RACV Club - Healesville

Open to the public for their Saturday night dinner dance the club is in competition with a dozen estaurants in the vicinity which vary from cafe style, bistro style to 'haute cuisine' The RACV is somewhere in the middle. The venue is getting old and a little tired but the tables have good linen cloths, and good crockery and cutlery and they are well spaced.Service is adequate and the band, though a bit loud was passable
I ordered a rabbit rissotto for a starter which was most impressive for the size of the portion which was larger than many mains I've been offered. Unfortunately, if they used arboreo rice it was so inferior as to lose the essential character of rissotto. It was not improved by floating in a sea of whatever it had been cooked in. After adding an adequate amount of salt it became a sort of rice soup. I followed this with beef tenderloin which I requested on the blue side of rare or very rare would be fine. Certainly sir we can do that. Well the chef had NO IDEA. Having eaten the huge entree I couldn't be bothered sending it back.

My companion had the special for the night as a starter. The tortelini in a white sauce. A moment later the waiter returned the kitchen has run out of tortelini would linguini be alright and it's only 7.30pm! This was a very tasty dish though the bunch of grass on top was out of place. Her next course some sort of small lamb rolls, which was promised blue, was seriously overcooked and became tough as leather as a result.

There was quite a small cheese platter 3 small pieces of cheese, a fruit jelly with a variety of biscuits including about half a packet of ryevita. The cheese cake desserts was large and unexciting, dominated by sweetness and lacking textureWe drank a Katnook 2000 Merlot ($85) which was very good after being decanted and rested
Price: Around $45/ person plus wine which is very well priced
Comments: Probably satisfies hungry trekkers and golfers.
Score: 12.5/20