d.o.c. pizza and mozzarella bar, carlton

A few weeks ago Simon and I went out for dinner at D.O.C Pizza and Mozzarella Bar (295 Drummond St, Carlton) with fellow blogger friends Bryan (+ Fakegf), Winston, Daisy (+ Mr. Bao), and Yasmeen. It was great fun. We chatted, we ate, we ate, we ate, we chatted, we ate some more... and finally left with very, very full bellies.

Now as a disclaimer, I tend to struggle a little as a food blogger when I have to keep track of and pay attention to more than a few dishes in one sitting, and have even given up on processing such posts in the past, so bear with me if this one is not quite up to scratch!

Let's start with an easy one - drinks. The Baladin range of soft drinks on the menu caught our eyes. I got the Spuma and Simon had the Ginger. On paper, both sounded similar, stating ingredients such as orange peel, vanilla and spices. Upon drinking both, we discovered the differences. Spuma had a more bittersweet herbal quality to it, probably due to the use of Chinese rhubarb, while Ginger had sweetly seductive honeyed notes that melted upon the tongue.

Soft drinks from Italian brewery Le Baladin. Here, the Spuma Nera.

We had a long rectangular table, so for the main savoury meals, we divided into two parts of four - thus, Winston, Yasmeen, Simon and I shared a few pizzas amongst ourselves, while Bryan, Fakegf, Daisy and Mr. Bao in turn had their own selections.

Winston had been to D.O.C. before and he suggested we get the antipasto platter - a daily assortment of selected ingredients. I'm not sure if I can identify everything properly, but my favourites here would be the bresaola (air cured beef) and smoked Scamorza (a smoky mozzarella in the fior di latte style). There was also a very strong, crumbly cheese which was too pungent for a few of us to handle, and even those who liked it could only have a little bit at a time. Made for good fun passing it around and checking out everyone's expressions as they tasted it for the first time!

antipasto platter.

For pizzas, we had:

Pizza Tiger Prawns with tomato, mozzarella, endive, fresh chilli. It's a nice, fresh combination of flavours. I would've liked there to be more than one prawn on each slice, though... am I greedy?

tiger prawn pizza.

Pizza San Daniele with San Marzano tomato, fresh DOP buffalo mozzarella, DOP San Daniele Prosciutto. I've actually never been too keen on prosciutto as it's generally a bit too funky for me, but the prosciutto in this pizza is quite subtle and delicate.

San Daniele prosciutto pizza.

Pizza ai Porcini with wild mushrooms, truffle oil in bianco with grated DOP pecorino. Mushroomy, earthy, and creamy, this is my favourite out of the three.

wild mushroom pizza.

While the pizzas were enjoyable, and they are what D.O.C. is famous for, I also really liked their desserts. Here's what we had:

Sweet goats cheese, tiramisu with pavesini and montenegro. I'm not big on tiramisu desserts and wouldn't have gotten this if I was by myself, but I was surprised by how much I adored this one. It's light, it's sophisticated, it had me going back for more.

tiramisu dessert.

Coppa gelato - a delectable cup of mixed gelati. The chocolate one was easy to identify; the pinkish one was suggested by the others to be strawberry, though for some reason it tasted more like blood orange to me; and then there was one that was reminiscent of eggnog, which in retrospect was probably zabaglione.

mixed gelati dessert.

Nutella calzoncino with vanilla bean ice cream. With that classic chocolate hazelnut filling, the little calzone, along with the ice cream, made for sticky, sinful comfort food.

nutella dessert.

Sweet pizza with Belgian white chocolate, fresh strawberries, vanilla bean ice cream. Even though I don't usually go for white chocolate, I really looked forward to this one, because it sounded absolutely lush, and it did not disappoint. So satisfying!

sweet pizza dessert.

All in all, I had a very positive first impression of D.O.C, and I would return again as I am quite interested in trying some of the other pizzas. Simon did feel that it was a bit pricey, however, with each pizza clinking in at around the 20-dollar mark, so we'll have to see how we go!



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french lettuce, carlton

There is nothing like a lazy Sunday. Sleeping in till ten, maybe eleven in the morning. Waking up, but not getting up. Stretching hard, your feet pushing away the sheets. Then, slowly, you unfurl yourself off the bed, to go in search of food... and on this occasion, a few weeks ago, Simon and I decided to take a short walk to French Lettuce (237 Nicholson St, Carlton).

We've visited French Lettuce once before, and that time we had their baguettes, which we liked. Firm crusts, chewy insides. Light, fresh fillings. We went for a baguette again - one with chicken, avocado, salad leaves and tomato, splashed with just the right amount of honey mustard dressing.

fresh and delicious chicken baguette.

We also tried one of their sandwiches with frittata, pesto, semi-dried tomato and salad. I would probably have preferred a denser bread here, but the fillings were, again, well-executed.

a soft sandwich with a very nice filling combo of frittata, pesto and semi-dried tomato.

And of course, there are desserts. Oh, the desserts! We briefly admired the macarons, but decided to give them a miss...

an assortment of macarons.

And I very, very nearly went for these sticky date and pear puddings - they looked so deliciously moist. I'll have to come back to try them.

sticky date and pear pudding.

But then the sour cherry and pistachio tart caught my eye - it just looked stunning. What can I say? I'm superficial like that. Upon digging in, I found that while the crumbled pistachios were pleasant enough, they didn't do much for me in this context; however, the sour cherries were a winner - they provided such a lovely contrast to the vanilla cream hidden underneath.

pistachio and sour cherry tart.

French Lettuce is famous for their vanilla slices, with great reviews from Herald Sun and The Age. I'm not a vanilla slice connoisseur, but I can say that I enjoyed this, and so did Simon: the gentle crunch of the flaky pastry together with that fluffy and not-too-sweet custard made it quite the refined experience.

French Lettuce's famous vanilla slice.

Oh, and the rest of that Sunday was good, too. I met up with friends, had fun in the sun, and ate ice cream. Lovely!



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