Melbourne
VIC 3000
After doing some urbanspoon research we decided on Maccaroni Trattoria Italiana for lunch. Tucked in on the Collins Street end of Manchster Lane it is small with a couple of tables outside and a row of six two seater tables along a banquette on the wall, behind this was the open elevated kitchen and there may have been some more tables further back. The fit out is pretty moderm, for some reason I was expecting something older, the walls being filled with jars and packets of different types of pasta, bottles of wine and other consumables.
We began to peruse the menu, I focused on the pasta and gnocchi options, but there were also antipasti, main dishes and desserts as well some daily specials.
I ended up chosing the handmade potato gnocchi sorrentina, featuring a Napoli sauce with lots of mozzarella melted through it topped with some pesto. The balls of potato pasta were slightly smaller than usual, and there was more cheese than I expected, but it all tasted good and was well cooked and put together.
Phil went for the baked macaroni pasta with mince meatballs eggplant and mozzarella au gratin which looked great and went down well, he even grabbed a card on the way out.
The service was from the only waitress we saw was friendly and pretty speedy given I could also only see one chef. The bill came to $26:50 for the two of us, and it was nice to try something to our usual noodle of curry based lunches!
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I remember looking at this place a couple of weeks ago and at that time it had a 100% Urbanspoon rating with like 150 votes! I agree, I'm much more drawn to the noodles and dumplings but if I get a gnocchi craving in town, I'll check it out!
ReplyDeleteIt does have a very high rating, but seemed to live up to it. Perhaps its tapping a demand for a modern looking inexpensive but decent Italian...
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