Nevsky #476

Wow.  What an amazing dinner.  I don't think we have ever been to a Russian Restaurant so we decided to order the $45 per person banquet and sample all that this Restaurant has to offer.  It was the right call as we got to sample things we would not dream of ordering.

This is more a "special dinner" type restaurant due to the expense, non BYO wine rule and the amazing waitresses that want you to love their food as much as they do.  They have a chandelier - just for the record.

I am not sure if I have ever had a waitress tell me about a hangover cure but I have now.  For those that may need of this information, it is 2 beers, some "blini" (dumplings) and 2 vodkas.  You will be fine after this.

Given that I have finally moved into the 21st century and have been given an iphone6 to replace the appalling Blackberry, I might do this report in pictures. 

 

 

This is the cold entrée and is made up of a potato salad (lots of sour cream), a beetroot salad (amazing - mixed with honey and apple), tongue (tastes like corned beef), pork fat (just don't go there), something that tastes like stras.  The marinated tomato is really good.  The gravlax (on the left served with the ever present sour cream) is ok but probably does not live up to the waitresses claim of "best ever".



Sorry - I can't work out how to turn the pictures around.  Anyway, this is the hot entrée.  The Borsht is made from meat stock and is delicious without the addition of the sour cream.  Then there is a crepe wrapped around mince.  The crepe is light and fluffy; the meat inside could turn up the flavour a bit more but maybe it is meant to be this subtle to bring out the lightness of the crepe. 

These blinis at the top are like dumplings and are delicious.  The buckwheat in the bowl is ok but the big go-to dish is the veal stroganoff.  ORDER IT.  Creamy, vealy, mushroomy delight.  THE BEST EVER veal stroganoff we have ever tasted.

We don't normally do dessert but this was part of the banquet.  It is a panacotta - I think the Russians have stolen this from Italy with pride.  They have then got strawberries and soaked them in vodka, frangelica, brandy and whatever else they fell like and made them delicious.

This is a great night out if you ignore the Eurovision pop emanating from the speakers .  Russian food is not just about cabbage and schnitzel and Nevsky wants to educate you on this.

Talk of the Town #446

The biggest learning from this epic tour of eating up and down Glenhuntly Rd has been the Middle Eastern food.  This Lebanese Restaurant teaches even more about the flavours of this part of the world.

The shop is very casual and probably does a roaring takeaway trade at lunch time.  The salad's are displayed behind glass and all look fresh.  The waiter is probably the owner and seems to be passionate about his produce.  Let's have a look at the pictures.

We order 2 mixed grill platters, chips, 6 dips and 6 salads.

The labne (top left) is made in house and is voted best dish



The koftas are made in-house
.

The beans were popular on this dish.  The taboule was not as popular.

A bit over cooked.  I think Dannys still wins as the best Middle Eastern on Glenhuntly Rd

 

Pavorotti #448

I think we have just found our new favourite Pizza place on Glenhuntly Rd.  Sorry Giordino, you have been dumped for this very small but flavoursome Pizza joint named after a famous opera singer who loves his food.

It is just one step up from a takeaway joint but it has tables (covered in white butchers paper), and a BYO licence so it make the rules.  It is the whole family, and we take up a table by the window. 

There is an extensive  pizza menu (including "gourmet"), a pasta menu and chicken and veal dishes.  We are pleasantly served by a young couple.  The pizza's look good so we order up.  WE can monitor the cricket on the TV, watch the passing parade that amble up and down Glenhuntly Rd and giggle at the little girl from the restaurant next door running in and out. 

The light shades are boring.  And the knives are cheap and flimsy - Why? Why? Why?  It is not that expensive to get regular quality knives.  Fix it.

There is no music to listen to - I am not sure Pavorotti would be that happy about that.

Our pizza's appear.

The salmon on 1 half and lamb on the other. 

We enjoy a salmon with spinach, capers, sun dried tomatoes and just enough cheese to enhance the flavours but not drown them out.  Good stuff. 

The lamb pizza has spinach, red onion, minced lamb and minted yogurt.

Chicken Tandoori

The kids voted my chicken tandoori pizza than the one we are served but it is still pretty good (and they know where their next Friday dinner is coming from).

The capricossa is voted as the favourite.  It pretty much has "the lot" served with it.  Good stuff.

Best pizza on Glenhuntly Rd so far.  Fresh Ingredients and a crunchy base.

Capricossa

Kabul #452

This restaurant provided us with many firsts;

1.  We have never before walked in to a restaurant where the background music is a pop FM radio station.  It doesn't really set the ambience.  We eat our food listening to a Carpet Call ad.  Just wrong.
2.  We have never been to an Afghan restaurant before.
3.  We are assailed and welcomed by the most amazing aroma.  This is due to the restaurant being in the restaurant with no real walls to delineate it.
4.  There are very traditional afghan weaved red themed carpets hanging from the wall separated by very blue themed modern paintings.  An interesting juxtaposition.  The carpets are backed with irregular wooden slats.

5.  The aroma and the whole menu reminds us of Danni's.  We are getting excited.  Another first.
6.  The quietest large family are eating beside us.  I mean, they do not say a word to each other and there is about 10 of them, kids included.  I have never seen such a quite, indian family ever.
7.  We have never seen Qorma spelled like this.
8.  We have never heard of most of the dishes on the menu;  "Mantoo", "Bulpi Borana".
9  The light fittings are drums.  Another first.

10.  The menu features a meatball sandwich

So, with all these firsts experienced, we order a trio of dips, Kabul style garlic prawns, lamb quorma, mixed kebabs, steamed cauliflower and the sides are rice, salad and chips.

A true feast.

The trio of dips are yogurt and garlic (nice), mixed vegies in a tomato sauce (tastes like a chutney/) and a pumpkin and date dip (yum.  recommended).  The serving size is adequate - not large.  The accompanying bread strikes us as "biblical", yummy, warm unleavened bread.

The steamed cauliflower is well steamed and spicy but I think the indian cauliflower dishes are better than this.

The prawns are crunchy.

The kebabs use those monster skewers.  We eat a chicken, beef, lamb, lamb cutlet (yum) and a mixed lamb and beef mince.  They are OK  The meat is tender but a little bland and they should not hold back on the spices.  The meal I had a the Albury RSL used spices better than this place.

The bill came in at $120 for 4 of us with our BYO wine.

So, for all the firsts we experienced tonight, we still recommend Danni's as the "Go To" middle eastern restaurant on Glenhuntly Rd.

Tataki #470

Tataki - in pictures (really bad pictures because it is a blackberry I am working with here)

We love Tataki , we have been here often.  It is sooooooo busy tonight so we eat in the full back room.  The light shades are round with flowers cur into them.  Nice

Sally is the only child tonight.  Matt is in Paris and Lisa is at a birthday party.  Sally gets all adventurous and orders a Japanese soft drink.  It tastes like a Japanese schoolgirl - sweet, musk sticky and cute.

The tables are bare wood and the crockery has a personality.  The vinyl 80's style chairs are comfortable which is  good because we have to wait a long time.  It is just so busy and they really need more waiters.  They are letting themselves and their food down.

The California rolls have those little roe things on top which pop in your mouth.  The Sashimi is fresh and delicious.

Generous and fresh

And then disaster strikes.  No Tataki duck wrapped in pancakes.  They have run out.  Not good.  We go for the soft shell crab rolls instead

Teriyaki chicken - yum.  Just come here - it is highly recommended - one of the best (and busiest) Japanese restaurants on the Road.

Moors Head #480A

The trend at the moment is to take 2 different things and "mash" them together to make a new, different thing.

For example, I am working on a "Krank" at work at the moment; part Kransky and part Frank, it tastes like a delicious kransky but in the convenient, bun size of a frank. 

Some fellow "mashed" a mobile phone with a hand held gaming device and got an iphone. 

Some other dude "mashed" a surf board and roller skates and cane up with a skate board and we are still waiting for someone to mash (sick of putting it in "") the skateboard with an antigravity device and provide us with the much anticipated and needed hoverboard.

So it only right that someone on Glenhuntly Rd takes the middle eastern cuisine that we have been enjoying over the past year in our travels up and down this road and mashed it with the ever popular pizza.  This is where we are now; Moors Head.

A wall of cans

They offer mezze (tapas style dishes like dips, meatballs, cured beef), salad (including a Roquette that involves shankleesh (spiced and dried cheese) and Iranian raisons).  Wow, a bracket within a bracket - my grammar is at a new low. 

And Round Pizzas called Manoushe and Long Pizzas called Pide.   There is then middle eastern desserts and a nice compact drinks list full of interesting stuff.

The pizzas are all named interestingly but I am no au fait with Iranian in jokes so don't really "get" them.

We order:
Mezze :  Fresh cut Lebanese cucumber, salt, evoo, nigella ($6)
Mezze:  Dip with house baked bread ($8)
Manoushe:  "Fred the Dead".  Free range chicken minced with baharat and garlic, green olives, roquette, tahini yogurt ($19.5)
Manoushe:  "Emir Bashir II"  Hummus, beef sujuk, fresh tomato, olives, parsley ($19.5)
Pide:  "The Bosphourus"  Tomato, prawns, chilli, garlic, coriander
Pide: "Istanbuli"  Pumpkin, spinach, caramelised onion, tahini yogurt, dukkah  ($18)
Pide:  "Omar Sharif"  3 cheese, oregano, nigella mint, soused onions ($17.5).

The most delicious cucumber ever

We are here on a Monday night, the whole family, celebrating the end of Matt's school year and having an early Christmas dinner because Matt is leaving for Paris for 6 weeks.  He opens his presents.

The place is busy.  We sit at a pine veneer table and admire the Michael Esher type decorated bar as well as the can covered wall, not sure what was in the cans before they were stuck on the wall.  The waiter is gorgeous and has a great smile and gracious manner. 

Moors Head really plays up it's inauthenticity - a clever marketing position given the plethora of restaurants which talk about being true to a provenance.  I like the playfulness,  Still they obviously care about the food - it is delicious.

The 3 cheeses pizza is subtly flavoured with lemon which makes it shine.  We loved the lamb pizza on the moreish crunchy pide.  The pumpkin pizza is spicy and sophisticated. 

The simplicity and honesty of the beef salami pizza was beautiful - I eat salami everyday for work - this is special.

All pizzas are served unsliced and accompanied by an industrial pizza slicer so we can do our own.  A great touch.

We LOVE  this place.  Highly recommended.  We are returning.

Mergellina #480

It was hot.

Gorgeously hot

34 degrees Celsius.

I have spent the day renovating a restaurant in The Sims Freeplay.  It is a two story job   It has booths and nice mood lightening and a welcoming open fire downstairs.  Upstairs is a funky bar with an outside balcony..  Very swish. 

 

Talking about outside drinking, this restaurant is the first restaurant where we dine outside.  The scene is very Elsternwick; we overlook the legendary Coles Elsternwick and Bumps.  We are wedged between the Kosher Kingdom Grocerys and a dance studio.  A real Elsternwick scene. Unfortunately, this means I cannot tell you what the light shades look like.  Sorry.

I can tell you about the food though. 

It is really hot so we really only need light food tonight – no pizza’s.  (Although the 4 hour slow cooked lamb shoulder sounds great for winter).

Our very scenic outlook

On this gorgeous hot night, Mark orders the Seafood Linguine and I order the grilled barramundi.  We opt to share a greek salad.

My barramundi

Mark's linguine

Greek salad

There is no one here. 

The food is at pub standard.  Good.  Basic.  Not thrilling and overpriced for what they serve.  Maybe their specialty is pizza’s and we haven’t given them a fair go. 

The Bill - $57 - not bad