Bistro Vue

Dining Date: March 2009

2009 Rating: Not in top 100

Chef: Shannon Bennett

Location: 430 Little Collins Street (off New Chancery Lane), Victoria

Website: www.bistrovue.com.au

YAY! Melbourne Food and Wine Festival time! One of my favourite time of the year, and you know what that means, great lunches for responsible prices!! This year I have the chance to eat at two great restaurants, with Bistro Vue being the first. Originally I couldn't get a booking, but luckily someone had to cancel and I was offered a table. It always pays to be on the waiting list!

So what was on offer for 2009?

Lets start with the wine. The red was a 2005 Dalzotto Barbera from the King Valley in Victoria and the white was a 2008 Quealy 'Senza Nome' Tocai Friulano from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.

Wine anyone?

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The first course was a 'Tarte a la Tomate' (Tomato Tart). From what I could tell, it was a very crispy piece of pastry with thinly sliced tomatoes placed on top. Green lefty salad, crumbled pieces of mild feta (?) with a drizzle of olive/olive oil puree. I didn't expect to eat anything that would particularly knock my socks off, for two reasons really 1) it was a set menu of $35 for two courses, so simplicity was on offer and 2) Bistro Vue prides itself on delivering french classics, so I interpreted this as...simplicity on offer. And that's exactly what they did, simple dishes but done really well. This tomato tart tasted like summer itself (too bad it seemed like it was a cold Melbourne winter day today!). It looks pretty straight forward, so I'm going to try to recreate it myself......at some point.

Tomato Tart

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Right, second course. 'Coq au Riesling' (chicken with white wine sauce....I'm guessing Riesling hehehe). On the very bottom, there was a very buttery and absolutely awesome mash potato, then the chicken sitting on top, with a crispy piece of prosciutto, pan fried mushroom a couple of cherry tomatoes (left whole) and to finish the dish a rich white wine sauce. This dish was delicious. Exactly what I needed really. While in Queensland, we ate alot of very complicated and rich dishes, this chicken dish was real comfort food to me so I thoroughly enjoyed it! Even Daz joked next time we come we should just have 2 courses of the main course. 

Chicken with White Wine Sauce

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We had the choice to have dessert for an extra $12, but we decided not to. I was verging on very full and eating dessert would have made me uncomfortably full. So to end the meal, we had coffee with canelle's (tiny little orange flavoured muffins). I love canelle's! I need to find me some moulds so I can drive myself crazy making them.

On the way out I thought I would take a picture of the passage way wall. The last time I was at Vue de Monde this wall was actually functional, they would grow some of their herbs here, unfortunately now they are little pots filled with ivy. Sigh.

The Wall of Pots

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