bistro guillaume, melbourne, australia

bistro guillaume is the bistro of sydney chef guillaume brahimi and it shows.. that he's from sydney, that is.  first, he may not have been paying attention to his fit out when he was in sydney.  on warm sunny days, a variety of places in the restaurant will be directly in the sun's path.  the way the roof is designed means that there's little escaping the sun at some time of the day.  secondly, the bear bones table setting, appropriate in my view for a bistro, still left us finding the table dirty with crumbs... qantas needs you to bring your dustpan with you, mr brahimi.

but onto the food.  for entree, i had six beautiful sydney rock oysters.  there was also the option of pacific coffin bay oysters ($3.50 each), but i opted for the rock oysters i knew and liked.  they seemed freshly shucked and still full of juicy sea flavours.  they were served simply on a bed of ice with lemon and red wine vinaigrette.  i also tasted a beautiful salad of beetroot with asparagas and goats cheese.  simple flavours delicately balanced with a fresh and tasty beetroot ($18).

for mains, i had the berkshire pork belly served with lentils and taragon vinaigrette ($32).  the hero of the dish, as many of these cooking shows on tv will say, was lifeless and dead to me.  the pork belly made me sad for the rest of the day - what a waste of calories and of a good piece of pork - i could have gone to auction rooms for brunch instead!  the pork crackling was soggy and boring from a lack of rendering.  because of the taragon vinaigrette, the lentils had this strange aniseed flavour to them that (for me) didn't work.  having said that, others who tasted the dish said the pairing was nice.. a matter of personal opinion. oh my crackling.. i'm sad again.

the pork belly made me so sad that i didn't have the heart to try for dessert... i was afraid of what i would get and, sorry guillaume, i won't be going to your melbourne bistro any more.. maybe you should come south more often and see what's going on?  your sydney joint is much better.  for those of you who want to go to the bistro in melboune, perhaps try two entrees instead?  we seemed to have more success that way...

you can find more on bistro guillaume here:

for the love of food
the age
taste.com.au