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…a waitress who had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst.

‘Too much service in my opinion is practically worse than none. You don’t have any opportunity to enjoy the company of the people who you are with.’

The words of Michelle Garnaut, the former Melbourne restaurateur who launched M on the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989 and M on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999. (She hopes to have the 400-seater Capital M in Beijing open for the 2008 Olympics, building works around her permitting.)

I recently interviewed her for the business magazine In The Black together with Luke Stringer from Oyster Little Bourke St. Garnaut’s words haunted me as I was over serviced at The Flower Drum recently and nearly knocked a waiters glasses off as he topped up my water for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘Good service — you don’t even know its there,’ says Garnaut. ‘It’s about anticipation. It’s not about the waiter. It’s not about the person servicing you.’

Booking a restaurant table is a contract for service. What a diner expects in a fine dining restaurant is very different from the medium or bottom end of the scale.

‘If you go to McDonald’s, service is not part of the deal. You can expect that the people serving you when you are in a queue are polite and efficient. That is as much as you can expect,’ says Garnaut.

The story was part of a series called In The Trenches which bring out the management lessons from different industries. The first one I wrote back in 1995 was about what we can learn from the pressure cooker of the restaurant kitchen. I’m currently going through the entire UK and US Kitchen Nightmares series to update this story with more fucking words from the genius management guru himself, Gordon Ramsay.

One aspect that has come to mind since that story is personal presentation and hygene after Gordon Ramsay told someone they had bad fucking breath.
If you are front of house you can’t afford to have BO, bad breath or sprinkle dandruff, as it were Parmesan cheese, on food (or guests for that matter).
But at a time when every waiter or waitress in all these new restaurant opening seems to be 12 years old, what about spots?
Is a spotty waiter appropriate?
It’s not fair to single out individuals but recently in a very expensive two hat restaurant a waitress had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst. oh, and she had a bit of attitude.
I think when you are paying two hats prices you don’t expect to see spots, blackheads, chronic skin conditions, weeping sores or, dare I say, deformities.
There again in McDonald’s you’d be surprised not to see staff without spots or blackheads.
Should wait staff be stood down when they have spots?

Food fascist
What makes a successful restaurant? from Michael Bauer on SFGate.

What level of disability are you prepared to tolerate in restaurant service? Would Heather Mills be steady enough on her single natural foot not to spill gravy?

What about long hair and beards?

What about lepers in the kitchen?

Has anybody else noticed how young staff are now at all the new Crown restaurants, saying nothing of St Jude’s Cellars?

Where do we draw the line? Some people hold their knives and forks like apes - should they be thrown out of restaurants as all animals, save small dogs, should?

Popularity: 4% [?]

Created by OnePlusYou

I’m surprised my score isn’t higher. Fuck it, I’ll have to try harder.

Via Dipping into the blog pond

Popularity: 4% [?]

Nice Sydney friends who speak Mandarin and have fairly decent cleavage.

I’ve always like dictatorships. Communism and fascism both share an idealism that when I was younger could have switched me either way.
Of course, now grown-up physically at least I abhor the human rights abuses in China although I wouldn’t be able to ejaculate over my shoulder if it wasn’t for bear bile on tap.
I think we can agree that we don’t like dictatorships, or at least lack of democracy.
We should have sent John Eales, a famous Australian rugby cap I believe, to tackle the Olympic Beijing 2008 torch bearers in their trip through Canberra.
I do find this strange that we didn’t protest.

When I arrived in Sydney in 1996 France was boycotted because of nuclear testing in the South Pacific. You couldn’t find French totty or decent croissants anywhere and I suffered four years without being able to buy a carbon steel Sabatier chef’s knife. All I ate was Yum Cha and Thai.
I suppose in Melbourne we are too comfortable in our safe little world of unaffordable houses, late model (whatever the heck that means) European cars, free air (frankly it would be a bit much if they didn’t pump-up the tyres) and an annual outing to the Flower Drum, allegedly the best Chinese restaurant in the world.
I’ve only been three times to the Drum in six years. Once for business. Once for an impromptu birthday lunch to celebrate some Tiffany Pearls (try E.G.Egetal, it’s much cooler) and my favourite tea cosey wearer’s birthday.

Steamed fish at the Flower Drum: bland and overcooked. Veggies were great though.

Our most recent to the Drum to catch up with five friends, three from out of town, started like this:
Me: “Why the fuck our we going to the Flower Drum?”
Tea cosey: “I think thingy from Perth booked it.”
Me “Why the fuck did she do that?”
Tea cosey: “Could you wipe that off your shoulder?”
We introduce ourselves to a man behind the counter (17 Market Lane +61 9662 3655), which together with a cloakroom and Melbourne’s slowest lift, is all the restaurant will fit downstairs because hidden away are tanks and tanks of fish and small bears.
Upstairs a couple of waitresses are doing good impersonations of Chinese tour guides (they all wear name tags) who guide us through a room that looks like it is set up for a wedding.
Our friends from Perth and Sydney arrive. We relived our four years in Sydney, swapping fags (cigarettes) and eating in what are now nameless restaurants. We popped downstairs to smoke on the Flower Drum’s doorstep returning upstairs in the impossibly slow lift.
The boring bit is the food which we just asked them to serve. Nobody orders off the menu here. Or so our local food dictatorship at Epicure would have us believe.

Soft shelled crab: greasy and not terribly good.

This was a Friday night. The room was packed. But with the tables spaced far apart it lacked the buzz of at least two other more casual places that serve very similar food - Asiana (181 Victoria Ave, Albert Park +61 9696 6688) and most important Lau’s Family Kitchen (4 Acland St, St Kilda, +61 8598 9880) run by Michael and James, the sons of Gilbert Lau who owned the Drum and built its reputation.
Of course, the service at The Flower Drum is much better than these places. My personal waiter was so attentive that every time I gesticulated he poured me water and I knocked his glasses off.
But. And with the prices charged it comes with an astonishingly large fiberglass B, popularly know as The Big B.
The steamed fish was bland and in more than one case overcooked. The soft shelled crab was greasy and probably just there for the sake of it rather than the quality of the product.
In retrospect we should have sent both back. Neither should have left the kitchen. But we weren’t there to posture over the food but to catch up.
I could tell you more about the food. It was all universally good, fresh ingredients served in the westernised without MSG way that good Chinese-style food is served here.
But next time it is to Lau’s Family Kitchen - if we can get a table - where we just ask them to serve us what is good and I’ve eaten better food. And if we can’t get in there it will be Asiana.
I’m not saying the Flower Drum is horrible. I just think it is an anachronism and should be doing better for the prices charged. Come to think of it just better in the case of steamed fish and soft shelled crab.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Spot the crap stuff (and pic) in my status symbol kitchen.What kind of swamp do I inhabit? No, I don’t live in Elwood which is now merely stinking canals and is vulnerable to subsidence.I’m talking about the stinking, sticky slimy loathsome depths of depravity that my mind has sunk to meaning that I can’t even take a simple email on face value.My curt reply to his enquiries on the local food blogging scene no doubt left Michael Ruhlman, an opinionated man at the best of times, having some fairly strong views on what sort of twat I am.In my defence, I received his email on April 2 which meant he would have sent it on April 1 and my cortex was filled with April Fool’s pranks.What I like about Ruhlman, the writer of The French Laundry Cookbook, a definitive work on Charcuterie blah blah, is that he is opinionated and a food snob (note I don’t say F–die) to boot.I know prior to its recent release here The Elements of Cooking was already popular among local chefs including Attica’s Ben Shewry. It’s the sort of book which is essential if you are starting out in the kitchen. But it is equally useful for old hands.It finishes off with an A to Z of useful cooking terms but I like best his essays laying the ground work for a proper kitchen and good practice - stock, sauce, seasoning, eggs, heat, tools, good cookbooks (very American-centric for Australia) and finesse.On tools, all you need is a chef’s knife, a large cutting board, a large sauté pan, a flat edged wood spoon and a large non-reactive (Pyrex ideally) bowl.Note he doesn’t say a set of Jamie Oliver Pans, Gordon Ramsay cunting egg slice, Nigella Lawson incontinence pants, Al-Qaeda box knife set, Bill Granger toothbrush or Toby Puttock wooden spoon.This sorts of things definitely should not be on your shopping list when sifting through all the kitchen junk at the Myer or David Jones sale.What amazes me is that Ruhlman doesn’t even mention the wok probably because he is from the Francophile cooking school.He reminds me exactly how much rubbish I have in my kitchen.So how about this? Why don’t we all blog (or leave in comments) the best and worst of the tool in your kitchen by 4 May you time.I’ll then do a round up of the best and worst gadgets.I’ll leave the last words to Ruhlman, who Stephanie also keeps going on about, because they are so good:

“As a rule, any tool that has only one use should be avoided: examples including the shrimp deveiner, cherry pitter, hand crank fruit peeler, special slicers for butter, eggs, avocado, mango et cetera. Also be wary of buying sets of anything: figure what you need, and buy that.A well-outfitted kitchen is defined by its efficiency and by the quality of those tools that make it efficient. The fanciest kitchens with the most beautiful pots, pans and appliances I’ve found to be the least used kitchens and therefore the worst kitchens. I hope the kitchen as a status symbol is a short-lived phenomenon.”

Food Fascist- The copper pan I bought in the David Jones sale. Embarrassed- Probably didn’t need the Auber-WS PID temperature controller that I’m rigging up to the Martini Monster’s rice cooker (thanks for that) for sous vide (boil in a bag) cooking.- I’ve caught a cold from somebody at The Age who apparently doesn’t have a venereal disease.- Last night going to the Emerald Hill Microbrewery (beer natch), The Clarendon (riesling, calamari), Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons (pig), Bistro Guillaume (the best lemon tarte known to humanity. Hendricks Martini), Nobu (saki), Borsch Vodka and Tears (vodka, martini, absinthe) and the Martin Monster’s for yet more booze (5am) was over the top.- John Lethlean you are too noisy. At least the lesbians sitting next to you in Dunkeld said so. Where was Michael Harden’s noise meter?- Bugger. I pitched that idea last week.- Dunkeld sommelier: I still haven’t forgotten the time you stole my Clarines while feeding the cat. But a returned email or phone call would be nice.- Ellie, keep your mouth shut.- A few of us are thinking the food at Attica has the edge on Dunkeld. Sorry.

Popularity: 16% [?]

If you haven’t noticed most people find your website or blog through Google. Yes, it may be through Yahoo! But until somebody comes up with something better Google is king.

The reason why restaurants or any other small or medium sized business need to take notice of blogs is that very probably a blog will come higher up in search results than you. This is unless the Google search is for your website name alone. In reality, it may be for something like “Melbourne Italian restaurant”. Moan about it all you want. But unless you think you can topple Google, you can’t stop bloggers.

Plus is a country where media ownership is concentrated into a few powerful hands and you are lucky to find two daily papers in a city, blogs offer a tiny little bit of diversity. For instance, in The Age gossip columnist and reviewer John Lethlean writes three columns a week, plus two in the Melbourne Magazine and at least one (two this month) in Gourmet Traveller monthly. That’s seven columns in one week sometimes and, yes, I’m jealous of the money and exposure. John’s a nice guy and I’m not after his job (there are many in line before me). But sometimes it is nice to hear from someone with a different point of view. And this is a function of the lack of local media diversity.

Blogs also offer a marketing oportunity if approached in the correct way.

I was interviewed on blogging for the new restaurant industry website and job directory I Eat I Drink I Work by journalist David Sutherland. He gives a very fair account of the current debate, some may say stand-off, between bloggers and chefs and restaurateurs. I was also invited to speak to a small group for Restaurant and Catering Victoria on the same topic the other week. I had a few technology problems but hope I got the same message across.

And at Talk Business sessions at Restaurant08 I’ve been given another opportunity to pontificate in two sessions - one on reviewing and another on the web (with someone with Google who will put my small pot of knowledge to shame).

So here we go my:

1. Blogs are here to stay and somebody will one day blog about you. Because blogs are automatically Search Engine Optimised it is likely that a blogs story about you will rank higher in a Google search than you will. Don’t believe me? Google Collingwood tapas or Gordon Ramsay Melbourne or Bistro Guillaume or Giuseppe, Arnaldo. You’ll find me. Or another blogger up there with The Age and News Ltd.
2. 70% of people don’t get past the first four results of a Google search. Even fewer get to the bottom of page one or to page two and beyond. You need to be Search Engine Optimised, which means using certain words and techniques which are actually quite simple. Somebody out there wants to charge you thousands for SEO. Your own blog does it for nothing but a little effort.

3. Blogs are Search Engine Optimised because:

• They are content rich. For example I now have over 650 stories each seen as a single page by Google which helps take me up the search rankings. You only need to post a couple of times a month if that. It is the constant renewing of words on a site and growth of content that partly helps increase rank in search.

• Blogs get lots of links which looks good to Google.

• Blogs get lots of comments which looks good to Google.

• Stories published within blogs can be tagged - just words that are associated with a story. For example, tapas, Collingwood, restaurant, Gertrude Street. These are exactly the kind of words people use in Google to find a restaurant.

• Feeds, often known as RSS or Atom feeds. These are a stripped down version of a webpage that tell search engines and readers when a webpage has been updated. It is that funny orange symbol at the top right of this page. Online services such as Google Reader allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds and will tell you when a webpage is updated. All blogs have this technology built in.

4. The software behind blogs is incredibly powerful and is the same or better than that used to drive most expensive websites. It is often free (Wordpress, Blogger) or reasonably cheap (Moveable Type, Typepad) or Open Source (Wordpress) which means there are loads of neat bits that can simply be plugged into it. It doesn’t take too much to learn how to use this. If you have a teenager to help, all the better.

5. Blog RSS feed statistics can be read through the free service Feedburner. This service also allows you to make your feed into a simple newsletter and manage its subscribers online. This is FREE. Many small businesses I know pay a subscription for newsletters based on the numbers of subscribers. This is a really good cheap way to communicate with customers. Many web design companies will charge a fee for each newsletter sent out.

6. Google Analytics is one of the most powerful statistics packages you can get. It is FREE. many small businesses are charged money by web development companies for statistics. You don’t need to pay just cut and paste a bit of code into a template or use an easy to plugin piece of software. If you choose to buy online advertising you can monitor traffic through Google Analytics.

7. You do need some background software with your webhost that many local web hosts charge extra money for locally. Therefore I would go with a host such as Bluehost which has it all installed. In fact, you can install Wordpress which is what many leading bloggers use in literally the click of one button. it is as simple as sending an email. Bluehost also has a service whichwill submit you to search engines for free.

8. Designs simply have to be uploaded to a folder on the web server and can be swapped in one click. Many many designs are free. And a tailored design can costs from under $100 to about $1,000.

9. Don’t think of a blog as a blog. It is a website in a particular format. You can use a blog to drive a website and have your blog whereever you want on the site. The most effective place to put a blog is on the front page.

10. But what content do you use? Think of a blog as a newsletter. Anything that is new. The new seasonal produce, the new menu, the new staff member, a new wine on the wine list. Even your football tipping. These are all stories that will engage people and be attractive to Google. It is simple to set-up Feedburner to send out a newsletter too - for FREE.

11. Linking is easy. Link to other blogs and they will find you. Importantly you should comment to - be social. When you comment you leave your web address and some other information. This links back to your site so people can find out who you are. try it now and people will click to your site.

12. I would suggest registering a blog with the site Technorati which is a search engine for blogs and monitors links. Again, it is free and simple.

13. Some of these things sound complicated but they are not. They just take a bit of time and very little money. If there is demand, I’m happy to post about how to se up a Wordpress website or blog.

FOOD FASCIST

• Nice to see that the Gourmet Traveller blogs finally have RSS feeds. This should help build regular traffic every time it updates. Will comments come soon.

• It’s a shame that I Eat I Drink I Work doesn’t appear to have an RSS feed yet.

• More main media food blogs required. SBS launches one next month. My latest effort Food and Wine Daily is in development here which so far has cost less than $100 (although I have a couple of small creases to iron out).

Popularity: 25% [?]

I’ve done a deal with Matt Preston from the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival that the first 20 bloggers to write a post linking to and promoting the Out of the Frying discussion on food and the media on 3 March will each get a free ticket worth $135 each.

The rules are simply:

Write a post about the Out of The Frying Pan event and link to this festival page here and the booking page here (I think this works). Leave your details in comments by Wednesday 27th.

The whole event should be fascinating to anybody interested in food and food media trends. In particular, there are two sessions which will probably interest bloggers. Matt tells me that “Future food. Future Food Media” talking about how chefs innovate online will be addressing social media and blogging and the cutting edge of the internet.

There is also the afternoon session “Web2.0: How to blog and how not to blog” in which Stephanie Wood, Simon Johanson (Fairfax Online editor), Jackie Middleton, Helen Razer (ABC 774 Sunday Show) and myself waffle on.

Matt emailed me some questions that will be addressed during this session. But inevitably the discussion will range far wider. I’d be interested in comments.

What makes a blog a blog?
A diary format and certain features such as the ability to comment and subscribe to RSS feeds. A blog is a subset of social media, which includes sites such as Flickr, Facebook, Last.fm. Del.icio.us and so on.

What are the benefits of writing a blog?
Many people just do it for pleasure as a personal diary of their cooking, eating or drinking. For others it is about opinion. Some make money but I don’t think any food blogger will be making as much as someone like Problogger Darren Rowse who since 2003 has personally earned $700,000 from two advertising products, Google Adsense and Chikita.

When I started it is was a hobby but as an unintentional spin-off has led to some paying journalism work. It also made me rediscover photography something I’d dropped last century when my SLR broke.

Importantly it has connected me with a community of like-minded people interested in food and wine.

What are the pitfalls of writing a blog?

Potentially stalkers and trolls. None have chased me - yet. Criticism if you can’t take it.
Spam, but software mostly takes care of that.

What should you never never do a when writing blogs?

I have no idea. A lot of people are hung up on grammar and spelling. I often have to rush posts so make mistakes. It’s more about getting the ideas out there that is important, I think.

How do you maintain control of your blog?

I ony delete comment spam and have powerful tuned-up spam filters. Anything else goes.
There are some technical issues relating to having my own domain but they are quite boring.

What are blog readers looking for?

My statistics tell me how people find me. Many people are looking for tomatos and are, sadly, dissapointed. Otherwise the most popular search term is some permutation of Anthony Bourdain Gay (over 4,000 people last year).

Here is a rough list:

• My Chai recipe (linked from Wikipedia)
• Sydney vs Melbourne
• How to cook perfect lamb chops
• First night at Nobu
• State of Melbourne food blogging
• Restaurant review category in general
• The best burger in Melbourne
• Gordon Ramsay
• Jeremy Clarkson
• Zingara Cucina con
• About me
• Tempura Hajime
• How to make the perfect cup of tea
• Foolproof greek salad
• First peek at Dan Hunter’s food at Dunkeld
• Bloggers banquet
• How to make the perfect sandwich with leftovers
• Friday night is local brew night - Emerald Hill Microbrewery (Guardian blog link)
• Pizza e Birra
• Old media hacks bagging bloggers
• Designer kitchen on a budget
• Movida
• Top ten gins
• Best Pho in Melbourne

I should add that some people simply like to see the pictures of new restarants and dishes.

How do you best pitch to them?
I don’t pitch. But last year I decided to be much more Melbourne focused rather than global. I try to go to restaurant opening nights, give top tips and comment on the state of blogging. Very personal posts about health and disasters are popular. Also very bad reviews.

How do you best reach them?
They find me. But I’m social and leave comments on blogs which often leads to a visit. I also occasionally participate in food and wine blog events.

How do you differentiate your blog?
See above. I also try and be a bit different in the way I write things, perhaps polarising in opinion. I also use a lot of pictures of restaurant food.

What advantages does blogging have over traditional media?
Instant publishing. When I blogged the first night at Lau’s Family Kitchen it was up within an hour of me leaving the restaurant. Also it is not constrained by the fixed formats and conventions of print. I can fucking swear if I want here. I can publish a one-word post or a ten thousand word post.
There is also the interactive element. I get comment feedback and statistical feedback on posts.

What disadvantages?
I don’t get paid for it. Time consuming.

What rights and responsibility do you have as a blogger?
All the usual laws on defamation and copyright apply. There is a lot of talk about defmation and blogging. It is more important to look at the practicalities of somebody taking an action against somebody who probably has a very small audience - a few hundred people a day - compared to a newspapers with potentially millions.
There is a code of linking and citing between bloggers.

How do you start blogging?
At the most basic level establish a free blogger account. And just start writing.

What advice would you give to those who want to blog?
It’s never too soon. Focus on one thing. If you think you are serious get your own domain and use Wordpress. A dot.com.au can cost $100 plus. A dot.com in Australia costs about $60. In the US $10. It’s a no brainer. Also webhosts in Australia are ridiculously expensive. Go to the US everytime.

How is the food publishing landscape changing in relation to blogging?
In Australia the food media haven’t really taken as much notice of bloggers or blogging as in the US.
Blogging is fragmenting media in its own small way as well as fragmenting itself into many tiny niches. It certainly has changed my reading habits and now I get my ideas and kicks from a much more diverse group than trad media journalists.

What do you see as the future opportunity for bloggers?
Some will be the restaurant reviewers, wine writers and food writers of the future. In Europe and the US some have published books and no doubt some will here. There is little opportunity to make money with a food blog because the local audience is small. But there is a huge opportunity to connect in niches such as vegetarianism, food allergies, vegans, preservative free wines, kids, grannies and so on.

What impact will tech advances have on blogging?
The point is that the technology make blogging easy and cheaper and more effective than a static website. To publish a blog in its most simply form is as easy as clicking save on Microsoft Word. Adding various widgets to blogs has become and will continue to become simpler. Faster and cheaper broadband in Australia will make it easier. In particular, cheap access to fast WiFi on the move will make blogging much more mobile as will the new generation of WiFi enabled phones such as the iPhone (whenever it arrives).

How do independent bloggers avoid being swamped by the traditional media’s push into new media arenas?
They haven’t been swamped and trad media probably won’t swap bloggers in Australia because there isn’t enough money in it. A niche audience of 0.001% of the population in the US is 30,000 people, possibly viable as a magazine. In China it would be 100,000 people, definately viable as a magazine. In Australia it is 2,000 people. I can’t imagine traditional media swamping that space here. What is happening is that blogs are contributing to the general fragmentation of media and building audiences in very small niches, often connecting globally. There are some big global food blogs and old media food blogs in the northern hemisphere but because we are out of season there is a disconnect with the southern hemisphere.

What do life experience / knowledge have been valuable in your blogging life?
I work in the media so I knew about writing and already had a fairly thick skin to reader criticism.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Stay at home and avoid:

- substandard overpriced fixed menu meals

- overpriced sparkling wine masquerading as champagne.

- overcrowded restaurants

- wandering minstrels

- gypseys selling roses

- hype

Popularity: 19% [?]

Floating Islands of smoked milk with sweetcorn soup at Fenix

Was it the public or the critics? Or perhaps the public led by the critics.
With news that Fenix is closing its restaurant to concentrate on conferences it is a question to be asked.
Molecular cuisine never made it big in Australia. Perhaps this is because of the lack of local molecular gastronomists (the scientists behind the art of the cuisine) to work with local chefs in developing ideas.
Nevertheless more than a few chefs locally have tried to emulate the likes of Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal, none more so that Ray Capaldi at Fenix.

Tomatoes! Tomatoes! with basil dust and sorrell sorbet.

Fenix in turn spawned George Calombaris who made it as young chef of the year in 2004 for his molecular whimsy at Reserve just before the restaurant closed.
Now the last surviving overt practitioner is Robin Wickens at Interlude, itself a restaurant that had a bumpy financial ride until it found wealthy Hong Kong-based backers last year.
People simply don’t pop out for a foam and some synthesized caviar of undetermined flavour. They reserve that for the very occasional special occasion.

Cooking in liquid nitrogen

The good news is that the pure ideas of molecular gastronomy do live on in the techniques used by many chefs. You’ll find low temperature cooking - mostly sous vide - dehydrating and many other techniques alive and well. It’s there in a low key form in restaurants such as The Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, Attica, Circa The Prince, Vue de Monde and Nobu.
I was lucky enough to review Fenix for The Age Good Food Guide last year, a year that Ray Capaldi had hoped to make two hats. I scored it higher than the 15.5 points that it got in print.
With my guest, who likes to hold her liqueur by the tongue and her drug dealer to ransom, I spent a pleasant evening on the terrace listening to the bellbirds’ whoops. She, rocking in dark jeans and a plunging neckline, felt underdressed for the venue. Everybody else was very smart and conservative. Think tweed jackets.

We couldn’t believe that this crowd had come all this way to have their tongues cleansed with a mousse (I nearly said mouse) “cooked” in liquid nitrogen.
Eventually, the bellbirds gave way to neighbouring chat of self managed super and opulent holidays in Paris.

Both of us near death from extremely rich deconstructed chocolate, it was time for hard liquor. But that adventure had nothing to do with molecular cuisine.

Chocolate: enough to fell a restaurant critic

Popularity: 26% [?]

Check out the latest blogger review of Attica. Judi from Cakestorm won the Tuesday night Chef’s Table in the Menu of Hope Raffle. The interesting thing about Tuesday nights is you’ll get a chance to taste the dishes that chef Ben Shewry has in development. Read Judi’s review.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Spanish chef Frank Comorra is a laugh. When he sent me a copy of his sell out Movida cookbook he signed it as the CEO of Ikea. He’d read by blogpost where I’d complained Movida didn’t conform to the stereotypical Spanish restaurant and owed more to the Swedish superstore than dark oak, Pablo Picasso or Anton Gaudi.Of course, I’m nothing but inconsistent. Shannon Bennett’s Bistro Vue I complain is a French theme park with its beams, French furniture and a funny little bag in which warm bread is served. Oh, I’m told they sometimes have an accordion player there too.In reality, I don’t mind theme parks, and Bistro Vue, which serves the best pear Tarte Tatin I have ever eaten, may usurp Sovereign Hill as my favorite in Australia. And I’ve grown to love a seat at the bar of Movida. The review starts here…If you hadn’t realised it yet, Movida is quit possibly the most popular restaurant in Melbourne aside from Taco Bill’s. Lifestyle channel viewers voted Movida their fourth most favoured destination. And for anyone visiting Melbourne it is top of the list for lunch or supper.And so it was for my sugar daddy who, feeling down, popped a happy pill and decided he wanted lunch at Movida with me. An hour or so in seat 1A and a limousine ride later and he is plonked at the best spot in the restaurant- the bar - hoovering down a cold beer. Followed by a sherry, wine, beer and wine again. Eventually his head blurred as you can see in the pic above.Coincidentally, the bar is full of chefs who’ve come into town to see the Australian Open - including one from Sovereign Hill which makes my day.You won’t find food like this is any tapas bar or other Spanish restaurant in Australia. It is gobsmackingly good.At the bar we sticky beak at our neighbours food, jealous of the dishes we hadn’t ordered. By the end of lunch we are sharing.Luckily, I have a sugar daddy to pay. We could afford to eat 20 grams of acorn fed Iberico ham that costs $1 a gram (I recommend financially challenged mortals buy it from a deli for under 48 cents a gram and eat it at home). We also downed two 500ml bottles of stunning Roda 1 (which don’t seem to be on the wine list) costing nearly $300.The food? Two absolute stunners.There is the famous Ortiz anchovy (above) on a thin crouton and topped with a smoked tomato sorbet. At $4.50 each it is within the reach or most mortals and is a dish that shows real innovation.Second was Cucina (above), air cured wagyu beef thinly sliced (a bit like a bresaola) with a truffled potato foam topped with a poached egg at $17. This is a superb use of the magnificantly marbled Wagyu which is fast become the most misused meat in Australia in other poorer quality restaurants. And there is something aboutthe mix of flavoursome meat, earthy truffle, potato and egg that is meant to be.I defy you to visit Movida without ordering these dishes.Our only mistake was the timing of a dish of diced multicolored tomatoes topped with white anchovies (above). An acid dish, it is a palate cleanser and should have been ordered first.The dilemma here is to whether to stop and bore you with a list of every single dish and finally telling you whether or not to visit the restaurant. On balance I’ll show you the pictures and let you make your own mind up.Vieira, jamon y espuma 4.50Half shell scallop oven baked with jamon and potato foamMorcilla 13.50Grilled house made black pudding in the Burgos style thickened with rice and spicesBistec tartar de wagyu 17.50Spicy steak tartare of raw, grass fed Wagyu beefThe review ends here

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