Cafe Trevi

Cafe Trevi

294-296 Lygon St, Carlton

(Ph) 9349 1029

P was in Melbourne and asked us to all join her for dinner at Cafe Trevi on Lygon Street. I had never eaten here before though I have had takeaway cake here - their cake display is very impressive and tempting! Though the cakes are not made here and are actually Mark's cakes =P (which by the way, are one of the best cakes around!)

They actually have an upstairs here I didn't even know - we were a group of nearly 40 people so it was nice they sat us upstairs pretty much like a private function =)

P, M and I decided to share 2 pastas and a pizza. We were initially thinking of the Pasta Mista - 3 entree serves of pasta for $37.50 but then decided to go for 2 main sizes instead. The first was the Papone - chicken & avocado in a napoli & cream sauce with penne $18.50 We were thinking of having tortellini or ravioli with it but then decided didn't want a meaty pasta with chicken.

I'm such a sucker for chicken and avocado and tomato cream sauce =P P really doesn't like tomato cream sauce usually - he thinks it should be either tomato (like bolognaise or napoli) or cream (like carbonara) but not both combined =P It was good they left the avocado pieces quite large otherwise it would have been quite mushy. I thought it was quite tasty though and the pasta was cooked al dente =)

P wanted the Trevi - sauteed prawns & garlic in a champagne cream sauce with fettucini $20.50

I usually don't like ordering seafood pasta 'cause I always think they give crappy frozen seafood but this was surprisingly good! They were quite generous with the prawns but look at the discrepancy in size! Most of them were the small prawn size (which to be honest is actually not that small) compared to the big tiger prawns still with the shell on the tail! The prawns were very fresh and weren't mushy like frozen prawns =)

The sauce was creamy but with a hint of garlic and champagne - quite delicious indeed (and this is coming from someone who doesn't like prawns normally =P)

The pizza took ages to come out - I guess they have to woodfire oven it but don't they have to cook the pasta too?! The gourmet - tomato, cheese, Virginia ham, sundried tomatoes, olives & fresh basil $19.00

This doesn't look as gourmet as we thought it would look =( They were not very generous with the sundried tomatoes (probably only about 3 pieces on the whole pizza?) and more cheese would have been appreciated. And what happened to the fresh basil?! They ovened the basil so it was all dried and shriveled up =/ I don't like how they put massive pieces of ham on it so when you bite into the pizza the whole piece of ham goes into your mouth in the first bite - why can't they cut it up into smaller bits? The crust was not too bad, crunchy with the smokey woodfire taste but was a tad on the thick side.

One of the other friends had ordered a main pasta but the waitress took the wrong order and gave him an entree size instead. When it came out he said if he could get another small portion of it so it becomes a main so the waitress went and got him another entree size pasta. But when the bill came it was 2 entrees instead of 1 main for him and he asked the waitress if she could change it, and she said "sorry I know it's my fault for putting down the wrong order but you still got 2 entrees 'cause the chef had to cook it twice" =/ we were very disappointed after this!

Food~
7/10 - think the pastas are better than the pizzas here even though there are neon lights on the windows advertizing "Woodfire Pizza" here =P

Atmosphere~

4/5 - quite nice how they sat us upstairs like a private function =)

Service~
1/5 - definite thumbs down here though, they should have been smart about the waitress putting down the wrong order and just changed the bill for us, makes us really not want to come back here =(

C.
xo