Thursday, April 9, 2009

Portland Lane Cafe

Location: Corner of Little Collins and Russell Streets
Link: www.portlandhotel.com.au/cafe.htm
Cuisine: Modern Australian

A very classy looking restaurant with relatively cheap food, there aren't a whole lot of these around! We found Portland Lane through the Entertainment Book [$30 off the bill!] and it turned out we chose well. The menu was rather extensive, ranging from pastas, classic dishes like burgers and fish and chips to the fancier cuts of steak and lamb fillets. YMG and I shared the Fisherman's catch, a giant platter of calamari, prawns, fish, scallops and chips, served with salad and tartare sauce. It was just filling enough (enough for fried food anyway), and the salad of cucumber, tomatoes, onions and rocket was quite good (minus the rocket as I don't like it). The fish tasted a tad oily, but the rest of the seafood tasted quite fresh. The rest of the table ordered fish of the day, fish and chips, parmagiana while Jane and Anna ordered dessert only.

[The Fisherman’s catch: a selection of fresh seafood, beer battered fish goujons, crispy paprika squid and chilli mussels & prawns with garden salad, thick cut chips and tartar sauce]


[Baileys & scorched almond ice cream: served with a shot of hot chocolate fudge and crisp wafer biscuits]

I'm hoping to get the photos off Stace soon so I can put them up, but from all I know, there were no complaints about the night. The service was pretty quick, and the waitresses were friendly enough. Seating was comfortable (anywhere with couch seating always scores bonus points with me).

Pricewise, mains were anywhere between $16-$20 (salads, pastas and classic dishes), through to $32 for steak and $36 for shared platters. Given the servings were fairly large and the food tasted fresh, it was worth the price.

The other thing to note is that the Portland is not just a cafe/restaurant. There is an attached bar in the next room, and from the crowd that were there last night (a Wednesday night), it must be a pretty popular bar!

Overall rating: 9/10

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