Dinner at Monte Fiore Cafe

After shopping for wedding outfits in Mount Lawley recently, Jac and I decided to have dinner before heading home. We went to Monte Fiore Cafe on Beaufort Street which is, incidentally, where we first met. I worked there while completing my undergraduate degree, and straight after graduation, I worked there full-time for a while. Jac came in one evening to pick up a mate of hers who worked in the kitchen… well, not quite true – she came to pick up her mate, but also to check out the assistant manager, who just so happened to be me. :) At the time, I was completely unaware of my colleague/her friend’s sneaky matchmaking plans, of course! Anyway, let’s fast forward almost twelve years later, back to our dinner.

I’ve read some recent reviews of the place that were not very complimentary, including this one from one of my favourite reads, the Beaufort Street Blog, so was curious to see what our experience would be like.

We shared a starter of lemon pepper calamari. The squid was served freshly cooked, tender and not at all rubbery – texture-wise it was spot-on, but I would’ve liked a stronger lemon pepper flavour. If you ordered this dish because you love lemon pepper, you’d be disappointed. The herbed mayonnaise dip was delicious. The salad was drizzled generously with balsamic vinegar. I enjoyed the calamari but couldn’t help missing the lemon pepper.

Lemon pepper calamari

Jac enjoyed her main course, a Thai chicken salad. The chicken marinade was sweet, syrupy and moreish, the chicken nicely cooked. Back when I used to work at Monte Fiore years and years ago, there was a Thai chicken salad on the menu with the lettuce, tomato, cucumber etc, but with an additional special ingredient – fresh strawberries. I loved the strawberries in the salad! Their tartness went surprisingly well with the Thai dressing (back then the chef called it a Chiang Mai dressing). Sadly, there are no strawberries in the salad any more, but there are still cashews in it, another ingredient that goes very well with that tasty dressing.

Thai chicken salad

I had the “Chicken Ecelente”, a chicken and seafood surf and turf dish featuring a panfried chicken breast, prawns and scallops, mashed potato and a thick creamy sauce. The mashed potato was described as “creamy” on the menu but was disappointingly dry – more like crushed potatoes than properly mashed potatoes. The chicken breast was pleasantly moist and tender – the chef had cooked it very well. The scallops were a little more cooked than they needed to be, tottering dangerously on the threshold of overcooked, but I didn’t mind that so much. The prawns were sweet and bursty , and I sucked every last bit of the tender prawn meat from the tails. The sauce was lovely, but there needed to be a whole lot more of it. By the time I got to the last few mouthfuls of chicken and the last prawn and scallop, I was desperate for more sauce and wiping the plate with my chicken like there was no tomorrow (sadly, a lost cause)! The lack of sauce was made even more obvious by that dry mashed potato. In principle, this would’ve been a great dish, but it was not so successful in execution, I think. I enjoyed it, but think it could’ve been better – it could’ve been awesome, in fact.

Chicken Ecelente

Despite those criticisms, our dinner trip down memory lane was pleasant enough. While some things were new to me (a bar with bar stools and the name of the manager above the door), some things were exactly the same – the paintings on the walls, the scuffed wooden floorboards. I have some very fond memories from my days working there, which could make for an interesting story one day.

Facebook comments

comments

, , , ,  Like

Share this post