130 Lygon Street
Carlton, VIC
www.balzari.com.au
Winter always made people crave for warm and hearty food. Myself is one of those people that have craving for those kind of food today.
Lucky for me that my friend, T, wanted to be my fellow diner hunting for winter comfort food, so we both headed off to to Lygon Street, to the heart of the Italian strip in Melbourne, and paid a visit to Balzari.
Looking from outside, Balzari looks like any other Italian restaurants on Lygon Street - they all have small table sets outside the restaurants for those who want to enjoy the sunshine and having coffee while enjoying the street view. The moment we walked through the door, Balzari gave us a different feeling, a warm, calm and collected vibe, as if we were in a different world from outside. We were greeted and guided to our table toward the back of the restaurant. I kinda like our table since I could see and observe the ambiance inside the restaurant.
We start of our comfort food degustation with Fried Sardines with Lemons ($17) and Contechino with lentils ($17) and of course, the bread and olive oil served in Italian way. The taste of Fried Sardines with Lemons were well designed by the creator. I would never expect that the deep-fried sardines with the deep-fried lemon rings were complementing one another so well. Many flavour left lingering in my mouth after the first bite, saltiness from the sardines, citrussy from the lemon plus the aroma from the skin of the lemon, yet together they brought out the sweetness of the dish. The Contechino was a sausage served with lentils, the dish was delicious and the lentils were perfectly cooked.
