DM Restaurant and Jazz Bar, Southbank

DM Restaurant Caffe and Jazz Bar
www.dmrestaurant.com.au

This is a story about how I decided that food spontaneity is not for me. Before this fateful Saturday night, I believed that restaurant walk-ins were easy, especially when you're based in the West End food hub. There's the option of walking to the city, Southbank or even Milton. Maybe it was choice in excess that blew my mind but we just couldn't figure out what we wanted. Also, is it just me or is it becoming harder and harder now to get a table in Brisbane without booking in advance?

We ended up walking to Southbank Parklands. A loop through the entire dining precinct was completed before we started thinking about where to stop off. At some point, I stopped caring about what type of food I was in the mood for, whether the restaurant was bloggable or whether I had been there before. Hunger took over and we based our decision on what was close by and didn't have a queue.

I had never heard of DM Restaurant before. I don't know what DM stands for. A quick squiz at the menu revealed plenty of pastas and pizzas - an Italian restaurant then. That was cool with us since Marc was in the mood for pasta.

Although the restaurant wasn't packed, it was a bit hectic trying to place our order. I think our waitress was fairly new because she looked flustered. She directed us to a table but forgot to bring us menus. Our table was in a dark patch outside the restaurant and it was incredibly difficult to get someone's attention. We eventually helped ourselves to some menus.



In a bid to prevent loss of consciousess from low blood sugar, we ordered some bread and dip to start with. We then went with the pasta-for-two as our mains.

Trio of dips - served with toasted bread

The starter was very accurately described as toasted bread with a trio of dips because that's exactly what it was. I've discovered a trend with any dish that offers 3 dips, where I'll gravitate towards one and the rest get abandoned. Maybe it's because the dips tend to involve same same old classics. However boring or usual this dish was, we were on it like a couple of starved wolves onto an injured deer. Hunger and delayed gratification does this to people.

Pasta mista for two - with DM chicken penne, calabrese spaghetti and fettucini marinara

The pasta-for-two was a platter with any 3 of the pastas from the main menu. I actually like the concept of this because I'm a huge advocate of variety over quantity (which is why I keep ordering trios of dips despite maybe only liking one). Marc and I had chosen the calabrese, creamy chicken and marinara pasta. You get to choose the shape of pasta too and just to keep things interesting, we went with a different shape for each one.

Close up of chicken penne

The chicken penne wasn't unlike a supermarket Chicken Tonight creamy sauce mixed with cooked chicken and cooked pasta. The sauce was very heavy and I thought it was underseasoned too.  I wasn't anymore impressed with the spaghetti calabrese or fettucini marinara. At least the chicken penne had a guilty moreishness to it. I guess the only positive I could say about the marina is that it had bits of seafood in it.

I can't say I think much about DM Restaurant. The service was disorganized. The menu could only be described as Aussie-Italian. I'm not an amazing cook but I reckon I could embelish some store-bought sauce and produce better, more flavorsome pasta than what we ate. If I wasn't absolutely starving that night, I would have found most of the food not worth eating. The meals were inexpensive but I have had similar-quality pasta for much cheaper at 'Italian' eateries and I have had amazing pastas from more credible Italian restaurants that didn't cost much more.