Cosi Bar Ristorante

Cosi is one of the many small high end eateries tucked in between shops on Toorak Road, this time at the South Yarra end just near Punt Road.
I picked it randomly out of the entertainment book (it had a buy one get one free main meal voucher) and didn’t really have any expectations. For dinner I had the eye fillet with potato and pancetta rosti (rare).
This was really flavourful steak. Now I don’t know about you, but when I read something that says ‘char grilled’ I do have a certain expectation of the flavour, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The steak inside was tender, cooked perfectly to rare whilst still maintaining that slightly blacked charred flavour on the outside. I find that many places advertising ‘char grilled’ just miss this flavour completely and it really makes a huge difference. The potato rosti was ok, but a bit thick and soggy, I assume they were trying to imitate the shape and size of the steak but personally I would have preferred a larger thinner rosti just to get it extra crispy.
For dessert I had spiced ginger cake with rum and raisin ice cream and ginger lime syrup. I’m not the biggest fan of ginger but this was very well balanced, the rum and raisin flavour wasn’t too strong and the spiced cake was warm and somewhat reminiscent of a sticky date pudding. It was one of those desserts I had to make a conscious effort to eat more slowly so it didn’t disappear in 30 seconds. And this sort of spiced cake is just the sort of warming, pleasant sensation that you want in winter. Probably not something I’d order in summer.
Overall the quality and the flavour of the food was very good, however I’m not sure about the price. For a relatively small steak (although yes I realise it was an eye fillet) I felt the $ 40-​ish price tag was a bit much for a fairly nondescript restaurant with little atmosphere. The service was quite good however there were not many people in the restaurant. I realise however that it is South Yarra so slightly inflated prices are to be expected. Also, the use of the entertainment book voucher actually makes it very good value.

Having bustled in out of the cold one particularly wet Saturday morning desperate for coffee, I was happy to discover a warm, open café with a table free for me to sit down.
It gave the impression of attracting more discerning clientele (at least, more discerning than I was going to be), given the large number of impeccably dressed over 50s seated inside. Not a problem, I was only there for coffee.
We weren’t too sure whether it was table service or counter service. Surely a café like this would be table service? Surely. We waited. And waited. And after what felt like 10 minutes a waiter came over with water for us (lovely) and asked what we would like. We ordered our coffees and then waited again. And more waiting. Service was very slow, which seemed odd given they weren’t very busy and there were quite a few staff on.
The coffee is beautifully made, however, so ultimately I didn’t get too annoyed by the wait. I might even go back, should I ever be in the area again.