Fee and Me

As with the best laid plans of mice and men, circumstances have combined to thwart my inspired writings about the Fee and Me experience on Wednesday night.

My habit is usually to eat out at the selected restaurant or café, then head home and immediately write about it for the blog. I deliberately decided against taking the laptop to Lonny with me, so didn’t have the facility to write up the Fee & Me meal when I got back to the hotel.

I spent all day Thursday working in Lonny, then returned home to find no dial tone on the phone, and naturally no internet access!! Come on Telstra – get me connected again please. Don’t you know this girl has a mission?

I knew Fee & Me had a website (with the menu on it) so at the time of dining, didn’t take too much notice of menu details as I knew that everything I would need to refer back to was there for me on the website. Think again Rita! As we’ve discussed here a while back about restaurants and their websites, the Fee & Me website’s menu is old! Not updated. Not current. What an elementary mistake to make. Damn!

OK, so I find myself with the phone line finally operational and my head full of thoughts about the food and experience at Fee & Me, but no specifics about the menu. So – my hugest apologies to everyone. Had I thought that Fee & Me would not have paid appropriate attention to this small-ish detail, I would have written down what was eaten there.

The reason it upset me so much for the menu not to be current is that my first course at Fee & Me’s was THE most innovative, beautiful and special plate of food I can remember having. Yep – huge call from Rita. And naturally the blow-by-blow description of it isn’t on the website. It basically comprised maybe two of the finest slices of rare beef topped with what looked like an ice cream scoop of beetroot sorbet. Sounds gross? It was mind-blowingly stunning and delicious. Eating this particular plate of food outweighed any dim and distant memories of sex for me!

Gorgeous Wayne was my dinner companion, and he went to a lot of trouble to order differently to me so I could taste more of a range of food there. He had what could have been the salmon and sour cream terrine ( a bit on the ordinary side), as noted on the online menu, the turkey breast (we spent the whole time while eating this plate trying to work out what it was and trying to remember what Wayne had ordered), and a hare pie (filling and tasty but otherwise not too startling). I had the beef, the mushroom caps (which tasted stunning, and were a work of art with their presentation to boot) and lamb (well crafted and tasty).

They charge by the number of courses you have there, so 3 courses costs $21.50 per course; 4 courses costs $19.50, and 5 courses costs $17.50. I thought we’d had 4 courses, but honestly can’t remember what they were if we did.

I had no idea either of what the restaurant looked like, from the outside or inside, so didn’t know what to expect in the way of style or service. It was a bit like Lebrina in that it is a converted older house (with appropriate furnishings), with maybe 4 or 5 separate eating rooms. The service was austere, but efficient. In my mind, because of all the things I’d heard about the food there over many years, I have always equated it to Marque IV. I think I was wrong to do this, because I don’t think you can compare them. Marque IV is modern, and light and airy, and young, and friendly. People can walk in there off the street and dine (if they’re not fully booked).

Fee & Me was way more formal, and I couldn’t envisage people just strolling in off the street on the offchance that they would be accepted for dinner. The atmosphere (well, in our particular room) was, like Lebrina, hushed and subdued, with people speaking to each other in whispers, rather than hearty, animated conversations such as you find at the more rowdy restaurants.


Whilst faultless, the service was quite formal, with precious little exchange with the customer. I realize there are many reasons for this, so please remember this is merely one person’s account of their dining out experience there on the night.

To sum up, I’m pleased I got to eat there. I loved certain aspects of it, and especially the beef dish. If I were a Lonny dweller I’d probably go there once a year just because I love food and am interested in the different things people manage to do with it.