A food court vs Cecconi's Cantina

Cecconi's Cantina
Basement, 61 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Ph: 9663 0222
Open: Mon-Fri, lunch and dinner; Sat, dinner only from 6pm

IF you're a blog regular, you'll already be familiar with our junior blogger friend, 10-year-old James from Northcote who wrote a guest review for us last month on Rockpool. Yep, that's right. Rockpool. James' only birthday wish was to dine on some of Neil Perry's top notch steak and, as you'll see from his previous review, he wasn't disappointed.

James is the kind of cool kat who has discovered early on in life he's more of a lobster risotto man than a Happy Meal bloke. In his latest foray into blogging, James has shared his thoughts on Cecconi's Cantina, which he's contrasted with an Indian meal from a shopping centre food court in the way only a 10-year-old can.

Enjoy, because we certainly did.

*****

"WHEN you go to a food court, you expect food that's just all right. But at the northern suburbs place I went to, everything was wrong.

I ordered butter chicken and garlic naan. They said the naan was to be made fresh, so I was excited about that idea.

But when I tried to bite the naan I changed my mind at once. The naan was thin, crunchy and had been burnt. The butter chicken sauce was surprisingly all right, but there was one thing wrong with it - the meat was terrible. When I walked out of the food court I thought that was one of the worst places ever, apart from some chops I had before in a town called Pinnaroo, that were completely fatty.

So after that bad meal, I needed a good one, and if I needed a good one, there was no better place to go for food than Cecconi's Cantina. Cecconi's is a great place to take someone on a special day, so Dad and I took Mum on Mother's day. To start, we had angel hair pasta with lobster, a garlic risotto and a very rich Parma ham.

The ham caught me by surprise because I had never tried anything quite like it. The risotto was beautiful and I would definitely come back to have that. And the angel hair pasta was my favourite dish of the entrees. It was a simple homemade Italian pasta with a simple sauce and delicious lobster.

The entrees were very good so I expected the mains would be as good if not better. And guess what, the mains were better!

We had a veal dish (osso bucco), medium-rare steak and a pepper duck dish. The veal was very good _ Mum loved it! The steak was also very good (not as good as Rockpool, but you go to Rockpool for steak anyway so it's hard to compare). The duck was delicious and was my favorite main.

Compare Cecconi's with the food court and the food court looks like trash!"

- James, 10, of Northcote