Pizza Cafe at the Grand Hotel, Mildura by Bureaucrat

Upon arriving in Mildura, we headed out to central bit of the town in search for dinner.

I find Mildura to be a combination of Mornington Peninsula and Canberra.  As Mildura is located next to the Murray River it has that chillaxed, communal vibe that's common with any city or suburb that's adjacent to water.  It's sunny skies, wide pavements and roundabouts is reminiscent of Canberra.


Having wandered up and down Langtree Ave, we settled on Pizza at the Grand - a family friendly restaurant which appeared to be popular with the locals.

For the four of us, we got two pizzas and a pasta.

When it comes to ordering pizzas, there's a set of  unspoken rules in my family.  The first rule, you must get the seafood pizza.  The second rule, is that if you can order a second pizza, then it must be 'the lot'.  The third rule is that, so long as rules 1 and 2 have been observed, then you can order anything else.


Ergo, we got the seafood pizza. I quite liked this - a good amount of cheese (I do love mozza), garlic and anchovies. No pizza is complete without anchovies.  Nice crisp, thin base.


And here is the 'the lot'.  Lots of ingredients (always a plus in my books) but nothing memorable.  It was good, run-of-the-mill sort of pizza.


Mother Hen picked the duck pasta.  While we were waiting for the food, she was speculating whether there would be much duck in the pasta.  So often, many restaurants skimp on the (more) expensive ingredients.  She was pleasantly surprised to find that this duck and mushroom pasta had plenty of duck pieces.  Tender, flavoursome duck, coated in a very unctuous and morish cream sauce.  It was so very good but so very bad.... I could just see the cream sauce attaching itself to my arteries.  I think the pasta was handmade and it had a pleasing chewy-ish/bouncy texture.

Overall
A nice place for a relaxing meal.  The place is huge and the service is friendly (they are all so polite and ready to help).

Verdict
Food – 7
Service - 8
Ambience – 7
Price - 7

Address
Pizza Cafe at the Grand
18 Langtree Ave
Mildura VIC 3500
Telephone: 03 5022 2223