SuziQ: O what a beautiful Friday!

So I’m sitting here, in the early hours of Sunday morning, bags zipped ready for adventure and I thought I’d quickly tell you about my Friday…

It was a day of gastronomic delight. The girls from work and I finally checked out Laneway Bar for lunch and weren’t disappointed – at all! Having craved a little bit of grease all week I gave in to it and opted for the waygu burger. One of the girls had it too and described it perfectly – it is just enough, enough of everything. All the flavours were so simple, yet so full, and were perfectly balanced. I spent $22 (Total…I know, I thought it was pretty awesome considering we’re practically eating at the Euro!)got my yummy little burger, shoestring fries and a glass of wine and I was winning!

When it comes down to it I think it was the best quality experience (when you take price, taste and service into considering) you could possibly hope to get for a quick Friday lunch at work. The staff were fantastic – besides being amazingly quick, efficient and friendly – they knew their stuff, and suggested a fantastic glass of red to compliment my meal! If you work down that end of town, I would definitely recommend popping in and trying it.

After a great lunch I never expected to have an equally amazing dinner experience. The lovely Jenny had managed to get a table at the restaurant Conviction where rehabilitated convicts gaining fine dining chef and wait staff experience. I knew it was going to be an experience, and when I was presented the menu I knew it was going to be amazing…steak tartare was on the menu! Now whenever I see this wonderful dish on a menu, I usually order it. It’s so rare (pun intended!) to find this dish put up in Australia. I can understand why; although our eating culture has evolved at an exponential rate in the past couple of years, there still aren’t that many people who will order their steak rare (or blue). Taking this into consideration – it makes sense not offer up what is essentially an uncooked rissole minus the breadcrumbs! If you don’t know the dish – google it.

Two of us ordered the dish for entre and weren’t disappointed – it was divine. The steak was so finely diced and tender it melted in your mouth, the yoke was practically orange and the freshness and zing given by the cornichons , mustard, parsley and onion was just divine. The season was just right – I’m not sure if they used anchovies or salt and I’m not fussed either way! While we were all trying each other’s dishes, the boys were telling us of past tartare’s where all the seasoning elements were laid out separately and the yoke was from a quails egg – YUM! It wasn’t enough to make me disappointed in my entrée, but I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to enjoy my risotto – but it too was fantastic and truly surpassed my expectations!

Without waxing lyrically about what we ate I’m going to list it for you – if you can get yourself to Emporium, I’d recommend trying the restaurant before it turns back into Bistro three!

Who	Entrée	Main
Jenny	Stuffed zucchini flowers	Lamb mussaka
Nic	Steak tartare	Pork chop with Italian slaw
Nicky C	Duck parfait	Braised duck pie
SuziQ	Steak tartare	Mushroom risotto