June 2015
I recently announced that The Feed Report would be ending today. This was due to the combination of running out of restaurants (I've basically been everywhere fancy), the assimilation of my main traffic source (Urbanspoon) into the amateur startup “Zomato”, and, finally, my desire to eat at my favourite restaurants a lot more.
After considering things, I have some slightly better news to report.
There's not much in the way of fancy restaurants up here, but as you know, I'm running out of places to go.
The floor is tiled, and there are numbers on the tables. It's neat, but fairly basic.
I arrive at the restaurant, only to read that the entrance is on the side street. I go round to the side street, and discover a small foyer, with an unexplained set of stairs up to Gallery. I ascend a few floors, and find the place. Only, it's occupied by a private function. There's one more set of stairs, so I try them, and am taken to a bar floor. I'm told this is always open to the public, and the floor below is only for private functions. Not everyone would have made it all the way up here.
Being Friday night, this place is packed. I'm reduced to sitting at the bar with other riff-raff. :)
The menu is done on a typewriter. It contains such delights as COWS HEAD SHAKA, PERI PERI GIBLETS, and MONKEY NUTS.
Mmm… authentic. :)
This is a strange place. It's above street level, on Rundle Mall.
The restaurant is a cavernous room, with dark wood floors, and antique furniture. There are regular tables, but also leather couches, chiffon curtains, and a low table with stools, reminiscent of something from the Middle East.
The place is mostly dimly-lit, but I find an 8-person table with a brighter light, more suited to photography.
Mother Vine is a trendy wine bar just off Rundle St. It doesn't look like it would serve food.
I'm not sure what a vine is a mother of. :|
Maybe the grapes. Then who's the father? :o
One of the last few (decent) fancy restaurants I haven't been to.
It's unusually large for a fancy restaurant. It could easily pass for a suburban $10 slop-house.
This restaurant does not possess an unusual amount of tranquility. There is a mild hubbub here, punctuated by some annoying laughs.
It is a bit coldo, however.
All of a sudden, I hear a cricket repeatedly chirping. I ask the waitress, and she investigates. My guess is that it's an attempt at tranquil sound effects, but it turns out not to be. The waitress hears it, but can't identify it either. It's probably some dingbat who set their phone's ringtone to a cricket chirp, without realising they were too senile to answer it, should it ring.
It's gone now. :)
The Feed Report will be concluding at the end of this month, with the final report being on the 26th June 2015.
More than two years ago, I strayed from the local pub I’d been eating at every day for six months, and visited a nearby fancy restaurant. I took a photo of my dinner, and posted it to Facebook, with a few words. This was the beginning of The Feed Report, which would become the #2 food blog in Adelaide.
I wasn't planning to come here tonight. I drove to Stirling, but my intended restaurant had a sign out the front, reading "Private Function". Not being sure whether this applied to the whole restaurant, I walked in, to enquire. A lady was giving a speech to the entire restaurant. Oops. Rather than leave, however, I made my way to the back, and sat on a temporarily-vacant seat. I pretended to be just another guest, and watched the speech for a moment. No one suspected anything was amiss, and when there was a change of speaker, I took the opportunity to "pop outside". :)