Entrecôte

Entrecôte is a French steakhouse located on Domain Road opposite the Botanic Gardens. Loved it! Wonderful service, food and decor. You have a few options for entree and dessert but main is a simple choice between the ever popular steak or a veg/pescatarian option. Limitless sliced baguette, fries and salad is a nice touch. Just a shame we didn't have dessert this time. The heated outdoor seating looks cosy enough for dessert and drinks.

French onion soup ($17.90) - Served with gruyère crouton, the soup had a light onion flavour and wasn't too salty. Perfect with the gruyère.

Steak Frites ($39.90) - Grilled Hopkins River Porterhouse, frites, sauce maison au berre et aux herbs. Accompanied with limitless crispy thin fries and soft leaves - radish, walnuts, Dijon vinaigrette. Steak is cooked to order and had it medium rare. Delicious! Had an extra serving of salad and it was so satisfying.

Salmon Confit ($39.90) - Tender and perfectly cooked salmon. Simple and delicious.

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Type of venue: French. 

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 131-133 Domain Rd, South Yarra VIC 3141

 

Le Renaissance

One of my favourite cafes in Sydney. Great coffee and macarons. 

Rosewater and mandarin & milk chocolate macarons (AU$3 each)

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Type of venue: French, Bakery,  Dessert

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 47 Argyle St, The Rocks NSW 2000

A La Bouffe

French food is something we love and at one stage we were spoilt for choice. We had a few favourites, namely PM24, France-Soir, Le Grand Cirque and A La Bouffe. Sadly, two of them closed down but we still have two local French places to satisfy our cravings. A La Bouffe is what we will be reviewing. It has an extensive menu and we will happily eat our way through it. We had:

Soup A L'Oignon - French onion soup with cheese "gratine" (AU$14.5) - We do love a hearty, sweet and cheesy onion soup. This version was ok. It would have been better with more onion and cheese.

Escargots De Bourgogne - snails in garlic and fennel butter (AU$19.5) - The snails were served in tiny serving cups instead of in shells. The tiny morsels were rich and delicious.

Ravioli A La Langouste Et Aux Cervettes - lobster and prawn ravioli in a creamy bisque sauce (AU$36) - Beautiful colour, rich sauce and perfectly cooked ravioli. What more could you ask for?

Kangourou A La Bouffe - kangaroo fillet with sautéed baby spinach, sweet potatoes, poached pear, chocolate glaze and jus (AU$36) - This must be the best kangaroo we have ever had. Beautifully rare, perfectly seasoned and the interplay between sweet and savoury went perfectly well with the slight gaminess from the kangaroo. Delicious!

Ile Flottante - oven baked soft poached meringue on a hazelnut creme anglaise (AU$14) - Very unique and delicious. We had heard of it but never had it before and it is certainly an interesting dessert and worth trying. Quite rich with the creme anglaise.

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Type of venue: French

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 268 Toorak Road,  South Yarra VIC 3141

Hardware Société

One of our favourite cafes in Melbourne, Hardware Société delivers on all fronts; excellent service, food, drinks and value. We don't visit as often as we used to but we certainly try and have it as often as we can. This time we had:

Croque Madame - bacon lardons, smoked eggplant bechamel, fried frisee salad. A wonderful version of a ham and cheese toastie with a fried egg on top. The ham has been replaced with bacon and we think it is better for it, and it not only looks amazing but tastes great.

Poached eggs deux - housemade lyonnaise sausage, potato and leek croquette, blood orange relish. Good mix of flavours, slightly sweet with the marmalade-like relish. The croquettes were perfectly prepared as were the sliced sausage and poached eggs.

Hot chocolate - 54% dark Callebaut. Certainly one of if not the best hot chocolate out there. Rich and very satisfying. Try it if you haven't already!

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Type of venue: Breakfast, French, Coffee

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 118-120 Hardware Street,  Melbourne VIC 3000