Cicciolina

www.cicciolinastkilda.com.au
130 Acland Street
St Kilda, Victoria 3182
T: 03 9525 3333
F: 03 9525 3397
E: cicciolina@netspace.net.au






So I'm on a diet.

Last night for frickasee's sake I had - actually it felt pretty lush - fresh salmon seared on a pan to make the salt and peppered skin crispy but leaving it rare inside (gave half the skin to the dog because I'm getting skinny), a green salad (using mixed leaves, cucumber, dill, feta and seasame seed - lemon olive oil dressing), a half grilled mango and a single boiled potato - with some more olive oil and salt (come on!). Two thumbs up and slim-er-ific (if you make up for it with a run and some more physical work outs!!  Come on!!).

But you get to the end of a week of vegetarian plates from Friends of the Earth, eating fruit for breakfast and generally making the Buddha proud (except for that poor Sandy situation - with apologies to Shiro Kishibe), and you finally get to a point where you think:

"Stuff this. I can't take it anymore. I want some meat. I want wine! I want a dessert with an aperitif and a good coffee. Basically, I want my old life back. Bring me a cigar and a vodka!"

Enter Cicciolina in St Kilda.

... full text

Metropolitan Hotel

36-42 Courtney St (Cnr Blackwood St)
North Melbourne
http://www.metrohotel.com.au

Have you ever had one of those moments, walking into a restaurant or hotel you’ve never been to before and felt like yelling out ‘Darling, I’m home!’ as you toss an imaginary brown leather satchel into the corner and recline onto a leather chaise lounge and tilt your hat over your eyes?

Well that’s how I felt when I walked into the Metropolitan Hotel for lunch the other day. Fan-friggin-tastic. Want to come in and take a look?

What can I say? Old stain glass windows. Traditional wooden bar. Beer. And what beer! Taps and taps of it. An old dining room, reminiscent of my Mum’s dining room, with old furniture, white table clothes and playing Nat King Cole over the audio system as we were seated.

But the pièce de résistance? What the restaurant specialises in. You know I am going to hell for this, and the planet getting burned to a cinder by our profligate farming practices, but I don’t care if this is what it means. You got it. Steaks!

Oh gosh, just even writing these words makes me come over all gushy and want to skive of down the pub… again.

OK, now I’d better just lower your expectations a little. It’s not perfect. The staff say things like ‘Have youse decided what to order yet?’ The antique chairs in the dining room are beginning to go in the bum a bit (like us all), and the tables are a little rocky. The floor creaks and there are fat blokes sitting around in suits.

But this place is about nostalgia. Pub nostalgia for an era that may never have existed but is even more glorious for that. You know, that kind of yellow light memory you have while you’re experiencing something? Golden and glowing and pure, because you realise you’re witnessing the end of days of something; a perfect pearl sitting in a glass of vinegar that Cleopatra holds while licking her lips. Something pure and refined, but kind of sad too. With beer on tap.

I’ve noticed recently that North Melbourne has a treasure trove of gourmet pubs. There’s the Royal Park hotel about two blocks from the Metropolitan (OK, a bit uni style, with hand crotched art on the walls and used brown couches – but carpet bagger steaks! – like the seventies never ended!), and I suspect dozens more venues hiding around the back streets. This may in fact be one of my new ventures, to go out and seek every back street North Melbourne gastro pub scenario. And then maybe I’ll turn my sites on Seddon.

I had the aged poterhouse with red wine jus and side orders of rosemary potatoes and a green salad, washed down with a very serviceable Heathcote Shiraz. There were five of us (rather than the four in my previous entry), we drank more, and it still came out to cost less than Shakahari… and animals gave their lives for our meals! (Bless them, they did not die in vain).

So obviously, you know I liked it. Stuff it, I loved it. Give me more please. This isn’t fine dining. Not in the strict sense. There are no velvet gloves emptying your pockets, and it’s a bit too earthy to be posh. But it’s my style. I guess I must be a fat gutted, middle aged bloke (on the inside, bursting to get out through the veneer of urbane and svelt intelligentsia) who really likes drinking beer, red wine and eating steaks in convivial surrounds. The verdict? A strong six and a half tentacles out of eight. Forza!

... full text

Middle Park Hotel

102 Canterbury Rd
Middle Park VIC 3206
ph: 9690 1958



Hello mes amis! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve parlayed at ya, but I’ve been overwhelmed by the tedium of work and sorting through piles of filing and receipts.

“Don’t tell us about your humdrum existence, Christophe!” I hear you thinking. “What I want is some great food tips on eateries and other cake hole inspired topics.

Well you can relax. This is the first in a couple of entries, because now I’ve cleared a space on my desk I can now focus on everybody’s favourite topic: tuck!

OK; so recently I was puzzling over where (oh where???) could we book the staff from Blue Vapours (great guys, check them out) to go out for their annual corporate planning day lunch? To date we’d done Pearl, Ezard (basement of the Adelphi), and Madame Sousous (Brunswick St). How could we top them?

The gauntlet was thoroughly thrown down, and all eyes turned to moiself, the food guru. Could he do it again? And how much was he prepared to spend?

I tried hard and did my research, but seemingly to little avail. The winner of the Age Good Food Guide best restaurant 2010, the chef of the year award 2011 (Ben Shewry), and only Melbourne restaurant to get in the San Pelligrino international food guide (who even knew they had one? I wonder what Bislerri thinks?) – Attica – didn’t take bookings for lunch.

And call me crazy, but I kind of baulk at the very idea of Vue de Monde with it’s exorbitant price tag. Can it really be justified? Rockpool? Maze? But do I want to hang out at Crown, or make that wrinkle headed prune Gordon Ramsay any richer?

I started trawling guides and haunting the back streets of the CBD, the date drawing ever closer and my alarm bells ringing. Where would I book? Two and three hat restaurants looked like they were offering sculptural artworks in church where you pay a premium to be intimidated, steak houses just looked too awful. And then I found it. The Middle Park Hotel.

At this point in my review I have to declare my hand. My cousin Chris McKenzie (known as CJ to staff) is/was (?) the bar manager there. I was blowing the top off a couple of frothies with him, pretending to be Billy Brownless, when he said -
“Don’t go to any of those fancy pants places. Come here! We’ve got a top chef and I swear we’re about to get a hat. It’s really good.”

Well we did, and it was.

The first thing you need to know about the menu is that it’s all about the meat. And old world meat at that. The menu is littered with items like scotch eggs, ham hocks, black pudding and duck liver parfait (OK, vegetarians are now doing 360’s in their graves, but I’m salivating). Patrons? They were predominantly flush faced men over sixty with a predilection for fine meats and red wine. It was like hitting the jack-pot of a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne filled with Chinese diners. We’d clearly landed at a gastro-pub Mecca; heart attack ground zero.

Steaks? Oh yeah, you know it. I had the top of the line and have to say I probably would have been happier down a rung or two; it was a super aged hung steak with marrow and parsley. A bit too old world for my chops; I’m not a huge marrow man – though I did have flashes in my mind of M eating a marrow bone at his club with a long silver spoon. Still, delicious, and everyone was nodding their heads around the table.

Oysters? Four types – but don’t bother shopping around, take it from the horse’s mouth: the Tasmanian were plumpest, cleanest of palate and nicest of colour.

Wine? The restaurant had a French sommelier (wine waiter) and an impressive wine list; pages and pages. Thank heavens we were able to take direction.

Now I haven’t been paid a cracker for this review, but it really was worth a look; up there with the Station Hotel in Footscray. I give it seven tentacles out of eight.

If you go, say hi to CJ for me!! To find out more, visit:

www.middleparkhotel.com.au

... full text