Paradiso

For Evelyn's farewell lunch, we chose Paradiso at the MLC Centre. I'd been here years ago, on a company sponsored lunch and quite enjoy the experience, so I was looking forward to another visit.

Food

The menu is made you of your typical cafe fare of burgers, pasta, fried items and a few special, with absolutely nothing a bit special or unique to offer. Nothing really caught my eye so I settled on the steamed salmon with steamed vegetables, grilled polenta and mustard sauce ($21). The salmon was fresh and moist, and of a good size. Because there was no marinade or anything added to it, you really get to taste that fishy salmon goodness. The polenta was grilled to perfection. But - and I blame myself for ordering a steamed dish - the carrots and beans were watery and tasteless, and the mustard sauce thinned by the water content of everything else on the plate. It was ok, but not great, but not bad. At least it was healthy.

Maybe I should have stuck to the more simple cafe fare as the burgers and fried calamari did look good. The pasta wasn't very appealing though, and they pitch themselves as an Italian joint?

There was a group there who was having some sort of set menu though, and that looked really good - seafood platters, pasta, garlic bread, crumbed prawns... so maybe we just ordered wrong.

Rating - 6

Atmosphere

The last time I was here was in late summer, we dined Al Fresco and it was lovely. This time, it was very cold, windy and raining, so we sat inside. There was no protection from the element though, except for some clear plastic sheeting, which didn't really shield out the wind. The heaters were all facing the wrong way, so it wasn't a pleasant experience to stay.

A long counter alongside the bar area displays an array of cakes and slices. A very shiny TV plays silently in the corner. There were a lot of lunch groups. The special group also got tablecloth instead of the wooden tables and uncomfortable chairs we got.

Rating - 1

Service

They were quite good, knew just when to come to take orders. The food arrived in pretty good time and they asked us how we were. The only gripe from me was that they just assumed the male was going to pay. Even though I asked for the bill they delivered it to a male. When I handed them my credit card they handed it to another male in the group to sign. In this day and age I think they could pay a bit more attention to that aspect as it can get pretty embarrassing to assume who was paying.

Rating - 3

C-factor

We paid for Evelyn's meal so it worked out to be $25 pp. Maybe if the weather was better it would be ok. We didn't want to stay in that surrounding and got out of there pretty quickly. For what they are doing, I can think of a lot of places doing it better for a better price.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 10.5

Info

Level 7
MLC Centre
Corner of King and Castlereagh Streets,
Martin Place
NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9221 0527