Melbourne

Happy Birthday Daniel!

4/07/2005 09:36:00 PM

On Monday night, my family went out for my brother Daniel’s 23rd birthday dinner. We went to Cecconi’s, in Crown, a very lovely, large and fancy Italian restaurant. We went there for my birthday last year, but my bro was in England at the time and so missed out…

I bought Daniel a red armband from Tomorrow Never Knows. I forget the brand, but it’s made by this artist who does one-off pieces, so I thought Dan would appreciate it. It also matches his loud Evisu jeans with the red sunbursts on them. Dad got him a book – The Art of the Matrix.

So here’s what we ate. As I am too lazy to do photos of all of them, you’ll just have to imagine… I’m only going into my food in detail, because it was obviously the best.

Daniel

Oysters with tuna carpaccio, green onions and green chilli

Tortelloni (yup, tortelloni) with prosciutto and ricotta


Strawberry triffle (sic)



Mum

Crab kataifi roll - crab in a Greek pastry shell, kinda like filo but with lots of thin strands instead of layers.

Osso Bucco – This is Cecconi’s most popular, speciality dish. It’s very traditional, the veal shank stew served on risotto Milanese and sprinkled with gremolata. Mum seemed to like it, but Dad hated his.


Dad

Quail with chorizo

Dad absolutely loved this. He almost ordered another one. In fact, he probably should have, as he didn’t like the heavy taste of his Osso Bucco…

Osso Bucco

Neither of them had dessert. Pikers!


Me

Campari and Orange – my drink, the only drink with which to begin an Italian meal!

Peppered Beef Carpaccio with garlic aioli, mushrooms, cress and rocket

This was absolutely fabulous! The meat practically melted in my mouth, the mushrooms tasted so fresh, and the aioli was heavenly!!

Half a baby chicken with porcini lasagnette

Again, this was super-yummy, but couldn’t really top the carpaccio. The chicken was crunchy and tender, and the lasagnette had a lovely taste, but the texture was a bit cotton-wooly for my liking. Came with a sage butter sauce though, delicious.

St Azur blue vein cheese with grapes, pears, sultanas, quince paste and crackers

I’ve wanted to be a “cheese-for-pudding” person for ages, but the lure of the dessert menu has always been too strong. This night however, the desserts looked a bit boring (banana and date pudding, soft-centred chocolate pudding, cassata, tiramisu etc. – so basically, fancier versions of stuff I could make at home), so I went for a blue vein cheese. It was so so good, tasted great, looked beautiful, and was just the right, oozy temperature. I had it with a glass of De Bortoli Noble One Semillon. “This is giving me pleasure on so many levels!”

I’m converted now – bring on the cheese!

Happy birthday Daniel!

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1 comments

  1. Anonymous7:20 AM

    What a fantastic night! Did you know we share a favourite drink - campari and orange! :) my mum introduced it to me many years ago and i have to admit the first one i had has never been surpassed... maybe one day we can go on an excursion together to hunt down a better one :) f

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