Baroque Bistro

Just as I feel that I have recovered from my oh so marvellous weekend in Melbourne, I am off to have lunch with my friend AK at the Baroque Bistro at The Rocks.

I haven't been here before so I was looking forward to dining here. Baroque Bistro is very well known for it's macarons, especially since macarons became a hot trend a couple of years ago. It is a lovely French bistro and being located in the historic Rocks is a plus!!

Imagine walking into a restaurant and the first thing you see is the open kitchen and rows and rows of macarons and gorgeous looking desserts! Well, that was what greeted me when I walked through the doors! It set a good feeling which carried through the course of our meal.

I really liked the decor, there is a massive wall to wall retro mirror at the far end of the bistro and copper pots hanging high up at one of the archways. I could see the Harbour Bridge if I peeked out the window nearest to where I was sitting. Lovely!

We ended up having a 3 course meal and for entree, I chose the rabbit and chicken terrine, spring vegetables, verjuice and fennel pollen. AK chose the Boudin of scallops, mussels, leeks, asparagus and mussel emulsion.

Boudin of scallops, mussels and mussel emulsion

Rabbit and chicken terrine

Seven Seeds (Melbourne)

Okay, this is one of my last blog post on my recent trip to Melbourne. There was so much to do, so many places to check out , and so many friends to catch up with that I ended up posting 5 posts on focus venues (including this). I plan to do an overview of my trip sometime in the near future but it will take me a while to catch up on my backlog.

On my recent trip, I was on the lookout for a good breakfast place to check out while in Melbourne. On the recommendation of a well known blogger (Jeroxie), I visited Seven Seeds at Carlton. This was on my last morning before heading home to Sydney.

Walking down Berkeley Street, I couldn't for the life of me work out how there could be a cafe here. It was a quiet street, with quite a bit of construction work going on and no visible signs of cafe life. And when I saw the Seven Seeds sign, I couldn't even tell if it was open. But I peeked through the windows and saw signs of life in there!! Yay!! I pushed through the large wooden door and literally stepped into this loft like warehouse cafe. I loved the ambience..there were bicycles set to one side and there was even one hanging on the wall rack.

There was a large communal table and other small sets of tables. There were so many people ordering take away coffees and a few having a sit in meal. After all, it is about 8.30 on a Monday morning so I expected to see a lot of take aways due to the start of a work day.

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

Another tick on my 'to do' list while in Melbourne! I finally get to visit Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio. Walking into the store, I felt like I was in Dessert Wonderland. The staff were so friendly, attentive and happy to wait for the people milling around to make a decision on their selection.

There were trays of new cakes and chocolate creations to sample, what a great idea!! Not ready to be on sale but definitely a very attractive offering to the public who walk in and are surrounded by glorious, beautiful and utterly visually appealing desserts.

There is so much to take in when I walked into the patisserie. It took me a while to have a real good look at everything on display and the staff were so gracious and said I could take as many photos as I wanted. How nice, and I did appreciate it.

Da Noi and Sardinia GS Group Reunion

So here's a little background on the main reason I am in Melbourne this weekend. After our fantastic trip to Sardinia and Corsica in June this year, the GS group decided to meet up for a reunion. Well, the time has finally come and we all made it, all but one person. Pretty good I think for all of us who lead such busy lives.

Our reunion meet up was to have dinner at our friend Pietro Porcu's Melbourne restaurant Da Noi, located in South Yarra. I have been looking forward to this reunion as there were so many nice people I had met on that trip that I wanted to reconnect with.

Well, I wasn't disappointed. Deja vu hit me big time as more and more of us came into a specially booked room that Pietro was kind enough to set aside for us. It was located at the rear of the restaurant with it's own spit fire. As I walked in I could see a suckling pig slowly being roasted over the open fire. Wow, what a visual greeting!

The open fire also served to keep the room all warm and toasty; it being a relatively cool evening in Melbourne. I was lucky enough to be given permission to check out the kitchen, the very heart of any restaurant. It was small but occupied by a team of enthusiastic and friendly chefs and apprentices.

PM24

Wow! This is my second meal today on my first day in Melbourne, after a 1 year absence, and I must say I am suitably impressed at the standards of the food I have been lucky enough to have had.

Dinner tonight is at the renowned PM24, a French bistro and rotisserie located right in the heart of Melbourne's CBD. Chef Phillipe Mouchel has excelled in producing such fine modern French cuisine in Melbourne. Dinner was booked for 7pm and it was already full house when we arrived.

I loved the open kitchen, the buzzy and lively bistro ambience and seeing Chef Phillipe Mouchel checking very plate as it came through for final plating was impressive.

We had some lovely cocktails to kick off the evening. I had the Vive La Lychee cocktail and K had the Melonicious!

My lychee cocktail