Rockpool Bar & Grill and some self control

We made another visit to the Rockpool Bar & Grill http://www.rockpool.com.au/melbourne/rockpool-bar-and-grill.html , but this time we promised ourselves that we would not eat more than anyone should for lunch or dinner. We said NO to the potato and cabbage gratin, we said NO to the wonderful (and yes I said wonderful, and I never thought I would say this) wonderful onion rings, we said NO to an entree each and we said NO to a bottle of wine.


So instead we shared the Four Raw Tastes of the Sea, and both had the Hand Cut Linguini with Spanner Crab and Spicy Prawn Oil and we shared the Radicchio, Cos and Endive Salad with Palm Sugar Vinaigrette. Two sensible glasses of a Victorian chardonnay.


Now I am not sure if the food is just really good, or if we were really hungry, but as you can see by the photo, we cleaned our plates!!  Actually the food is really lovely, and if you cannot get a booking for dinner, make it for lunch.  It is quiet and relaxed.


And then we cleaned that little bowl that the Creme Brulee with Prune and Armagnac came in (shared!), and washed it down with a little glass of Chateau La Rame Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc each.


Suitably happy without been unwisely overfull ....

The lamington

A good lamington is something that needs to be celebrated. I am very partial to a good lamington, I don't eat many in a year, but when I do, I am not even sure that they hit the sides.

Gigibaba are you cool enough to eat there!

Ok the food is really good and fun, but what is with the bar staff attitude! I am not sure that I have ever seen such unashamed sipping on wine at the bar while serving with attitude that could do with a bit of toning down. Must be nice to be able to drink on the job, and not at the end of a hard day's work! Must be nice to also rely on reputation and quality of food, and not have to worry too much about customer service.
But I try to always remind myself that a few bad employees do not represent the business in general. Trying to decide how much to leave as a tip was a hard thing, but in the end we left 5%.
Be prepared for lots of garlic, or was that just the dishes that we chose. The food was lovely, and there was plenty of bread to mop up the juices. So if you have never been, you should go and give it a try.
The wine list is good, lots of local regional wines to explore, and I like that fact that you can buy wine from 120ml to 500ml. The first time I saw this was at the Cookshop in New York http://www.cookshopny.com/ earlier this year (now I sat at the bar there also, and that place was lots and lots of fun, food tick, wine tick, service tick ... walked away a little on the drunk side and very happy).
I might go back to Gigibaba (102 Smith Street, Collingwood) again if a friend wants to go, it is not a place that will be at the forefront of my mind if eating in the area of Collingwood or Fitzroy.

Hu Tong at Prahran in Victoria

This week we enjoyed another lovely dinner at Hu Tong in Prahran http://www.hutong.com.au/. Again with no reservation we only had to wait for maybe 10mins before been seated to our table. Service was a bit slow for our table, but we got a chance to sip on a lovely Craiglee 2006 Shiraz, this was a very good wine and I would recommend trying it.

Then without fail the great food started to arrive at the table (a bit slowly this particular evening), we started with the rich flavoured Pan -Fried Dumplings, if you are having these for the first time be careful, they can be juicy and when you bite into them they can squirt the juice at your dinner partner.

We then shared the 1/2 Peking duck, 8 pieces in a serve. It really is some of the best Peking duck you can eat in Melbourne. The duck was moist and not fatty, the spring onion was delicate, the sauce rich but not over powering, and the pancakes were fresh.

The final dish we ate were the fantastic stir fried sting beans with minced pork in chilli sauce. We have had these for the 3rd time, and they truly are great. Our only disappoint was that we could not finish them, we were full.

This is one of my favourite places to eat since discovering it. It is always reliable, the food is consistently excellent.

How could I not love food! I grew up in a house hold with a mother who loves to cook, and loves to cook with as much fat as possible, because fat makes it all taste so very good. This was my birthday cake for 2009, made with love, with local Victorian walnuts bought from the farm directly, cracked and shelled in my parent’s kitchen as they took old married couples loving shots at each other, with eggs from my father’s chickens and with butter, lots and lots of butter.