Unexpected Suprise @ Degrave Street

This year Valentine's Day, I have agreed with Mr Syu to not do anything big, no presents no extravangant dinner just a quiet one to save some money for our upcoming months as there are so many holidays and weddings we need to attend. So on V day after work we decided to go find a restaurant to have a nice quiet dinner. For those who knows Melbourne knows that most famous or good places to eat probably needs like 1 month in advance book or the even famous ones 3 months in advance with many rules applicable. So we pretty much expected to go into somewhere that may not be that great.

So we wandered off to Degrave street and went into this little restaurant. Unfortunately I can't remember the name but its near the Flinder Street side and its like one of the first restaurant opposite the little cupcake shop.

We began with a little tapas to share, Chargrilled quail with lemon and oregano.  The lemon dressing gave it a bit of a tangy taste to the nicely grilled quail, and it was really appetizing definitely a good dish to start the dinner wish. 

We then moved on to our main, I ordered Salmon fillet pan seared in peperonata, This was the fish of the day.  The salmon was cooked perfectly with crispy skin and it went really well with the peperonata which is like a light tomato base mash with onion, caspicum. I'm not too sure what it is, but the waiter said it was a Italian way of cooking. Nonetheless it went superbly with the fish, I'm not that into tomatoish sauce but this one was really nice and I ate every last remain of it.

Mr Syu ordered the Roast Lamb rump with (a potatoish mash- that has a term but i forgot it) and braised beans. This was another delight, My Syu thoroughly enjoyed it.  The lamb was really tender, it could be cooked just a tad little more and the mash was so tasty, beans was a bit over cooked.  All in all it was definitely a enjoyable dish.

For dessert we ordered the Greek Donuts with cinnamon and honey drizzled over. This  was not the best dessert, presentation wise it was not very attractive and Mr Syu being a typical Asian at that very moment said it would taste the same buying it at the market if not better.  It was a bit of a let down considering the entree and the main was very good.

So this restaurant was a pleasant suprise, before I went to Degrave St, I asked a collegue any restaurant she will  recommend there and she gave me the answer, they all very average and not that great.  So we went in to this one with very low expectation but came out smiling and very satisfied. One big point is we usually enjoy our entree and dessert the most but for this particular restaurant the main was the winner.