The Rose

The Rose. 309 Bay St Port Melbourne 3207

After getting on my Greek food inspired high from dining at The Press Club bar, I thought I'd continue the Greek theme. This time for my good mate's birthday, we decided to visit The Rose, in Bay St, Port Melbourne. We found The Rose in the 2007 Good Food guide, which mentions that The Rose does some of the best Greek food in town. They are right.

The Rose is an old pub, which has now been converted into a largish restaurant, but still has a pub type setup, with the big bar on the side and TV screens showing the football on a Saturday night. The restaurant was almost full, which says good things already.
The menu consisted of a large seafood selection and a wide variety of distinctly Greek flavours. We started off with Chicken livers, pan fried with fried onions, fresh oregano, garlic and lemon, served with wet fava. ($14.50) I'd never had chicken livers before... only as part of a pate. They were suprisingly soft, tender and had a slight spice flavour to them. The wet Fava was like a soft mash, which went beautifully with the livers and a squeeze of lemon topped of the flavours beautifully.


Next we had the Barbecued and smoked octopus with a salad of chickpeas, herbs and oven dried tomatoes. ($15.50) The Octopus was deliciously soft and subtly smoked. I wouldn't have thought to put chickpeas with Octopus, but it worked nicely, giving a slight bit of cruch to the dish.

For mains my friend had the Red Mullet. ($?) The red Mullet was nicely pan fried. It's a great oily fish which wonderfully flavoursome and The Rose serve the fish with a nice Greek inspired warm salad.

My mains was the Slow roasted leg of lamb with vine leaves and mustard, served with braised white beans and salsa verde ($28.50). The lamb was cooked to perfection - slightly pink in the middle and it was soft and tender. The salsa verde was great too... however I think they were a bit stingy with the amount they served with the meat.
To finish off, we shared a plate of Greek delights – selection of baklava, filo and semolina custard, halva, Kataifi and Turkish delight (approx $15 from memory). This plate was fantastic value for money. Lots of different sweet tastes. Only problem was the Halva, which left your mouth feeling like you'd just eaten a sheet of plaster board. I've had Halva before and it was much better than this. The standout was little filo triangles, not sure what they were called, but they had a lovely sweet cheesy substance inside, which were absolutely delicio


The service at The Rose is lovely and friendly. They're not over the top, yet the waiters are always there if you need something.
If you like your Greek food, give The Rose a go. I don't know much about Greek food, but I know what I like and this place serves delicious, authentic, fresh and tasty Greek treats.