Restaurant Meal: Water and Grass

Char grilled boned quail, crisp polenta, shaved fennel, orange and parsley salad; aged porterhouse, potato fondant, roasted shallots and red wine jus; and chocolate, banana and cardamom beignets with vanilla bean anglaise

Water and Grass Restaurant is at 32 Bourke Street in Melbourne, 03 9650 7020Just as well I didn't get any photo's of this meal, there is no way I could fit that title in the layout I use. This restaurant was really sad, it was well presented with a nice ambience, it is well sited with a really nice menu and it still couldn't seem to get a customer. I went in there with a group of 17 and the commis told me they did 25 covers for the night. That's rough for a 200 ish seat restaurant on a Friday night, even more so when it's extremely handy to the theatre district in Melbourne.

The food itself was tasty and well sized, but it seemed to be missing that zing that a great restaurant manages to add to every meal. The guy that organised our event tells me it used to be a Crotian themed restaurant and changed owners a couple of months ago. Perhaps they just haven't managed to tune up the menu yet, *shrug*.

Unfortunately I have trouble recommending this restaurant to people as it was on the medium to high side for prices, but just didn't return the value I'd expect.

The title covers the ingredients so I won't bother to cover them again, but they did have a malee root fired char grill to cook the steaks on and it did a pretty good job, even if the dude driving it had trouble with what rare means.

Cost of meal: $70 ex drinks
Time to prepare: As you can expect in an empty restaurant the response from the kitchen was fantastic.