Birthday dining the paleo way
A couple of weeks back I won a dining voucher to James Dining in a competition that Fit Me In (who deliver my paleo meals) held on Instagram.
For me it was perfect timing! July is my birth month so I could use the voucher for my birthday dinner. The best thing about James Dining is not only do they have the “usual” vegetarian options but also have gluten free AND paleo meals on their menu. I used to work not far from James Dining so I’ve driven past it approx a million times but I’ve never been inside.
To be fair it’s located in an “annoying” place to get to if you are coming from my direction. You either have to do some “creative” driving aka do a sneaky u turn ignoring the 1000 signs that tell you no u turns allowed or you drive right past it and go around a block and then turn around and come back again. On a positive note it has easy access back to the motorway home and free parking directly behind the building.
We walked into a dark and slightly “sexy” bar area that looks into the open plan kitchen and were lead through to the dining area. The dining area has concrete flooring, exposed brick walls and a super high stud with amazing chandeliers hanging from the roof.
After speaking with our waiter there was only a handful of dishes that were not paleo so I had a large selection to chose from. I settled on the corn fed chicken thigh skewer for my starter and the beef cheeck & beef fillet served with carrot mash and savoy cabbage and J went with the “soup of the day” which was pumpkin, coriander and bacon followed by the Chimichurri chicken breast served with spaghetti squash, cauli and baby carrots and we would share a side order of hand cut kumara fries.
My starter was one skewer and although it was mouth watering I thought the price tag of $10 was a tad step considering for double the price I could have had an entire chicken breast served with vegies. The rest of the meals however I thought were AMAZING value for money.
James ate everything! His exact words were “You know a meal is good if I even eat the vegies” I sampled the chicken from his main and it was tender, moist and had just the right amount of spice and although it was devine I think my beef trumped it. Although the eye fillet was “good” the beef cheek was to die for and literally melted in your mouth. When J sampled it he didn’t believe me that it was beef because it was so soft and “buttery”.
The waiter bought out the dessert menu and if I wasn’t on the paleo challenge I definitely could have satisfied my love of dessert from what was on offer. However I refrained (and to be fair I had cheesecake earlier so I wasn’t really missing out). J went with the winter crumble served with icecream and we both had black coffee.
J said the crumble was awesome but noted that the serving was huge (I on the other hand thought it looked just right) 😉
We both found the service was tad overbearing at times – the staff hover .. I would have preferred them to leave the water jug on the table instead of coming around every few minutes to refill our glasses which would interrupt our conversation. J and I get interrupted at home while trying to hold a conversation so it would be nice to be left alone while out on a “date” – but you know it’s better than being ignored and it’s a first world problem with a capital F. 😉
All up the meal cost just over our dining voucher amount of $100.00 but considering J had three courses, beer and coffee and I had two courses a side dish and coffee I thought it was excellent value for money and both J and I agree that we will defintely go back because the food was just so Gawd Dam Good!
This paleo “buzz” isn’t as hard as I thought it would be ..
Till next time
