Friday, June 7, 2013

Review: Vicinity Dining

90-96 Bourke Rd 
(cnr Collins St)
Alexandria 2015


Mon 7am - 10pm
Tue  7am -10pm
Wed 7am - late
Thu 7am - late
Fri   7am - late
Sat  8am - late
Sun 8am - 8pm

Ph: 9002 1333


Vicinity Dining is another of our 'new' locals and Buggles and I have dined here on many occasions. 
We have been here for breakfast (if you are over the queues at The Grounds, this is a great alternative) dinner, and today, another lunch.




The restaurant is quite large, with separate bar and dining areas. The fit out is modern industrial, which suits the space and the location.

A glass of pinot noir for Buggles and a pint of Bad Lands Pale Ale for me, and we kick things of with one of our favourite entrees; Roasted Vine Tomatoes, black garlic, sorrel, feta, grilled sourdough


Today, the tomatoes aren't as well roasted, they are still a little too firm and lack their usual sweet, intense flavour - the sweet, syrupy black garlic is, as always, spot on (it is the main reason we keep ordering this dish), the feta is rich, creamy and slightly salty. The citrusy tang of the sorrel works well with the tomatoes  - however, today we are missing the usual char on our sourdough and this lets the dish down.



For her main Buggles goes with the special of chicken breast from the wood fired grill - remarkably it is not remotely dry, is very tender and the smokiness seems to intensify the chicken's natural flavours.


My rib sirloin, is wonderfully charred on the outside and tender, pink and juicy on the inside, the charred onion shells filled with a smoky onion soubise are spectacular.


We complement our mains with a serve of Vicinity chips with a selection of salts (and aioli) - yum!


Dessert is a shared event of Chocolate mousse, roasted white chocolate crumbs and strawberry sorbert. The mousse is light with a rich chocolate flavour, there is a bed off zingy strawbery jelly and sorbet captures the strawberry flavour perfectly, a really enjoyable dessert.

The service has been a bit iffy in the past, but on our last two visits the service has been fantastic.

We love that Vicinity Dining is one our 'locals' and look forward to continuing to dine here on a regular basis.



Squeak
Vicinity Dining on Urbanspoon






1 comment:

Annie said...

a friend of mine wanted to check this out but wasn't too keen after seeing the Urbanspoon rating. hopefully it's good when we do head there (esp if we're too impatient from lines at The Grounds).