries vs the cold roe.  This is certainly one of my favourite dish of the night.
4. “Raw mezethedes from the sea”, mountain tea latholemono, Byzantine ginger,
   Sea Satin senses
   We were wondering about this dish- doesn’t Greeks cook the hell out of their food?  Why are we having raw seafood? And why are there rocks on the side?
   The waitress explained that when George went to Mykonos, Greece, he went to this restaurant where the restaurant owner welcomed him with open arms, gave him the best and freshest seafood.  George would like to take us with him to this journey in Mykonos, the land of white pebbles and fragrant herbs.  Hence the seafood and the pebbles with herbs peeking in between it.
   The concept was great, the seafood was good, but not spectacular.  Shoya’s sashimi would beat this any day with its freshness.  That being said, this is still fairly good, Tiramisu and I hated oysters but like this a lot as it’s so fresh.  The scallop is really fresh also.  The only thing I can fault is the salmon and the white fish, which is not as fresh as I had hoped.
5. Kakavia – smoked octopus and prawns a la Grecque, dehydrated ouzo, shaved fennel and cabbage salad
   A smokey but soothing aroma wafted towards us- we were surprised to see that it is our dish, covered in this clay funnel.
   Apparently this smoke is a kind of ritual that the Greeks do around their homes, Panna Cotta instantly recognises the smell she’s the Greek guru on our table
   I only ate a little bit of the prawns as I don’t like prawns, but it was still quite good.  The octopus is fantastic- it has a lovely smokey flavour which Whippet and I loved, but Tiramisu like it less.  Note though, this small dish is to be shared between myself, Whippet and Tiramisu, which I reckon it’s a bit stingey.  The shaved fennel & cabbage salad is great but a bit plain- I suppose it’s good with the smokey octopus.
6. Slow cooked lamb neck, beetroot and feta dip, horseradish pomme puree
   Lamb neck is the highly anticipated dish of the night.  Described as cooked over 16 hours, it was said to be extremely tender.
   Alas, that is not the case.  I would call that an average piece of lamb.  It’s not fall off the bones tender, the flavours just did not absorb into the meat.  I was certainly expecting more from that dish, but sadly it falls very short of expectations.
   I certainly experienced food envy when I saw Mr Vroom Vroom’s vegetarian meal of mushroom plate, clusters of mushies beautifully arranged in a plate, plus a small pot of mushies cooked in herbs.  YUM!
   Our waitress then came over after this sixth course (note, sixth course) and indicated that we could choose our desserts, either from the Symposium, or from the dessert menu.  We got so confused.  What about our seventh course?  Isn’t our seventh course one of the desserts?  That we could choose between Buffalo yoghurt pannacotta, strawberry and ouzo sorbet or Olive oil chocolate mousse, carrot cake, black olive gel?  We had to ask the sommelier to explain.  Apparently we had a seven course already, which to this date, we could not count seven courses or figure out which one is our seventh course.  Perhaps it was the bread.  We were extremely disappointed.  So we decided not to order dessert.  The waitress insisted we should order something, anything.  Perhaps everyone can have a bite of the lovely pannacotta?  Or everyone can have a tiny donut?  When we refused, and she huffily flounced away and took forever to bring us the bill.

   You can probably tell that we weren’t very impressed, from the start to the end, we never had fantastic service.  We sat there for about 10 mins before we got water, then almost 20 mins later, after a certain Piggy whingeing loudly that we finally got bread.  I would also like to yell “chop chop” to the chefs cooking our meal- 4 hours for 7 course is quite long and our bums are numb by the time we ate our way down the menu.  Someone please teach The Press Club how to count or explain the menu carefully that would be great also.

   For the first time in Bellygood, I am going to give two marks- one for service, one for food.  Service 4/10, food 6.9/10.