Howdy all. Hope this Wednesday Review finds you well. Today I’m reviewing a spot I stopped at for lunch back on the last day of November last year. It was on Lygon street, Carlton, just a bit north of the CBD. I was eating with a good friend, Ivan, who was helping me shoot an episode of ‘Melbourne Revealed’ which will be coming along shortly, at Melbourne Cemetery.

If you are unfamiliar with Melbourne, Lygon street is a very popular spot for dining, breakfast lunch or dinner. And it was well located for our venture. I went online to try and choose a place to eat, but I struggled. Not that I struggled to find places to eat – far from it! Lygon street is principally a restaurant precinct. But trying to choose a place that looked interesting and one that looked good for lunch, that proved to be harder.

So anyways we decided to meet up and have a bit of a wander up and down the street. It’s famous in particular for one kind of cuisine – Italian. If that’s what you’re looking for, you are certainly in the right area. So looking for something a bit ‘different’ isn’t quite so easy. We liked the look of a few places, and perhaps I will get back there at some point for another review.

In the end though we decided to go with a place called D.O.C. Why? Because it was doing excellent business more than any other reason. It was Italian, but did a range of rolls/panini/sandwiches. It had a deli attached as well, so we decided to sit down in the outside dining area. In fact, it was the last table free!

The fare was rich in cheeses and cured meats. But I must admit to not carefully recording exactly what we ate unfortunately. And I am kicking myself now. But we liked the place!

D.O.C was probably the busiest restaurant at the time on Lygon street. And it was really hard to choose because frankly, there was a lot of sameness to the restaurants on offer. But in the end we went with D.O.C. and were pretty happy.

The service was okay friendly enough. My only criticism really was that there wasn’t a menu on display, which is common for Lygon street, so we had to ask the waiter for a menu, which is something I hate doing. Why? Because I feel like once you do that, you’re three quarters of the way to taking a table in the place.

We flicked through and for some reason decided to take a table. Probably because after asking for the menu we felt compelled. There was a smattering of pasta offerings, a bit of seafood I think, a reasonable looking wine list but we didn’t drink this day. Then they also gave us the ‘Deli’ Menu which had a bunch of panini-type sandwiches and, well, more sandwiches. Which actually was just right because it was a warm day and I didn’t fancy a full-on pasta or a pizza.

I went with a sandwich with ham and a creamy sort of cheese with rocket, and Ivan chose a slightly different one. They came to the table in a roll cut in half so we had half of one each. It was a good choice. Despite there only being three or four things in each roll, they were really tasty and the bread was awfully soft and the sandwiches were just a little warm.

A very simple lunch, but one that actually I was really happy with. A very pleasant day to be out too eating on the footpath, a lovely setting indeed. So I was rather impressed. If you do head to Lygon street, this might be a place that’s worth trying out. It was very popular that day, and there has to be a reason for that because there are a lot of dining options and some were busy and some only had one or two tables taken.

Thanks for reading today, take care – and May the Journey Never End!