Patee Thai

We were really late home from work the other night. We divided to tick off another restaurant off the list. This restaurant is one I have always wanted to go to, as they have the really cool traditional sitting on the floor tables. I couldn't actually sit at them, cos of my hip being so crap, but it was good to go there non the less. The food was quite good. There was lots of it and it wasn't really expensive.

Business lunch

The other day, Neil and I had a business lunch. It was to Mezzo, in Little Bourke Street. Although the menu had a little bit more seafood on it than Neil would have preferred and it was a fair bit flasher than I usually go for lunch, it was quite good.

Laviish

This was a very pleasant surprise. We went here this evening, because we could get a car park close to it, I actually wanted to only go to the chemist that was near by.
The place is very flash looking and I was thinking it would be fairly expensive, but it turned out to be very reasonable. After I saw the prices my expectations for the food went down, but I was really surprised. I had the steak and it was GREAT! There were hardly any crappy bits and it was a really good amount of food. I will defiantly go back again another time.

Pama

I went to Mrs Parma's again last night for dinner. I was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I happened to be walking past it with my caching buddy and we were both hungry, so in we went.
Anyway on to the food. On the whole the best words I can use are "It was only food". There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't anything out of the box. The only redeeming feature of the evening was that they had pear cider on tap, that was great, if expensive. I don't think I'll be hurrying back, at least not for a meal.

Pleasant night out

The other night I had to drop some Intimo off. Rather than have one or other of us travel the 28 km we live apart, though really crap traffic, we decided to meet in the middle and have dinner. We went to the Magic City restaurant in Camberwell. This is a "Pan-Asian style" restaurant, which while I felt this was a little odd, the food was quite good. Nice sized dishes, tasty, but a bit expensive for my liking (remember: tight-arse speaking). Anyway, the company was excellent and of course, the Intimo is not dropped off and that's the main thing!

VCMC dinner

The food here was very nice, but a rich for me. I was sitting next to a bloke who worked for SKM, thankfully and perhaps surprisingly, I hardly bagged SKM at all, that was lucky! I had many beverages, a freaky crab entrée and a beef cheek (really fatty) main (bit disappointing). Desert was yum, mini cakes (chocolate, blood orange tart and creme caramel).

edit: Just noticed I didn't mention that the restaurant was called Matteo's.

Better late than never

This was quite a few days ago now, but I haven't gotten around to posting until now. Neil and I went to the Don Vincenzo restaurant on Brunswick Street on the way home from work. We were running really late home, it was raining and we had no food at home anyway, so I suggested stopping. The food was really very tasty. I had the special lamb pasta and Neil had the special gnocchi. Both were excellent, the place was reasonable priced and a very pleasant dinning experience.

CoCoInc

This was a quick stop on the way home from Spotlight, but the menu looked so nice and I was so hungry it turned into lunch. This turned out to be a great idea as not only was the Tapas menu quite extensive, it was also very good value, cheep even! All round: recommended, they have yummy chocolates and their hot chocolate was great.

15

I am not normally a big spender on food. It's just something you have to do, but should involve chocolate, when ever possible. Anyway I noticed that, depending on how you count these things, the 31st of April would be our 15th Anniversary. So I booked us in for a romantic dinner a 15 Melbourne. It's lucky I spent a few weeks psyching myself, as it was quite expensive, but it was also very classy food. No my only wish is that restaurants that charge half as much, would start serving similar amounts of food, as each dish was a good size that you could eat with out feeling like you ready to roll home after the entrée.

The Gertrude Hotel

Today was a VERY hot day. We hung around at work til 7pm on the vague hope that the temperature would drop before we had to walk all the way to the car. It didn't.

So we found a nice looking venue, that sold beer, and had dinner. Neil's was much nicer than mine, but the staff were lovely, the venue was nice, they even had cider on tap and we shall go there again. I just won't order the prawns again.

Panama food barn

For some reason, Neil's work, which consists of about 3.5 people, feels that it is necessary to have 4 Christmas meals. One lunch with their whole board, one lunch with the chair and the Secretariat, one dinner with the Secretariat and their other halves and a breakfast. These are usually spread over a two week period, but still, I personally think it's a bit over kill. Any way Chirstmas event number 3 this year was at the Panama Dining Room. This is a great big food barn, which is really noisy, half bar, half restaurant. The food was excellent, Neil and I both really enjoyed our meal. We had an extra side dish of Heirloom tomatoes, with was also fantastic. I had a yummy veal meal, Neil had waghu beef. It was a little bit more expensive than I am used to, but really when you think about it, quite good value. Some of our fellow dinners had 'issues' with the service, but given the type of restaurant, I thought it was really very efficient service. The lady was far from cheery but she did her job fairly well.

Dinner and Beer

I forgot to mention that we went to the Little Creature food hall. It was a little over priced for me (remembering that I am a complete tight arse) there was cider, on tap, and the food we had, whilst not strictly speaking a meal (chips and pizza) was nice, if a bit 'flash' for my taste. I think it's safe for you to go there if you want.

2 resturants in one day

More by good luck than good management, I managed to try two new restaurants yesterday, yes one of them was a pub, but I don't care, this task is starting to fall behind!
The Elms Family Hotel ~ a little country pub in the heart of Melbourne
Wow, this place was an education. Hardly any women in there, non-matching plates, lots of 50 plus fat old men, cheep good food and drinks, being glared at by fellow customers for swearing. I think I'll go again! (Way better than the crappy Impy.)
Bombay Crown
We have been having a bit of trouble with 2 out of 3 of our curry places, and unfortunately, they are the two that deliver, and being essentially lazy, this causes us issues. This place was recommended to us by Neil's brother, and like many of his recommendations, it didn't look great. We ordered two standards, Vindaloo and Saag. They were both great and they deliver!! Good bye Everest and Himalayas! (The man was nice too)

Spiral

This is a restaurant I pass every day on the way to work. So I decided to add it to the list. It was a little more expensive than the restaurants I normally frequent, and French, but the food was lovely. Neil had the roo, Scott had the duck and I had the lamb. So in a way we were dining with Shaun, Donald and Skippy for dinner too!
The only downer on the evening (apart from the small child who parents gave it a harmonica to play with at the table, I mean who does that? What kind of drugs were they on? This is a really flash looking restaurant/lounge/bar for gods sake!) was desert. I had the moose and if was frozen in the middle. I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to me and it was a bit disappointing :(

The Paragon

I don't know that I will ever understand my sister. I'll leave it at that, or I will get in trouble and move on to the restaurant.
Mum, Me, Kate, Kathy and my aunt went to a wool fair. I had decided not to buy anything, so of course I spent ~$40. I bought a whole load of knitting needles, some stitch holders, a stitch counter, a book I looked at last year and some wool to make some thing out of the book (the wool was only $16, and I could have bought the other brand and that would have cost $90, so in a way I actually saved a whole lot of money :) )
Ooooo side track....... after that we decided it was time to get lunch, what with it being 12 o'clock and all. So Kate decided we would go to Rathdowne St, as everyone was being very indecisive. We ended up at this place called The Paragon where lunch was going to cost us around $20 per meal. I don't spend this much on a meal for dinner, what with me being a general tight arse and everything. Anyway, I just decided to shut up, after only one comment (I could see that Kathy and Fay were also slightly green at the $$$) and just order. I had a pasta with olives and mushrooms and broccoli. A bit oily, but tasty.
I don't think I will be visiting there again though. (baring a Tatts win, you know how it is!)

Napier Hotel

A pub again, I am wondering now if I should be counting these as new 'restaurants' but I will for now, and try not to do any more from now on. This meal was really 'pub fair'. It wasn't bad, just nothing out of the bag. I had a steak burger, it had a potato cake in it. I gave up on that about half way through and took it out. Other than that it was good.

Edinburgh Castle Hotel

I have been meaning to get to the Edinburgh Castle on a Monday for their $10 roo and wine meal for quite some time. We finally made it there with Steve from work and a Canadian bloke who is here this week to deliver a training course for us. The food was really good.
I was struck by the number of young cool people in the restaurant with small children. I was feeling quite threatened by them, as they looked 'cooler' than me, the supposedly young hip person with NO children, and there they where, with their tiny kids, looking 'cooler' than me!!! What am I doing wrong?
One other thing, I remember when I was small and living in the eastern suburbs, even I knew that the Edinburgh Castle was a really rough pub, where you could get knifed and stuff, so how come now it is suddenly a family pub?

The commune

Steve, Neil, Jo and I went for lunch today at the Commune. The place looked great, the food was OK and company was excellent

Saba's

Last night we went out for diner at Saba's in Ivanhoe. It was quite good, we had lamb. We will go there again.

café on bourke

we went to Café on Bourke today for lunch. It was quite nice, nothing really out of the box, just food. But I did learn a few very important things:

• I don't get out enough
  
• I go to too many cheap restaurants
  
• Neil and I really just don't talk when we are hungry
  
• there should NOT be TV's in restaurants