Eating on Lygon Street
I'd like to drop in a review for all the places we (Alan and I) ate while I was in Melbourne, but too many... so a overview will do (all are located on Lygon Street, Carlton)...
Universal Pizza
It was relatively typical wood-fired pizza - althought the garlic pizza we ordered as a started came out almost floating on oil... and I didn't think it was from the cheese. The meat lovers I had was OK - really big portion (in that I couldn't finish it) - but nothing special. Service was a bit all over the place which was surprising as it wasn't that busy. Well, there was this table of about 16 kids aged 12-14, celebrating someone's birthday... I wouldn't want to sort out the bill at the end of THAT meal (there was food and half empty plates all over the table).
Lygon Charcoal Grill & Steakhouse
For a place that rates itself as "the best steak in Melbourne", they either only look at their restaurant as all of Melbourne or whoever wrote it is severely deluded. Steak size was pretty good (I had the porterhouse with mushroom sauce), but my 'medium' was a little too bloody. Alan's blue whatever-cut-it-was was OK, but a poor cut in the end... full of sinew and fat. In the end, not even an OK steak (and not even a patch on Cha Cha Char of Brisbane - winner of Australian best steak restaurant 2005). It's certainly no patch on Vlado's...
Locusta
An italian seafood place that George, Alan, Kim and I went to on the Friday night (before we kicked on and played pool and some people drank too much). Again, it was good - even George, who usually is super positive about most places he eats, thought it wasn't anything special. Certainly my seafood platter wasn't too interesting - the scallops were miniscule, the calamari was OK, the whiting fillet was over battered (and the batter was too heavy), the two king prawns were battered top to toe however the shell removed over the tail, and the battered whole garfish was less than appetising after eyeballing it when the plate arrived. At least the gelato we got from the gelato place down the street was nice...
Lemongrass Thai
Simply outstanding Thai food. The entrees were just right (especially the prawn spring rolls), the mains were awesome (I had the Penang Beef and Alan had an amazing steak dish - Tiger's Tears), the ambience was really nice, the place was extremely busy and yet the staff were attentive and ever-so-polite. Tops the list of places eaten in Melboure this trip by a country mile. Easy to have an intimate dinner for two or a 'louder' group meal, while not bothering others too much. Cannot recommend them highly enough (and certainly by comparison).
There are HEAPS more options on Lygon St... I hope to get to try some more of them. ;)
P.S. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE daylight saving! It's been great to have in while in Melbourne, although a little inconvenient when working out when to talk to Michelle!
