Archive for the ‘Fails, Scored 3 or less.’ Category
The Quarter
The Quarter
27 Degraves St
Melbourne
(03) 9650 6156
Degraves Street.
I love Degraves Street. I love how pretty it is, how the cafes spill out into the little lane with cafe-goers perched at their tables which line the middle walkway underneath a canopy of umbrellas. I love the colours, I love the smells, I love the vibrancy. In fact, I often walk through Degraves on the way to work just to feel the hustle and bustle.
As much as I love being around there, I am always loath to eat on Degraves street. The food looks good, smells good, but more often than not, tastes like shit.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t like being critical, because I generally don’t like negativity.. I see myself as the nicer half of our MSG operation, i.e. the sweet side; the glutamate that flavours this blog if you may 
However, bad food is bad food.
The Quarter is in the middle of this delightful laneway, and has a nice, European cafe feel to it. We were seated, and proceeded to order our food which came promptly.
Pizza diablo - $16ish
Linguini marinara - $23.50
Now onto my dish.. I still shudder at the thought of this dish. It looked reasonable enough, but closer inspection revealed a poor marinara mix, which had probably passed its used by date. I had figured if the dish was one of the more expensive items on the menu, then surely it would include reasonably fresh seafood. I was wrong. This dish was pretty much inedible. I generally don’t leave much food, being a good little Asian girl trained to finish her dishes, however I could not even stomach half of this dish. The mussels tasted rank, the scallops were rubbery and fishy and the calamari was almost impossible to chew through. The only saving grace was the prawns which were… edible. The pasta was poorly flavoured, with very little taste except that of lingering dirty dish water. In short: yuck. I left hungry.
Whilst I don’t want to devote a blog to hating food, as it really is to celebrate food, Alex did google this place before we came, and all reviews were fairly positive. We were quite disappointed.
So, Degraves street: beautiful laneway, come for the atmopshere, don’t stay for the food. If you want decent Italian, head to the Paris end of the city.
Jess’ Ratings:
Taste: 2/10. Both these points come from the pizza. 0 for the Marinara. yeech.
Authenticity: 1/10.
Value: 2/10. The pizza was an ok price. Especially since they’re generous with the toppings. I still feel ripped off by my marinara.
Ambiance: 6/10. Good mood lighting, well fitted out cafe. Nice background music and good atmosphere.
Service: 6/10. Super quick and friendly. Almost too quick, food came within what seemed just minutes.
Overall: 4/10.
