Squid salad with chorizo
Q: What kind of wine do you match with a wet businessman?
A: Big, red and expensive.
The wet bit was misdirection.
When any two men are eating together it is all about who has the biggest knob. That means playing a game with the wine list. The winner is the one who orders a huge red wine. That’s a wine so large that is better matched to watching TV than food.
Of course, usually I don’t play this game. I simply order a glass of the cheapest girliest wine on the menu usually something starting with P and ending in gris or grigio.
But to see him there all bedraggled in pinstripe on Friday night at The Montague Hotel (355 Park St, South Melbourne, VIC 3205 +61 3 9690 9044) the least I could do was play the game.
Obviously he had succumbed to the grippe because I was even passed the wine list.
What to drink? Easy. Two bottles of Rockford Basket Press Shiraz and two straws for $240. Fuck me if I can even remember what vintage it was.
But it allowed him to one-up me as he’d even visited the cellar door.
Braised goat with white polenta
The Montague Hotel is in that area in between Albert Park and South Melbourne. The clientele is a mix of ages with carpet-appeal for older diners. It felt odd because I haven’t been able to hear anything said to me in a restaurant for 19 months and 3 days and 22 hours.
It also felt odd because it’s been a similar amount of time since I was served by somebody over 12 years of age.
The difference is that the service is efficient; they know the menu, know to offer a decanter and can pour wine without red drips left over the tablecloth.
Trifle
I started with a squid salad with some beans and spicy chorizo at $19. My friend a parpadelle for $18.50.
An eye filet the thickness of mattress was $34. And my moist braised goat with a comforting white polenta and baby veggies was $28.
I finished with a $14 blood orange trifle studded with crispy meringue and bottoming out to a red jelly which I sucked child-like through my teeth.
As far as I could tell with all that shiraz everything was cooked perfectly.
I make that $60.50 for my food which is great value at a time that starters are now well over $20 and mains $40. This means it is possible to eat here with a bottle of wine for $80 to $90 a head.
But who on a wet night can’t resist playing big knobs and spending $180 each?
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