Bistro Guillaume

Having taken over the old Prada store at Crown Casino - Bistro Guillaume is simple and evenly tempered French. We started with drinks downstairs - I didn't even know there was a bar there, but our table wasn't ready so we opted for some bubbles. Good selection too. Not many places stocking Salon in Melbourne. Just going back to Prada - What the hell is taking so long with their Collins Street store??? I mean how hard is it????

There were 6 of us at dinner - the bill was about $800 which included 2 glasses of Dom at about $60 a pop so not too bad. Overall everyone loved their meals. I had the french onion soup and steak frites. The soup was fantastic - thick and rich - probably down to the hearty veal stock that is used as the base. One of my fellow diners had the smoked salmon - served with a toasted brioche. Almost exactly the same as the bistro at Vue de Monde.

The steak was a treat - perfectly medium rare and full of flavour.

Complaints - well the staff were a bit of a let down but I think that may have been just our young lady. The more senior staffers seemed to be on their game but our young girl had to be reminded of some drinks that never found their way to the table and there was a noticeable lack of knowleged or confidence when she was telling us about the specials.

For those of you who want a closer look at the menu you can find it here .

It's a gutsy call to open this place given the success and hype that surrounds Vue. But I think they do it well. The bar and restaurant work well together and the menu, overall, is quite tempting and well crafted.

Worth a look - especially for a special night out but maybe a little crowded for an intimate dinner for two.

Enjoy!

Bamboo House - Lt Bourke St, Melbourne

People in Melbourne will crap on about Flower Drum and how good it is......all I have to say to them is get a freakin' clue! Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with Flower Drum but you can get better Chinese at half the price in a lot of other places. I mean give me 2 waiters instead of 6 and charge me half the price! Sure you might see someone famous there but give me a break.

I digress.

Bamboo House is a sensation. I'm not going to go on about every dish but the Peking duck, smoked duck, pan fried dumplings, chilli prawns, mandarin pork, szechuan dishes....whatever...all SENSATIONAL.

The guy there will look after you - Alex, Russell, who can remember ?? You'll know him when you see him - Chinese guy with a beard and a really deep voice.

Just get there and you'll love it.

Fingers

The Society Restaurant - Bourke Street, Melbourne

The Society

I won't bore you with the history. You can read that yourself at http://www.societyrestaurant.com. Bottom line - The Society was around when my dad first came to Australia many years ago. Then it disappeared for a while and now it's back in an updated form.

They've tried to capture the Italian restaurant feel that is a little bit cliched (chandeliers, mirrors, random Italian images and writing on the wall) and they've done it really well.

Overall the food is great. The night I was there we had entrees mains and dessert:

Entrees:

Eggplant Parmigiana - fantastic. Delicious layers of eggplant, tomato & buffalo mozzarella. Great napoli sauce over the top. Hints of fresh basil.

Twice cooked duck - served layered with delicate flaky pastry, this was an absolute delight.

Mains:

Gnocchi with a rich beef ragu hinted with white truffle oil. Delicate. Delicious. The actual gnocchi were good (not as good as the bar at Florentinos but the sauce was MUCH better). Just enough truffle flavour from the oil and the ragu was rich and flavoursome.

Pan seared pork rib eye served on the bone with a "just sweet enough" orange glaze. The apple cider jelly was well presented but had no real flavour - if you can't taste it what's the point??

Sides - rocket salad and some hand cut chips. All good.

Dessert

What a disaster. Chocolate ravioli that were tough and actually tasted pretty ordinary. Almost (but not quite) saved by the vanilla bean custard filling which was nice. I'm sure this sounded like a good idea when someone said, "hey how about some chocolate ravioli?", but overall this was actually quite bad.

Coffee - short black. Not my favourite brand of coffee (Dimattina) but ended the meal well.

We drank a couple of glasses of prosecco and pinot grigio - both from the north of Italy and both great.

Service was also very good. Attentive enough without being over-bearing even if our young waitress had a bit of trouble remembering the specials. They did make us feel very welcome in typical Italian fashion and I'd definitely go back.

At $160 for 2 people it was pretty good value for what you got. They also kept an eye on my illegally parked car for me.

If you want a good night out, reasonably priced with a nice touch of Italy - this is the place. Just pick carefully when you get to dessert.

Eat well!

Fingers

Why is this blog here?

So why does this blog exist?

Well over my 42 years in Melbourne I've eaten at pretty much most of Melbourne's bars and restaurants. Ok maybe not most but lots of them. This place is somewhere you can come to get a warts and all review of where I've been.

No gimmicks. No fancy reviews. No lies. Just what it is. Feel free to add, message ask...whatever.

Over the coming weeks I will add some from recent history and we'll go from there.

Hope you enjoy the read and better still get to the good places and close down the crap ones.

Drink less but drink better.

Fingers