Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Hello World - Lunch at La Cucina di Vino

I have been deliberating for far too long about how to start this blog. It is all too easy to procrastinate, so I have decided to bite the bullet & sit down with a cheeky glass of shiraz to write about lunch today.

My BFF (Best Friend Forever) & I had some business & shopping to attend to today in Ballina & when it was all done & dusted had a need to recharge our batteries.

Instead of seeking out the usual cafe & pub lunch options we decided to check out the ‘Ramada Hotel’ & were delighted to find ‘La Cucina di Vino – Ristorante Italiano’.

The restaurant is located on the ground floor of the hotel with indoor & outdoor seating options. As it was such a lovely warm spring day we decided to join the other diners outside on the terrace, which has lovely views of the Richmond river & a small but pretty marina.

The restaurant is fully licensed with a choice of an a la carte or a ‘Credit Crunch Lunch’ menu. We chose the latter menu, which offers four choices of dishes at $10-00 each under three different categories of Café, Pizza or Pasta. The added bonus of ordering from this menu is you can have a glass of house white or red for just $5-00. The white wine today was a 2007 Swings & Roundabouts Chardonnay & the red was a 2007 West Cape Howe Tempranillo.

We decided to share an appetiser of a Margarita pizza from the Pizza menu, my BFF had the Veal Parmigiano from the Café Menu, while I Had the Chilli Squid Linguine w/ sea salt & basil from the Pasta menu.

The pizza had a thin & crispy crust with just the right amount of topping. The veal was accompanied by fries w/ a rocket & parmesan salad, which my BFF declared to be delicious. My pasta had perfectly cooked pieces of squid with just the right chilli hit that leaves your tongue tingling but not burning.

All of this with a large bottle of San Pellegrino and a coffee came to the modest amount of $52-00. It was such great value that we have already decided to go back & try some of the other dishes on offer next week.

Note to self – Take a camera to take pictures of the food!

Details:-

La Cucina di Vino
Ramada Hotel & Suites
2 Martin Street
Ballina NSW 2478
Ph: (02) 6618 1195
Lunch Wednesday to Sunday, also open for dinner

1 comment:

  1. My goodness Ross I am sooo impressed, this is all so professional and looks fantasic, not sure if I would be capable of doing justice to your recipes.. but I should try the Blackbean recipe Wal is a big fan, beef or seafood.

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