Malando stands out as restaurant of quality

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 14

Malando stands out as restaurant of quality

The Malando Restaurant, in Colombo Street, offers relaxed and luxurious wining and dining and has a reputation as one of the best restaurants in Christchurch. A trio of piano, bass and drums provides lively entertainment as well as dynamic music for dancing, and contributes to the Malando’s sophisticated atmosphere.

Upstairs in the restaurant’s comfortable cocktail lounge is the ideal place to start your evening. The selection of cocktails is tempting, and includes some award-winning drinks which the barman, Don Simon, concocts with great expertise.

The Mount Cook Sunset, which I chose, was an exquisite drink, and one to linger over in the charming atmosphere of the lounge. I decided that if there was a drink worth $2 then I had discovered it.

The Malando is certainly a restaurant of quality and because of this a couple should not expect to leave without spending about $25. Of course you could spend less or you could spend a lot more if you wanted to. There is a cover charge of $1 per person. Apart from the unobtrusive attentiveness of the staff, the first thing I appreciated in the dining room was the table linen — linen, not paper. Garlic bread was served hot with the butter just melting and made, I feel, the perfect start to the meal.

Of the four seafood cocktails, the crayfish, at $1.70, was a generous first course, and was served with a delicious sauce. The soups are all 90c. and I found the French Onion to be outstanding, rich and flavourful, thick with onions, and topped with tasty cheese.

Scallops, prawns, oysters, snails and beef all feature as entrees and range in price from $1.75 to $2.40. Scallops Mornay was my choice, and I can thoroughly recommend it.

A main course at the Malando is difficult to select not only because there is a choice of more than 30, but also because many of them seem particularly inviting. Three crayfish dishes, three sole dishes and four chicken dishes, for example, must surely cater for every taste in fish and poultry, and the choice of seven types of steak range from the conventional to the exotic.

One dish well worth trying, and one which does not often appear on a menu, is fillet of pork ($5.25). This is one of the specialities of the house and is served with green peppers, mushrooms and plenty of herbs and spices in a rich sauce. The vegetables, including baked potato with garlic butter, cauliflower, carrots and tomato, were all cooked lightly and with care, providing the perfect accompaniment.

In keeping with the Malando’s high standards, the cheese cake (the most expensive dessert, apart from the flambees) is made on the premises and is rich, creamy and delicious. It costs $1.50.

Although the Malando’s win?, list includes a number of exotic, imported wines, these are all rather expensive, and I was quite satisfied with a bottle of Gorbans Sylvaner Reisling.

Andrew Sim, the proprietor, makes it his ebusiness to see that diners are well satisfied at the Malando, whatever wine or food they choose.