April 11, 2013

• Bluestone Restaurant Bar review

   

  Yesterday- I was very lucky  to be invited by Miss L to accompany her to the Bluestone restaurant (349 Flinders Lane, Melbourne) as a guest of the restaurant. Now Miss L has a prominent food blog and pretty much highly ranked on Urbanspoon (I believe she’s ranked #17 in melbourne and #3 in Queensland)…

  The one thing I was impressed by this particular restaurant was that they KNEW what they were doing. Yes, they knew that Miss L would be blogging about them (and yes, she discloses this fact on her blog) so it’s obvious that they’d be trying their best to impress us to get a good review. But you know, there are some many incidents where I’ve experienced (not like this) but when someone is meant to be impressing you in some fashion and they f*ck it up all together. For example: in January of this year, I attended one of the crazy wedding expo’s and there was a cake stand.They had “samples” of the cakes that they made and one would think they the BEST produce would be on display for the “brides to be”, yet everyone that had the unfortunate experience who sampled one was so disgusted by what we had put into our mouth that we couldn’t spit it out quick enough. Logic tells you that either you show your best or you don’t bother at all.

   

  Now the restaurant is located on Flinders Lane, it’s actually between Elizabeth street and Queen Street but closer to the Queen street side. If you’re planning to eat there during the week and you’re driving, none of the parking that happens to be across the road (on Flinders lane) is open to late and close off at 7pm (yes I found this the hard way). The outside of the restaurant is really subtle, so if you’re driving and trying to look for it like me then the easiest way to find it- look for the Elly Lukas sign

  

   We were seated towards the back of the hotel and frankly I was impressed that they were going to shove us at the front (like so many restaurants) to have the perception that they’re busy. I don’t know why cafes and restaurants employ these silly tactics because passerbys can clearly see that it’s empty except for the two sad people on display eating their meals. Personally I wouldn’t be going in.

  The restaurant has this beautiful ambience about it. I loved their furniture because it had this rustic feel coupled with the “rock” like walls (I’m not sure if they were real or fake but they felt real… ) which made me feel like I was in a castle and about to be served a very grand meal… oh very romantic!!! and very different.

   

  

  The kingfish was really fresh and the avocado sorbet(with something else) was really FRESH and one of the best sorbets I’ve had in a long time!!!

  So we decided on an array of small entrees. The oyster’s were a range of oysters from different areas(3 areas) -I can only remember the Tasmanians ones… and not the rest -_-(see this is why I’m no good with food blogs). I didn’t like the middle ones which had this funny weird after taste. I wish I paid more attention to what they were so that I know in future NOT to order them.

  The scallops had this wonderful baked thingy on top of it- kinda reminded me of the baked oyster thing that they have at yum cha that’s completely encrusted with cheese but this wasn’t overpowering. The sauce was just enough. The only thing that I found a bit awkward about this dish was the greens, only because it was difficult to pick them up with our forks- times like this I wish I had access to some chopsticks.

  

  Miss L got the barramundi and carmalised corn (which turned out to be popcorn) and her dish was 150% much better than my boring steak. I wished I had ordered the fish. It was cooked very nicely and the popcorn was really nice.

  I’m boring so I ordered the porterhouse steak. I ordered a medium and I got a medium. My only complaint was that the beetroot relish was extremely sour. It didn’t compliment the steak like it should. We got to speak to the chef and his take on it was that Aussie’s love their picked relish (or something like that)… but NOT that sour!!! and there’s nothing wrong with a sweet relish. Not sure why, but I’ve always associated beetroot to be “sweet”, yes I eat too many canned beetroot -_-

   

  

  Miss L had the poached pears whilst I had the crumble. I think it just wasn’t my night because my crumble was very sour (i dont mind sour foods) BUT the great thing was that the ice-cream balanced the dish out so you had this mix of sweet and sour in your mouth and it was just devine. The bad thing was when there was no ice-cream left, you couldn’t eat anymore unless you wanted to age into an old person from the sourness. The chef later explained that the heat from the crumble should have made the ice cream melt and that it was supposed to mix in with the entire dish to even it out. That wasn’t explained to us at the time but personally i dont think there was enough icecream to be able to balance out the entire dish.

  I didn’t try any of the poached pears but Miss L said it was good.. or maybe it was okay,

   

  And so the verdict?

  Obviously they knew we were there to cirtique them so they ensured everything that they did was extremely good- I appreciated that. I found the experience to be almost surreal because hey- I’ve never had any company come to me and say “would you be able to review our product/service”. (and personally i prefer that i dont because the pressure would be too crazy on me)

  Anyway, with what we experienced and served up. I’d definitely give this place another go  to compare if the service and quality of food is the same but seems under the guidance of their current chef who’s been there for the last 1.5 years, based on what I ate, they’re on track to do pretty well.

   

  I found it interesting that with the quality of food that came out of their kitchen that the place wasn’t more packed like a lot of other eateries around town. There were only 2 tables (us and a table of 8). The entire time that we were there, nobody else had entered the venue. And frankly from what I could see from the other table, their dishes looked pretty good too and I didn’t hear any complaints from them.

  It’s actually disappointing and somewhat disheartening to see them as empty like that- but whilst Melbournians haven’t realized that Bluestone is actually a gem, it’s best I get in before it becomes  the old new “it” place again and then it becomes impossible to get a table.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

  • 10:09 pm
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