il tempo - de graves street melbourne

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...'.

(me speechless here)

no menus in this establishment, it's all on the blackboard on the wall. which would be fine except we were left staring so long at the blackboard waiting for our orders to be taken that we started to feel like naughty kids being punished for having the nerve to book a table in the first place.

unfortunately, after his intial breathtaking homily, the waiter had become reclusive and hermit-like, and was not seen for the longest time. when we finally coerced him to take our order, we only got a drink because i started frothing at the mouth. any sort of service is apparently optional here.

i'll rush through the next bit because it's still quite painful. the mussel soup was crap, mussels in shells with a sad dribble of liquid, lots of salt. soup actually requires more than a teaspoon of liquid and less shells. risotto wasn't risotto, just some vegies mixed with wet rice. and there was no dessert left at all... but the chef could open up some tinned fruit if we wanted that... what the fuck?!!

this is possibly the most god-awful restaurant i've ever been to. i'm sure i've been to worse, like, oh, smorgy's and uncle moe's family feedbag but at least there was the warning in the name. this one crept up and ambushed us.

be afraid, be very afraid...

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