The Rye Hotel
2415 Pt Neppean Rd, Rye
Occasionally we venture out of the city to regional Victoria to sample a few cafes in the region. I am really sorry to say this time we went to a pensioners specials galore, with some not-so-specials for normal people.

I ordered a crab linguine with creamy tomato sauce (twenty something dollars so it must be good!)and a seasonal vegies (I should be skeptical when it’s only $4).

Boxing Day Lunch

Yep. That was it. There were maybe a pinch of sand crab on the linguine- in hindsight I should have guessed, surely the creamy tomato sauce is there to either a) cover the lack of crab meat or b) to cover the not-so-fresh crab meat. Or else they could have done what lovely Ca De Vin have done by using just plain olive oil.

The vegies- As you can see they are beautiful seasonal frozen vegies cooked to perfection by boiling everything till it looks a bit yellowish brown. Yummy.

To be fair I tried a bit of hubby’s steak and it wasn’t that bad, but for $32 bucks I expected more. The chips were horrible and tasted like cardboard and much salt and pepper had to be chucked at it.

Irish Times
1427 Little Collins St, Melbourne

This is where the boys go to have a pot (or 5) and parma- apparently during the week of xmas they come here every single day, whilst us girls observe the speed of their belly expanding. On this occasion we decided to have lunch with the boys, and it’s not surprising that they chose Irish Times again.

As a keen food person whose motto is “I am hungry and I want food now”, this is not a place to be at Christmas/New Years time. Everyone goes there but the chef seems to be on holidays. Our food took more than an hour to arrive and I got so fed up that I almost went and cooked it myself. What were they doing? Trying to catch some ducks in the Botanical gardens to make my risotto?

Duck risotto @ Irish Times

My risotto did finally arrive and it was actually quite good- not too creamy and it had the right amount of duck. I think they cooked the risotto with chicken stock because it was really yummie- foodwise I would have given it an 8/10, especially when pub food is supposed to be eaten when drunk, this is really not too bad. Would I go back there again? Not of my own free will that’s for sure.