Moo Moo Restaurant - the raging bull

http://www.moomoorestaurant.com/

It was 5pm on the Thursday night before the Easter long weekend and there was no way we were cooking at home for dinner.  SC and I had a cursory look through the few remaining restaurants available to us in the Entertainment book and decided that it was time we visited Moo Moo Wine Bar and Grill.  Between the two of us we have been there many times, but never together, so it was high time we actually ate at the restaurant together.

Moo Moo, which is a great name for a Steak Restaurant, opened up in Brisbane in June 2010 after its counterpart on the Gold Coast had been running successfully for five years.  Moo Moo is located in the historic Port Office building at the Stamford Plaza and filled the void that was left when one of Brisbane's landmark restaurants, Siggy's, closed down.  The Port Office building is a magnificent example of old world charm and Siggy's was a perfect fit for such a charming old building.  Moo Moo has taken the old world charm and turned it on it's head.

Urbane - The return visit

http://www.urbanerestaurant.com/urbane/

There are a stack of nice restaurants in Brisbane now and more opening every week it seems, but there is still only a handful of special occasion restaurants around town.  You might ask, what constitutes a special occasion restaurant, but its not always easy to put your finger on.  Sure, the food needs to be sensational, that goes without saying.  A great atmosphere?  Check!  Something you just can't find somewhere else?  You bet!  All these things are important, but there is also the X factor, which is harder to put your finger on.

I needed a special occasion restaurant recently for a very special occasion.  My best mate, a friend I had spent almost every day with over the last 22 years, was emigrating to another country.  I can think of only a handful of other scenarios that would have a greater impact on my life.  We wanted somewhere memorable, a place where we would reminisce over as the years roll on, somewhere perfect.  It needed to be degustation too.  I am always banging on about how much I love degustations and my best mate, the Big Boy, wanted to experience a great degustation too.  The one other time I had taken the BB to a degustation was Attica in Melbourne (post is here), and we did not have the best of experiences.  I needed to rectify that with an amazing meal.  There were only two places that came to mind, Esquire and Urbane.  I had a feeling that Esquire would be a little too cutting edge for the BB, so we decided on Urbane.  I was looking forward to this.

Monty's Dining - Fine Dining in Tamworth

http://qualityhotelpowerhouse.com.au/tamworth/moderndining.html

Tamworth.....  There are not many reasons to go to Tamworth, sure, there is the country music awards, but I am not a fan of country music.  When SC first raised the idea of me joining her for her cousin's wedding in Tamworth, I was pretty reluctant to go.  She had been down a couple of other times for family get togethers, but I had always escaped going down.  In what I can only assume was a moment of temporary insanity, I agreed to share the 7 hour drive with SC to keep her company and attend the wedding.

To lessen the blow SC did a little research and discovered that there was a fine dining restaurant in Tamworth that was hatted, had a great reputation and was even attached to the hotel that we were staying at.  Now I suspect that she did this research to use as an incentive if I had declined to come down to the wedding, but as I had already agreed it was more of a sweetener to the deal.

Monty's is the restaurant and it has been awarded an Australian Good Food Guide chefs hat, which is generally a really good sign of a quality restaurant.  I was intrigued about this and did some research on the Executive Chef Ben Davies.  Chef Davies is a English lad who grew up just outside Bath in Somerset and has been a chef since he was 17 years of age.  Working his way through different restaurants if France and England, Ben moved to the hotel 'Les Bories' as a head chef, where he obtained his first Michelin Star at the age of 23.  Ben also obtained a Michelin Star while working at Llangoed Hall in Wales and while at Llangoed Hall was able to cook for world leaders as part of a G8 summit.  In 2006, Ben moved to Tamworth and has been the Executive Chef at Monty's ever since.

Tartufo - Italian for truffle

http://tartufo.com.au/t/

There is a spot over at the Emporium in the Valley that used to be one of my favourite restaurants, unfortunately it closed down and the spot remained vacant for a while.  That restaurant was Belle Epoque and it was a lovely French restaurant, where ironically I had the best risotto ever.  I say ironically because the restaurant that replaced Belle Epoque was an Italian fine diner called Tartufo.

Chef and owner Tony Percuoco has a long and distinguished career in the food industry, which started in his family's restaurant in Naples as a young boy.  In 1973, Tony began his career at Bennalong at the Sydney Opera House, then onto continue working in his family's restaurant in Kings Cross.  After opening and running his own restaurant in Surrey Hills, Senso Unico, Tony moved to the Gold Coast to open a number of restaurants including the well known Restaurant Fellini.  All of this led to taking over the space at Emporium and creating Tartufo.