I've been waiting for this place to open for a while now. Finally it has, so Nic and I dropped in for a nice bottle of wine and some good food and to catch up on her recent snowboarding trip to Japan. Although I am yet to see the pics .... ahem.
The place looks great, a touch of classic Melbourne even, dimly lit with some booths to the left and share tables to the right. We scored a share table and fortunately nobody was sat next to us whilst we were there so bonus points right there. Believe me when I say they will need these bonus points before I'm done with them.
We were handed menus and asked if we'd like a drink. We chose a mineral water to start whilst we read the menu. I received an apology for not remembering this order about two hours later. No biggie, we were given still water just after we sat down so we weren't thirsty.
For our wine I had decided on an Italian Pinot Gris 07, casually priced at $50 and then I noticed another at the back of the wine list, same maker only an 08 model and curiously $5 more expensive. Naturally I enquired as to whether the 08 was a superior vintage to which I received the following response....
"Yeah that's wrong, it should be an 07 and I've sold out of them and I'm still waiting on delivery, you know how it goes"
No not really, but that's cool we had the Victorian Pinot Gris instead, best to buy local anyway yes? Still not quite sure what happened there but anyway the vic version was wonderful.
Now to the menu, I'd decided on the chicken liver parfait followed by the free range chicken with green olives and white bean. Nic chose the ceviche of scallops and then the garlic prawn risotto. We were just about to say we were ready to order when our waitress arrived with new menus....
"I'm sorry but the menu has been updated"
The what now? How do you update a menu at 8pm? If you've run out of something then just tell us, why a whole new menu? Nic looked for her dishes and they were still there, however her scallop dish had increased by $1.50 in price....huh? My parfait now had pickled cucumber instead of baguette, confusing but yeah whatever. We ordered.
There probably is nothing more annoying when you're in a restaurant than waiting a long time for your food, well there is actually and that is waiting a long time for your food and then watching the table next to you who arrived and ordered after you receive their meals before you, yeah that's much more annoying. I'm sure there was a reason. Eventually our starters came, happily I scored baguette with my pickled cucumber and Nics scallops were lovely, tasty and tender. I would suggest they maybe added some seasoning though as it lacked in that area. Maybe some nicer salt on the tables as well so we could add the seasoning when it was lacking, you know like sea salt in a grinder, anything but the saxa salt you're offering at the mo.
The mains arrived and I was hoping they'd push things back into the positive points range. sadly I was wrong. My free range chicken dish may as well have been made from a 10 year old cage laying hen. I mean why would you turn beautiful moist free range chicken into the sausage or whatever it was that you served me 5 slices of on a puree of white beans? or was it mash or runny green olives? I'm not sure, but really in all of my years as a chef I have never thought to do that to a nice piece of chicken. I'm still a bit stunned as I write this, I mean maybe you could have warned me on the menu but there was none.
Nics' risotto wasn't a whole lot better, the rice component seemed fine but the prawns. Do the chefs try their produce when it comes in? Because they where incredibly floury, nothing worse than a crappy prawn, well maybe free range chicken sausage. The pear and rocket salad was good.
All up we finished with a bill for $125.00 for two courses each, a salad and $40.00 of that was for the wine. So pretty good value, if only the food could step it up a notch, then we'd have a pretty cool bar/restaurant. The Bar area looks good with indoor and outdoor areas, might give that a go another time.
All up, service was goodish, wine was excellent and food was lacking quite a bit. I'm not sure I'd rush back but no doubt some friends will want to try and I'll probably join them and give it a second chance
Highlight: The atmosphere
Lowlight: Sadly a few but the worst was the treatment of the chicken breast
Score: 5.5 battery farm eggs out of 10
The place looks great, a touch of classic Melbourne even, dimly lit with some booths to the left and share tables to the right. We scored a share table and fortunately nobody was sat next to us whilst we were there so bonus points right there. Believe me when I say they will need these bonus points before I'm done with them.
We were handed menus and asked if we'd like a drink. We chose a mineral water to start whilst we read the menu. I received an apology for not remembering this order about two hours later. No biggie, we were given still water just after we sat down so we weren't thirsty.
For our wine I had decided on an Italian Pinot Gris 07, casually priced at $50 and then I noticed another at the back of the wine list, same maker only an 08 model and curiously $5 more expensive. Naturally I enquired as to whether the 08 was a superior vintage to which I received the following response....
"Yeah that's wrong, it should be an 07 and I've sold out of them and I'm still waiting on delivery, you know how it goes"
No not really, but that's cool we had the Victorian Pinot Gris instead, best to buy local anyway yes? Still not quite sure what happened there but anyway the vic version was wonderful.
Now to the menu, I'd decided on the chicken liver parfait followed by the free range chicken with green olives and white bean. Nic chose the ceviche of scallops and then the garlic prawn risotto. We were just about to say we were ready to order when our waitress arrived with new menus....
"I'm sorry but the menu has been updated"
The what now? How do you update a menu at 8pm? If you've run out of something then just tell us, why a whole new menu? Nic looked for her dishes and they were still there, however her scallop dish had increased by $1.50 in price....huh? My parfait now had pickled cucumber instead of baguette, confusing but yeah whatever. We ordered.
There probably is nothing more annoying when you're in a restaurant than waiting a long time for your food, well there is actually and that is waiting a long time for your food and then watching the table next to you who arrived and ordered after you receive their meals before you, yeah that's much more annoying. I'm sure there was a reason. Eventually our starters came, happily I scored baguette with my pickled cucumber and Nics scallops were lovely, tasty and tender. I would suggest they maybe added some seasoning though as it lacked in that area. Maybe some nicer salt on the tables as well so we could add the seasoning when it was lacking, you know like sea salt in a grinder, anything but the saxa salt you're offering at the mo.
The mains arrived and I was hoping they'd push things back into the positive points range. sadly I was wrong. My free range chicken dish may as well have been made from a 10 year old cage laying hen. I mean why would you turn beautiful moist free range chicken into the sausage or whatever it was that you served me 5 slices of on a puree of white beans? or was it mash or runny green olives? I'm not sure, but really in all of my years as a chef I have never thought to do that to a nice piece of chicken. I'm still a bit stunned as I write this, I mean maybe you could have warned me on the menu but there was none.
Nics' risotto wasn't a whole lot better, the rice component seemed fine but the prawns. Do the chefs try their produce when it comes in? Because they where incredibly floury, nothing worse than a crappy prawn, well maybe free range chicken sausage. The pear and rocket salad was good.
All up we finished with a bill for $125.00 for two courses each, a salad and $40.00 of that was for the wine. So pretty good value, if only the food could step it up a notch, then we'd have a pretty cool bar/restaurant. The Bar area looks good with indoor and outdoor areas, might give that a go another time.
All up, service was goodish, wine was excellent and food was lacking quite a bit. I'm not sure I'd rush back but no doubt some friends will want to try and I'll probably join them and give it a second chance
Highlight: The atmosphere
Lowlight: Sadly a few but the worst was the treatment of the chicken breast
Score: 5.5 battery farm eggs out of 10
Comments
Interesting review.. curious to go check it out myself and see if I can get through the night without scoring some frozen cubed veg or runny green olives.