Salsa Tapas Wine Bar Cafe

I went to Salsa on Saturday night with four girlfriends for a light dinner and drinks prior to heading into town. The booking was for 7:30 - which I think was pretty good timing as the restaurant was very nearly full, yet it was still early enough in the evening for the seven hundred different waiters we had to maintain their perky attitude throughout the evening. 

Being a summer evening, they had the doors open wide over looking the boats and boardwalk of the seaport. It's a fairly noisy place. Being a Tapas restaurant- there was plenty on the menu to choose from, as well as quite a few vegetarian and vegan options, which I was stoked to see. 

Every time I've been here I've made the mistake of turning the menu over (it's not double sided okay!). 

There are starters, hot foods and cold foods, as well as meal sized potions. With the tapas you pay per item, so in my instance I had 2, $4 Croquettes and 1 $4 arancini ball after my sourdough with oil & balsamic starter.

 It works out to be a good deal, especially if you'd like to try a lot of their menu items. Amongst the five of us, we tried the sourdough bread, arancini, croquettes, sausage rolls, chicken stick, lamb and salmon. 

Everyone had only positive comments to say about their food. They also have an extensive drinks menu, I sampled the berry cocktail - which was delicious! 

One of the waitresses came back and asked Sally if she'd like another drink and bought her a new one while my empty glass went ignored. I do suppose however this was an honest, inattentive mistake.

We were asked if we'd like to have a look at the dessert menu - after saying yes we waited no less than 5 minutes for them to bring it to us. It was a limited and expensive menu so we didn't stay to try any more!

Overall, the service was pretty good - I'm fairly traditional and I would prefer to have the service of one Waiter/waitress for the evening.

I do believe that Salsa has a coupon in the Entertainment Book, however, I left in haste and I didn't check before leaving home.

For the five of us to have dinner & drinks it came to about $140

 

 Salsa Tapas Wine Bar Cafe- 24 Seaport Boulevard, Launceston 7250

03 6334 0730

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Minh Buu Chinese Restaurant

Evan and I went to Minh Buu Chinese Restaurant on a Thursday evening.  We called to book, and an automated message told us to book online, which we did and they said they would call to confirm. We never recieved a call, but this wasn't an issue. When we arrived, the decor out the front initially seems to be tacky, but once we walked through the doors, we were greeted politely to find a large sized restaurant. There were only two other tables of people there. We were seated at a table for four, next to the door. Personally, I found this to be annoying as it meant we were presented with Tasmanian winter air every time the door was opened. We initially went to Minh Buu as we wanted to try their yum cha - after having had a look at it on their website and facebook it looked really delicious with many vegetarian options. When we arrived however, they apparently only have yum cha on Sunday. We ordered prawn dumplings, pork dim sim, salt and pepper tofu and rice. For a drink we ordered their special China blue cocktail. It was reasonably priced. Looking around $10 for entree and around $25 for a main.

 We asked if they could prepare some chicken or pork dumplings as I love dumplings, but don't enjoy prawns or scallops - however, they were unable to do this for us, which made me wonder how much was pre-prepared, especially on an evening with such few customers. The food arrived and it was beautifully presented, it all appeared to be very fresh. Evan said that the prawn dumplings were very tasty, I tried a little bit, however I didn't enjoy them. purely because I don't enjoy prawn. The pork dim sim were very tasty, I really enjoyed these as did Evan. The stand out for the evening was the salt and pepper tofu. It was fried, so it was crisp on the outside, and the inside was incredibly soft. It was honestly the best tofu I have ever eaten. 

The China blue cocktail was also lovely, it came with two lychees on a swizzle stick, which was a nice garnish. Evan and I were actually very impressed with the cocktail and drinks menu that Minh Buu had to offer. The cocktail list was more extensive than most places we have been, and all at a very reasonable price. We have decided that it was a very enjoyable meal, we will most likely go again on a Sunday to experience their yum cha!

Minh Buu Chinese Restaurant - 63 Brisbane Street, Launceston 7250

6334 5885

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