It’s early for my dinner, but I have an appetite for sightseeing, and am ready and raring to go. It matters little to me, that I am all dressed up, in my Shahab Durazi black fishtail skirt and jacket over a pink blouse, but will be dining alone.
Better that way, I think. Here is one meal I want to concentrate on: both what is on the table and what lies beyond my window. It is my version of a Moveable Feast.
I am at a table in the tramcar restaurant in Melbourne. It is 5.30 pm, the air is cool, the sky darkening. I step inside the gleaming, old world tramcar and am led to the dining table, so beautifully set. Other tables are already filling, and the murmur of voices is pleasant and not intrusive.
The feast begins. As the tramcar glides through the city, I see trees and monuments, buildings and statues. It’s a view that looks both quaint and archaic through the windows of my dining car. I feel like the heroine of a romantic novel set in the 1980s, travelling all on her own, waiting for some adventure.
The food, however, is very contemporary. I have chosen a light fruity white wine, a roasted red capsicum dip for the lovely bread that is served, and follow it with aMacadamia grilled chicken breast served on sweet potato mash and baby spinach with a Macadamia pesto sauce.
The food tastes wonderful and I quite enjoy the play of light and shade that moves across the interiors of the dining car, as we weave through the suburbs of Melbourne. The dessert is almost too much for me, but I cannot resist the warm sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and pass up on the cream.
It has taken almost one and a half hours to down this leisurely meal. I take long breaks to look out of the window, and to watch the fellow passengers as they go through their meal.
A magical evening, which ends when the tram comes back to its stop, and I hurry out into the cold night air, happy as a queen!
