Guest reviewer (JB maybe?) made a flying visit to watch Cadel, Lance, Robbie, Stuie etc. (that would be the Tour DownUnder – ed) After a day chasing the peleton refuelling was a priority.

PARWANA – Afghan Restaurant – 124b Henley Beach Road Torrensville 08 8443 9001

Wikipedia advises that Parwana is an Urdu/Hindi word that refers to an obsessed lover – literally it is a term for a moth attracted to a flame. This moth was attracted twice –first for a quiet dinner on a Wednesday night with Adelaide-based Sis and second for food after Sunday afternoon drinks at the Union Hotel (City) and the Wheatsheaf Hotel (Thebarton) with Sis, Bro and SisiL.

Located between a funeral parlour, a hairdresser and an African Internet café, Parwana is a short taxi ride from the centre of Adelaide on the Western side of town (towards the airport). (gee – sounds promising – ed)

Interior of Parwana

In two visits we sampled:

One Appetiser ($6 ea)

Mantu – steamed dumplings filled with onion delicately spiced and topped with yoghurt and ground lamb sauce;

Mantu - delicious lamby dumplings!

One Main ($15 ea)

Chopan Kebab – Marinated lamb pieces fried with onion and green chilli, served with naan, salad and chatni

4 Sides ($6-8 ea)

Chicken Qorma – Mild Chicken curry simmered with onion, tomato and traditional spices

Banjan Boranee – Eggplant simmered in tomato sauce, topped with yoghurt and mint garnish

Dahl – Red lentils flavoured with coconut, onion, curry leaves and spices

Sabzi – Spinach sautéed with paneer, onion and spices

2 Desserts ($5 ea)

Sheeryakh – creamy rose flavoured ice-cream with nuts

Falooda – Ice cream layered with saffron jelly, rose syrup and basil seeds

2 Drinks ($3 ea)

Cardamom tea

Dogh  – yoghurt, dried mint, cucumber and salt tastes

Everything was tasty and more-ish. The spices were handled well so that there was an immediate flavour effect without repetition hours or days later. My favourites were the Mantu, Sabzi and Banjan. Sheeryakh is a good simple dessert and saves a trip to North Adelaide for gelati. The mains include pasta (main course sizes of appetisers Ashak (leek in lamb sauce topped with yoghurt /mint) and Mantu (see above) and 3 rice options.  Servings are generous (shared appetiser and main plus a dessert each was more than enough for two on Wednesday) and alcohol is BYO (bottled wine only).  We had a riesling (Pewsey Vale) and shiraz (Pike’s?) on Sunday which went well after Sunday arvo beers.

Parwana is a very good family-run suburban restaurant offering well-prepared food in a relaxed atmosphere. It is great value for money and I would frequent it if it were in North Melbourne (would even go south of the river). Fortunately it is within a walk of Sis’s place so I will be getting back next time I am in Adelaide.

The Wheatsheaf (Wheatie to the locals) is a funky neighbourhood pub a couple of blocks back from Henley Beach Road (39 George St Thebarton) which would fit easily into Fitzroy, Brunswick or Northcote. It has an extensive selection of Australian and imported craft beers (on tap and by the bottle) and whisk(e)y. It provides hanging space for local artists – current exhibition is photographs of roller derby “Derby Stacks 09” by Matt Walker and features live music from time to time. Wheatsheaf only does cheese, pate and crisps but it is within walking distance of some ethnic food options on Henley Beach Road – Parwana (Afghan) and Terranova (Italian) are recommended but there is also Thai, Abyssinian, Indian, Thai, Greek, Chinese  and Oz pub grub available.

URBAN BISTRO – 160 Fullarton Road Rose Park 08 8331 2400

This is a reasonably up-market restaurant doing food that the Gourmet Traveller classifies as “Modern Australian”. It is located on the ground floor of an apartment block opposite Victoria Park race course which probably offers verdant views in winter but seemed dominated by pits, stands etc for forthcoming Brrm Brrms. It has been around since 2002 and seems to be well-regarded for food if not for its service. The room is pleasant if a bit soulless.

We visited on a Saturday for lunch when most of Adelaide was on Willunga Hill shouting “Go Cadel” and we had a large space more or less to ourselves.

We ordered a bottle of San Pellegrino Sparkling ($8) and couple of Trumer Pils ($9) while we perused the lunch/dinner menu, which is divided into: entree ($18-24); main course ($29-39);pasta and risotto ($26.50-35.50); and sides ($4.50 -$12.50).

The menu looked promising (see website) and after some toing and froing we opted to share a side of roast artichoke and parmesan dip and an entrée of maigret duck prosciutto with Persian feta, dry figs and fig vincotto .

Duck with Figs

For mains we ordered roast ocean trout wrapped in potato on nicoise salad, sauce gribiche and abalone ravioli with seared scallops, sweet potato and lime butter sauce.

Trout wrapped in potato

The food came promptly and was well-presented. The produce was of high quality and the combinations worked well. The roast artichoke dip was warm and unctuous, requiring extra bread to finish. The duck fig combination was very pleasant (the figs were fresh rather than dried which seems preferable).  The ravioli was very tender and tasty, the scallops perhaps slightly underdone but the lime butter and the sweet potato crisp were excellent. Ocean trout was well-prepared and presented but the gribiche combination not as successful .

abalone ravioli with seared scallops, sweet potato and lime butter sauce

We drank the 2008 Nigl Gruner Veltliner, Kremstal, Austria ($9) which was dry and round but not sweet or acidic. It was a good match with the food.

Lunch cost $150 with tip. The food quality and presentation would make Urban Bistro worth another visit.

Apparently New Year’s Day is their busiest day of the year and they don’t take bookings for it. We seem to often end up here on New Year’s Day, but didn’t have to wait long tonight. Just a few minutes wait under the tree then we were offered an outside table.

One thing I dislike about outside dining in Melbourne is that people smoke at outside tables. They can’t smoke inside restaurants or bars, but they can if a restaurant is set up “properly”. Thankfully, Donnini’s isn’t set up in a way that allows patrons to smoke while sitting at the table. Yay I say!

JB was taken by the Springbay Mussel soup; 3 lovely big mussels in a tasty tomato broth, with just a touch of chilli.

I started with tomoto, basil and mozzarella salad.

I was pleasantly surprised; like I said, I seem to have to always remind myself about the commitment to quality here, I don’t know why. I was expecting some (hopefully) ripe roma tomatoes, with rubbery mozzarella and some generic olive oil. What I received was 3 or four varieties of tomatoes, thinly sliced, coated with a verdant “grassy” olive oil, crumbled “real” mozzarella, and sliced basil; perfectly season, perfectly delicious!

Then we shared one of their delicious, thin crust pizzas – this time topped with leek and pancetta.

Oops! almost forgot the photo as we tucked in.

$70 for two with one glass of wine, and one mineral water.

Worth every penny!

Donnini’s
320 Lygon St
Carlton VIC 3053
(03) 9347 3128

Between Faraday and Grattan.

I’ve never been a real fan of the site Embrasse occupies in Drummond street, not now, and not when it was Mrs Jones, nor 312. It’s a bit of a strange room being square rather than rectangular, it feels like it’s been cut off – and that there is more fun happening “out the back”. I think it’s a difficult size to create some “buzz” as well, although not funereal as it has been described, it was a bit introspective the day we were there. Eventually a loud party of four walk-ins filled the table in the middle of the room and gave all us couples something other than each other to look at.

At any rate, we were there for the food. Nicolas Poelaert was recently named our Young Chef of the Year, and I was a bit surprised to find some quite “mature” food on our plates. What do I mean? I mean subtle flavours where the produce shines, not the technique, and the guts to have a plate of vegetables as a main course. We wavered a bit about trying the degustation or not, but decided to go al la carte.

Arty shot of the amuse bouche.

(Sorry, I think it’s time for a tripod)

Selection of root vegetables, mushroom / ink crumbs, 62C egg and wood Sorrel

The egg is cooked for 1.5 hours and the texture of the egg is soft, but the yolk doesn’t run. JB declared it delicious.

Confit Pork Belly, asparagus, apple, gingerbread, wild alliums, oxalis flower.
By far the prettiest dish of the night, I loved the subtle garlic flavour and the tang of the oxalis. I have eaten a lot of oxalis lately. I must get on to the weeding!

Wagyu and onion tart with korean black garlic, black sesame, bread sauce and nasturtiums.
Or maybe this was the prettiest? The onions made a pattern that reminded me of Japanese paper. The meat was a fantastic colour, and though I’m not a huge wagyu fan, it was very flavoursome.

It would seem that I have forgotten to take a picture of my own main…very strange.

I ordered the meli melo of vegetables, sprouts, herbs and flowers, herb emulsions, perhaps because I knew it was one of the signature dishes, perhaps because I was pining for Mugaritz, perhaps because it was spring: and spring vegies are delicious. And it was a delicious. The vegies were perfectly cooked, asparagus, broad beans, carrots, something that might have been taro or manioc? zucchini, snow peas, many tasty little non-beasties. It was perfectly light and flavoursome and left room for dessert.

As a former pastry chef at Circa and the original Vue de Monde I was expecting a decent stab at dessert here. We weren’t disappointed by “Choclate parfait, meringue, chocolate crumb, sorrel granita”

The “mushroom” tops were the chocolate parfait, soft and with a jelly-ish texture, they reminded me of a non-frozen gelato. The stalks were meringue, and the granita was (the now ubiquitous) sorrel. The dirt was crumbled cake and it was the one part of the dessert that I wasn’t enamoured by.

So now to the elephant in the room, the service. There’s been a bit written about the service recently; we found it a tad overly-keen, friendly, perhaps a bit inexperienced, but with good hearts and especially with the young man who helped us choose our wine, passion. Young Chef of the Year, Nicolas Poelaert introduced himself towards the end of the meal and we spoke about Le Chateaubriand and his friend chef Inaki Aizpitarte. Nicolas hasn’t eaten Inaki’s food, so good blogger that I am, I pulled out the camera and showed him the photos from our recent meal. (that’s a bit weird right? But it happened). It certainly deserves to be full on a Friday night.

We’ll be back to see how this young chef develops, and hope that like Shannon Bennett, for whom Nic worked across the road where DOC is now, we will be proud to say one day “I remember when…”


Embrasse
312 Drummond Street
Carlton VIC 3053
03 9347 3312

But, tonight I was on a mission, to eat steak. That doesn’t quite explain while all three of my companions also chose steak, but it did give us an idea of consistency across the table.

La Luna has forged a reputation in presenting good quality steak, aged on the premises, and an interesting range of house made charcuterie. They run offal nights fairly regularly and have great appeal to the Friday afternoon “steak & red” business-man brigade.

There were 7 starters on the menu, some house made sausages, soup and an interesting octopus salad, with one vegetarian option (double baked cheese soufflé – safe to say this is not a house that worships the vegans.) There were also specials of oysters from Coffin Bay and Quail.

The wine list here tends toward the boutique and interesting, and the martini’s are pretty darn good. We started with a Delatite 07 Riesling.

The “Hand-cured sliced meats, pickles, olives EVO and bread” ($20.50) really was designed to be shared, but this wasn’t mentioned when we ordered it and three other starters. So I didn’t *have* to share and I gobbled quite a bit of it up. There were several salami’s, some proscuitto, porcetta, ham some cornichon and sliced pickled onion, olives and toasted bread.

The “Smoked Salmon with brioche, apple cucumber and caper salad” ($18.50) was voted best entree the table for it’s salty, sweet, crunchy, dense, creamy tart combination.

Quail wrapped in house made pancetta with a salad that included hazelnuts and shredded cabbage and beetroot. Delicious.

We ordered 2 medium rare rumps and one medium, and one medium rare porterhouse ($38.50). The steaks are dry aged on the premises and come with mash and pepperonata. So – this is the main game, and I was a bit disappointed I’m afraid. The meat was good, but not as good as I have had elsewhere, including from my own butcher. Maybe I expected too much, but this is where their reputation was forged. The steaks were all cooked the same as far as I could tell. so either they didn’t want to cook one medium (not for me!), or they forgot.

We drank a bottle of Syrahmi 07 Shiraz on recommendation, and even though we were told that we could hand it back if we didn’t like it – we didn’t, and we didn’t. I think we just chose badly as we know it’s a subtle shiraz and probably not the best match for seriously beefy beef.

Deserts got a bit serious, with the non-drivers “tucking in” to a Desert Cocktail featuring coffee, vodka, tia maria and kahlua ($14.50)

Whilst I was under-whelmed by the vanilla creme brulee with sesame tuille ($14.50) which was smooth, but nothing really special and needed another flavour.

I love La Luna, but perhaps it needs a holiday and a refresh of it’s spirit, it felt a little bit lost this night.

(Apologies for the photo quality – I will adjust in due course)

La Luna Bistro
320 Rathdown Street
North Carlton Vic Australia

Ph +613 9349 4888