A week of dining out

"Everything tastes better when it's eaten together."

This is the last and in some ways the best, of four meals I ate away from home last week. Here is my glorious family in the home of my younger son - the one at back right - eating one of his pasta meals. Many of them are pulling silly faces, as family and friends often do in group photos such as this one, but you get the picture - adults at one end and loving cousins at the other.

I guess you could say that it was not haute cuisine, but it was great food eaten in the company of the people who mean the most to me - proving that anonymous adage at the top of the page.

What did we eat? Well my vegetarian daughter - the one on the right - made us some toasties from Baker's Delight - where she works - Turkish bread rolls, stuffed with pesto, cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. And it was so delicious. I think there might have been some chilli in there as well. Proving that anyone can make something that if it had been served in a posh restaurant, in a professionally plated way would have cost a fortune and evinced oohs and aahs of delight. Pesto from a jar, sun-dried tomatoes from a jar, mozzarella from the supermarket and bread from a mass market baker - if you have a sandwich press anyone can do this - and even if you haven't you could fry them or grill them in the oven.

Second course - a selection of three pastas prepared by my son - Napoli - for the vegetarian daughter - and everyone else as well - carbonara and the family favourite of meatballs in tomato sauce. Dessert - apple and pear crumble. Now how simple and magnificent can you get? Apple crumble and variations thereof, to my mind, is one of the great dishes of the world. But really it was the company that made it all so special and a very fitting end to a week of dining out.

You may have gathered that I do not eat out very often at all. So last week was a complete outlier - hence my having to fast twice this week! It was also interesting in that each venue was different in some way, and each one represented very different kinds of dining.

Number one - the Veneto Club - a Melbourne institution out in the suburbs not too far from us. A symbol of the Italian diaspora. The visit was arranged by one of our Italian class, whose family were one of those that helped build the club - a massive concrete based building, reminiscent, now that I think about it, of the Student's Union building at my university and the Festival Hall and associated buildings in London. I believe they call it brutalist style. It was built by Italians from the Veneto/Treviso region in the north-east of Italy, many of whom became very successful businessmen - movers and shakers in Melbourne. Of course jokes have been made of it being Mafia headquarters, although I think that the Mafia is rather more a southern thing. It is massive - with a substantial sports centre, meeting rooms, a bistro/bar and, of course the inevitable pokies. They also used to have extensive sports grounds next to the building, but when the massive Eastlink roadworks were planned, they exchanged that land for some more near the river a short distance away, where they have built a new FIFA level soccer field and stadium. Suffice to say it's important enough to now have its own set of traffic islands to guide you through the Eastlink chaos.

Enough of the Veneto itself. What of the reality of the venue and of the food?

Well this is the venue as viewed from our table - in many ways like the dining area of an Australian pub. It also has the same system as a pub in that you are given a menu, you select what you want, and you give your order to the waitress. But you pay individually at the cash register as you exit, which is very convenient for a group such as ours. The wine was also purchased at the bar. That blue thing next to the bar is an ice-cream display. Alas we did not indulge in ice-cream. Well it was a cold and miserable day.

Another thing that was so Melbourne - well so Australia I suppose - was the ethnic mix of our group - me - an English immigrant, two children of Italian immigrants, one child of Ukrainian immigrants, one Polish immigrant, educated in Paris, and one Chinese Malaysian immigrant married to an Italian. I am not being at all racist here - rather celebrating the vibrant mix that makes up Australia's population today. Which made for a truly interesting conversation discussing our backgrounds. These are people I do not know very well, and the setting was perfect for such an exchange of views and information.

The food? I took a few photographs but not of all the dishes. Suffice to say it was delicious and pretty authentic. Below three of the dishes - Mine - a prawn risotto with saffron, a ragù with polenta - they eat a lot of polenta in that region and a Veal saltimbocca with roasted vegetables - a dish I almost ordered myself.

It used to be that you had to be a member (and Italian) to go to the Veneto, but now all are welcome. We did not eat other courses, although we drank a few glasses of wine, and were allowed to sit for literally hours. The tables were well spaced, the service was great. The servings were generous and the prices were reasonable. Highly recommended for a meal out with friends or family.

Number two - Augello's in Balwyn after a visit to the cinema with my local book group friends. Our book group is dwindling in numbers and so this month because we had no book to discuss we decided to go and see a film at our nearest art-house cinema in Balwyn - a suburb a bit south of here. The film we chose was The Musicians - a French film about a group of random musicians coming together to perform a new work with just a week's rehearsal. Predictable in a lot of ways I suppose, but the French do these things so well. I think I liked it a touch more than my companions, but then I'm an ardent Francophile.

Augello's just across the road is an extremely apposite example of the probably thousands of Italian restaurants scattered across our city. Probably Italian owned, but Asian staffed - with the waitress, when summoned to take our order by one of the more impatient amongst us, apologising and telling us that the chef was in a bad mood and wanted the orders spaced out! I gather it is very well-known for its pizza and two of our company shared one of these.

Alas on this occasion I failed to take any photographs at all - the one above is from the web - as is this one of a Pasta alla zingara, which is what I chose to eat. I dithered over the prawn and crab pasta but since I had recently had prawns I plumped for the zingara - which I had with fettucine - as I had never eaten this dish. As you can see it features, black olives, capers, tomatoes and I think anchovies and chilli, although I'm not sure about that. The picture is from the net, but having just checked I see that there are two kinds of zingara - this was the Southern version and should have included tuna but didn't. Not that I'm complaining. Well in a way you can't go wrong with Italian can you?

The company? I know most of these people very well as they are neighbours we have known for years. And so the conversation here was more gossipy as well as exchanging views on home life and what was going on in Eltham. A completely different kind of meeting of minds, in no way less pleasurable, but different.

And the third? Fine dining with one of Melbourne's finest chefs Philippe Mouchel at his eponymous restaurant Philippe in the basement of a building in a tiny lane off Collins Street. Here is the man himself with his Maître d' whom I would say has been with him for many years. I have just realised that I have confused his personal history with one of Melbourne's other top three French chefs - Jacques Reymond - who came to Melbourne to be chef in the late Mietta O'Donnell's prestige restaurants back in the 70s. Philippe Mouchel is a later import - from Normandy - brought in to open Paul Bocuse's restaurant in Melbourne in the 90s. He has worked in many other prestigious fine diners in Melbourne and now has his own place. The third Frenchman? Guillaume Brahimi who has his place on the river near the Casino.

And here is an interesting fact that really has nothing to do with anything - the Paul Bocuse restaurant had no windows - I vaguely remember it as being very plushly decorated - heavy velvet hangings I seem to remember, and here is Philippe in a basement with no windows. It is a rather lovely space however, somehow French with a row of copper pans lined up above the front kitchen. Linen on the tables, immaculate waiting staff - our waiter, seen below, was French - a warm but elegant atmosphere, with an oyster bar to the left below the entrance and a large display of oysters on ice at the end. And it was busy - as you can see - we arrived early - hence those empty tables in the first photo - eventually the place was full. Well perhaps this was because it was Friday.

Why was I here? Well it was supposed to be a long delayed birthday gift from my two daughters-in-law - organised by the lovely Dionne - hence the cute little pastry with a candle and a birthday wish. However, she had had a birthday a few days after mine, and Nic's birthday back in March had never been properly acknowledged and so over the meal we finally agreed to just split the bill three ways - which was easy to do because the total for three three course meals with a glass of wine and a pre-dinner drink came to $133. To my mind, from a comfortably off perspective, a bargain. Plus it was a really special occasion - I rarely eat at fine dining establishments - and so I - at least - because I can - tell myself 'to hell with the expense, just enjoy it.'

It was a bargain for such fine dining because we went with the 'special' lunch - the variations were with or without a glass of wine and two or three courses. We could have chosen from the A la carte menu as well but actually I thought the choice was more to my taste - on that occasion anyway - on the 'special' lunch menu.

So what did we have? For our first course, Nic and I chose the Witlof salad - fresh curd, celery, pistachio and pear, which looked so beautiful on the plate. And witlof - chicory as we British call it - such a mild, but slightly bitter taste and so rare, perfectly matched with the curds and sort of sauce made with the celery and pistachios - and looking absolutely beautiful. I think the spiky looking bits were a kind of rocket. Dionne chose the terrine and pickles, because to her mind - and she is a great cook - she loves terrine and it's difficult to make. It's not - but somehow we think it is. A topic for another time perhaps.

For the mains - there was a special of the day, not on the menu so I cannot remember the details now, but it's what I chose - a rolled belly of pork on some kind of cabbagey base, and some kind of mildly spicy stuffing in the middle, with a massive roasted shallot on top and some kind of delicious jus. The crackling on the outside of the pork was divine. It is so long since I have had roast pork with crackling and I have never been able to do it properly. Dionne went for the Braised beef cheek 'Bourguignon' with Parisian mash and Nic went for - in layman's terms - steak and chips - pepper steak. And when you have steak in a fine diner it's something else. All generous portions and all so delicious. I'm guessing that if we had ordered A la carte we could have also ordered a side of a salad or something, but really we did not need it.

And for dessert? Well it's always the icing on the cake isn't it? Crème brulée for me with vanilla from Papua New Guinea - which is interesting; a slice - a generous slice - of Roquefort cheese for Dionne and - probably the best of the three - we all had a taste and it was divine - NIc's Chocolate mousse. Generous servings again.

It was all so good. We were not rushed at all - superb is all I can say really and I would go there again in an instant. I suppose you could say that the offerings were not adventurous, but this is a classic French restaurant and so you get the classics. There was also a pumpkin soup for an entrée; a confit duck and a tarragon chicken as a main and Œufs à la neige and two other cheeses to choose from for dessert.

But of course the whole thing was made even more special by the company, by two very wonderful daughters-in-law. Thank you both of you for making it possible. And so the talk was family, the grandchildren, future holidays and so on. What do men talk about when they are together away from their wives I wonder?

Melbourne has such a wonderful choice of places to eat. We could equally easily have eaten in any of the places serving food from all over the world with each one represented from street kind of food in shopping malls, to fine diners such as Philippe's. If this was France this one would have had Michelin stars, and the others probably a Bib Gourmand award. Such an interesting week with such an appropriate happy ending with the family gathering.

But I do need to fast twice this week. I've grown by almost half a kilo.

POSTSCRIPT

I promised a report on yesterday's dinner - what was in my fridge and what I did with it. Well here it is - Chicken with grapes and zucchini if you like. As I expected it was Ok but not amazing. A brief summary - chumks of chicken breast briefly fried to seal and then set aside whilst I fried a mix of red onion, parsley stalks, grated zucchini and a tiny piece of leek. When softened the grapes - red ones were added and tossed around with the replaced chicken, and chopped potatoes. I had made a paste with some of the parsley stalks, garlic, olive oil , a teaspoon of paprika and half a roasted and peeled red capsicum. This was also tossed around with the mix in the pan. Liquid - some red wine, some pickled peach liquid, and some cream added and stirred. Then all was cooked in the oven with the lid on. Before serving a large handful of chopped parsley was stirred in.

I think the potatoes would have been better served separately - as a mash or simply boiled and it maybe needed a dash of lemon to give it an extra zing. I think it might also have been better with the Cinzano I mentioned yesterday rather than the red wine, then the cream would not have been so overwhelmed. It was fun to make though and probably better than some things I've done. Ripe for improvement however.

YEARS GONE BY

July 16

2025 - Rather wonderful but mostly unseen

2024 - Decluttering recipe folders

2023 - Nothing

2022 - When you need special equipment - cannoli

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Spring greens

2018 - Pecorino wine goes well with pecorino cheese

2017 - On holiday

2016 - Purple food