Delissio at Curtin

Our financial advisor bought us lunch yesterday, no doubt to soften the harsh blow of recent financial events. Or perhaps to have himself a tax-deductible duck and red wine lunch. (*) We went to Delissio, in Curtin - oddly located not in the shopping centre, but down the road near the schools at 83 Theodore St.

This was only my second visit to Delissio - I went once before as part of a large group, and enjoyed the food but not the atmosphere. They have this odd long table down the middle, which makes it hard to talk to your group. It felt a bit like pigs at the trough. But with only three of us, I thought it went very much better. The service was a trifle slow for a weekday lunch where people might need to get back to the office. Sadly, we didn't have time for an after-lunch coffee. I've heard it's good and the cups going past to other tables had chocolate truffles with them! Damnit, missed out! But our waitress was friendly and helpful, and they got all our orders right, so no big deal.

It's mostly Italian in style, featuring plenty of pastas and risottos and pizzas. There are a few international dishes including a jambalaya and a szechuan-spiced calamari. They have daily specials, too.

We shared the generous serve of hot cornbread ($7). It was surprisingly light and fluffy, and came with a mild chilli cheese dipping sauce. For main course, I had the salad which is pictured on the Curtin side of their web portal page right now. That looks like an entree size ($14), my main course ($19) was larger. It's a teriyaki steak salad, with hot tender slices of fillet steak, in a rocket salad with pickled ginger, cucumber, rocket and sesame. I enjoyed it very much - a very well balanced dish, and the rocket was fresh and young. The Bloke had a chicken, bacon, dried tomato and pesto rigatoni, and scraped up every bit. Our adviser went for the confit duck with sweet potato, which looked fabulous, I had been tempted by it, but decided it was too heavy for me at lunchtime.

To drink, I had a fancy Norwegian mineral water, which came in a bottle that looks like a giant perfume bottle. And I had one glass of a Knappstein Cabernet Merlot. Very nice. I'd have liked a coffee, or one of their rather good sounding desserts, but we were out of time, and I was too full for dessert anyway. That just adds motive to go back. I hear they do a good brunch...

They've also opened a sister restaurant in Braddon, where Coggans used to be. I'll have to check that one out soon. That's much more convenient for me.

(*) BTW, Dean, if you're reading this: I'm just teasing!