Thursday 25 December 2014

La Bocca


Merry Christmas from New Zealand!!!

I hope you're all enjoying the holidays and having a feast. Songie is making dinner tonight, so I'm pretty keen(not for dishes though..). More about that in a later post, because it deserves it's own post for the effort he put in :)

Today's post is about  La Bocca in Parnell. We felt like eating Italian the other day so we drove through Parnell and found some.






Atmosphere
It's not an immediately noticeable place, but once you see it and walk in, it's quite picturesque. Adding to this is a little sheltered part outside with brick floor, with little cloth covered tables and white chairs; ideal for summer.


Inside the cafĂ© itself, the worn wooden tables, sweetly simple chandeliers, and antique looking wallpaper lend some nostalgic, traditional air to the place. On the coffee machine there is a cute "I <3 NZ" sticker. Strains of guitar and accordion music play peacefully in the background.





Food
Spaghetti al ragu. I found it a very simple meal, but it was good, so maybe it was aiming for the straightforward flavour, letting the finely minced meat . The spaghetti wasn't exactly al dente like I prefer it but, it wasn't too soft either. in the bolognaise take over the taste. Overall not too bad.



The sausage of the sausage sandwich(I am not too sure of the name), as promised, was "juicy and bursting with flavour".  Twas a bit strong, but that's probably what the Focaccia bread was for. It wasn't my dish though so I just sampled the sausage.


Songie's meal

Now to my favourite part; dessert. Luckily the tiramisu wasn't only for the dinner  menu because I  was pretty keen to try it. Songie didn't enjoy it as much. For me, the first few bites were amaaazing and I was seriously considering getting another. It was sugar or something, that was crunchy and sweet, together with the cream and the sponge-y cake; altogether the layers of the tiramisu just mixed really, really well. In the end it turned out it was just right of a serving, I was satisfied and only barely stuffed.


My mother has this love of affogato. This one was...Unusual. Rather than the usual coffee and icecream, this one came with an extra cup of perhaps vanilla(?) syrup. You just "put it all in together and mix". So we did. I had a sip and it was a new kind of flavour but.. not bad. That being said I'm not a huge fan of coffee, so, y'know.

Service
The only visible person was this middle-aged seemingly legitimate Italian man, though we did see a woman come out of the kitchen, maybe his wife or something. He's been here for about 30 years already apparently. He was friendly and charming, and though there was a mix up with a 7 year old spring menu coming out, we didn't mind too much. Of course, Songie was a bit disappointed about not being able to order beef lasagne. He did make a mix-up on the price too, with an added $20 onto the charge due to an apparent miss-type, and we didn't notice until we left(VERY IMPORTANT TO CHECK RECEIPTS!!).

Price
Since there was a lunch special, it was $15 for eachmeal and $13 for the tiramisu.

All in all, I do like this place, and I recommend it as a cute date place or just somewhere to eat. Personally I would not eat there often but maybe once in a while when craving Italian and a nice tiramisu.

Thanks for reading~
Just the one Lamb

UPDATE: It has come to our attention that La Bocca has now closed down, much to our dismay at the loss of the tiramisu. Apologies to those who have been looking for it and couldn't find it. 

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