date: 11/7/09
location: lilydale
grade for: food- a if you eat meat and shellfish, b if you eat fish and chicken, and if you're vegetarian or vegan... go someplace else.
grade for: service/hospitality (main): most people went with c or d or so by the end of the meal... it started off ok, then went downhill then picked up when the food got there kind of but not consistently, and then was really disappointing in the end again. eat in the bar maybe?
grade for bread/water server: a. props to them.

there is no way we can give this place a single grade, and even i would have a hard time grading the whole experience. because there so many things went cattywampus... it was one of the weirder restaurant clubs in a while. odd and a bit disappointing, as n not only does this place have a very good reputation, many of us hadn't ever been there before. the introduction was not one that made me want to get to know them better.

let's start with the fact that it was tuesday, and on their web site, and for that matter, even as i post this there are some specials listed that are available on tuesdays. one is good for other days of the week, too... if the dow jones closes at a loss, you get the bottles on the wine list at retail price, no markup. nice. the dow was up that night, though.

there was another special on their web site, called 'tasting tuesdays,' where on tuesday evenings you could get, for $35, smaller portions of a bunch of items, as many as you wanted off the menu for that tasting tuesday, for $35. and you could order each item as many times as you wanted. good for large groups, it touts. anf apparently the $35 is per person, though the web site just said $35. there's even a sample menu attached to the blurb.

when we got there and saw no such menu, we asked... when we finally got a chance to. there was some technical difficulties, as the server didn't seem to know anything about said promotion. so the hemming and hawing began. as it seems they stopped running that special a few weeks ago (irl) in the restaurant. so even though there was no expiration date on the special on the web site (and again, it's still posted as this review goes up), it apparently wasn't a special anymore.

wrong.

it is. if it's not, then get it off your web site. or put an expiration date on it.

but the server went back to see what they could do. we waited. and waited more. and kept waiting. without bread or anything, as it seems you don't get bread until after you order. it took a very long time to ascertain that the kitchen and the manager was indeed willing to do the special deal for us. perhaps not happy about it, but willing.

since all of us at the table had to be in for that and special menu was meat and shellfish heavy in courses two and three, i checked to see if there was a way of getting at least one vegetarian pasta in there for the second course (everything was either meat or shellfish) and start with two of the tune- the one main course i could do. they agreed to that, which they didn't have to.

anyway, what they ended up doing is sending pretty much 1-1.5 orders of everything to the table on one plate, and then we passed the plates and split the food using bread plates. there were a few things we got multiples of, but most of the time one plate per dish was enough.

regarding the food, i can speak a bit more about the starters as i was able to try a few more things here than in the other courses. below the menu prices and descriptions for the food are included if they were on the web site. there's quite a few details i forgot due to the sheer number of dishes and the things i didn't eat, so perhaps someone give me details or their thoughts on those.

but i am confident in saying this- everyone else there enjoyed the hell out of the food. indeed, the shellfish and meats were enjoyed immensely. so as it works out, everyone gave the food an 'a...' except for me. i'd go with a 'b' as the things i could or do eat could've use a bit more care and thought.

it's not a place where i would send anyone who was vegetarian or vegan or anything along those lines. the selections are quite limited. perhaps they can work with you, but one pasta and no main courses that are vegetarian and only salads for starters, is a bit weak in these times. though at lesat, per their menu they do use "responsibly raised meat and fowl as well as local and organic/sustainable ingredients whenever possible." so there's that.

starters:

• 'pork sausage and cannellini crostini' ($8)- these crostini were... ok. (smashed, white) beans on toast. so.... um. beans. on toast.
• 'crostini alla toscana with prosciutto di parma and chicken liver' ($7)- the chicken liver was a rough pate. i liked these a bit more but perfer a smoother texture of pate. tasty though. better with the ham, i suspect.
• 'beef carpaccio with wild cress, parmigiano, lemon and olive oil' ($11)
• romanesca romaine hearts with anchovy vinaigrette and pecorino romano ($9)- i expected a bit more anchovy taste here (in a good way), but instead it didn't have quite enough. it wasn't so different than any other sort of cesar salad, except with better and more cheese. which i'm fine with.
• 'baby red oak with fried leek, fennel pollen, pig belly and sunburst tomato vinaigrette' ($9)- we got two of these because someone was into the pork belly. without it, even with the extra touches, it was kind of basic.
• honeycrisp apple salad with gorgonzola and pistachios- this was my favorite of the salads. though the romaine had a lot of pecorino romano, i prefer gorgonzola (always the cheese that'll kill me faster...) and it goes ever so well with the apples.
• wild herb arancini with fresh mozzarella and spicy tomato brodo- these were crispy on the outside, and creamy on the inside. kind of large, a bit bigger than a golf ball, so it kind of crumbled a bit when you tried to eat it. i recall no mozzarella in the dish, maybe it was subtle and in with the rice.
• some sort of veal tonnato dish. i remember nothing about it, sorry.
  

pastas (prices are for main course/half portion)- i can't recall if they house-make their pastas, but many of them seemed like it.

• butternut squash ravioli with brown butter- this was the one pasta without meat or shellfish at all originally not part of the special menu selections. it was quite a decent rendtition of the dish. i would've liked to see a bit more imagination here, or a bit more... je ne sais quoi. in the wake of the dishes listed below it just seems kind of... thrown in, like... oh, we should have one vegetarian option. why not this? it seems to be popular everywhere...
• 'bucatini all’amatricianatomato, guanciale, chili and pecorino romano' ($16/$12)
• 'orecchiette with pork sausage, spicy rapini, crema and pecorino crotonese' ($16/$12)
• house-made gnocchetti with oxtail ragu ($16/$12)- i had a naked gnochetti. it was quite good. with the sauce it was apparenlty devine enough to get two of them.
• 'cavatelli with roasted leg of lamb sugo and pecorino'- two of these also
• scoglio- i remember nothing about this dish
• tortelloni- this one had shrimp in it and i think mozarella and some sort of mussel broth
• linguette- this was heavily clammed and musseled, if i remember correctly.
  

main courses:

• short rib over gorgonzola polenta- people loved this one.
• 'braised veal shank “osso buco”with gremolata and saffron-roasted pepper fregola' ($29)- their signature dish. marrow included.
• 'grilled iowa lamb chops “scottadita” with grilled cauliflower and bagna cauda' ($28)
• 'pan-seared calf’s liver with maple cured pig belly, potato puree, cipollini and mustard pan sauce' ($22)
• 'pan-seared maine scallops with grilled baby fennel and grilled artichoke relish' ($27)- another winner.
• 'pan seared tuna “tagliata” with caponatina, wild cress and orange sea salt' ($26)- the tuna itself was too salty, you had to eat it with the caponatina for the dish to work. they did get the sear spot on. they appear to really like pan searing here.
  

over the parade of food, there were some service glitches. the wait we had to get an answer regarding the tasting tuesday was just the beginning. it was an hour and 15 minutes after we sat that we got anything besides bread on the table, and i am thinking that took more than half an hour. it took 15 minutes for wine reorders to show. we also had to wait for the check.

and as mentioned, we also had to wait to get the attention of the server, as pretty much every time they brought dishes to the table (as opposed to a runner or manager), they put them down and then pretty much fled. so there was a lot of 'could we also get... nope, gone' and 'can we order another... gone again' actions.

the whole meal took around three hours if they didn't bring out all the starters and pastas at once, but staggered them as they were done, it maybe would've killed a lot of the wait time. they did group the main courses into two groups at least. the tuna came with the first. they offered me another tuna in the second, but by that time i was a bit full (from the bread- the soft kind was quite tasty, by the way. the more baguette type was ok... the butter was oddly unspreadable though... anyway) and a bit sleepy (ok, i sampled a few pasta bits from the side of the dish that i shouldn't have, i'm guessing, so i had to go for a benadryl... which on top of the other allergy meds i had taken that day was dragging me down...) so i just sat around... eating bread.

so yes. odd service. it seemed like the server did not want to be at work, and didn't want to work a larger group. maybe they were understaffed- perhaps some people who would've gone and used the wine room during this time moved to the dining room- the wine room was being used for a special event. i was very disappointed in that, as i guess i had higher service expectations- one of the people who had come here before apparently always had different, much better servers. the only bright spot- the bread and water person, on top of refills in both cases. so they get their own 'a.'

there were a few other things contributed to the feeling of kind of a lack of hospitality. there was the now standard 18% tip automatically added in- this time it was for groups of five or more. still don't like the policy. never will. and once more we go to the web site, where it stated 'no separate checks.' a phrase that i interpret to mean you get one long bill. ok. math is hard, but we can do it. nothing out of the ordinary. well, some of the wine didn't make it to the bill we think, which threw us off. or maybe it did under a different name.

but then we ran into something we've not seen for years (pierre's bistro in 2003 to be exact)- the lack of being able to accept more than three credit cards. which is not listed anywhere. and was not brought up until *after* we were ready to hand over our neat pile of cards in the folder with the list of what goes on what. good thing some of our party had cash, but this is something you tell the people *before* dinner, have on your web site, etc. that policy is completely 'fail.'

again... wrong.

for years i have wanted to get to this place, but it always seems so far away, lilydale being one of those far-off kingdoms of a suburb that would take ages to drive to. so i figured if i put this place on the restaurant club list i would finally get myself to go here. maybe i should've gone sooner, before i inherited dad's bad restaurant karma. maybe it was my brk that caused this. even so, the wait and the buildup was sadly not worth it. i was way more into their sister restaurant, il vesco vino.