Press Club dinner

One of the side-effects of the Masterchef phenomenon was making George Calombaris a celebrity. Despite the fact that he uses cutlery with a closed fist, we decided to have dinner at his flagship restaurant, The Press Club.

And so on a warm summer's night, we group of undergrad buds rocked up at 8pm for dinner.

Except I rocked up too early and was told to go to the bar and wait. I decided to order a bellini.

Dinner was a case of ordering off a semi-set menu consisting of four courses, where we were able to select our dish out of three options.

Our menu du jour (ou nuit)

The mezze course consisted of a number of small shared plates. These consisted of olives, some pickled cabbage and cucumber, a salmon cerviche (my favourite of the lot), and the following which looked very nice:

a saganaki and tomato-flavoured shot.

Because I'm allergic to oysters and didn't have a hankering for vegetables, ordered the scallops for entree.

My scallops - the dressing on top included pistachios and sultanas.
They kept the roe on *thumbs up*

Because all the mains looked good, we have photos of all three.

My main - the lamb with pomme puree.
Or as Cam called it *a fancy name for mashed potatoes!*

The pork belly with fennel and peach.
Ummm...a bit salty. Asians do it better!

The salmon.
Quite nice.

For dessert, I had the baklava.

Baklava. Damn, it was yum.

Dr. I-K with the yummo baklava.

So, do I rate it? Yes, it's better than Rockpool and DEFINITELY better than Nobu. On the other hand, the expense vs. quality satisfaction equation might have been altered depending on who you were during the night. There were a few mix ups with orders (not mine) that led to a debate as to whether a tip should have been delivered (this is Australia - tipping is not compulsory!). Over all, I'd say, "yeah, Press Club is really good!" but I'd also put in the condition that you book early and save up for it.