Eating well locally
"The Living Room’s cuisine can be described as Australian Contemporary with a little bit of something for everybody."
On Sunday we took our ex almost daughter-in-law out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. The venue chosen (by her) was local to us in Templestowe, which was generous of her. Templestowe is a very prosperous suburb just across the river from us and it's 'village' centre is packed with cafés, gourmet food shops and restaurants. This one is called The Living Room. I have been there before for coffee and cake with my book group friends, but never for a meal so I was interested to see what it was like. It's actually quite large but has been around for a very long time, so I thought it must be doing something right and the menu looked tempting.
It was a Sunday night and quite early but it was really quite busy. But then most of the restaurants around here seem to be pretty busy almost all of the time. This one, like virtually all of the others, is open 7 days a week pretty much all day. Who are these people that can afford to spend the time wining and dining or drinking coffee I wonder? Surely these places attract mostly local clientèle? There are no tourists out here. Still - all power to them if they can keep going for years.
The quote at the top of the page just about covers the menu. It does indeed have a bit of everything - mostly sort of Italian or Middle-Eastern I guess, but with other European touches and other Asian touches too. As they say, ' a little bit of something for everybody.' Almost all of the dishes, except those actually labelled Mains, were available in an entrée or main size, which impressed me. How often have you wished that one of the entrée dishes could be made just a bit bigger and served as a main? Not that I took that option here. And I stayed fishy - prawns, followed by barramundi. After my ponderings on the problems of fine dining in times of drought and scarcity a week or so ago, it is interesting to see that a more modest establishment is capable of serving such a large range of really good quality, if not absolute fine dining. The basic menu itself was pretty large and then there was a whole other page of daily special dishes as well. I think you would be a very picky person if you couldn't find something to please.
So what do I remember about the food? Well my prawns were served with a small portion of couscous that contained peas and was fantastic. I almost preferred the couscous to the prawns. And the skin on the barramundi was beautifully crisp and yet the fish beneath it was moist and delicious. And barramundi, to my mind anyway, can sometimes taste somewhat muddy. Ample quantities too. So much so that the three of us shared one dessert, and we didn't really need that either. We were just being greedy.
I did read somewhere that the service was slow. Well I suppose it was, but I personally found this very refreshing. As long as they get you a drink and take your order relatively early on, I'm ok with going slow thereafter. Of late it seems to me that one has hardly finished one's first course than the second is on the table. Yes it's efficient, but if you are going for a night out, you find your night out is reduced to one hour. Not much of a night out. I prefer something more leisurely - and this certainly was. I guess we were there almost three hours. The service was great though - very friendly, polite and efficient waitresses. One of those waitresses was of the kind into whose life you get a tiny glimpse. This one was really only supposed to be working for two days, but so far had done five, as well as doing another part-time job. Some people work really hard whilst keeping their good humour. They were advertising for staff - so don't say there aren't any jobs out there. They may not be that well paid, but it's a job and a start if you have no major qualifications.
I saw on their website that they sometimes have wine dinners, although there doesn't seem to be one in the offing at the moment. I found one from a previous year which was an Italian wine dinner - Italian wines presented by a guru, and served with appropriate food. So that might be worth looking out for.
Moderately priced - I don't think there was anything over $36.00 - and we also got a discount from our daughter-in-laws Entertainment book - well online thing. So yes we shall be going there again.
And did I say there were real tablecloths - white and starchy with one of those square white paper covers that they have in France. In France - I just remembered in a blast from the past - the waiter would often write the orders down on the paper! Really nice.
It's just a run up the freeway from the city so go there all you inner city hipsters. Parking is easy by the way - and free.
