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i have an excuse for being so lazy about writing here of late. read on to find out why...
the 4 cats (quatre gats) has a loose association with picasso when he was young and trendy...and alive. it's called 4 cats because the critics reckoned that's who would go when it opened in the 1920s. how wrong they were.
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how many restaurants in melbourne send food past you on a conveyor belt from which you can pick an choose as you desire? while it might sound like the ultimate in fast food tackiness, this is how it is done in japan, so it is actually kulchral and you can feel good about it. how it works is that the food comes out on different coloured plates, depending on how much each costs. unless you can push the plates onto someone else's pile they add them all up when you pay your bill. the conveyor continually sends its culinary delights past your nose and watering mouth so it could be easy to ring up a substantial bill without actually ordering anything.
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aqua is an awesome place. there's an open (fake) fire. a fire comfortable with itself. a fire that doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. they have a couple of sofas around the fire for a glass of wine and, yes, more dessert. aqua was the final stop in the epic that was dessert day and I have to say that all other eating places paled by comparison with aqua. have i said aqua enough yet. a...qua.
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when was the last time you said 'you know what, i could really do with a bit of sri lankan food tonight'? what do you mean you've never said that?!! it's as aussie as a pie floater and a vb! well, maybe not quite that aussie but araliya has been around for many years and i guess my failure to develop a burning need for a sri lankan pie floater always had me walking past the place. sure i'd been there for dessert and coffee after a particularly lousy meal from somewhere in the slums of hawthorn, but i never walked through the door and said 'load me up with aforementioned pf, my good man'.
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the food is too fancy-schmancy for this place to call itself a bar, but then again, the drinks were too bloody good for it to call itself a restaurant. suggesting a pre-dinner gin and tonic before we'd even sat down was a gratifying surprise, and when the drinks arrived, we had to award them two very enthusiastic thumbs up for the tall glasses, reasonable sized lemon (why do bars feel compelled to fill your glass up with fruit? probably the same reason mcdonalds fills your coke up with ice), and a straw for the girls but of course not for blokes.
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it's a bar with spanish theme and the capital of spain is barcelona...can anyone see where they are going with this? punned titles aside, this place has always been full when we have passed so as the sun was setting on a warmish tuesday night, we wandered into barcelona with wine and tapas in mind.
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i've heard about basilico (incidentally, the male form of the basilica) in albert park but i've never been there. it used to be a hardware store, owned by the greek family who own most of albert park. i can't say that the hardware store was any good but basilico is pretty impressive when you walk in.
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riding high on the expectation of an experience that only a two-hat restaurant can deliver, we didn't see the low hanging branch that clotheslined us within the first minute. barstaff that couldn't give a fuck, and couldn't pour a decent g&t anyway, waitstaff who were there in theory, but try ordering something and they may as well have been at home in front of the telly.
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and i thought australia was the only place that claimed beer and chips as a national dish. probably a couple of hundred years before some foreign monk made a wrong turn at new guinea and found himself in sydney. the belgians were getting on the piss complimented by that other great food group, deep fried chipped potatoes.
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now i understand that bhoj has a great name, in woop-woop. in the docklands they just don't seem to understand the concept of service and waitering.
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the name sounds dirty but it isn't. it's quite the parisian restaurant with waiters with attitude and bohemian guests wearing cravats. we were able to get an english menu but i'm glad we did the ordering in french. the couple beside us had to deal with the stereotypical arrogant asshole that is the parisian waiter.
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i reckon three or four italian families got together and decided to set up a restaurant in the middle of lygon street. only thing is they couldn't agree on the best dishes to serve so they just included all of them. there must be fifteen starters and about thirty pastas and thirty mains. talk about indecision. if our ideal restaurant has a fixed menu and we'll put up with a choice between three or four starters, fifteen had us buggered. and i think that all the family members work at the same time at the restaurant. i didn't count but it seemed that the staff outnumbered the eating people. that's not a bad thing unless you want to actually stand up and move about. you're likely to be run over by the rome express on it's way to the kitchen with enough plates to equip a greek wedding.
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it's a bit like a box. not much wider than your average bathroom but probably much funkier. unless you live in a converted warehouse in abbotsford in which case you're a pretentious wanker so you can fuck off. but we're getting off the point here. box is pretty schwik. because it has that minimalist look and very arty furniture, you'd expect the waiters to be an 'i'm better than you' dickhead. but they're not - quite the opposite in fact. they know how to wait, how to serve, how to pour wine. the one who served us even had a great sense of humour. going on a bit about the staff but we really liked them.
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'allo. eef you like all sings french, you will love zis place. but of course. mais oui! aah, but we are taking ze piss out of ze french language, yes? yes. when we woke up zis morning, what to eat? where to go? le smith street offers many 'ippie 'angouts and interesting places to eat but none as unusual as ze creperie.
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i've liked cafe goa since, well, for a long time. they have a chicken dish that is so hot they will try to persuade you not to order it. hmmm, that's a new strategy for restaurants. i don't like to be told what to do so i ordered it anyway. more than once. i have never eaten anything that made me cry before. this one did. imagine you have a large bowl of crushed, super-hot chillies. you throw some chicken and potatoes into the bowl, cook it and serve. it could replace paint stripper. it took me about five minutes to be able to breathe again normally and about twenty minutes to feel my mouth again. i had to drink about three cold beers in a row. but don't let me dissuade you from trying it. knock yourself out. idiot.
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once famous for being the home of bad smells and fart jokes, cafe greco has been renovated. i'm not exactly sure when the renovations occurred, but definitely since i was last there. whenever that was. the menu no longer has horiatikes patates on it, which is kind of a bitch, coz that was my favourite.
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this place scares the hell out of me. the front door is on the side, freaks inside and out. it smelled funny.
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i just couldn't be fucked doing a review on cargo. it's just got nothing going for it. nothing makes it stand out. nothing makes it special. it's like popcorn - tastes like polystyrene with salt. you eat it if it's there but you wouldn't go out of your way to find some. it's the margarine of restaurants. and to call themselves a supper club?! well, melbourne supper club is a real supper club. this place has no atmosphere, no cigars and no life. hey, this is making me feel better.
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yes it's a really dumb name. dumber when you find out it's one of two chin chins. no reference to eddie mcguire here. forget the menu in 8 point font, you can't read it. the specials board is where it's at and you can actually read that. at least you can point at it if they can't understand your order.
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chocolate buddha stands out in my mind as a bit of a paradox. the furniture and ambience is all 'communal this' and 'simplify that, man!' but the prices tell a different story. (b)wankers and corp-exec-wannabes powering through their lunches so they can get back to the office and do some more useless desk driving. dinner time is a bit better but only because the wankers are at trust bar, bobby mcgees or de biers. all classy places.
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i've haven't been to too many chinese restaurants that i've really liked. sure, i've been to flowerdrum in the city but you have to bring your first born child to pay for the meal. the food is excellent but it's all a bit stuffy and business-like. of course, if someone else is paying, i'm there! but i digress - back to choi's. you wouldn't know it was there unless you were looking for it or someone told you about it. like i'm doing now. in fact, what the hell am i doing? the more people i tell, the more difficult it will be to get in myself. it's crap, stay away, k?
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you may think you know the italian restaurant on acland street known as cicciolina (pronounced chi-chi-o-leena). and that reminds me. it's pronounced brusketta not brushetta. try to remember that when you order it next. anyway, cicciolina is not just a well known italian restaurant. duck down the alley beside it and you find a back door to a little bar called - cicciolinas. crazy. now, while you might pay $25 for a main in the restaurant, nibbles in the bar start at just $6.50. and that's fucking cheap.
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I have no idea where to go in our nation's capital. that sounds so funny - our nation's capital. it's very american, patriotic, nationalistic. french. but i digress. this has nothing to do with france or french people or even the riots that firm the basis of french culture and society. i digress my disgression? perhaps. need to stay on message, move forward, stay focussed. I am in, after all, our nation's capital. where was I? oh yes, cream.
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firstly, don't fucking go on about what we were doing in ballarat?! it's not the culinary capital of anywhere so we were not expecting very much. let's face it - there was a certain amount of desperation.
surprisingly, the pizza was bloody good. i say surprisingly because we melbournians can be an arrogant lot. we don't give the mullet-heads and bogans a chance before we bag their restaurants and bars. da vincis serves up a very good pizza. there, i've said it. it pains me so.
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when i see dino i think of the fat italian makinga pizza anda pasta saucea. but this dino is not a fat italian. in fact this dino has a decidedly spanish flavour. to the point that the entire menu is spanish and there is not a papa gino or mama gilda in sight. they probably want to be a bit more explicit in their advertising. i was with a friend and if not for her insisting that gino is a spanish dude, i would have walked right past. marketing may not be their strength, but the food and the service were absolutely awesome. read on, tapas lovers.
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they have the biggest fucking business card i have ever seen! it's really not that necessary. who needs more bloody people at dogs bar? it's already packed to the fucking rafters on any given evening so what's with the ads and the big ass business cards? not needed. tell the other bastards to go away!
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boooooooring. if someone went to the shops, got a slab of 'boring', gift wrapped it in fancy coloured paper, the result would be donovan's. i can't think why i don't like the place. it just gets on my tits. there was nothing that stood out. maybe a novel dish - no. some creativity - no. decor with taste - no. it was pretty expensive for what we got. there wasn't anything specific i didn't like except the oldies, the waiters, the food and the prices.
they'll probably get shitty with a review like this. like i care. i just won't go back. that'll show them!
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sounds a bit wanky...will add more here later. keep thinking - wanky.
i'm back - i used to go to toofeys a lot a few years ago. it was a great place for fish, even better if someone else was paying. see our review from way back when. so when someone said to me recently 'lets go to esposito@toofeys' i thought - wanker!! what the fuck?! its not immediately clear who or what an esposito is and what they would be doing at toofeys. but, as i was not going to be parting with my hard earned cash, i thought, again, what the fuck. a different what the fuck than before, tho.
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sweet and salty chocolate balls. sounds like a menu item from felicity's fuck house. mai, non. they are just about the best after-dinner sweets i have ever had. i will eat dinner there just to get the choc knobs. there's a very japanese flavour to the food here. sure you can get a steak done very excellently, but why would you when you can have an oyster shooter. it's an oyster in a sweet sake-based shooter with wasabi. and you shoot it. hence the name. very original, i thought.
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everyone in the macedon hospitality industry showers at the same time. how do we know this? we called most of them in search of a restaurant that was open on a friday night and got them out of the shower. the water pressure sure must take a beating around 6.45pm. they were all getting ready to go out to dinner when they should have been in their restaurants serving us, godammit. it was the turn of champions restaurant at fairways to host the local restaurant industry tonight so we, by default, were eating at fairways, like it or not. despite telstra's best efforts to misdirect us and send us to beaconsfield sportswear, we finally got through to lynne (just getting out of the shower) and informed her that we'd like a table in three minutes. she asked us to drive slowly so that she could finish her shower and make herself decent.
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quite the most comprehensive business card i have ever seen - opening times, car parks nearby, web site. a little anal? yup. but i can't fault the fish house for food and let's face it, that's what we're here for. like oysters? sooooo good! wanna whole fish to yourself? you betcha!
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if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, be afraid. be very afraid. rich men with rich women dragging snot-nosed rich kids around so they can take the powerboat across 100 metres of water to their favourite eatery. it's not as bad as that. they're not all rich, just wish they were. fisherman's wharf is poised on the bank of the stretch of water between the main land and raymond island. a ferry, costing about $15 will take you and your car across the choppy and perilous water (an arduous 90 second journey) so that you can sit with your sweater tied around your shoulders and drink wanky drinks.
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i had a chance to sample steak on the other side of the pacific recently. the forbes mill steakhouse is located in a 'nice part of town' which immediately had me thinking of camberwell and the other silver-haired suburbs of melbourne. sure enough, they still had their christmas lights up on the street and it was just lovely. in a scary kind of way.
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g&ts on the chippendale sofa in the window, personal and attentive service, good food.. what's wrong with this picture? the fact that there's nothing else in the picture - this place is an oasis in the culinary wasteland that exists in fitzroy : nicholson st.
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let me just say this. fuel wouldn't know food if it dressed up in a tutu and danced the hoochikoochi. fish on mash with beanshoots on top? what the fuck? sometimes you can find a food gem in small towns. fuel is not it. i don't know what got us there but it won't happen again. i promise. ever. the only cool thing about fuel was the decor. not bad but as it is a restaurant, the food has to feature in there somewhere. chalk it up to a lesson learned the hard way.
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garfish is not exactly a family restaurant. poised (elegant places poise, dodgy places squat) on broughton street in kirribilli they pride themselves on style and fine food. bet you thought that was the start of a wanker's review...no chance of that. but they do take care of little people with custom desserts and kiddy meals. and you gotta respect that especially if it pisses off the hoity-toity diners at the next table.
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just try and find gills alley. i dare you. it's not easy. and so not what you expect, either. alley is probably overselling the whole narrow laneway thing. and diner doesn't come close to describing what is achieved at gills diner. if you imagine an old car repair shop with bakery cafe in the front, tables and chairs in front of an immense kitchen in the back and top class food and service, that would be gills.
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you can always have fish. even if you are a pesca ova lacto vegetarian. you want me to say all that again? i don't think so. but it's nice to know that the world doesn't revolve totally around mcdonalds or the nearest steakhouse. don't get me wrong. i love a thick steak as much as the next bovinus carnivarian. it's just once in a while, a nice piece of fish just hits the spot.
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i have heard this shit before. not great but points for trying. you don't get any points here. cold eggs, cold toast, slow service, the big brekky was mis-named. extra-medium at most. the waiters were waiting for something, but it wasn't us.
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located in a back street off the main chapel street drag, you can barely hear the thump of subwoofers from the holden camiras. the greville bar is on a corner next to a small park and you could easily walk past it if you're not paying attention or are just shitfaced. go here if you like semi-naked transvestites attending private parties upstairs and the barperson smashing glasses every few minutes.
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yes, you've heard the name before. it's an extension of the grill room in st kilda. wait, wouldn't it just be easier to actually extend the grill room in st kilda? apparently not. you gotta open a whole new restaurant with the same 'i will go down on you' steaks and wines. actually i wouldn't but if it came down to the crunch...well. i'm still totally confused about the links (or not) between squire's loft and the grill room. opening a grill room one block from the squire probably answers that question. they are best of friends, right?
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i know it takes a gazilion litres of water to make my tiny 350g steak. i know it's not environmentally friendly farming for a country with so little water. i know that cows have faces (something about veggies not eating anything with a face). i know all that! but it's just so good sometimes to have moo cow at the grill room. i crave steak, you know, once every few weeks. can you greenies overlook this one teensy vice of mine?
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it's a big bloody flower. an hibiscus. or it's a new restaurant and bar opened only 8 weeks ago in fitzroy north. what have the two got in common? unknown. but the restaurant variety has really good food, good waiters (except for the scary one with the multi-accent) and good wines. the flower variety smells good.
your normal north fitzroy restaurant has loud, crazy waiters, surrounded by grungy sofas from grandma's garage sale. usually you can't see what you're eating and wines with labels and corks (not screw top or plastic taps) are a recent discovery. it's not that we don't love fitzroy and it's eateries. sometimes you just want soup sans dreadlocks.
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the last time we visited home it was called siblings and it was in the hands of the loud (and assumedly deaf) mark - we were intrigued.
home. dining room. old books. stuffed toys. a rocking chair. it was like going to granny's place for dinner. except that granny had died the day before and while most of her stuff (mostly the privates and the unmentionables) had been quickly shoved into the skip out back, bits and pieces remained. it gave home a homey feel, a lived-in atmosphere, an inviting and reassuring air about it. we were here to investigate.
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what does the name mean? who the hell knows! telstra and yellow pages sure don't. after a few attempts to find the number i gave up and had to resort to an unnamed book that writes about these places, but not in a way that helps you unless you're into {insert some poncy dish that they bang on about}. if you're reading this telstra it's bloody 9386 5522. don't worry too much if you get a fax machine, just ring again until you get someone who can't hear you over the noise.
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idibidi service, perhaps. and probably idibidi food, since i can't actually recall anything special about it and it wasn't that long ago. and i'm not that old. yet. if you don't want to get any more acquainted with your waiters than an occasional glimpse from the other side of the room, sort of in the same way you might want to get acquainted with a bengal tiger, this is your place. they leave you alone, boy do they leave you alone. so if you are planning on eating or drinking when you visit idibidi, take a distress flare or a megaphone or a small nuclear device to get some attention.
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i really can't find anything bad to say about il fornaio. by day, a panetteria and pasticceria (breads and cakes). by night, a low key, italian-inspired restaurant. and it's all good.
hold the phone! now that doesn't sound right! we tell it like it is and take no prisoners. fuck the establishment food-critics and all that. so whatup? well there are two main reasons for the previous sentence.
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i went to il tempo a few months ago and it left me so traumatised I've been unable to talk about it until now. we'd booked ahead without really knowing anything about it and when we saw it we felt pretty chuffed cos it looked sooo cute there in de graves st, with a glimpse through the windows of little candles flickering on the tables in the mezzanine so we wandered in very happily. but that didn't last long. when we mentioned to our waiter on arrival that we had booked ahead, he eyed us suspiciously, saying 'mmm... i guess that's ok then. i'll just see...'.
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koh samui is a place where cheapskate backpackers go to get completely smashed on buckets of cocktails served in beachside bars. cheap drugs, cheap women, cheap. that's the island off mainland thailand. koh samui is a food oasis amid dentists, terraced houses and the uppity suburb known as middle pahk. it's not quite albert pahhhhk, but it ain't st kilda neither.
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nothing particular stands out about this place. as part of a two-restaurant chain, anka thai has tried to bring thai food to the mass market. the mcdonald's of thai food, if you will. the waiters are in matching national dress, there are authentic looking artefacts around the walls that were probably bought cheaply in bulk from a dodgy outlet in smith st brunswick and the food is authentic but australianised thai.
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over attentive waiters. they kept trying to take our order, fill our wine glasses or take the empties away. if you're used to being ignored, this is going to really get your goat. it will give you the shits. if, on the other hand, you want to run in, order now, eat without breathing and get out, this is your nirvana. it's a kind of mcdonalds experience.
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i do like a restaurant, cafe, or indeed a bar, that has a closing time described as 'late'. it's like 'mheh, if you're here, we're here'. no pressure. in fact i would have to list it up there with the breakfast-all-day. not in the same category of course, but it's up there with the best. l'olivo was entirely unexpected but boy were we glad we chose it.
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we didn't like the look of the surly chick hogging the open fire when we walked in, but when we found out she was in charge of the place, things got a whole lot worse. at la porchetta bendigo, you'd better get used to freezing your arse off while the manager warms hers. and try cajoling the waitress to let you split a table of 8 into a table of 4 when the place is so empty you could hear crickets if it wasn't for the speakers blasting adhd-fm. it also helps if you've had some hospitality training so you can be on hand to rearrange things when the next group of chunky patrons try to squeeze into the table behind you, cos you won't find any staff to do it.
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for me summer in lorne is all knotted sweaters and pastels. i mean there are some great, down-to-earth eating places but the general feel of the place is all bmw, 2.5 kids and everything in shades of yellow, blue and pink. winter however is a different story. only the hardiest holidayers make the effort. bless their volvo sports utility vehicles.
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lets face it, describing themselves as a 'bar de vino' (who here speaks spanish, i'm not quite sure what that means) is a strong enticement to visit lulo. and i do like a business that gives hours like '5.30pm to late'. it leaves the night open to all kinds of possibilities. like vino. esta mui importante, no? it's always been packed around 9 (a common hour for dinner in spain) so we went much earlier to make sure we got a table.
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i'm not sure what i expected at mark's place. they have linen napkins and generally older staff than you would expect but don't be fooled. i didn't feel special nor welcome. 'we're just here for dessert' = i am a second class diner. they put us up front so that we'd be closer to the door and quicker to leave.
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this place has got to be the hungry jacks of japanese food. only jack is kosta and we ain't hungry for it any more. the food is made by someone who has read about japanese food but reckons that 122 million japanese and 5000 years of culture can be improved upon. maybe he saw pearl harbour...
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i've lived and worked in japan in past lives so i have a reasonable clue when it comes to japanese food. while some restaurants try to take their cuisine and run it through the aussie blender (yoowan'aneggontop?), the good ones only try to be who they are. japanese food was never made to be served in the entre - main - dessert format. they have distinct food types like raw fish, noodles, rice dishes, hot-pots and nabe dishes (also known as just chuck-it-all-in-the-pot dishes). when you try to 'entre-main' it (yes i made a new verb), it just doesn't work.
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we like the door. it's calming. and not wanky. like so many other places in south yarra. especially near chapel street. we were looking for a little cosy eatery with a fire, sofas, etc so the choice of this little japanese restaurant made no sense whatsoever. a complete surprise for you and i. now, i speak japanese to a degree so it's good to find a restaurant that has genuine japanese staff, not vietnamese, chinese, malaysian and korean waiters because the owners think that australians are too stupid to tell the difference. we can tell, you assholes.
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this place is scary. scary food, scary people. there's no menu and don't dare ask for one. a scary woman who shouts a lot will sit at your table and demand to know what you want. it's not personal, just the way a moroccan restaurant works. your order is yelled across the kitchen by the big scary woman. i see lots of cringing and cowering in the kitchen.
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here's a thought. if you pay waiters and staff well, you get good food and good service and good waiters will want to join your restaurant. so you get good staff and waiters, and so on and so forth. it's not rocket surgery. it's quite obvious that the manager of movida has worked out this tricky and complex equation. the result? what seems like almost instant success. the kitchen staff are relaxed and professional, the bar staff are efficient and snappy, and the floor staff attentive and friendly. even for a brand new joint, movida feels like everyone working there are part of a well-worn family.
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lets see if i can remember how this goes...its been a long time since i wrote anything here. it probably should be prophetic or at least inspirational. sadly, neither. it's just a review of a really good restaurant, the first new restaurant that i've been really impressed with for a long time. and it's called msida (pronounced emm-seeda) and it's in hawthorn on glenferrie road. now where's that return key again, i'm so rusty on this typing reviews stuff...
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they say it is the mark of a good ethnic restaurant when the majority of diners are from that ethnic background. i say you're a tosser if you go around making comments like that. but realistically the mark of a good ethnic restaurant is if the food is tasty and there is some level of service above a grunt from the waiter and your meal being hurled directly from the kitchen. but hey, you're all entitled to my balanced and objective opinion.
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like ditching your girlfriend for the big tits and tight ass at the bar who's had just about enough drink to take you home and shag you within an inch of your life, we stood kunis up when a nihonbashi zen showed us its cleavage.
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it's been such a long time since i wrote anything at all here! I've been specifically inspired by a meal at the nudel bar on the weekend- it was such a great experience that i figured it was worth revisiting eajguide to post a comment or two.
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fate drove us to odyssey. oysters, lamb, and barramundi kept us there. fate in the form of horizontal rain, a miserable evening in sydney, australia. i've been to the rocks before, had a $40 piece of fish (that was a little expensive) and an $18 gin and tonic. i know how things go at the rocks. but i've never had anything like odyssey's wine tasting and food. did i mention the high-tech wine tasting dispenser, the smart cards, stainless steel tubes with flashing lights? there's even a glass of 1996 grange for $180 if you care to find out what all the hubbub is about. wow!
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when you go to a restaurant you're not there for the enjoyment and convenience of the owner or staff. you're not there to make their lives fulfilled and you're certainly not there so they can have someone to vent their frustrations on. there are people queuing up in my life to do all these things and i don't have to pay them for the privilege. call me old fashioned.
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it's kinda like a theme restaurant without the floor show. and with food that doesn't taste like they scraped it off an aeroplane tray. try this - cover the first word on every menu item and the menu reads 'soup, pie, steak, salad'. there's nothing wrong with the food, you just need to question what it is that makes an 'outback steak' so different from a steak. in true paul hogan style they have kangaroo, crocodile and emu. tastes like chicken.
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after a fucked up day, a really really fucked up day, wood fired pizza is the only option. or at least it's high on the list of places to go. pizze (e fichi) comes highly recommended. for pizza. apparently the pasta is good too but i didn't try it that night. it was pizza all the way.
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bloody hell! a small soup is big enough to bathe in (but not so big that you can drown so you're safe to go swimming right after dinner). the spring rolls were very good but the noodles sadly lacked inspiration (and taste)
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this is the restaurant previously know as 'restaurant in a hotel owned by a swedish guy in palma that i wish i could remember the name for...'. well, i got the name so if you are in town and ask for the place, people won't look at you like you're a nutter. well, no more than usual.
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i've got two words for you, ricardo's: p r. anyone out there know anything about marketing? like a lamb dressed as mutton, you'd run screaming from ricardo's unless you were cranky and starving, in which case it's an ok looking mutton. their business card looks like someone's three year old brought it home from kinder and it has been stuck on the fridge next to the electricity bill for six weeks. and the staff bear down on you as you step over the threshold with such speed and determination that the fight or flight response takes hold and customers either step back or take a kung fu stance.
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from the waitress (english challenged and therefor fodder for my broken and harsh spanish) to the colourful interior, senyor parella should take a bow. excellent service, more wines than you could shake a brown paper bag at, and prices that surprise - my starter at 4 cats was more than most mains in senyor p's place.
the menu came wrapped in the napkin, a souvenir for guests from out of town. nothing i could possibly complain about, i would stay at sp next time in barcelona if i could. recommendable and preferido - in any language. love the place, try it if you're in town.
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i know, i know. it's in fucking mt waverley. be warned, ok? beware the burbs in all their glory! in fact run away if at all possible. keep your head low and talk to no-one.
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remember the caramel cafe review? well siblings is around the corner, owned by the same people and it does a very nice dinner. 'siblings' because he waits and she cooks - and there are cute pictures of them on the wall. as the name implies, the atmosphere is warm, intimate and feels a bit like home. (so long as your home has tea light candles and 'siblings' printed on the table cloth.)
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no soul. no pepper. no fucking pepper grinder. it looks good. it even has a nice looking menu. but don't be fooled. soul and pepper is evil. lousy staff, lousy food (if you can taste anything) and the fucking idiot box on in the corner to distract the boy/girl into whose pants you would dearly like to get. on the other hand, if there's a significant other who just bores the crap out of you and you've tried everything to dump them including the old 'i am gay' and 'let's go for a ride to the country', soul and pepper might be your saviour. at the very least the tv gives you something to do while you come up with another fiendishly clever plan like changing all your locks and speaking with a russian accent when you answer the phone - 'sche no here! you no kall bak, no?'
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the vibes coming off this place are so cool, man. and one less cow was needlessly slaughtered because i had the polenta. maybe you can take this veggie thing a little too far. while i love vegetarian food and i agree that animals consume way too much of our resources (greedy bastards), i do like a good steak once in a while. see the review on squire's loft. sweet, sweet meat. ahem. sorry.
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hey all you dead cow loving people, steaks aren't half bad at squires loft. of course you don't have anything else to compare it to because you can have anything as long as it used to walk on four legs and moo contentedly to itself. if you want a steak whether it be 'fillet-so-small-i-can-herdly-see-you' to a t-bone the size of a house cat, squires have it. no small selection of squashed grape drink to go with your steak. piss off you chardonnay sipping yuppies. grr.
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they call it licensed vegetarian fun. and it is licensed and vegetarian. the fun may well have been there, but it must have been cowering in one of the dark corners, sobbing quietly to itself and rocking back and forth. they did have some good food, a nice attitude and a full bar so who's complaining? they only slightly suffer from the 'mountainous servings because we're vegetarian' syndrome but it was partly our fault for being indecisive and over-ordering. if you're a vegan, firstly that's your problem but they will take care of you here. you have vegan options for many of the dishes if you choose to totally divorce yourself from the animal kingdom.
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ringwood is not the place i think of first when someone says 'let's do japanese'. in fact it's not even second. i know! hard to believe. it's way down the list. way down. just how far? far. but suishaya does have quite a lot going for it and it has such a cute little waterwheel (that's what suishaya means) in a pond just inside the door. ahem, fucking nice pond, i mean.
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apparently our table for six was booked by armstrong. there were eight of us and if armstrong showed up he was going to get his arse kicked. sweet basil was packed at 9pm friday night, we took this as a good sign. it's a bit too nice a place to go with people who are so hungry they will eat cardboard with the same enthusiasm that they will eat hog dogs from the caravan outside the marquee club at 4am in the morning.
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loud, cheerful, good menu, efficient waiters and food arrives in a time warp - almost sooner than you ordered it. you can watch your food being cooked in what might be described as military precision - there's no running or shouting, just eating/drinking and loud voices. not for the intimate dinner, and very definitely barcelona.
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it's not like you won't notice tandoori den or run the risk of driving past it with it's subtle neon sign and packed with customers with an average age of 50. yes, that's average age. and you know what happens when you get to that magical age. suddenly time is more important that anything else in the world. including sex although i cannot imagine that. dinner is required to be at a certain time. the meal should progress at an appropriate pace and it's all over by 10 o'clock. and so tandoori den seems to be geared to the silver generation's needs.
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this place runs like a family kitchen. we found thai classic after hours of research and planning. actually it was more like 'how 'bout this place?' as we were walking somewhere else. we were hungry, it was there, let's eat. this is the second time we've eaten there, the first time was so good we had to go back and review it.
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you know, i just wasn't going to review this place at all... but then i went to the bathroom. you know how some places have like cool images to denote male and female bathrooms? la camera at southbank, for example, has some vague suggestive artworks, and i always have to look more than once. i think it's supposed to be a womb on the ladies' door. anyway. box, on the other hand, has symbolised the male and female genitalia. yes, this is box, where you have to take the lift to the third floor to get to the bathroom. but wait, this is a review on the thai place on chapel st. and guess what they have on their bathroom doors? should i give you a minute?? ok, ok....
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this is a happy story of good food and nice wine in gumdrop restaurant on lollypop lane. it truly was an enjoyable dining experience and if you don't go, you're stupid. the bridge restaurant is part of the bridge hotel. up front is all vb beer and sweaty blokes playing pool and watching the footy, a truly sublime pastime if you are a sweaty bloke who likes vb, playing pool and watching footy. at the back, the bridge restaurant is something else altogether. it even has a separate door so you don't have to run the gauntlet past the sweaties.
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it's not like you're likely to wander past the deanery one day and think 'that place looks nice, i'll drop in for some tea and scones'. bligh place is basically an gap between two building masquerading as an alley pretending to be a lane. it is small and unless you're looking for it, you're unlikely to see the deanery. but when you do find it, well, bring an empty stomach (try not to eat for a few days) and your biggest flashiest credit card. jeeves can stay in the car, though.
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many years ago the graham hotel was a rundown workman's pub complete with broken floorboards. you couldn't get anything but vb beer and a few spirits. needless to say this delightful establishment did not remain.
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we're calling the grand our flood refuge, our island in the storm, our oasis, our le grande ile. going home one evening with traffic in all directions, i cracked the shits and parked near the grand. the plan was to wait until the traffic had died down and the road rage victims had been cleared away.
the bathroom has a single, we have to call it, throne with brown walls, fresh flowers and a huge wicker (warning!) basket of spare toilet rolls. what this says to me is - 1. they think this place is too small to ever need two toilets at the one time, 2. i have very gay friends who helped set up the bathroom, and 3. if i ever have the runs, i can be sure that there is sufficient bog roll to mop up the flood. very reassuring.
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i'm not sure i could think up a better name for a restaurant the serves yummy steak and awesome wine. while i do have half a cheek on the green bandwagon (and i appreciate that it takes a bazillion litres of water to make a mouthful of beef), i really really really like a good steak once in a while. come on, give me a break! i eat cardboard for a week afterward to make up for it. honestly.
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there's nothing like a shitload of traffic to open you up to the opportunity of experiencing new eateries. it works like this - i get shitty with the traffic, find the nearest restaurant that looks like the food won't kill (at least for the next 48 hours) and that's it really. pizza gallery (gallery, no less) was just one of those places. now usually, gallery means looky, no touchy, but pizza gallery thankfully allows the eating and drinking of the culinary art.
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i am a big fan of a good steak. just check out the squire's loft and the grill room reviews. it's not that i'm a big meat eater at all - i generally choose the vegetation option and don't really cook meat at home - but fuck, the point is another step up in the steak stakes. they have their own meat supply (i think they have their own farm) so their beef is probably some of the best available.
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when you've spent a good 45 minutes driving down sydney road looking for a thai restaurant, and not having any success, you should just give up and head to tho tho's. or at least, that's what we did. i'm not sure if the thai place ever existed along sydney road... thai.. i guess it could possibly sound a bit like turkish... or at least it does start with the same letter... could we have been just a little confused?
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you might remember we tried to get into claypots recently? we ended up in wild rice. you can read all about that little fuck up here. well, we tried again last night with the response, 'yeah, should be a few hours wait.' these jokers don't take bookings in the regular sense. you have to turn up and put your name down or something like that. i don't really know because i've never got that far! so back on the street again and looking for a substitute - not having learned from the wild rice affair - tien tien was next door. byo, room for us, what more could we want?
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red curved velour sofas and not a straight line in sight. if you've ever been to federation square you'll know what i mean. the place is falling down, or at least seems to be in a permanent state of construction or deconstruction. some bloody architect probably decided that it was symbolic of the building of australia. i reckon it is symbolic of the architects struggle with reality. but i digress...
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sounds like the beer. but nothing could be further from a slab of new south welsh beer. toofeys do seafood and they do it really well. in the same way squire's loft do steaks, they have a token chicken dish. be prepared for a look of panic on the waiter's face if you ask for the chicken. but sir, we do fish. that's just padding. really, if you're the sort of dickhead who goes to an italian restaurant and ask for the pasta 'but no olive oil, and skip the garlic, and not too much tomato', stay the fuck away. toofeys does seafood. go order the seafood, you fucking moron. otherwise, go to one of those all-you-can-eat buffet joints. you know the ones with the tables full of scary looking parents and retard kids high on food colouring and sugar.
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where am i? i'm in rome. i'm in egypt. i'm on the suez canal 1938. no, just trotters on lygon street. not quite the same impact but we have gone back in time to when tea was tuppence a bag and butter was sold in dishcloth (i'm not going to say muslin) by a big sweaty man who smelled of cheese. what is a charcuterie anyway. the dictionary says:
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i remember when trunk was just some chinese place. sure it was expensive (it's on exhibition - what the fuck do you expect?). now, though, trunk has taken on a decidedly Italian flavour to their chinese food. and there's no more chinese food. craziest chinese restaurant I've ever been to. lets just say it's italian and move on.
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don't exactly know the address. i'm, sure you'll find the place. having watched the first of californication, this is how you start a review. hey, viet star, sweet. have you seen californication? i strongly recommend it. i mean, i'm not tv fan or anything...i'm off track, yes? let's talk about the restaurant then, shall we?
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staff bad, food good = i'm not happy. it has to be this way. at waves, staff very bad. you very bad staff! bad, bad staff! when you have to ask for food digging things and napkins after your food has arrived, that can't be good. i don't mind the slow pace over in wa but i just think it'd be nice to be able to eat the food put in front of me wihtout resorting to using my hands or stealing forks from the nearby tables. call me crazy.
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ok, we eat out more than we drink out. can you say that? drink out? if you can eat out, why can't you drink out? must get this attention deficit disor...oh, hey a penny! there follows an extensive list of restaurant reviews. some good, some absolutely fucking bad. some places no longer exist (not as a result of our words here because most of the places that have closed were the good ones!), some are going strong, and some will never amount to much. but we strive to bring you the best of the best and warn you away from the truly awful establishments. use the search if you are looking for something specific.
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