Oyster Bar & Grill

April 23, 2019 by Helen Le

We were at Crown for a few nights over the Easter break and decided to check out Oyster Bar & Grill, a more casual yet sophisticated dining area located in a corner area of The Atlantic. The main reason for this visit of course was for the $2 oysters! Yes, you heard! Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday they do $2 oysters until sold out. When we caught wind of this, we knew we had to be there. It reminded of us when we were in New York and downing $1 USD oysters during happy hour. Ahh memories…

Anyway, we ended up going back there TWICE during our stay because the oysters were THAT good! They were so fresh and delicious. They weren’t too big and came with a lovely shallot vinaigrette which I of course drowned the oysters in because I can’t get enough of it. Davin probably ate half a dozen and I had about a dozen to myself because I love oysters that much.

We also ordered a crab toast which consisted of hand picked spanner crab and avocado cream. It was delicious and again the crab was super fresh.

As a main we ordered the King Prawn Spaghetti to share, the dish was cooked to perfection. The pasta was al dente, the prawns were fresh and the sauce was well flavoured with chilli, garlic, lemon and parsley.

Overall, the food was of very high quality. The restaurant itself had a great ambience with a classy feel to it and the staff were very friendly and efficient. The only thing I’ll note is that there was a bit of confusion at the end when we paid our bill. Firstly, our Crown membership card didn’t seem to work so the guy that took our payment told us we needed to take our bill to the Crown Rewards front desk so that they could add the reward points onto our card. He also told us that we couldn’t obtain free parking because The Atlantic was not a Crown restaurant (we were advised that if you dined and spent $50 or more at a Crown restaurant that you get free parking). That was fine for us.

So we took our bill to the Crowns Reward desk and they told us that the restaurant should have provided us with a manual adjustment form so that they could add the points onto our card and that we SHOULD have got free parking for dining there. They were kind enough to add the free parking to our card but we had to walk back to the restaurant to ask for the manual adjustment form to get our points. We ended up speaking to someone else at the restaurant who dealt with it for us. We saw him talk to the original guy we spoke to who seemed to shake his head like he didn’t even remember us. Oh well, other than that it was a great dining experience.

Oyster Bar & Grill
Approx $65 AUD per person
Address: 8 Whiteman St, Southbank VIC 3006
Phone: +61 3 9698 8888
Website: http://theatlantic.com.au/eat/oyster-bar-grill

Budapest Restaurant and Palinka Bar

March 31, 2019 by Helen Le

We recently went to a Hungarian restaurant in Elsternwick called Budapest Restaurant and Palinka Bar with Bearabbit and co. We had never tried Hungarian cuisine prior to this so it was a first for us which got us very excited!

To ensure we experienced the best of their dishes, we decided to order the Budapest Banquet which consisted of three courses. At $42 per head, it did not sound like a bad idea at all!

Before the food arrived, we ordered one of their Palinka Sampler Flights. We learnt that Palinka is the protected Hungarian name for pure fruit spirits. We ended up ordering the Palinka Premium Honey Selection which consisted of 3 x 15ml shots of honey infused Palinka. It sure warmed us up!

We started the first course with Grandma’s Homestyle Chicken Soup and Chopped Liver with Pickled Onion and Farmers Rye. The chicken soup was so good and it really felt like we were eating grandma’s soup because it gave us such a warm and homey feeling. Davin loved it so much and slurped it all up in a flash! The chopped liver was like a lovely chunky pate and was really flavoured. I generously lathered my bread slices with it!

The second course was huge and included the Hungarian Goulash with Nokedii Dumplings, Chicken Schnitzel on Peasant Potatoes, Cevapici Balkan Sausages with braised red cabbage, and Crumbed Mushrooms stuffed with Dilled Goat’s Cheese and Csiki Sauce. Oh. My. Gosh. What a feast it was! Everything was so scoffable and flavoured really well. The goulash was delicious and the chicken schnitzel was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

The peasant potatoes were amazing! Now I am a big fan of all things potato and I don’t want to toot my horn but I think I make a pretty good mashed potato. These mashed potatoes were exceptional, so flavoured with the addition of herbs mashed throughout. I could not stop eating it!

The sausages were super flavoured and also went well with the mash. We also loved the stuffed crumbed mushrooms. I like all things cheese but this goat cheese with dill was a match made in heaven.

The third and final course was the strudel of the day which they are well known for and did not disappoint. The pastry was lovely and crumbly, and overall it was not too sweet.

As you can tell, we thoroughly enjoyed the food and nothing really disappointed us! We will definitely be back when we’re in the mood for some Hungarian!

Budapest Restaurant and Palinka Bar
Approx $50 AUD per person
Address: 273 Glen Huntly Rd, Elsternwick VIC 3185
Phone: +61 3 9530 0859
Website: budapest.com.au

Desserts by Night

March 10, 2019 by Helen Le

If you’re a dessert fan and ever in Springvale one day then it’s worth checking out Desserts by Night to satisfy your sweet tooths! Davin and I were in the area for dinner with Hello.imnikki and partner when we decided to check out this newish place to see what it was all about. We learnt that it also had a sister branches at other locations.

As we were walking towards the place, from across the road we weren’t actually sure if it was open or not. They had garage like roller shutters that were a quarter down and we couldn’t see any lights on. However when we got closer we realised that they were open. Yay! The cafe itself was very large and spacious with plenty of chairs and tables.

Being really full still from dinner, we decided to order a few desserts to share. The pear shaped dessert was called The Helen which Hello.imnikki ordered. Of course I couldn’t resist trying it given it was my name! It was shaped just like a pear so delicately placed on a bed of chocolate. We cracked the outer layer of white chocolate to find lovely chunks of pear and cream inside. It was probably more on the sweet side for me but a nice and pretty dessert nonetheless.

The Mango Pudding was my type of dessert. Firstly because I love all things mango, but also because it was a light and not too sweet type of dessert. It had fresh mango, mango coulis, lychee foam, condensed milk, vanilla crumble, tuile biscuit and mango sorbet. A dream dessert for a mango lover and all the components went perfectly together.

Finally we also tried their special which was the Pinata. Now if we weren’t already impressed with the presentation of the desserts so far, then this really wowed us. The dish came out on this wooden contraption where a white chocolate sphere dangled above the rest of the dish. The idea is to crack it open with your spoon, releasing flakes of goodies over the dessert. On the main dish was a coconut cheesecake, with berries and pineapple and passionfruit sorbet. It was a really refreshing dish!

We were overall certainly impressed with all the desserts they had to offer, particularly the flavours and the beautiful presentation of their dishes. A place we will definitely think of again after dinner one night!

Desserts by Night
Approx $20 AUD per person
Address: 317 Springvale Rd, Springvale VIC 3171
Phone: +61 3 9540 3453