The Cedar Tree Restaurant Review

198 Bay Street
Brighton Vic 3186
Phone: (03) 9818 0647

Food
Authentic Lebanese cuisine. To open we had a selection of hommos, baba ghanouj and labnee dips, served with lebanese bread, onto a selection of entrees including traditional middle eastern balls of spicy dried beans, vegetables, and middle eastern herbs, served with a drizzle of tahina sauce and fetta cheese mixed with mint, onion and spices in filo pastry. Mains consisted mostly of meat dishes such as the opening dish with the banquet which was chicken fillet pieces sautéed in a mixture of fresh coriander, garlic, ginger and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice. Served with cinnamon rice. This was followed by further meat dishes and then a sweet dessert of Baklawa and turkish delight combined. All the dishes were very enjoyable and well presented.
Service
Attentive and responsive. Meals came out at a reasonable pace, not too long to wait.
Value
Again I would have to recommend the banquet for better value, starting at $35 per person and plenty included. Separate mains start at around $20 each.
Decor and Atmosphere
Nicely painted interior with a number of lebanese photos and emblems throughout, featuring of course the cedar tree. Well presented. Later in the evening a belly dancer strut her stuff to some louder traditional music. They regularly feature belly dancing on weekends and look out guys, she likes you to get up and dance with her!

The Base Camp Restaurant Review

648 Glenferrie Road,
Hawthorn, Vic 3122
Phone: (03) 9818 0647


Food
Nepalese cuisine. The menu showed some reasonable selections, though only upon asking did we discover they also had a great value banquet available. The range of dishes on the banquet set menu appeared extraordinary at first, seeming to be a LOT of food. We asked if we should choose which dishes we wanted and were informed that we got ALL the dishes on the menu included. So we thought - great! As it turns out they were only small portions of each dish, but nonetheless it was a great banquet in which you got to sample a large range of foods of the nepalese cuisine, including lentil soup, 3 entrees, many mains with mildly spicy meats and veg with sides as well as 2 desserts - fruit salad and rice pudding.
Service
Very friendly service with a smile. A charming waiter served us. Professional and prompt.
Value
Especially good value if you go with the banquet. Pretty standard prices for mains, under $20 generally.
Decor and Atmosphere
The main front room boasts that,"Framed pictures of snowcapped Himalayan peaks such as the majestic Everest, Kanchenjunga and AnnaPurna adorn the walls while Nepalese flute and sitar music plays quietly in the background," though both times we have dined there in the past couple years we have been seated in a small extra room at the back which is wood panelled and cosy with tasteful nepalese decorations and dim lighting.

Tien Tien Restaurant Review

2/29 Fitzroy Street
St Kilda, VIC 3182
Ph: (03) 9537 0889

I was told by one of the friends I dined with that Tien Tien meant "every day". Special mention and thumbs up to the management as we went to Tien Tien at 'Earth Hour' and they had all their lights out and served all meals by candlelight for the hour.
Food
A large selection of thai, malaysian and vietnamese cuisines. The soups were reasonable and the mains were very enjoyable from our selections of thai lemon grass chicken and malaysian curry with rice. Decent sized portions.
Service
Competent, professional and prompt.
Value
No banquets available. Mains from $13 to $25 generally.
Decor and Atmosphere
Funky lights, but particularly lovely by candlelight at earth hour. Well presented and warm atmosphere. Comfortable seating.

Swan Palace Restaurant Review

96 Swan Street
Richmond Vic 3121
Ph: (03) 9427 8491

Food
Vietnamese cuisine. An interesting selection on the menu. We had plenty of time to look right over it as we waited and waited to be served. We could choose from such interesting dishes as Combianation Seafood and Vegetables, X.O. Sauce Specia, Pork with Black Beab, Sate and Oyter Sauce, a few different dishes with 'prwan', work fried noodles, coleslow and many more.. The soup was pretty ordinary, our water tasted frighteningly like detergent and appeared to be rather blue. The garlic prawns or 'prwans' were about the only redeeming feature in the mains. The calamari was ok but a little strange tasting. I felt a bit sick afterward but not sure if that was due to the food or the taste of detergent I couldn't seem to get out of my mouth.
Service
The one waiter flew around the place like a bumbling bee, with smoking hot dishes flying at people and the man barrelling backwards through doorways straight into customers exiting the toilets, flying so fast in every direction that I felt I needed to duck at times. And yet despite all this frantic flying about, the service was as slow as I have ever come across, and when we were finally served he ran away before we could barely get words out of our mouth to order. When he cleared dirty dishes off customers' tables he just piled them onto other tables and left them there. To be honest I nearly got up and left the restaurant before the mains finally came out.
Value
Reasonable prices. No banquets available.
Decor and Atmosphere
Pretty plain, not a lot of style. A cute row of christmas santas hanging along the wall.. in late March.