Italian – ohdenny

Il Birrificio

December 16, 2016 Posted in Camberwell, Food Reviews, Italian, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

While looking for Italian restaurants in the east side of Melbourne, I came across Il Birrificio. Located on Toorak Road in Camberwell, its far away from the hustle and bustle around Camberwell Station as this little gem is actually quite close to Burwood. What Ill Birrificio does well is its Wood Fire pizzas but their pastas, starters and desserts aren’t neglected either.

Their Salsiccia & Scamorza pizza was very tasty. I loved the cheesy topping with the meat and the fresh tomato base on a thin, crisp crust.

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Il Birrificio has a few specials, on the night we dined they had the Fettuccine Gamberi which has this zingy lemon taste to it, with the fresh thyme flavour coming through.

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While an Antipasti board isn’t what I would typically order, the cold meats with the rosemary and sea salt focaccia made for a pretty good starter.

I am not certain if they always have the Grapefruit beer on offer, but I do recommend trying it if you have not had something like this before. I loved the grapefruit flavour, and while the combination might be a bit odd on first looks it’s actually one of my favourite fruity beers.

The Biramisu is another winner from Il Birrificio. The beer flavour comes through well, and it’s not too rich or sweet. A great twist on the classic tiramisu.

Last words
This hidden gem has fantastic Italian dishes on offer in a very chilled environment.

Il Birrificio
1385 Toorak Road
Camberwell VIC 3124

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Café Buade – Quebec City Series

August 29, 2014 Posted in American, European, Food Reviews, French, Italian, Quebec City, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

Café Buade was our first meal in Quebec City, after arriving by train from Montreal. Already lunch time, the Old Quebec City was packed full of people and tourists (like me!), we finally found a restaurant that looked quaint and food that was reasonably priced.

Service here was great actually, and even though they do speak in French initially (of course), they do respond in English without much hesitation. Probably because it’s a tourist hotspot, but it puts us at ease nonetheless.

The food here has a mix of Italian, French and your burgers, steaks and grills.

We ordered one of their grills, which comes with coleslaw, fries and topped with a BBQ gravy and peas. The gravy was quite bland on first impressions, and it was in dire need of pepper. The fries were also a tad on the dry side of things, although super crispy as you can see. Overall, I found it to be a very average dish.

Their Salmon salad is quite fresh , with their salmon, capers and onions with a dressing. Not particularly my type of dish but it’s not bad if you like salmon and capers.

Their Hamburger steak, served with sautéed onions, vegetables and your choice of a side and sauce (I chose mash and gravy) was a decent meal. Hamburger patty moist but the mash potato was lacking in pepper, creaminess and smoothness you would often find in a good mash. It doesn’t leave a lasting impression but it does fill you up.

Impressions

Overall, our dining experience at Café Buade can be summed up with just a few words. Very average. From our meals, I couldn’t think of any highlights or anything that stood out in anyway, other than that you’d get a decent feed here. If you’re here for a limited time, like we were, I’d probably suggest finding another restaurant to dine at.

Café Buade (Menu)
31 Rue Buade
Quebec City QC G1R

Gelato Messina – Fitzroy

April 11, 2014 Posted in Desserts, Fitzroy, ItalianLeave a comment

Gelato Messina in Fitzroy is another popular Ice Cream and Gelato shop in Melbourne. Originally from Sydney, they have opened their doors down in Melbourne in outer rim of Melbourne’s CBD. What attracts people here is of course their interesting selection of ice creams but having a great depth of flavour as well.

One of my highlights was their Lychee and Coconut gelato. The Lychee flavour is fruity, flavourful and not artificial like you’re eating Lychee essence. The dessicated coconut that weaves through the ice cream, gives it added texture and complements the Lychee well. Tastes fresh, rich and yet not overwhelming with sweetness as some ice creams would be.

Their Hazelnut ice cream is similar to most other gelato stores such as Il Dolce. I would have preferred a bit more nuttiness with chopped hazelnuts, but the flavour of it was quite good.

The interesting other flavour was their Yoghurt & Berry which I’ve never had previously, with poached raspberry and blueberry coulee. The actual ice cream is more milder in flavour but with the berries which bring the sweetness and a tad of tartness, it does make for a great combination.

Their signature flavours (from the website) are listed below:
(G) Contains Gluten, (N) Contains Nuts, (E) Contains Egg, (A) Contains Alcohol

Gelato
Apple Pie (G)(E) – real apple gelato with our own house made apple pie throughout
Banana Split (N) – caramel and banana gelato with chopped peanuts and whipped cream
Bounty – coconut milk gelato with desiccated coconut and choc chip
Caramelised White Chocolate
Choc Mint – real fresh mint gelato with chocolate chip
Milk Chocolate with Choc Peanut Fudge (N)
Chocolate Fondant (N) – a rich decadent dark chocolate (contains traces of nuts)
Chocolate Chip – light cocoa gelato with chocolate chips
Coconut & Lychee – coconut milk gelato with lychee fruit
Coffee – made with real espresso coffee (seriously)
Dulce De Leche – an Argentinean caramel made by reducing milk until it becomes a sweet jam.
Gianduia Bianca (N) – white chocolate & hazelnut gelato with hazelnut praline
Gianduia (N) – chocolate & hazelnut
Hazelnut (N) – made with fresh roasted hazelnuts from Cortemilia in Italy
Italian Nougat (N)(E) (A-traces) – honey based gelato with roasted nuts, egg whites and Italian nougat
Pear & Rhubarb – fresh pear gelato with our own poached spiced rhubarb
Pistachio (N) – made with freshly ground roasted pistachios from Bronte in Italy
Poached Figs in Marsala (A)(E) – baby figs poached in Marsala (a fortified Italian cooking wine)
Salted Caramel and White Chocolate – salted caramel gelato with white chocolate chip (our biggest seller!)
Tiramisu (G)(A)(E) – egg, marsala and mascarpone gelato with lady finger biscuits soaked in espresso coffee.
Vanilla (E) – made from fresh Jersey Milk
Pannacotta with Fig Jam and Amaretti Biscuit (G)(N)(E)(A-traces) – pannacotta gelato base.
Yoghurt & Berry – yoghurt gelato with poached raspberry and blueberry coulee
Yoghurt & Caramel – yoghurt gelato with dulce de leche

Sorbets (all dairy free)
Salted Coconut and Mango Salsa
Blood Orange
Chocolate Sorbet
Lemon
Lychee Martini
Mango
Pandan & Coconut – Pandan is a green asian leaf used in asian cooking.
Passionfruit
Raspberry
Strawberry

Impressions
They have a plenitude of flavours to choose from, and in addition to their specials that change regularly. I’d definitely recommend giving it a try when you’re out about in Melbourne, or in Sydney for that matter.

Once you do give it a try, you can see why it remains popular to this day. With queues even during the evening.

Gelato Messina
237 Smith St
Fitzroy VIC 3065

Opening Hours
Sunday to Thursday: 12pm to 11.00pm
Friday and Saturday: 12pm to 11.30pm

Fettuccine with Parsley Pesto and Walnuts

February 14, 2014 Posted in Cooking, Italian, RecipesLeave a comment

During the last couple of months, my home grown parsley grew wild and unattended (oops). It almost looked like a small tree with a very thick and stern trunk/stem. Having an exorbitant amount of parsley I searched for recipes that used parsley in excess, which was really why I was growing parsley in the first place but never gotten around to cooking anything with it. Luckily, I found this seemingly quick and easy fresh vegetarian pasta recipe from Foodandwine.com which looked fantastic and turned out quite well too if I do say so myself. Check it out below!

Fettuccine with Walnut-Parsley Pesto
Total Time: 30 mins
Servings: 4

Ingredients
3/4 cup walnut halves (3 ounces)
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, plus 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus shavings for garnish
1/2 pound fettuccine (225 g)
1 garlic clove, smashed
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Toast the walnuts in a pie plate for 7 minutes, or until golden; let cool. Coarsely chop 1/4 cup of walnuts and transfer to a bowl; add the 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and half of the grated Parmesan.

2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente; drain.

3. In a mini food processor, pulse the remaining 1/2 cup of walnuts with the 1/4 cup of parsley leaves and the garlic until finely chopped. Add the remaining grated Parmesan cheese and the olive oil and process to a coarse purée. Season the pesto with salt and pepper.

4. Return the pasta to the pot. Add the vegetable stock and butter and simmer until the liquid is nearly absorbed, 1 to 2 minutes. Off the heat, add the pesto and toss until combined. Transfer the pasta to a bowl, garnish with the walnut, parsley and Parmesan topping and Parmesan shavings and serve.

Impressions
My only downfall with this dish was my failure of pouring in all the dry fettuccine into boiling water all at once. This resulted in clumping of the noodles and uneven cooking as some became thick strands (undercooked) and others cooked past al dente.

Flavour wise, it was pretty tasty for a dish that has minimal ingredients, the parsley pesto was extremely flavourful and a bit of a zing. As this dish has no meat, I’d actually prefer more walnuts to be added (maybe 1 cup) instead as I also added one whole bag full of fettuccine (probably too much actually). Other than that, I found this recipe to be one I’d be keen to try again.

Italy 1

October 25, 2013 Posted in Camberwell, Food Reviews, Italian, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

Before coming to Italy 1 on Bourke Road, Camberwell, I checked out the reviews for it on Urbanspoon and it was very mixed. Having that in mind, my overall experience with Italy 1 is good, it definitely is on the upper scale of your dining experience ($$$) but I found the food here to be mostly fantastic bar a few.

As an entree we ordered the Mussels it is cooked with a tomato sugo and seasoned with garlic and tomatoes (mainly). The staff mentioned the mussels here are of a higher quality and so that’s why the mussels are tinier than in most places. The mussels were indeed lovely and fresh and I really couldn’t get enough of the slightly salty, spicy tomato sauce that is flavoured with mussels.

Italy 1’s Baked Scallops were a bit of a downer, the scallops were tiny comparatively to the shell it comes in with the cheesy crust on top being mostly too crusty to gel well with the soft scallop. The scallop was very tasty I must admit but for the price, I don’t believe it’s worth it.

Onto the mains, the Roast Duck with greens was fantastic. The duck was perfectly cooked, and melts in your mouth with all the juices. The sauce that accompanies it, is interesting. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the ingredients sued but it went well with the duck and salad.

The “Rotolo” (hand rolled egg pasta) filled with Spinach and Ricotta, baked and served with burnt sage butter was absolutely divine. You certainly can’t have too much of this because it’s so damn rich with cheese, but the flavours of the ricotta and spinach are bursting out, and the cheesiness of it mixes so well. The baked pasta is crispy and almost pastry like, like a quiche but slightly delicate inside. Yummy

The Duck Ragu with Sage and Pancetta Risotto wasn’t too great to be honest. Overly salty, either from the cheese or duck and slightly under seasoned. It lacked any real distinct flavours but the duck was very tender which is a plus along with the risotto itself cooked al dente.

The Linguine Marinara with mussels, clams, prawns, scallops, fish and seasoned with chilli, parsley and garlic was another winner at Italy 1. The linguine was cooked perfectly (there wasn’t enough!) but I guess the centre pieces of the dish are the seafood so that’s understandable. Seafood overall were fresh and tasty and seasoned well. Really lovely.

For dessert we ordered Tiramisu. Very light but creamy and chocolatey, and with just enough liqueur to keep it moist. Distinct and defined layers. I do prefer Tiramisu to be slightly chilled and although it was served room temperature, it was delicious.

I believe the desserts change slightly on their specials board, but when we dined there the gelato selection was Raspberry, Goat’s Milk and Cassata with crunchy caramel shards. For a sweet treat, the Raspberry gelato was bursting full of raspberry flavour (and slightly sour). I’m finding it that I actually prefer cream based ice cream as opposed to water based simply because the water based varieties are simply much too sweet but on this occasion it wasn’t too bad (it was the sweetest of the three)

The Cassata flavour I believe is based on the cassata cake dessert which is a sponge cake moistened with fruit juices or liqueur, ricotta cheese, cream and candied peel. This was definitely an interesting flavour, and mixed with it were I believe some candied fruit pieces. I’ve never tried this before but would definitely order it again. Tasty

The goat’s milk on first taste was slightly odd because I’ve never tried an ice cream that was just milk but after my initial shock I really enjoyed it. It was milky (of course) and creamy and not too sweet. Probably the best of the three actually.

Impressions

As mentioned in my opening paragraph, some of the dishes weren’t as good as others but overall I found it to be a very satisfying experience and the staff here are lovely too. Great food, nice ambience on a Saturday night. Price might be an issue for some but it’s good for a night out once in a while.

Italy 1
823 Burke Rd
Camberwell VIC 3124

Bistro le Brigantin – Quebec City Series

September 20, 2013 Posted in European, Food Reviews, Italian, Quebec City, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

On our last night in Quebec City it was absolutely freezing so we dared not venture too far out at night. Luckily, right across from our hotel is Bistro Le Brigantin, a Italian restaurant on the corner block. We weren’t that hungry as we had soup and bread from Baguette & Cie in the arvo. It’s a lovely little restaurant that for some reason didn’t seem to be that popular. It might be because most of the visitors were in the city centre and not near the bayside.

We ordered a Tomato based Penne Pasta with parmesan cheese on top. The pasta was perfectly al dente, and the tomato flavour was so flavourful and yet not oily. Adding a bit of chilli flakes just makes it delicious. I was really quite surprised of this gem of a restaurant that seemingly was mostly empty at night. Top notch.

Their salmon baked pizza was also just divine. Crisp and crunchy bottom, with a very cheesy and fresh salmon on top with cooked onions and herbs. It isn’t like your typical pizzas with a crust and a thick bread bottom, this instead lets the toppings come alive. For something that may seem small, it packs full of flavour and is actually filling even though it was shared between three.

It might have also been because we ate a lot of the bread as a starter. You really can’t go wrong with bread and butter, their airy bread is light and fluffy inside but with a very crunchy crust. Love it.

Impressions

I loved this Italian restaurant, I never would have imagined Quebec City to have great Italian food. Colour me surprised and very glad to have dined here. Fantastic, flavourful food, with excellent service.

Bistro Le Brigantin

97 Rue Du Sault-Au-Matelot
Quebec QC G1K4A6

Lasagne (Taste.com.au)

November 16, 2012 Posted in Cooking, Food, Italian, RecipesLeave a comment

Lasagne, Italian but as common as a hot dog or meat pie in Australia. I have a strong dislike for those frozen Lasagne packets, or those in the foil, they taste so artificial, lots of cheese and strange mince meat. Ever since I tried making lasagne for myself, I can never go back to the store-bought versions. The Taste.com.au recipe works a treat, isn’t too complex but still requires a few different procedures but well worth it.

“Our Favourite Lasagne Recipe” (Taste.com.au)

Preparation Time
20 minutes

Cooking Time
80 minutes

Ingredients (serves 8)

Mince Mixture
2 tsp olive oil
1 brown onion, halved, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
750g beef mince
2 x 400g cans Italian diced tomatoes
125ml (1/2 cup) dry red wine
55g (1/4 cup) tomato paste
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Bechamel (Cheese) sauce
1L (4 cups) milk
1 brown onion, halved, coarsely chopped
8 fresh parsley stalks
8 whole black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
60g butter (Cooking Margarine can be used instead)
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
70g (1 cup) finely grated parmesan
Pinch ground nutmeg
Salt & ground white pepper
Optional: Dried chilli flakes

Olive oil, extra, to grease
4 fresh lasagne sheets (Or cannelloni sheets but they are smaller and harder to use)
55g (1/2 cup) coarsely grated mozzarella
Mixed salad leaves, to serve

Method

Mince Mixture

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add the mince and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up any lumps, for 5 minutes or until mince changes colour.

2. Add the tomato, wine and tomato paste, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. Remove from heat. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Cheese Sauce

3. Meanwhile, to make the cheese sauce, combine the milk, onion, parsley stalks, peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse.

4. Strain the milk mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug. Discard solids.

5. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until foaming. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until mixture bubbles and begins to come away from the side of the pan. Remove from heat.

6. Gradually pour in half the milk, whisking constantly with a balloon whisk, until mixture is smooth. Gradually add the remaining milk, whisking until smooth and combined.

7. Place saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Remove from heat. Add the parmesan and stir until cheese melts. Taste and season with nutmeg, salt and white pepper.

Layering

8. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush a rectangular 3L (12 cup) capacity ovenproof dish with oil to lightly grease. Spread one-quarter of the bechamel sauce over the base of the prepared dish. Arrange 1 lasagne sheet over the sauce. Top with one-third of the mince mixture and one-third of the remaining bechamel (Cheese sauce) sauce. Continue layering with the remaining lasagne sheets, mince mixture and bechamel, finishing with a layer of bechamel. Sprinkle with mozzarella. Place on a baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes or until cheese melts, is golden brown, and the edges are bubbling. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes to set.

9. Cut the lasagne into 8 portions and serve with mixed salad leaves.

Impressions

Making lasagne is like making a tomato based pasta sauce halfway as the mince mixture is not as wet but the flavours of it and procedure is basically the same and yes I do add chilli flakes in there too.

The cheese sauce needs a bit more watching as to avoid the milk mixture from frothing over the saucepan so be careful. The other focus point is when pouring the flour into the butter mixture, it can stick to the bottom of the saucepan/pot that you are using.

I love the bechamel sauce that it makes, it’s so flavourful unlike those take-away sauces. I know it’s an unfair comparison but that’s what most people are used to eating.

We actually used cannelloni sheets because we had some left over but they work just as well as lasagne sheets, but I think they are just a tad smaller so the sauce kinda seeps through when layering. Just layer twice and cover the gaps and it should be fine. I really do enjoy making lasagne and this recipe in particular, and the layering part is fun for kids too!

Lynbrook Hotel

November 16, 2011 Posted in Australian, Chinese, Desserts, Food, Indian, Italian, Lynbrook, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

I came across the Lynbrook Hotel after browsing Urbanspoon’s top Melbourne Buffet Restaurants. Having already tried China Bar, Consevatory and Kitchenworkshop (3 of the top 5), I was surprised to see Lynbrook Hotel so far up the top. Lynbrook? Lynbrook has a hotel?

After my initial shock, I checked out the official website, it said it had a International Buffet Bistro, offering European, Asian and Australian cuisines. This piqued my interest and afterall their prices were quite reasonable too.

We went to try it out for my father’s birthday, and booked the earlier session to avoid the large cohords of people (I expected anyway). Their eating area is quite spacious and clean. It makes for a welcoming dining experience.

The food is grouped into several categories, from Asian (Chinese), European (Italian), Australian, and Indian with a bit of Thai, and of course Desserts.

The Food

While I didn’t take photographs of the food itself (I was too busy eating), the food was decent and there was a great variety of dishes.

In the Asian corner, they have Fried Rice, and a few stir frys which were surprisingly decent for a restaurant primarily served by Indian chefs.

There was a good selection of seafood, from fresh prawns, to steamed fish and a few of your standard ‘Fish and Chip shop’ items, and also roast items like roast beef and potatoes, vegetables in another area.

In their European flavoured area they served mostly Italian food, i.e pastas, lasagne and pizza.

Their Indian area took me by surprise, as it smelt great. A few different styled curries, and bite sized snack food. As I mentioned before they served Thai fish cake, which was spicy! However when my parents when again for a friend’s birthday celebration, they didn’t have these on offer. So it seems their selection of food varies slightly per week.

Their dessert menu consisted of a lot of cakes and sugary treats. My favourite was the warm almond cake, and the chocolate mousse. Of course, they served ice-cream for the kids, which was running empty by the hours end. I’ll admit their selection of desserts was great, but nothing can top soft serve ice-cream at Kitchen Workshop.

There were a couple of downsides, their pizzas weren’t cooked long enough so the bread was still doughly. Perhaps their second run of pizzas were better, I didn’t attempt to try it again.

As mentioned earlier, their 3 tubs of ice-cream were probably sitting there for a while so it wasn’t replaced as quickly (or at all) during our session. Some of their dishes were slightly overcooked but I can overlook that as it wasn’t terribly bad.

Overall impressions

The Lynbrook Hotel serves a great selection of food, for what you pay for, you do get your monies worth. Compared to Kitchen Workshop which is roughly the same price, I’d prefer Kitchen Workshop but if you’re looking for some tasty Asian dishes Lynbrook is your best bet.

Lynbrook Hotel

550 South Gippsland Highway
Lynbrook

VIC 3975

Bistro Prices and Sessions Here

Seafood Risotto

May 25, 2011 Posted in Cooking, ItalianLeave a comment

Every time I go to an Italian restaurant or even just a cafe that has risotto, I just have to order it. My first taste experience was at Sofia’s Restaurant in Ferntree Gully, and well I found it to be delicious. I don’t think Sofia’s is an example of true authentic Italian food but it tastes quite good and I can’t argue with that.

So I’ve wanted to cook risotto for some time too, just something that seemed fun to do since we hardly go to Italian restaurants so it was just another way to eat it.

I found a couple of recipes on the internet but I needed one that had a seafood mix (Scallops, prawns, mussells, fish, squid rings) since we bought the frozen type at the supermarket and some of the risotto recipes get you to buy different types of seafood for the stock so it wasn’t any use to me.

I finally decided on the Taste.com.au’s recipe, and just bought some fresh mussels to use for the stock as the mussels in the mix were already opened. I made a couple of tweaks to the recipe though.

At first I couldn’t find Fish stock, so I bought some Ikan Bilis stock cubes from my Asian Grocer, and then I found a small carton of Fish stock at my local supermarket so I mixed them both to make my fish stock.

For my dry white wine, I used Somerton 2010 Semillon – Chardonnay, one of the cheapest dry white wines I could find at Dan Murphy’s actually.

I didn’t have enough prawns in my mix, and forgot to buy extra prawns but it didn’t impact upon taste really. It’s just a matter of what seafood you prefer.

I really like the recipe but one thing I forgot to do was to add more passata into it after I added another half cup of arborio rice so it was a bit drier then I would like but the taste and flavours were all still there. With my fresh parsley straight from my herb garden, chilli flakes and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, my Seafood Risotto came out pretty well I thought.

I also pretty much used all the stock available because I added more rice, so it wasn’t as wet as what you might get in a restaurant but still moist enough.

If I made this again, I would probably use less mussels and more prawns, just because of preference and there were probably too many mussels in there and slightly overwhelmed everything else. Other than that, I really enjoyed making it and the end result was great too.

Seafood Risotto (Taste.com.au)
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 1/4 cup (310ml) dry white wine
500g black mussels, scrubbed, debearded
1.25L good-quality gluten-free fish stock (see note)
1/4 tsp saffron threads
40g unsalted butter
2 tbs olive oil
500g prawns, peeled (tails intact), deveined
2 squid tubes, cut into rings
8 scallops
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 cups (440g) arborio rice
1/2 cup tomato passata (see note) or roasted-tomato sugo (see related recipe)
2 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves, plus extra to garnish
Chilli flakes
Grated parmesan cheese

Method
1. Place wine in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer, then add mussels and cover. Cook, shaking the pan occasionally, for 3 minutes until almost all shells have opened (discard any mussels that remain unopen after this time). Strain, reserving liquid, then remove mussels from shells and set aside. Place reserved liquid, fish stock and saffron in a pan and keep at a simmer over low heat.

2. Melt 30g butter with 1 tbs oil in a large, heavy-based frypan over medium heat. Add prawns and cook for 2-3 minutes, turning, until cooked through. Remove to a bowl and set aside. Increase heat to high. Add squid and scallops. Cook, turning, for 1-2 minutes until just opaque and almost cooked through. Set aside with prawns.

3. Reduce heat to medium and melt remaining 10g butter with remaining 1 tbs oil. Cook the onion, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add garlic and rice and stir for 1-2 minutes to coat the grains. Add a ladleful of hot stock and stir until absorbed. Continue adding stock, 1 ladleful at a time, stirring and making sure each is absorbed before adding the next, until rice is al dente. This will take about 20 minutes. (You may not need all the stock.) Stir in the seafood, passata or sugo and parsley. Season and cook for 1 minute until heated through. Serve garnished with parsley, chilli flakes and parmesan.

Medici Italian Restaurant

August 28, 2010August 26, 2019 Posted in Italian, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

This will be my first of many restaurant, fooderies etc that I’ll be sharing my dining experiences with.

Was invited for a surprise 21st birthday celebration at Medici, and serves Italian food (One of my favourite cuisines).

The venue was quite nice, it had a relaxed, casual vibe to it and can cater up to 300 people so it was quite large and open. The waiters/waitresses were friendly and efficient.

I ordered the Vegetable Risotto (My vegetarian phase) and the group of us shared a few large pizzas as well.

I recall it had diced carrots, small broccoli and diced tomatoes in a napoli sauce, it looked decent. My experiences with risotto lie solely with Sofia’s Restaurants, so I’m no expert but my taste buds know good food!

Taste wise, it was average, the napoli sauce had no flavour to it, it was very generic Italian that even a can or jar supermarket sauce could beat. Basically, it was nothing special.

The actual risotta was cooked just as I wanted it, not overly soft that it resembled a porridge but texture wise it was up there with my only other risotto experience.

My friend ordered the Risotto Pollo and visually looked great, mine just didn’t look as appealing at all and the taste met that.

Would I go back? Possibly, to try the pastas or the other risotto but I wouldn’t be rushing there any time soon.

Medici
36 Newquay Promenade
Docklands, VIC 3008
(03) 9600 4160