Terra Rossa

Location: 87 Flinders Lane [between Russell and Exhibition Streets]
Link: www.terrarossarb.com.au
Cuisine: Modern Australian, Italian, Tapas
Company: BD Clerks

~Food~
We didn't get much of a say in terms of what to order as everything had been pre-ordered for us, but the food that came out was fantastic! We had a series of pizzas, including a lamb one, which all had perfectly crisp bases, and lots of topping.

The menu also has a range of tapas, pastas and other mains, and for the drinkers, a very extensive drinks list.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The place was bustling on a Monday lunch. Being one of few decent restaurants in the Paris end of Collins Street / Flinders Lane, it tends to attract a lot of suited up people. The service was pretty ordinary, although I admit I was impressed with the way they handled a group of twenty-odd clerks spread over two long tables. The only main flaw was a waitress snapping at one of the clerks for asking for an 'ice chocolate'. Since the meal had already been pre-arranged and paid for, only soft drinks were covered. This wasn't an issue, but the waitress snapped and said 'you can only choose soft drink' instead of just informing us that it wasn't on the set menu.

~Price~
The pizzas were fairly large and cost between $15 and $20 each. The tapas seems a little more on the expensive side, but then again, I haven't seen the serving sizes yet.

~Overall Impression: 8/10~
I was very impressed with the pizza, and will probably go back and try out the tapas one day.

Tazio

Location: 66 Flinders Lane [near Exhibition Street]
Link: www.tazio.com.au
Cuisine: Italian
Company: BD Tax Team

~Food~
The menu contains a wide variety of pizzas and pastas, as well as foccacias, salads and the like. I ordered a small pizza called the 'veneto', which had pancetta, roasted peppers and goat's cheese. Beautiful!! The pizza base was thin and crispy, and not solid like some places tend to make it. The pancetta was also crispy and very strongly flavoured. The roasted peppers were soft and sweet, and the goat's cheese was smooth and creamy. There could have been a little more cheese though, since the roasted peppers and tomato base made it quite sweet.

~Atmosphere and Service~
Very friendly, although going with a larger group can make it a little more crowded than usual. The service was fairly prompt, especially for gourmet pizzas like the ones we ordered.

~Price~
Very decent. A small pizza was about $14, larger pizzas were around $18. Drinks were a little overpriced though [bottle of coke was $4.50].

~Overall Impression: 9/10~
Very impressed. The food was delicious, the service was fast and friendly and the prices decent. Will definitely be coming back some day!

Coffee Coffee Coffee...

I've recently discovered a number of little coffee places around the eastern end of Collins Street in the city thanks to a clerkship I'm doing in a building in the area. Here are a few:

~Breadwell~
135 Flinders Lane
The staff are friendly and the place can accommodate larger groups along the side booths. Service is moderately fast and prices are fairly standard.

~Recorded Music Salon~
Level 1, 11 Collins Street
You can easily pass the entrance and not even realise, as there is no street front. Instead, you enter through a small door off Collins Street and head upstairs. The place is nice and space, with both long and short tables. Service is quite fast and very approachable. No idea about the price.*

~Cumulus~
45 Flinders Lane
Whilst the window is visible from the street, the door itself is tucked around the corner in a little lane coming off Flinders Lane. Service was friendly but slow, although the place was pretty busy when we went in. Again, no idea about the price.*

~Mini~
145 Flinders Lane
Located a little further away than Breadwell, the entrance is even harder to find as one has to walk down an old cobblestone looking lane way to get to the front door. Inside the room is partially divided in two, with standard tables and chairs down one half, and a larger table with high stools surrounding it in the middle. The service was average, the waitresses were rather slow in bringing out glasses and water, and the drinks took quite a long time to come out. On the positive side, the waitresses did pour our water and one impressed me by asking if I had a nut allergy when bringing out my hot chocolate [although I thought it would have been a bit more logical to ask when taking the order!]. And again, no idea about the price.*

*One of the benefits of a clerkship is that you get taken out for coffees all the time, and the bill is usually covered by the lawyers or the firm's recruitment budget.

Stalactites

Location: 177-183 Lonsdale Street
Link: www.stalactites.com.au
Cuisine: Greek
Company: YC, Darren, Qiao-Lin, Anna

~Food~
The menu is quite extensive for a place that appears to only specialise in souvlakis. Actually, to be honest, they seem to pretty much make the same sorts of things, in varying setups and with different accompaniments. Regardless, I ordered the lamb giro and absolutely loved it. The was well marinated and grilled to perfection. YC's moussaka, Anna's souvlaki and Darren's mixed grill looked quite tasty too.

~Atmosphere and Service~
Given that the place is always packed, the service was quite commendable. The food took a little whlie to come out, which was somewhat annoying since the others only had one hour's break.

~Price~
Quite decent for the amount of food piled on each plate. Souvlakis cost around $12-$15, while the mains were about $20 each.

~Overall Impression: 8.5/10~
I'll be back next time I feel the need to eat more meat!

Eat Drink Bento

Location: 115 Hardware Street [between Lonsdale and Little Lonsdale Streets]
Cuisine: Japanese
Company: the law crew

This one was a while ago too...

~Food~
Typical Japanese meals. Most of us opted for bento boxes, which were a pretty good deal. Most notable part of the box was the deep-fried sushi. Not tempura on the inside, but the entire sushi piece dipped in tempura batter and then deep-fried!

~Atmosphere and Service~
Very quiet. When we first got there, there was no one in the restaurant but us. The service was quite good although there were some minor issues with the waitress's limited grasp of English. The food came out in average time, probably slower than expected given we were the only ones there for a while.

~Price~
The bentos were between $20 and $25 each. There was a range of other mains around the same price but with less variety.

~Overall Impression: 6/10~
Pretty stock-standard Japanese food at a slightly higher price than I would be happy to pay. For food like this, I would rather go to Yamamitzu or Yoyogi.

Bear Brass

Location: Southgate
Link: www.bearbrass.com.au
Cuisine: Modern Australian, Tapas
Company: law crew

We actually went to Bear Brass quite a few months ago. On checking the menu just then, it appears that some of the mains have changed.

~Food~
Having seen the menu the night before, I knew they had a dish called 'gumbo'... which seemed somewhat interesting at the time. After doing a bit of Wiki-ing and listening to YC's description of it, I decided that I would order a gumbo...

Basically it was a South American dish of thick soup and lots and lots of seafood. It even had a soft-shell crab, which was quite small, but still very tasty. The soup was full of flavour, and would even have gone well with rice. From memory it came with some crusty bread.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The atmosphere was very casual. Seating was quite open, although it did get a little cold as it got later as we were seated next to a gap in the tarpaulin used to block out the wind from the back courtyard. Service was minimal, and somewhat slow.

~Price~
Whilst the gumbo tasted fantastic, the serving was rather conservative and it cost $30! Quite a rip off for the amount fo food we got. On the other hand, the other mains didn't like quite as expsnsive. Must have been the seafood.

~Overall Impression: 7/10~
Although I loved the gumbo, it was just that little bit too expensive for the small bowl it was. Since they have now removed it from the menu, I don't think I'll be back there in much of a hurry.

Blue Train Cafe

Location: MRS Landing, Southgate Landing, Southbank
Link: www.bluetrain.com.au/
Cuisine: Modern Australian
Company: law crew & friends

~Food~
Pretty extensive menu ranging from steak to pizzas, pastas and burgers. Mel and I shared a pizza ('hot stone pizza w thinly sliced prosciutto over napoli & mozzarella w black olives & baby spinach, shaved parmesan and semi-dried tomatoes') and the pasta special of the day (fresh salmon pink peppercorns and white wine cream sauce). The pasta was pretty nice, the salmon tasted fresh and the sauce was just right. The peppercorns were one too many and we did tire of them quite easily. I found the pizza quite nice too, although Mel thought the prosciutto could have been fresher.

Dessert was limited to the cake window. We ended up with three slices (berry, toblerone and caramel) to share amongst the nine of us. Toblerone was the best in my opinion! The rest of the cakes were rather average.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The place was rather casual. Being nice weather, our semi-outdoor seating was cool and relaxing. The service was also friendly and quite fast. The waitresses had a no fuss attitude, took our orders and left us alone. Food came out quite quickly, especially for the latecomers who ordered after we had already gotten our food.

~Price~
The mains were relatively well-priced (most were between $15 and $25). The desserts on the other hand, were quite expensive, with each slice of cake being about $8 each!! Lesson to be learnt, eat mains there, then go elsewhere for dessert.

~Overall Impression: 8/10~
A great place for a random gathering to relax and just chill. We didn't book as we didn't know how many people would show up but we were able to score a decent table thanks to Stace who got there early!

Indochine

Location: Carrington Rd, Box Hill, opposite Centro
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Company: Mark (and other people on various occasions)

~Food~
Lovely, fresh, clean Vietnamese flavours. It's one of my fav viet restaurants in Melbourne. I love their Bun (rice vermicelli dish), spring rolls and fish sauce. Their pho is not THE best but it's very nice as well. I keep forgetting to try their broken rice but i'm sure I'll be going back there very soon.

~Atmosphere and Service~
Lovely place, very pretty and the service is quick and efficient. They have one waiter who is a bit of a laugh- he also makes sexually suggestive comments to the ladies but you can't hate him coz he's so lame!

~Price~
Very reasonable. Lunch for 2 is generally around $20. In fact, it's a stretch to order $30 of food and finish it all.

~Overall Impression~
Definitely one of the best Viet places around! Try it out!
9/10

Steak Out

Location: Crown
Link: Steakout
Cuisine: Steak

~Food~

Delicious.

Entree was the char-grilled calamari. The calamari was cooked perfectly- very tender and succulent but i do wish they had removed the sinew thing in the middle of the calamari. It came with a delicious ailoli. YUM!

Now the mains...

Mark had the porterhouse and I had the marinated ribs. Those ribs were soooo delicious. Slow roasted. Apparently they weighed 800g with the bone. The porterhouse was delicious too. Very well cooked with a yummy smokey taste. The portions were over generous and I couldn't finish my main. Both dishes came with a generous serve of fries.

~Atmosphere and Service~
Atmosphere was a bit blah. It had a sports bar and live band area attached which is great if you're into that sort of thing. Its a very bloke-y kinda place with a lot of, well blokes. The service was good, they were understanding about Fructose and offered to have the salad that came with the entree separate which was very nice.

~Price~
Not too bad. For the amount of food we got (especially the ribs) it was very reasonably priced.

~Overall Impression~
Lovely place. All the food tasted especially good coz we hadn't been out for dinner in a long long long time (thank you final year) and also coz it was one of the only meals we've had together that didn't involve any background stress. Seriously, go to steak out. It's pretty awesome.
9/10

Queen Victoria Market

Location: corner Elizabeth and Victoria Streets
Cuisine: various
Company: Janette, Duy

Skip the food court, and take the entrance near McDonald's. Inside you'll find a vast array of freshly made pies, baguettes, sausages and boreks. The Queen Vic Market has so much food at cheap prices, and you know it's all fresh because the food sells like crazy! We jostled our way to the counter of one particular shop and ordered the borek, which looked like a sausage roll, but with a thinner pastry and actual meat inside. I didn't quite catch the name of the place, but you'll find it by the line up, and the menus [the boreks are $2.50 each!]

After you have filled up on savouries, you can stop by one of the ice cream or juice shops, or skip them and try out the American donuts sold from the van near the groceries area. Again, so so cheap - 6 donuts for $5!!

~Overall Impression: 9/10~
The place to go when you're after quick, cheap and freshly made food!

Concorde Creperie

Location: Kiosk 3, Melbourne GPO [corner Little Bourke and Elizabeth Streets]
Cuisine: Crepes
Company: Mandy, Mel

~Food~
The place sells crepe, crepe and more crepe. It has a vast array of fillings, ranging from sweet ones like lemon and sugar, banana and nutella, and stewed apple and cinnamon, to savoury fillings such as cheese, bacon, tomato, mushrooms, smoked salmon and peking duck [the list could go one]. I ordered the lemon and sugar crepe, hoping it would be like the old crepe van days, to be fairly disappointed. The crepe itself was thicker than they used to be, and seemed more suited to a savoury filling. They also made it with too much lemon syrup, and too little sugar.

Not phased though, I plan on trying out the savoury ones over the weekend, and will post a note to this afterwards.

~Atmosphere and Service~
Very simple, it is just a small kiosk hidden in a corner of GPO near the post office. There is some casual seating scattered along the kerb like the other GPO cafes, but the crepe is served in a paper bag, and most people walk and eat.

The ladies who served us were friendly, but somewhat not so experienced. One left the crepe on for too long as she went off to help another look for the ingredients in their flour (a customer had asked if their flour contained yeast) and as a result the crepe was tougher than it should have been.

~Price~
Rather expensive, although the crepe is quite large. The sweet ones start at $4.90, and prices range up to $12.90 for the peking duck one.

~Overall Impression: 7/10~
Not overly impressed, but impressed enough to want to return and try the savoury ones.

Izakaya Chuji

Location: 165 Lonsdale Street
Link: www.izakayachuji.com
Cuisine: Japanese, Tapas, BBQ
Company: Jie, Jenn, Mel, Emma, Helen

~Food~
The food was rather average. I suspect BBQ would have been nicer, but given it was a very hot day, we went a la carte with a stack of small tapas-like dishes. A few dishes stood out, including the asari butter (clam in butter soup) and the crab croquettes. Amusingly, the description for sukiyaki was 'a very popular dish served in pot with special sauce', although it didn't quite live up to expectations. It merely tasted like sukiyaki from any other Jap restaurant.

~Atmosphere and Service~
When we arrived at about 6pm, it was already starting to look busy. Downstairs was more crowded and had a market-like atmosphere. Upstairs was a little quieter and more restaurant like. Lighting was slightly dimmed and the place had character.

Unfortunately for the place, the service was shocking. The waiters and waitresses could barely understand English, which made communication a bit of a problem. Our first issue arose when we decided it was too hot for BBQ and opted to order from the main menu. We asked one waitress whether it was possible to order a la carte instead of BBQ, and asked for the main menu. Given that she left and returned with the menus, we assumed it would be okay. Not quite so. Another waitress later came up and told us off for not ordering BBQ when we had booked for BBQ. That would have been fair enough if they had told us when we asked. Instead they then complained about us taking up a BBQ table when they had to turn away people who wanted BBQ - despite there still being a few empty BBQ tables around us...

~Price~
The prices seemed quite cheap when we first looked at the menu, but the dishes were all rather small and after paying $20 each, we left rather unsatisfied.

~Overall Impression~
Would perhaps return to try out the Jap BBQ, but other than that, not particularly keen to return.

Casa Del Gelato

Location: 163 Lygon Street, Carlton
Cuisine: Italian, Ice-Cream and Gelati
Company: Janette, Duy

After stuffing ourselves with pasta, we decided to get some gelati for 'dessert'. Case Del was the first gelati spot that we walked past. Enticed by the endless glass windows of gelati, we went in. There were literally tubs and tubs of different flavoured gelati, there were fruity ones, creamy ones and soya ones, with a huge range for each type. I bought a 3-scoop cup of Chocolate Kiss, Choc Mint and Strawberry for $4.50. And it tasted fantastic!! The Chocolate Kiss was creamy and chocolatey, without being too rich or too sweet. The Choc Mint was fresh and cool, with nice chunks of choc chip blended throughout, and the strawberry was just very fruity and tangy. Perfect gelato.

I was especially impressed by the strawberry as it was the first time I had ordered a fruit flavour gelati - I had never thought it would work out, but it did. A must try!

Overall Impression: 9.5/10

Cafe Notturno

Location: 177-179 Lygon Street, Carlton
Cuisine: Italian
Company: Janette, Duy

Every time I walk down Lygon Street, Cafe Notturno always seems to be bustling with people. So today, when we went to Lygon for an early lunch, we decided we would give it a shot.

~Food~
The menu had a good range of pastas, pizzas and typical main meals, including parmas, steaks and salads. We all ordered pastas. My penne bascaioli was essentially penne with chicken and mushrooms, with a cream and napoli sauce. Quite rich, but the flavours were tossed together nicely. Janette had the penne matriciana, which looked tasty, but was apparently quite spicy. Duy's sundried tomatoes and olive gnocchi came with a cream sauce, and looked far too rich and filling for my liking, although he asserted that it did in fact taste quite good.

The menu also had a small range of desserts (including nutella crepe) and a large drinks list.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The place was very casual. Seating was available both indoors and out, although we saw ants on the outdoor tables and decided to sit inside.

As it was an early lunch, the place itself wasn't that busy yet, however the service was somewhat disappointing. Our main waitress seemed to be very snappy and appeared quite rude. There was no indication of any customer service as she expressionlessly took our orders, and seemed somewhat lazy when setting the table - all it involved was putting down serviettes with a knife and fork, yet she was too lazy to do a bit of walking, and left my cutlery in front of Janette.

The plus side was that the food came out relatively quickly, however I was again disappointed that cracked black pepper and fresh parmasan were not offered, even though upon leaving I saw that it was available. Instead, we were given a shaker of parmasan, which was stuck together and didn't taste all too spectacular.

~Price~
The prices were reasonable. The pastas were around $11-$15 and the main meals didn't look too pricey either.

~Overall Impression: 6.5/10~
Suitable for a quick, cheap lunch, but not a place I would recommend for any meal where you're after decent service.

Little Lamb

Location: Whitehorse Road, Box Hill
Cuisine: Chinese
Company: family

~Food~
Little Lamb operates like any other typical hotpot (or as some like to call, steamboat) restaurant. You select a soup base (normal, spicy, herbal) and then select a range of raw meats, vegies and other typical hotpot additions such as glass noodles, tofu and fish balls. Then you get to cook it all yourself, to your own liking, whenever you want. We opted for the normal soup base as the spicy is generally extremely spicy and I'm not a fan of herbal soups. Even still, the normal soup base was a very nicely flavoured stock base with some goji berries and other spices and herbs floating around (although not as much as in the herbal one).

In addition, Llittle Lamb had a Mongolian roast lamb rack on the menu, so we thought we would give that a try.... and I absolutely loved it!!! It was very nicely roasted (although somewhat oily), and instead of being heavily coated in spices, was only lightly marinated, then served with small dishes of spices.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The place is quite a small restaurant, and it was crowded and busy. From the outside, you can see the steamed up windows and as soon as you step in, you can smell the aromas of the roast lamb (they do skewers as well) and the hotpot. The service was decent too, especially for a small Asian restaurant such as this was. The waiters were really attentive and efficient, and responsed quite promptly to any requests we had.

~Price~
$23 per person all-you-can eat, or you can order dishes separately to control spending.

~Overall Impression: 9/10~
Great place and food for a cold winter's night. Probably will return again the next time the weather goes cold again.