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Le Grand Cirque

29/4/2014

Rainy mid week get together with my girlfriend Tanya took place at Le Grand Cirque. Entering is all a bit dramatic with a heavy, velvet curtain shrouding the dining room. You're taken behind the curtain and there it is...I guess it's meant to be the "ta dah" moment.

It's nice enough but I'm not sure if the black curtain helps as it raises the expectations and the dining room whilst pleasant enough is another dining room and I can't say it's super special. The plant pots at Gazi are probably more special than this space.

We were shown to our table for two - I felt like I was seated at a bar really as the table felt small but it was comfortable enough.

It took a while before we were given menus and for our order to be taken. We were meant to return the table after two hours and really this delay didn't help. I also have to concede that I was also 10 minutes late but anyway, we were never pressured to release the table and were in fact encouraged to linger over dessert.

We started off with one of the dips and we chose the beetroot one which had some cumin flavours in it and was enjoyable with the crispy croutony toasts. We also enjoyed the ham and cheese croquettes that came on some cauliflower puree. The croquettes were piping hot, crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside and yes, I would order these again. I think my favourite Melbourne croquettes is the cheese and jalopeno one at Huxtable but these were good too.

We shared the braised beef cheeks and also ordered side dishes of mashed potato and the peas and bacon. Very French bistro. The pot of beef cheek was certainly big enough for two especially with the two generous side dishes.The beef was tender and in the pot were mushrooms and carrots. Flavour wise, I felt it was still a little but sharp from the red wine and could do with a touch more seasoning. The liquid was still a little runny.

The side dishes were delicious though. Buttery, creamy mash and buttery peas with salty chunky bacon bits and sweet onion. I could have just eaten the side dishes!

I really liked the fact that we could share one main course and there's no judging by the wait staff that we're ordering too little. This makes it good value for money. I always envisaged this restaurant to be simple French bistro fayre and Manu was more the face of it and just helps with the promo side of things. And that's what it is. It's not cutting edge cuisine or twists on classics. It's pretty conservative but what I had was enjoyable enough.

Service throughout was attentive and friendly enough except for the initial long wait for menus.

For dessert, there's a trayful of petit fours that you can do a pick and mix with. We shared one just for a mouthful of sweetness as that mash had really filled us up. Great to leave on a sweet note though.

Le Grand Cirque on Urbanspoon

Backstreet Eating

26/4/2014

We eat well! No one can deny that about Steve and I. And we eat well in all circumstances including a 12 hour moving day! We started at 7am and by the time the removalists were done and all the boxes, rails of clothes, cases and furniture had been deposited to the new place, it was time for some refuelling.

Downstairs but in the same apartment block is Backstreet Eating so where better to enjoy a late lunch? The warm timber is inviting and the bistro feel of the place is comfortable and relaxing.

Plates of food are under $20. They're not huge but they are tasty and decent and means can share more!

I had the pea gnocchi with bacon and parmesan and Steve had the fillet of bream. Both were attractively presented and lots of fresh lovely flavours. I really enjoyed the sweet peas and salty bacon. Slightly overly buttery towards the end - some bread to dip could have made the difference!

We shared the ancient grain salad with pinenuts, pomegranate, herbs & sumac labne as well as the confit potatoes with parmesan aioli.

The lunch was what we needed to encourage us to head home and carry on unpacking. Another doorstep gem!

Backstreet Eating on Urbanspoon

The Press Club

24/4/2014

We have been wanting to get to the new Press Club for a long time and expectations were high. Finally the evening arrived.

The welcome was like a reunion with an old friend - warm, personal and it truly felt like catching up with someone dear and beloved after a makeover. The strongest lingering memory I have of the meal now, three and a half weeks later is that service was second to none. There was no waiting for others to be seen to first, no attempting to catch someone's eye and yet there was also none of the excessive hanging around / looming over you / chatting to one another that occurs when there's nothing for the wait staff to do. They manage that balance really well and we were so well looked after.

The room is long and narrow with boothed seating that is all plump leather. It kind of reminded me of what first class would be like on an aeroplane and I was half expecting our lounge seat to turn into flatbed and that the screens separating the booths could slide up and down!

Ceiling lights are interesting - a big puzzle of curvaceous shapes and the one above our seat was like a giant empty can of luncheon meat!

First to arrive was a laundry line (the whirligig) type, planted in fake grass with various items hung out to dry and what looks like a walnut shell on the grass.

Other little bowlfuls arrived including some crispy chips, fried school prawns, an empanada (pastry filled pasty) and some octopus on a stick served on a thick brick.

The idea is like a mezze - picky food to eat and accompanying this assortment of goodies was a small glass of beer, some Greek sparkling wine and home made ouzo with a cucumber water ice in the shape of a cucumber.

The octopus was tender and tasty and went well the with sparkling wine. The saltiness and deep fried nature of the chips and the school prawns were great with the beer. It's quite hard to recall actually what was in the empanadas but they were eaten and appreciated!

Next was the garden salad (horiatiki) with the basil seed jelly base and tomato and goats cheese. We had this before at Press Club Projects so I guess the "wow" factor was a little diminished. But the flavours were still fresh and zingy and danced on the tongue.

After the salad came a beautiful mushroom youvetsi which is the Greek pasta done like risotto. I say it was beautiful because the pine mushrooms and truffles were indeed beautiful.

And then another dish we'd seen before - the chicken stock noodles in soup but this time the soup was a take on the traditional Greek lemon soup (avgolemono0 adorned with shavings of abalone. It was fresh and light and very enjoyable raised from its humble origins of soup with the luxury addition of salty, crunchy abalone.

My only quibble and I am being so fussy is that a lot of the crockery used at the Press Club has a rough texture and so scraping of metal cutlery against (especially when it's soup in a soup bowl) it causes that "nails on blackboard" feeling in me but it's such a personal thing that I can't hold it against the restaurant.

And another familiar dish arrived; the magnificent Kangaroo Island marron with cauliflower. Sweet marron flesh with pickled cucumber - delightful.

Still on the seafood theme, came the very dramatic monochrome black sesame crusted cod (I'm struggling to remember what fish it was but I think it was cod) with squid ink. Tender, sweet, flakes of pearly fish with a sea salty tang. This delighted us because it was something we'd not seen before.

Our meat course was beef and onion - slow braised beef with different onion textures and two tubes of pasta that provided the starch accompaniment. The meat was tender, the onions delicious. Nothing to fault - not the most original of dishes and I'm pretty sure I've had other versions but like I said, cannot fault the plate of food.

Pre dessert - I was really looking forward to this. The pre dessert at Press Club - blackcurrant meringue, lime gel and lychee sorbet was just amazing. It was so fresh and so tart and so zingy it was so reviving it was like smelling salts! So pre dessert had a lot to live up to.

Lemon meringue on a stick and browned at the table is pretty impressive and it was an amazing mouthful of delight. I could have had another one...and another...The soft sugary meringue came first which made me hesitate and think, oh this is too sweet to be refreshing but then the lemon curd came through and started to freeze my jaw with the sharpness, in a pleasant way of course! And yes it came up trumps.

Dessert again was theatre involving the use of liquid nitrogen to do some freezing and then a blow torch to melt the golden toffee cap over the creme brulee beneath. I can't recall the exact description of the dessert but it had cake, toffee, caramel flavours.

Our Press Club experience was enjoyable. There was a bit of theatre, some intriguing flavours and some darn good plates of food. I've got to say thought that I couldn't help having a teeny feeling of being underwhelmed after the experience. I think it was probably that this Press Club visit was very close to our Press Club Projects experience and so some of the dishes were not new to us (some minor variations but on the whole the same) and whilst tasty and so enjoyable for our tastebuds, probably didn't stun the mind as well as it could.

Interesting was the comments book that arrives with the bill and the effusive enthusiasm of the diners that commented and that contrasts with the negativity on Urbanspoon. I wonder if any of the reviewers on Urbanspoon wrote in the book.

The Press Club on Urbanspoon

Brunswick Street Alimentari

21/4/2014

Lazy public holiday Monday, we were moseying around the area driving on the new streets we would soon call home. Being in between two apartments is the worst as neither are comfortable as belongings and furniture are shared between the two whilst the transition takes place.

So the new place has no bed so we can't stay there. The old place has the TV but no sofa so only the uncomfortable camp chairs to sit on so given it was Monday afternoon / early evening we were looking for somewhere to hang out.

We ventured into Alimentari with plans for a cup of tea / coffee and ended up being tempted by the pasta dishes on the blackboard and ended up with ordering two plates of food and a salad to share.

I enjoyed the gnocci with chilli tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan and it was delicious. Simple and home cooked goodness. Steve had the pork and fennel lasagne which was very fennelly and he enjoyed it. We shared a mixed salad of grains and beetroot.

What a great local spot to while away a short time. We browsed the newpapers whilst we ate and drank and decided we could imagine ourselves returning for a quick, tasty and satisfying dinner or lunch once we were settled in. Places like this convince us that the move is the right thing to do.

Brunswick Street Alimentari on Urbanspoon

Hammer and Tong

21/4/2014

Public holiday weekend - I wasn't sure we'd get a table at Hammer and Tong given the surge in popularity but we tried and were pleasantly surprised and rewarded with a corner on the communal table. Another hustly bustly brunch vibe place and I wonder if the ambience and feel changes on an evening if we were to come for dinner.
I like the eccentricity of the menu and it was quite hard to decide what to eat. I was tempted by the breakfast ramen but eventually we plumped for:

Corn & zucchini fritters, avocado, Manchego, spinach, chilli tomato relish, poached egg
Sausage & egg muffin, with espresso maple bacon foam, smoked cheese
Side dishes of bacon, mushrooms and halloumi

Definitely lots of yummy goodness. I loved the muffin with the sweet and salty maple bacon foam. I couldn't taste the smoked cheese but did get the melted cheese texture which was enjoyable. I am looking forward to having such a muffin again!

Steve enjoyed the fritters. They were crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I certainly liked the food here. I have to say the English Breakfast tea wasn't so great and was a little bland and weak.

Hammer & Tong on Urbanspoon

Miss. Marmalade

20/4/2014

We were in West Brunswick to see my friend Nat and to borrow her car. We needed sustenance to see us through a day of Ikea shopping and furniture building and Nat needed bacon to chase off cobwebs from too much partying the night before!

She, being the local took us the the charming Miss Marmalade where we sat at a wooden table on mismatching but fun chairs and quickly placed orders for juices, teas, coffee and food.

The vibe is friendly and informal. The dining room was a little dark but possibly more to do with the grey day outside. Food arrived quickly and we enjoyed chowing down. This is a great little neighbourhood coffee and breakfast stop. I'm not convinced I would travel all the way for bacon and eggs but if in the area I would definitely return,

Miss Marmalade on Urbanspoon

Ici

19/4/2014

Ici is right on our new doorstep so with part 1 of the Barley move going on, it made sense for a familiarisation visit so we made it for weekend brunch on Saturday.

Ici is a very quaint and cute looking outpost. It's a little bit French with its cosyness and blackboards on the wall but then once settled in and looking at the clientele and wait staff, it's much more eclectic than France.

The other customers look so Fitzroy. Funny jumpers, skinny trousers, men in ponytails, in bow ties - all so creative. And the blackboard offers a Croque Monsieur and a Madame, that aforementioned nod to France, but there's a dumpling soup with shitakes that takes us to Asia, and then a mixed grill for breakfast taking us back home to UK. See? Eclectic melting pot...

I wanted the dumpling soup and maybe one of the many Tasmanian salmon dishes but when I tried to order I was advised no broth for dumplings left and no salmon. Also no chorizo but that was never going to feature in my menu lineup for today anyway.

So I joined Steve with his nod to home and waited for the breakfast mixed grill. When it arrived it was attractively presented in a iron pan with toasted bread and relish on the side. The menu mentioned black pudding but there was none so I can only assume it was with the Tasmanian salmon, broth and chorizo.

So what was in my pan? Two fried eggs, spinach, grilled tomato, mushrooms, bacon and some sausage. Pretty good sustenance food. I had to ask for butter for the toast though and it was quite hard to flag down someone but the butter came and the toast was yummy. The whole pan was pretty darn good.

For a place across the road from home, really we could do a lot worse!

Ici on Urbanspoon

Young Bloods Diner

18/4/2014

New to the area, we're concentrating on orientation and discovering the local gems. So we found ourselves at Young Bloods Diner on a quiet Good Friday afternoon. It was a lovely autumnal day with the sunshine streaming through the glass windows adding light to the dining room that kept the place fresh and comfortable to be in.

The welcome was warm and the waitress was very relaxed. I guess it was quiet so she sort of mosied around here and there in a very non urgent fashion and her colleagues were similar so we seemed to wait for a while before we could order.

Soup of the day was leek and potato with a poached egg. Our kind of soup so we both ordered it. It was a big steaming bowl and really in retrospect, we should have share one.

The soup was snowy white, with a sprinklig of green herbs and two places of good chargrilled sourdough. The flavour of the soup was delicate and tasty and the texture silky smooth. Delicious.

The hidden secret egg was great and when the yolk burst and oozed it added another depth of richness to the soup. Excellent.

I had the "special lunchbox" which was poached sesame chicken and ramen salad and it comes with a dessert. Steve had the steak sandwich.

The lunchbox is a lovely, light option and I really enjoyed the delicately poached chicken. The flavour of the ramen was good but it was all a bit soggy and mushy for me. The half a devilled egg it came with added some chilli and mustard kick to the otherwise bland noodles.

The tempting chocolate pot was delicious and I'm not a chocolate lover. Light and airy mousse I thoroughly enjoyed this happy ending!

Steve's steak sandwich was chockful of salad and the steak was good too. He wasn't prepared for the green chilli hit though which was a surprise.

For our first neighbourhood meal, this was a a great welcome to Fitzroy and we look forward to more!

Young Bloods Diner on Urbanspoon

The Left Handed Chef

6/4/2014

Sunday morning in South Melbourne and we headed away from the market for brunch this time to somewhere Steve found. We secured two seats in front of the window. Service was " no frills" but the basics were enough to ensure we had tea and two plates of food.

Steve and I both had the bacon, halloumi and poached eggs on sourdough with a chickpea spread. Everything was cooked well but I think some sort of hollandaise sauce, pesto or relish would help lift the dish and cut through the salt content as the halloumi and bacon are so salty. I wasn't a huge fan of the spread which was like hummus in consistency and not very flavorsome.

The accompaniments we ordered were tasty - baked beans and the sauce from the beans helped add some moisture to our bacon and egs dish. The mushrooms were deliciously herby. Has browns were rustic but a touch overdone so super crispy and a little burnt.

We had a nice enough breakfast here but the lack of a warm welcome and food that was good but not stellar probably isn't enough to bring me back.

The Left-Handed Chef on Urbanspoon

Truman Cafe

5/4/2014

Saturday mid morning brunch date with Lorna, Rob and the handsome new addition to their family, baby Austin. Lorna suggested Truman Cafe and so Steve and I headed there. We were a little earlier and hung around but before long an outside table became free with plenty of room for Austin's wheels.

It's a popular place for families with prams and cyclists with bikes and with the spaciousness of the outside tables, it's easy to see why. Lovely to sit in the Autumn sunshine.

The menu has lots to offer for breakfast, brunch and lunch. I went with Eggs Benedict which was done with bacon instead of ham. This may be wrong to the traditionalists but a very welcome subsitution for this bacon lover. A side of mushrooms made this a satisfying brunch.

Steve had the chorizo and poached eggs topped with spicy tomato and he added a hash brown which was appetisingly golden and deep fried although somewhat reminscent of fried bread than hash brown.

Coffees, teas and orange juices all arrived quickly and cheerfully. Food took a while longer so by the time it came we were really ready for it. Any longer and I think we'd have been pretty despondent.

Truman Cafe is another good Melbourne cafe. I'm so lucky to live in a place that loves eggs and serving eggs on a weekend.

Truman Cafe on Urbanspoon