The Grand Hotel Richmond Dining Room
333 Burnley st, Richmond
03 9429 2530

We were house hunting around Richmond area and so we decided to try to gauge the local scene. Feeling tired and cold from the horrible rain, we ducked into a dark, tired looking pub with had a Good Food Guide 2011 sign stuck on the door. What we discovered later was that there is actually a pretty decent looking dining room hidden behind next door, and THAT’s where the award winning meals are cooked.

We chose a 2-course lunch express menu with a glass of wine ($35). Whenever I have these 2 course lunch express I am always in a dilemma: should I choose entree + main or main+ dessert? Most of the time I feel like the entree + dessert, but everyone will think that I am nuts if I ask whether I can order that! Since I was with hubby I pulled a sneaky and asked him to order entree+main and I order main + dessert. Hee hee.

A nice surprise was that after the meals were ordered, the waitress promptly gave us really beautiful crusty bread with a big plate of olives and butter. Since I was starving (and actually when was I EVER not starving?), it was very much appreciated. Alan’s steamed mussels and clams entree arrived fairly quickly. The sauce was beautiful and it has a kick of tomatoey spiciness that we both love. Thank goodness those breads are apparently limitless refills, because we had to mop up almost every drop of the yummy sauce.

The mussels were also extremely plump and fresh. Sadly, we can’t say the same for the clams. For one, it’s extremely gritty. Have they soaked the clams long enough to make sure that all the sand are eliminated? Eating one of those was like eating a mouthful of sand. YUCK. The clams were the freshest either, which is quite a disappointment because I do love clams.

Hubby’s main is Minute steak with porcini butter, rocket & shoe-string fries.  I wasn’t allowed to try too much of his meat, but from what I tried the steak tasted great, it was a nice and tender piece of meat and it was seasoned well.  Hubby had it with mustard, but really, there was really no need to add anything cos it was beautiful on its own.  The fries are also awesome, it wasn’t oily at all and I believe the particular type of potato they use makes the difference.  YUM

Hrm, sadly I can’t say the same with my pasta ragu.  First off, it was slightly underseasoned, but nothing a little pinch of Murray River Pink salt that was on offer can’t fix.  What they can’t fix was the temperature of this dish.  Did they just left the dish sitting there while making hubby’s dish?  The top of the pasta was a bit cold, that being said the layers below were at least fairly warm.  The last disappointment was the pasta itself.  Some were nicely al dente, but some are so overcooked that it’s falling apart.  It’s just so disappointing, especially when it  is in the Good Food Guide.

The dessert was a bit disasterous too.  Italian doughnut filled with cinnamon & honey mascarpone served with custard apple ice cream sounded so delicious, but somehow the flavours just didn’t really mix.  The doughnut was oily and the honey that is drizzled all over the plate tasted wayyyyyyyy too strong.

Overall it was quite a mediocre lunch.  That being said I really wanted to try the other bits of the menu cos it looks so good on the other table and the other guests seemed to be enjoying it.  Maybe I will think about it next time I am in that area.  5.5/10

Cicciolina
130 Acland St, St Kilda
(03) 9525 3333

We were meant to go to Claypots.  When we got there, there was a sign saying that it was closed and that the owner or someone have to play for a band(!).   We walked past Cicciolina beforehand and I thought it looked quite packed and interesting, so I Urbanspooned it to quickly see what the reviews said.  Well it seemed 83% liked it, so off we went.

We were greeted by a friendly guy who told us that there would be a bit of a wait (we got there at 6:45pm and it was a school night), but there’s a bar next door we can sit and wait.  There are food at the bar also and we excitedly ordered Spicy MeatBalls ($9.50) and Lamb ribs ($12.50) cos we were STARVING!

The spicy meatballs were fantastic- there is a definitive kick to it and it was succulent.  The serving was generous, I think there was 6-7 meatballs and also bread to soak all the yummie sauce.  (They even said we can have as much of their gorgeous bread as we wanted).  Pure awesomeness.

The lamb ribs came and unfortunately the portion is on the small side… we had four people and had to share 3 ribs…

Although that’s the case the lamb is so succulent.  It’s not surprising though cosidering it’s Saltbush lamb, the flavours and textures are definitely superior.  The side of quinoa, pomergrante and almond salad is very nice also, although the Spanish onion gave us embarassing onion breath and sitting in an initimate booth it is a little bit uncomfortable.

After waiting for an hour and a half our friendly waiter escorted us to our table.  This is not a complain though as we did fully enjoyed ourselves at the bar and the waiter keep giving us half hourly progress on our table (“the group has just ordered coffee so they will hopefully be finished shortly, thanks for your patience”).

Sadly.  Yes.  Sadly, this is where things slowly went downhill.  We were assigned a grumpy waitress who seemed to brush us off all the time and forgetting our requests for more water.

With such promising pre-dinner nibbles next door, we were looking forward to our entrees.  The Urbanspooners keep screaming “crab souffle crab souffle!” so here I am, ordering Crab Souffle.  Can’t exactly remember how much it was, but it was quite nice.  I am not sure what to expect from a savoury souffle…is it suppose to puff up like a sweet souffle?  Cos I felt this looks like a little crab quiche more than a souffle.  That being said, it was nice and we got the bread to soak up all the very very rich but tasty sauce.

Dr. B had an Oxtail Raviolo with bay scallops as an entree ($20.50), which is on the special board that night.  Note the raviolo: there is only one.

The price is a bit steep for one, but I love the flavours.  The raviolo is cooked to al dente, the oxtail was flavoursome and tender.  I didn’t try the scallops, but Dr. B seemed to like this dish also.

We then waited, waited and WAITED for our mains….I was starving and we had to order 2 rounds of bread.  Our dish finally arrived, about 40 mins later and if it wasn’t for the fantastic company I would have either fallen asleep or chucked a hissy fit.

Hubby and Dr B both had the duck risotto from the specials board ($31.50).  Both were not impressed with their risotto at all.  They both left quite a bit of their risotto untouched, Hubby just tried to pick out all the meat and left the risotto.  Whilst the duck is tender enough, the flavours were all over the place and were just too intense for Hubby.  Thank goodness the trusty old bread saved the day or else they would both be hungry!

Esky’s main did not fare better either.  After waiting for that long his dish was at best, lukewarm.  Bollito Misto, at $36.50 was a boiled dish of pork hock, chicken and lentils.

I did WARNED Esky that it’s gonna be a boiled, tasteless dish and whether he’s SURE he wanted to order it, cos if he wanted boiled soup bits I have plenty in my house.  We had made that horrible, horrible mistake in France and I really didn’t want him to pay $36.50 to make the same mistake.  Alas he did not take my advice and here he is, with tough bits of chicken breast and apparently meat that tasted like “nice spam”.  I would like to say I told you so but I was too busy laughing.

Dr. Hot Guns and I ordered Spaghettini with Smoked eel, fennel and soy beans $29.50.  I think our mains was the best out of all the mains but that ain’t say much.  It seemed that they were trying to use all the garlic at the end of the night.  It was soooo garlicky that it keeps repeating on me the WHOLE night and no breath mints can make it any better even the next day.  *Shudder*.  The flavours of the smoked eel was also wayyyyy too much, everytime I took a bite of the bits with smoked eel it overpowers everything (yes, even the garlic).  What I do like was the crunchiness of the fennel and the soy bean.  The spaghettini was cooked well and if they tone down the garlic and lose the eel I think it would have been a nicer dish.

We skipped dessert cos we are all tired by the end of it- it WAS a school night (wednesday) and it was about 10pm.  We are not willling to wait another 45mins for a dessert that may or may not be yummy, so we left.  Our bill comes to $70 per person (with a bottle of wine).

After such a promising start to the night we were very disappointed with Cicciolina.  Will we go back?  Probably not.  Or maybe we’ll just stick to the bar and bar food instead.  4.5/10

Note: Special thanks to Thanh Do for advising me to use my iPhone torch to take food photos in dark restaurants.  I am still figuring out the best lighting but it made my pics a whole lot less grainy and better looking.  Visit his blog here