Melbourne Wine Room

7th August 2011

On another sunny Sunday afternoon i again found myself in St. Kilda and decided to stop for lunch at the Melbourne Wine Room. A very, very relaxed place where i had to go to the bar to order and was definitely a bar / pub first and a restaurant second. Service was not gregarious and warm but efficient. Menus were left on the tables which showed a decent selection of food, beers and wine by the glass with a separate encyclopedic wine menu (as you would expect from a place called Melbourne Wine Room).

They also had my favourite beers both from the Czech republic, Budvar and Pilsner Urquell. Once the food was ordered i received a basket of cold bread (crusty on the outside and soft middle) and good olive oil.

For entree i choose the seared scallops, mash and crispy prosciutto with a red wine jus. Well cooked scallops, smooth creamy mash and extremely crisp prosciutto. It was also beautifully presented. It was a good dish but was let down slightly by the fact the prosciutto was a little strong for the mash and scallops and there was not enough red wine jus for my liking. However these were minor faults in an otherwise good dish.

The main course i choose was the cassoulet with confit duck leg, kaiser flesh and cotechino sausage. It was a good but not great dish. The beans added very little to the dish and the duck flesh didn't fall away from the leg as easily as other places. However the kaiser flesh was excellent as were the tiny sprinkle of toasted breadcrumbs on top of the dish.

A limited selection of deserts saw me try a dish that i hadn't seen at any other restaurant so far, a Omelet Rothschild. It was soft spongy and light with a nice apricot syrup and 3 apricot soaked that had been soaked in syrup. Very sweet but delicious although the middle of the dish wasn't quite cooked.

Overall a decent meal and the portion sizes were excellent. However i would much prefer the Grand for a high quality pub meal and this place was definitely more focused on the pub / bar part of the presentation than the fine dining experience. Borderline whether this restaurant is worthy of its hat but solid food nonetheless.