Kotoraya #237

                            Kotoraya

was busy when we walked in, luckily we had learned our lesson last week and had booked.

It had been a busy day for most of us; Lisa was the obvious exception as she struggled out of her pyjamas just before entering the car to travel to this restaurant.  Mark had climbed the Dandenongs on his deadly treadly and then backed it up with a marathon jigsaw puzzle session.  I had completed a corporate triathlon and Matt had driven in a car on the road for the first time (Report:  OK but watch the speed.)  We had also had to hold our collective breaths a number of times as we watched Michael Clark being bashed (literally) in South Africa.  He’s tough, he survived.

So we were hungry and really appreciated the beef rending; it was truly slow cooked.  Yum.  We giggled over the practice of putting the rice bowl on a wine stand at the side of our table.  We devoured the flavoursome Tamarind fish; bitter but in a good way.  The green curry chicken did the job and there were no complaints all around except for 1;  No lazy Susan.  Everyone else was seated at a table with one except for us.

Obviously these guys know the formula;

Flavour = crowds

This is where middle Elsternwick goes, toting copious amounts of wine bottles,kids, grandparents and noisy conversations  to squeeze that last little bit left of weekend joy.

Bocconcin #241

We started badly.

The first restaurant on the north side straight after Nepean Highway is Kotoraya Malaysian, Chinese, Thai “Asian Multi Cuisine” Restaurant.  We bowled in (the whole family) and it was full. 

So we went to the next restaurant; Bocconcini.

I have often wondered why restaurants single out one particular ingredient and name their restaurant after it.  The first time I encountered this phenomenon was in the early 90’s.  I went to “Onions” , a fine dining establishment on Commercial Rd, Prahran.  Anyone remember it?  I think it is gone now but it was big back in the day.  I went with work and I was expecting all the meals to be pretty heavy on the onions. 

It just so happened that at the time I was living with my sister.  She was an operating theatre nurse at The Alfred and she would entertain herself by recanting shriek inducing stories about sewing severed body parts back on.  I shrieked, she laughed.  Anyway, back to onions.  Susan could not eat onions as they disagreed with her although severed limbs did not) so I never cooked with them at home.  Hence, I was rather excited to be dining at a swish restaurant that would feature them.

However, this was not the case.  It was just a name that they thought was cool.  Likewise, we did not have any bocconcini at Bocconcini.  What we did have was Chorizo, grilled scallops on polenta with truffle oil, baked eggplant with goats cheese (not boconocini), chilli calamari, a dip platter, spaghetti with meat balls and cannelloni.  (there was 5 of us).  They could have dialled up the flavor. 

We enjoyed looking at the many differently framed photos on the black painted wall.  A gondola photo made us reminisce about Venice.

The weirdest/most notable thing was the group of 4 qt the table next door.  They were enjoying a drink that came out of what looked like an oversized perfume bottle and they seemed pretty happy about it.

Then everyone just left at the stroke of 7.30 (except for perfume lugging table).

Restaurant empty.  Weekend done and no severed body parts to report on.