I'm also very greedy, I find all kinds of excuses to tell myself that it's ok to order a few more things. 'Don't worry, we can probably take it away', 'I'm very hungry today, I haven't eaten breakfast yet and it's already 2pm' or 'we've already come so far here, it's a shame to not order another entree…' are all the things I can say to Yuye as I put on that puppy dog face of mine and watery eyes and then he just goes 'oh alright then, don't tell me off later for not warning you.' I giggle with joy and put all my orders in. Then later I regret! Well, I don't regret all the time, sometimes I'm glad I ordered a lot and get to take a bit away.
About a week ago, we were lost as to where to eat for lunch. This sparked a decision to go through all of Urbanspoon in neighbouring suburbs and go with something that sounded good. As we had things to do that evening, we didn't really want to go too far. 'East Malvern sounds close enough' I thought to myself and so embarked on our little afternoon journey to L'Olivo, which is rated as the best restaurant in the suburb and it was literally a few stores down from Asakusa. This little family owned restaurant serves up traditional and modern mediterranean delicacies including tapas, pastas and pizzas. As we walked in, I could see many dishes in and on the glass counter. As I took a closer look, they somehow didn't look too appetising, the lettuce looked limp and dry, the meatballs looked discoloured and there was dirt in what I assumed was churros! I started to question whether I had made the wrong choice. Thankfully at that moment, the waitress walked over and informed me that these were for display purposes only. Phew! That was a big sigh of relief.
As I looked at the menu, my bad habit of ordering too much kicked in again. Two tapas and two mains. It's not THAT much right? The waitress took our orders and said 'I'll bring out the tapas first in case you think it's too much food'. She said that without me even saying anything! I must have ordered too much. I understood why when the free bread came out. These were big pieces of beautiful ciabatta bread served with fragrant olive oil and olives.
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| Complimentary ciabatta bread |
There was no butter though but I was perfectly ok with that because the olive oil was splendid. It made me remember the big 25 litre can of olive oil that dad and my brother Jeff brought back from a small town called Bari in Italy 2 years ago. That was some good olive oil. The bread was so airy and soft as well that I couldn't get enough of it. The feeling of flour from the crust on my fingers as I grabbed another piece was so indulgent that I would have been satisfied if I didn't get any more food.
I was still licking my fingers from the flour as the first piping hot tapas was served. Again, I was happy with what was in front of me. Maybe it was the 2pm lighting that made the dish shine or maybe it was the sweet scallop scent that made my mouth water, whatever it was, it came at the right time for I was starving! I was expecting something a bit smaller, but this was good. Bigger was good. The scallops were cooked perfectly. It was juicy, tender and sweet, everything you could ask for. The sauce was actually quite sour, I was glad I didn't put on extra lemon juice. As with all seafood in my opinion, a slightly sour sauce goes really well with that naturally sweet sea flavour. The mash was great as well as it just soaked up all the remaining sauce and scallop juices.
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| Grilled marinated scallops $13 |
The second tapas dish wasn't as big (thankfully), but it wasn't small either. The prosciutto wrapped haloumi was a bit salty on the palate which was toned down slightly by the lettuce side. However, it was still a little too salty for my liking. I should have expected this though because I've ordered similar dishes at other tapas restaurants and they were too salty as well. Just the type of dish I suppose.
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| Haloumi wrapped in prosciutto $10.50 |
