Windsor Archives - One Piece Left

We would like to extend a warm thank you to Tipico for inviting us to dine at their restaurant. Tipico is a modern Italian eatery located in Windsor. It’s really nice to see these new style Italian restaurants popping up around Melbourne, as Helen and I have always loved the twist they put on certain Italian dishes. Does Tipico hit the mark? Unfortunately not. Even though we’ve been blogging for a while, it does not get any easier to give criticism to any restaurant. The reason for this is because we classify ourselves as food lovers, and not food critics. I think I’ve set the tone for what is to follow, so please read on for my thoughts on Tipico.

It was not a good start for us for the night. There was a mix up between them and their marketing company, so we arrived without a booking. They finally managed to find some seats for us, so we sat down awkwardly. The feeling was kinda like rocking up to a party which you’re not invited to. Anyway, put all that aside, the place was buzzing and the vibe was cool so we were excited. There were exposed concrete walls, and a huge bar area, a great formula for a place to hang out for some drinks. We were seated along the window and my back was facing the bar area. I will mention that it was a bit weird to have people towering over me behind my back as I was eating though.

So onto the food… we started with the chicken liver pate with polenta bread, and the kingfish with orange dressing. I tried the pate by itself, it had good flavour but was a tad runny. The polenta bread on the other hand was not very pleasant at all. It crumbled like a shortbread and was a horrible match for the pate. It made it hard to taste the pate when my mouth was full of crumbs! Regular bread would have been a way better choice for this dish.

The kingfish with orange dressing may as well have been renamed to ‘kingfish with orange zest’ because that was all I could taste. The zest was really strong and fully overpowered the kingfish, which was such a shame because the kingfish looked to be good quality. This dish could be benefited with a touch of sourness in the dressing to make it appetizing. It should also be noted that for $22, the portion size for this kingfish dish ranks as the smallest out of all the ones I’ve ever had.

For mains I got the Tagliolini spanner crab pasta and Helen got a Prosciutto pizza. My pasta sauce tasted clean with good seafood flavours, however it was lacking the punch I was looking for in a pasta sauce and tasted a little watered down. I was searching everywhere in the pasta for some spanner crab, and it must be either really mixed in, not much of it or a combination because I struggled to find any. Please see pic – if any of you can spot the crab, let me know! It would have been nice to get some bits of crab to provide a contrast in texture. Helen’s pizza was pretty good. It was cooked well, had a great base, and the Prosciutto they used was beautiful! It only there was more of it, we barely got 6 pieces of it, there was still so much real estate to be used. We’re not looking for it to be packed like an American pizza, but for $25, a bit more Prosciutto would be appreciated. The buffalo mozzarella didn’t have any texture and just disintegrated in my mouth, it was also lacking the milky taste found in good buffalo mozzarella.

I won’t go too in depth with the pannacotta dessert, as it was just dense and just tasted like sweet almond flakes.

So in summary, was the meal awful? Honestly it wasn’t. The food was just very ordinary, and failed to shine or make an impact. I can’t help but think that for the price, the portions could be better, and I couldn’t help but notice they were skimping on the ingredients a bit. Consumers don’t mind spending a bit more money when they eat out, but with prices such as $34 for the pasta and $25 for the pizza, let’s see the spanner crab and let’s put a few more pieces of prosciutto on the pizza! These are the differences between a reasonably priced as opposed to overpriced. As it stands, we don’t foresee us returning to Tipico, but we do hope that Tipico takes some of my opinions on board and improve further. We wish nothing but the best for Tipico.

Tipico
Approx $50 AUD per person
Address: 242 High St, Windsor VIC 3181
Phone: +61 3 9089 0768
Website: tipico.melbourne

Ton & Co has only been open for a few months but they have already made a huge impact for us since we’ve discovered it so we had to tell you all about it!

Located on High St in Windsor, Ton & Co is a Japanese restaurant with a focus on pork dishes. Yes, you did hear right. PORK dishes. The uniqueness of this concept piqued our interest straight away so we had to check it out. The menu consists of a range of different pork dishes which include pork striploin, pork tenderloin, pork ribeye steak, pork ribs, pork belly, you name it! There are no beef dishes here and there was only one fish dish. So if you are going to visit this restaurant then make sure you are here because you want to eat pork and don’t expect anything else! The restaurant itself has a very spacious and modern feel with wooden tables and industrial chairs. I also noted it was kept very clean and pristine. We were welcomed warmly into the restaurant on this particular evening and efficiently provided with the menus.

We started off with some hot sake and small dishes. We ordered the ox tongue skewers and chicken thigh skewers. Both of the meat skewer dishes were flavoured to perfection and the meat was so soft. However I have to highlight how particularly ultra soft and delicious the ox tongue skewers were. They were the best ox tongue skewers we’ve ever had! Big call, I know but I have to state the facts. Thinking about that dish while I write this makes me want a serving of it right now.

For the mains, I decided to order their Signature Pork Ribeye Steak which was 400g of bone-on cured and aged pork ribeye, onion relish, sake beurre blanc and mustard. Verdict? It was the best pork steak I have ever had! I know I just made that call with the ox tongue and so it sounds crazy but I swear, it was SO good! I really don’t know how I’m ever going to have pork like that anywhere else after I’ve experienced it here. It was flavoured so well and cooked through, yet still so tender and juicy. Every bite of it with some of the onion relish and mustard was heaven. I didn’t want it to end. Sigh.

Davin ordered the only fish dish which was the poached salmon. This came with a honey miso glaze, seaweed crust, shiitake mushroom broth and sake steamed leeks. He also got a bowl of rice to go with it. The salmon was poached oh so perfectly! It’s so important to not overcook salmon and they have certainly mastered it. The seaweed crust gave each bite a lovely crunch, and the shiitake mushroom broth that went with it was so flavoured and lovely, you could just drink it on its own. It was one killer dish!

We also ordered a the Japanese potato salad to share which was really good.

So at this stage, we were really happy and thinking to ourselves that they have pretty much hit the mark on every dish they have served us. There’s only one more dish to go and that was dessert. Can they also maintain the quality? Um, yes they can! How could we ever doubt them?

We settled on sharing the Matcha cheese cake with Hojicha ice cream. It was presented beautifully and had good strong matcha flavours, yet you can still taste that it was a cheesecake. Combined with the ice cream, it was a great dish and we scoffed it up pretty quickly.

We finished up our meal very content and amazed at how good the food was at Ton & Co. Not only was the food fantastic but the service was also top notch. Staff were very friendly and efficient, and were more than happy to have a chat and see what we thought of the food. Will we be back? Hell yes! This restaurant is doing something different by shining the spotlight on pork which seems to be such an underrated dish here. We highly recommend if you are interested in trying out their spectacular dishes, particularly if you are keen for pork. It was an amazing experience.