Mini-review: Soft Cafe, Herne Hill

In a word? Brunchy (that's a good thing - I love brunch)

Today I'm trying a new mini-review format, not because I think less of this place, or others to come I this format, but sometimes theres less to say, just because it works.
Soft is where I go when I want eggs and coffee, and no crap.

Where: Soft Coffee Lounge, 29 Minerva road, Herne Hill  Meal: Brunch
Day: Saturday
Drinks: Licenced at other times of the day, great tea and coffee for brunchiness

Declaration- this is pretty close to my house. But it works for that reason as much as anything else. In summary, they do nice breakfast (for a decent amount of time on weekends), good coffee (although I think I object to 'coffee lounge', but I'll forgive one small slip into wankeriness), great pots of tea, the staff are nice, the atmosphere is very chilled, not too noisy, but kid-friendly. Lots of good gluten free options. There are also a couple of other soft cafes, but this is the one for me.

My brekky/brunch of choice here is eggs benedict with gluten free toast, a skinny latte and a newspaper. The hollandaise is house made (I'm pretty sure), and delicious. The coffee is above average. I can depend on this place when I want to be out of the house but not too 'out'. 

Thanks for being there. 

(small downside, their website doesn't seem to be happy today, so I'm struggling to add a link. Don't worry, you don't need the website, just go.)

A steak is not enough

In a word? Steak. And that's it, because there was little else here that was worth the effort (or prices).

Dear readers, it has been (quite!) a while. I suddenly skipped the country for a year in the UK. But I am back, very glad to be back, and keen to re-start my culinary adventures around Geelong and surrounds.

In celebration of my return, a couple of mates came to visit from Melbourne. Over a drink, one mused that she was in the mood for a steak. Perfect! There is a brand new (I assume) steak house on the waterfront that I had walked past in the last couple of days. Let's give it a go!

Where: The Steak House, 100 Western Beach Road
Meal: Dinner
Day: Saturday
Drinks: BYO only (apparently waiting on their licence)

After a very pleasant drink at the also-new-to-me Customs House wine bar (hoping to eat there soon for a review, watch this space), we headed to the Steak House, which sits off to the side of the pier point building next to Deakin Waterfront. We had been pre-warned that it was BYO only, and duly trekked across town to find an open bottle shop - what's the point of a great steak without red wine?!

In summary, the meat was excellent, but aside from that, well, they're new, and I hope things will improve for them...

Perhaps I'm still experiencing price shock after my return from the UK, where eating out seems to mostly cost about half what it does here. But the menu seemed, well, a rip off. I'm comfortable with paying a bit for for good meat, and the steaks are generally between $35 and $40. But that starts to look like pretty poor value when all it comes with is potato (chips or roast), OR a small garden salad. Any sauce is an extra $3.50. If you're vaguely interested in having a balanced meal, brace yourself. A side serve of vegetables? $12. Sorry readers, but I'm just not yet ready to spend $50 on a single main course, so I can't report on the vegetables. I will be having a detox day of fruit and veg to make up for it.

My 200g eye fillet was superb - cooked as I ordered it (medium rare), tender, full of flavour. Lovely. I wished I had got the bigger one, especially since my potatoes were in edible!

There were too many problems to give a good narrative of them all, but it just wasn't a smooth experience. White linen table cloths were accompanied by cheap paper napkins, cheap supermarket table salt and ground pepper. We were near the door, which has a bizarre semi-automated opening/closing mechansism, which did nothing to reduce our shivering whenever the door opened. The meal took 45 minutes to arrive, and when it did, mine was in the company of some unpleasantly undercooked 'roast' potatoes. The chips my partner had were pretty good, and one of my mates had the salad, which was a bit small and sad, but not surprising at a steak restaurant.

I do love an overheard conversation...
We skipped dessert because the desserts that were on the menu were not those that were available, and it seemed like we made the right choice. At the table next to us, two ladies sharing a dessert sent it back with the message that it was "revolting" and probably off and unsafe, and a suggestion that they shouldn't serve it to anyone Else. Which was a bit alarming, until the waitperson responded "I'm so sorry, I keep telling them not to serve it to people, because it keeps getting sent back, but they insist it is ok. I'm so sorry".
Ouch.

Ooh, just remembered another good thing - there was always plenty of water, without us having to ask. I love that, it is such a simple thing to do, that costs nothing and makes a restaurant experience so much nicer.

When we received our bill, it was 'a bit of a surprise' (to be polite) to have been charged $8 corkage, when we had no choice but to bring our own, necessitating a half hour detour in our evening to find a central bottle shop. Hilariously though, this provided another opportunity for the waiting staff to apologise and distance themselves from management decisions. Doesn't seem like a lot of love is lost among the team here. While paying I also checked which dessert is the one to avoid - tiramisu apparently. With this additional advice: "I would only eat the sticky date pudding, because they buy that in from a supplier". Wow.

Black Salt (at Chifley Motel)

In a word? Patchy. Beyond patchy really, but I'm not sure what a good stronger word would be.

So, yes, we were obviously taking a risk choosing a restaurant in a motel for an evening meal, but in my defence, it has been recently renovated and looks very nice as I ride past on my way to work each day, it is on the waterfront, and frankly, we hadn't been there before and we had a discount voucher - do I need any more excuse than that?

Where: Black Salt Restaurant, Chifley Motel, 13-15 The Esplanade, Geelong
Meal: Dinner
Day: Wednesday
Drinks: Licensed

Our arrival was relatively smooth, and a very enthusiastic and somewhat flamboyant waiter showed us to our table and insisted that we have some mulled wine "before you have water"... also before we were allowed to have menus as it turned out, but it was a nice enough touch on a cold and drizzly June evening.

The menu was, frankly, overpriced for what we got, but interesting enough, and certainly a lot of interesting and winter-appropriate dishes on offer. The wine list was especially pricey (and especially for Geelong), which was a real disappointment. It also lacked variety and interest - well over half of the reds were Shiraz, for example.

Rack of lamb with baked polenta, baby beets, sautéed mushrooms and harissa was patchiness on a plate. The lamb was lovely quality and well cooked, the polenta fine, but could have been more seasoned. The mushrooms were a slimy disappointment, the beets little more than a garnish and the harissa? A spicy SLAP in the face. Totally out of character with the rest of the dish, it may have worked better cooked or blended with one of the other elements of the dish, but as it sat, cool in temperature and blasting in chilli heat, it was bizarre. A beef and Guinness pie was hearty and meaty, flavoursome and suitable for a winter's evening. The accompanying vegetables, however, were a bit sad - especially a couple of very unhappy looking potatoes. Really below standard for the prices (the lamb was $34, the pie $33).

The crowd I should have expected, but somehow didn't. Nearly all men, dining alone or in twos and threes, all dressed in jeans, collared checked shirts with a jumper over the top, and mostly wearing work boots. The joys of work travel eh? This crowd may have some answering to do for the high prices.
The service veered wildly from over-enthusiastic to slapstick incompetent via mediocre. A highlight of the night for me was overhearing a conversation when a waitress brought mulled wine to a lone male diner at a nearby table:
"What is it?"
"Mulled wine"
"But what is mulled wine"
"Um, I don't know really... Um, actually... do you know chai tea? It's like chai tea.. but it's wine..."

Brilliant. Should be an effective strategy for increasing interest and possible purchases of the winter specialty.

A little later confusion reigned as orders for two (or possibly three) tables' orders were confused, and the waiting staff returned up to three times to each table to reconfirm what had been ordered. By this stage we had finished our meals and sat with our dirty plates for an unreasonably long time while the staff tried to regain composure. One error as a result of the disarray, however, was a side order bowl of very nice green beans which arrived at our table uninvited and unexplained. Goodness only knows who missed out on their beans.

And the name? Black Salt? Well, yes, the eponymous item was on our table in a little dish and it tasted... salty? When we approached the counter to pay (a slightly odd system for a restaurant at this end of the price spectrum, but I guess most are booking up to their rooms?), we were given a lengthy explanation of the provenance and supposed advantages of the black salt. Sorry dear readers, the details now escape me. Especially odd to explain the salt after we had finished our meals and were on our way out.

Not for those with high blood pressure.

Lotus Living - (first review!)

I wasn't sure where to start for my first review - a big bang, fancy pants, special occasion restaurant? An old favourite? Somewhere brand new? So instead of letting the pressure of it all paralyse me forever, and since I have to start somewhere, I'll start with a Thursday lunch when I really needed to be out of the office and found myself at a restaurant that is also a day spa and also sells homewares.

Where: Lotus Living, 189 Moorabool Street, Geelong
Meal: Lunch
Day: Thursday
Drinks: Licensed

I ended up there (not that I need a reason) because I had walked past a few days earlier and the food looked fabulous, then, coincidentally, a colleague spontaneously recommended it. It's a bit of a strange set-up (with the day spa), but not unpleasant, although we were seated right in front of the door on an icy day.
Begin with the good? Ok. Firstly, the menu is great In fact, I am keen to go back to try out more items, the menu was a genuine step above average lunch stuff. I love a hot lunch, and there were lots of really nice options, ranging from pretty light to very hearty, with a good mix of veggie, healthy and gluten free thrown in to the mix.
The food we ordered lived up to expectations. A roasted vegetable tagine with quinoa met my need for something hearty enough to counter the hunger I had worked up after my luch date made me wait until nearly 2pm but also light and healthy enough to ensure I still felt weekday-virtuous. Tasty, hot, a bit different. I don't think we see quinoa on menus often enough here. I have been expecting it to take off for a couple of years, and it never seems to get there.
My lunch date, also hungry, but not feeling virtuous, ordered the steak sandwich. Big, well put together, accompanied by very nice fat chips (of which I obviously stole a few) and reportedly very tasty. He was, however, looking forward to eating with his hands - note it is only nominally an open sandwich - it's a steak and trimmings resting on one giant piece of bread. Also the bacon was burnt. Disappointing. 
The bad though, was service. Don't get me wrong, the staff were very nice (to our faces anyhow), pretty efficient, and seemed to be having a very fun time, but it is just never - never - good form to mock, criticise, or really, even talk about, your customers within earshot of other customers - and it happened repeatedly through our meal. I don't get it and it was really off-putting. Also a warning that the plate of my tagine was burning hot would also have been handy.
Can't report on drinks. My day at the office hadn't yet reached such a nadir as to warrant taking advantage of their liquor licence, and it turned out there was not time for coffee.
Oh yeah, and the prices were quite good I thought. Maybe a result of location?
I'll go back, but I'll be looking for a quieter table - and keeping my eye on the waiting staff when they turn their backs...

Welcome.. and I hope you're hungry

Do you ever find yourself sitting in a restaurant writing a review in your head before the coffee has even arrived? It happens to me all the time, and that's how I find myself here. Hello anonymous internet, it's lovely to meet you.

Things to know about me before we begin:
- I live in Geelong
- I adore food (it's a torrid affair)
- I love wine (but I'm no expert)
- I do not suffer fools or rudeness (I'm looking at you waiting staff)
- Spelling and punctuation errors make me crazy
- I appear to have come to the conclusion that there may be people out there interested in my opinions about eating, drinking and living as I do in Victoria's second city.
- The rest you will learn as we go on...

My plan with my little blog here is to do little more than provide myself with a forum to share my views - good, bad, indifferent and outraged - about restaurants, cafes, bars and pubs in Geelong from the perspective of a rapidly assimilating outsider. Read on if you are interested, bugger off if you're not, but I hope we become friends and that you have as many hints and tips for me about the places to be as I do for you.