Max's Café & Wine Bar

Max’s Cafe always seem to be busy. On the night we visited there were several large groups and as we sat in a small room off the main dining area, we were worried we would be forgotten by staff. Happily, we were not.

ET ordered a steak and was told that the T bone was not available but if he ordered a porterhouse they could prepare it the same way. ET seems to keep having back luck with steak, as although he ordered medium-rare, it arrived closer to medium. Nor was he impressed by the onion rings it arrived with and how it was all plated.

Me, on the other hand, ordered the barramundi. I found it a tad dry and lacking in flavour. I’m not sure if I was meant to use the oil from the accompanying stir fry vegetables as the sauce, because it had way too much oil on it for my liking. I was also unimpressed with how some of the carrots were cut in pieces and others in thin slices. I’m not sure whether my pickiness was because I had just watched Masterchef right before dinner or not.

Nevertheless, although this place had a nice enough décor and staff, the next time we come back will probably be just for coffee and the nice looking cakes which we decided to skip on this time around.

Max's Café & Wine Bar

1-5 Leake Street, Essendon

Tokyo Sake Japanese Restaurant

ET & I think this place was named incorrectly because they do not seem to be fully licenced and therefore you cannot order any Sake...or any alcohol for that matter.  :(

Staff was at first too keen to take our order but then we couldn't catch anyone's eye when we finally read through the menu.  We ordered entree which arrived pretty quickly.  Unfortunately the miso soup arrived cold.  Perhaps this is a new way to serve it but ET was not impressed.

After they cleared our plates, they came back to double check ET's order for main.  Then we had a relatively long wait for the mains to arrive.  The server did offer to give us our drinks for free.  Which was not passed on because we were still charged for them.

As the restaurant has only been open for a few weeks, they still seem to having some teething problems.  We overheard several tables have their orders confirmed after ordering.  Perhaps there's a language barrier because at times they seem to have as much trouble understanding us as we had understanding them.  (This is by no means racist as there were at least 4 different nationalities in play here).

Anyway, the food was all nicely presented.  ET was very happy with his main; he thought it delicious.   My bento box was quite large and considering we already shared 2 entrees, I surprisingly managed to finish most of it.  Thank goodness for the delay between entrees and mains!  But by far the best thing about this place was their crockery.  It was all so pretty that even ET expressed how nice the tea cup and side plate was.

P.S. Apologies for having no photos on this post.  I had no memory left on my camera AND I also forgot to charge my battery!  Such a pity too - I was ruing not being able to take photos as they served us the nicely presented food on the pretty crockery :(


Tokyo Sake Japanese Restaurant
174 Warrandyte Rd, Ringwood North 

Sassy's Cafe Bar

The cafe being inside the shopping centre seemed to keep it busy with a turnover of customers.  So much so that we were kept waiting for someone to take out order.  Luckily the waiter caught our eye to let us know he would be with us when he could.

I ordered the scrambled eggs with toast; the extra thick cut of casalinga bread was a nice change to the usual sourdough that seems to be proliferating all Melbourne cafes at the moment.  Although by the time I finished eating, there was still at least a full egg's worth of scrambled eggs left on my plate.  Having just recently woken up, I probably would've ordered another slice of bread if I was awake enough to feel hungry.

ET ordered from the specials board - scrambled eggs with salmon & chives.  Plus he requested a sausage as well.  I didn't initially realise why, when served his meal, he looked up at me and back down on to his plate.  As previously mentioned, I was half asleep so he had to ask me "Does that look like salmon to you?"...

Hmmm....Unless I was still asleep or that salmon is actually brown and fried in strips, I'm pretty sure that was bacon on his plate. And where the hell was the chives???!

Sassy's Cafe Bar

286-292 Whitehorse Rd, Nunawading

Bucatini Restaurant and Bar

Yet another busy restaurant in the suburbs Bucatini is attached to a pizza takeaway so ET was a bit reluctant to order a pizza.  Not being able to recall seeing a particular pizza on the takeaway menu, ET was not disappointed with his choice.  He thought it was delicious!

I went for the Atlantic salmon special.  I was worried about the mention of onions and capsicums.  However, I was able to pick out the onions and was surprised how sweet and soft the capsicum was, so it was only the onions that was left on my plate.

Being a fan of capers, I was disappointed to count only 2 on top of my salmon.  And I'm not sure if I was just real hungry or it was a small serving, but not only did I polish off my meal but ET (surprisingly not being able to finish his meal before me for the first time ever), gave me a slice of his pizza which I also managed to polish off!  After picking out the capsicums and onions first, of course. ;)

Staff seems to always be good here.  I'm just not sure it's a good idea to announce specials after you've already read thru the menu and decided on a meal.  As the wait staff said, "Just to confuse you even more"...

Bucatini Restaurant and Bar

454 Whitehorse Rd, Mitcham

7/10 Update - Embarrassingly this restaurant's name was originally misspelt on this post.  Woops!  All fixed now though. :s

Joe's Garage

On the way to see a Michael Chamberlin we wanted something reliable and quick. Having chosen a table by the bar, rather than the dining area of Joe's Garage seemed to put us at a disadvantage.  I tried to catch the eye of one of the three waitresses by the bar, to no avail.  Being on a time constraint, Et finally walked up to the bar and returned with a waiter.

Thankfully drinks were quickly served.  Soon the somewhat anaemic looking garlic bread was put down in front of us sans side plate.  Weird.  We tucked in regardless and were surprisingly served our meals while still chewing on our first slice of garlic bread.

Carbonara ordered by ET was fine but he had to pick out some of the bacon as he felt there was way too much in it.  He said it felt like they were just using up all their bacon so they would not have any left overs.

I felt the same way with the shoe string fries they served as part of my fish and chips.  Even with ET's help we couldn't eat all of it!

 Having been initially ignored by the staff, we were then approached several times after ordering.  We even got a comment of "You're just enjoying the wine" when ET said he didn't want to order another glass of red.  Hmmm....

 

Joe's Garage

366 Brunswick St, Fitzroy