The week in brief: 23 April – 29 April
This week: a visit to South Wharf, a parma bigger than MY HEAD, and slightly more home cooked meals.
Fork to Fork
Tired of going to lunch at wineries? Yeah, me too. Wineries are so last year – the latest destination dining is in a garden.
Okay, that is not true. 🙂 But we did eat lunch in a garden recently when Annette and Terry, Alastair’s mum and step-dad, arrived the other week for a visit. They arrived during the week when we had the beautiful autumn weather: coldish mornings, but lovely warm days, blue skies and wonderful sunsets. Having flown in from the UK, Annette and Terry were particularly happy to see the sunshine, and it was perfect weather for lunch at Fork to Fork. Fork to Fork is located in Heronswood, a garden that is the home of The Diggers Club.
Touche Hombre
Disclosure: I dined courtesy of Touche Hombre.
The Melbourne craze for Mexican food continues full steam ahead, with TouchĂ© Hombre being one of the latest to open in the past month or so. The team behind it, Maison Davis, have obviously had a bit of fun putting the restaurant together. There’s many tongue in cheek references to be found: from the tag line “hĂ©roes de medio caparazĂłn” (heroes in a half shell), to the arcade games at the entrance, to the “who ya gonna call?” neon sign, and the big cheery chicken jugs that pour cocktails out of the beak, just to name a few.
The week in brief: 16 April – 22 April 2012
This week: lots of brunches, fancy dinners, and not enough home cooking.
San Telmo
Named after one of Buenos Aires oldest neighbourhoods, San Telmo is one of Melbourne’s recentish additions to the Latin American inspired dining scene. And judging by my meal there over the Easter weekend with Alastair, Hazzie and Gazman: it’s a good one.
Opened late last year, San Telmo is a casual style eatery serving Argentinean inspired food. Fortunately they’ve bucked the no-booking trend of many of Melbourne’s new casual restaurants and take bookings, though half of the restaurant is set aside for walk ins. Hoorah.
The menu at San Telmo is designed to be shared, with a focus on meat cooked on the char-grill. There’s not that much for non-meat eaters, and in any case it’s not really a vegetarian friendly environment. The restaurant contains a big 2.5 metre parrilla / char-grill near the entrance, which is fantastic for cooking meat, but the smell does tend to linger in the air and cling to hair and clothes.
The week in brief: 9 April – 15 April
This week: pretty quiet, though we did visit Reading Room cafe again, and had lunch in Dromana. Hurrah. And the weather this weekend – gorgeous!
Spoonbill at The Olsen Hotel
Disclosure: I dined courtesy of Spoonbill and The Olsen hotel
I took art in my first year of high school, but quit when I realised that my drawing skills were limited to cartoon horses and cows. Funnily enough, doodles and cartoons won’t get you good grades in art – weird right? Despite my low artistic skills, when I received an invite to dine at Spoonbill restaurant along with an art tour of the Olsen Hotel, I was really interested in learning more about the artworks there.
Duchess of Spotswood: brunch and dinner
The reason I haven’t eaten at many of Melbourne’s newest, hippest restaurants isn’t because I shy away from hype. It’s because of that damned no booking trend. I’m not a no booking person. I like knowing that I can book a table and be seated at a certain time. So lining up for a table just isn’t me.
That’s the reason it’s taken me so long to get to the Duchess of Spotswood. I’ve heard SO many good things about it, but I’ve also heard how busy it is in the weekend. And we all know what busy means – having to wait for a table.
The week in brief: 2 April – 8 April
This week: EASTER LONG WEEKEND, KIDS! Wahooooooooooo. Also, the husband cooked (!!!!!), dinner at Duchess of Spotswood, awesome Thai lunch, San Telmo and pork belly.
Matteo’s: MFWF express lunch
Well now it’s April, and the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival seems like a distant memory. And thank *goodness* for that, because the few weeks of MFWF really stretched my eating pants. Metaphorically of course – those who know me personally know that I don’t wear trousers (because I’m mostly in dresses, in case you think I’m doing some weird Donald Duck thing and going bottomless). But back to MFWF – today I want to share the last express lunch I went to during the festival: Matteo’s.
That Saturday I became a third wheel and joined Hazzie and Gazman for lunch as Alastair was away that weekend. We were all early for lunch because we had been advised when booking that we only had the table for 1 hr 15 mins. This must’ve put the fear in us – we were all so early that I had enough time to join Haz and Gazman in their car for a quick instagram session before going into the restaurant (we are all addicts and we are not ashamed).
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