Website: www.justbar.com.au

Entertainment Book Card : 25% off (up to a value of $50)

Just Wine and Tapas Bar is located on Preston Street in Como right next to the Cygnet Cinema.  Our main aim that night was to attend a Women In Engineering (WIE) movie function in Cygnet Cinema – the premiere of “Eat, Love, Pray” and decided to find a joint in Como to catch-up over dinner beforehand.  Looking through the Entertainment Book, we found this restaurant offering a sumptuous tapas-style degustation menu of 11 tapas for only $50pp!  Taking the discount into account, it was only $37.50pp, what a great deal!  We all agreed in one accord.  A note – they also offer an 18 tapas option which includes some dessert for $70pp.  As we only had an hour period for dinner, we did not go for the bigger menu. 

Just Wine and Tapas Bar has a great outlook both inside and out.  The joint is not too big, with probably 6-7 tables on the inside and a semi-alfresco area making up the rest.  They have quite stylish decor and a chic back wallpaper, I was admiring it from where I was sitting!  It’s similar to what they use in the Red Room and Blue Room in the MinQ Bar, a velvety patterned material.  I love it!  I’d actually observed a few restaurants adopting this, maybe it’s a new trend :) 

Just Bar also has a semi-open kitchen (you can see the chef running around during the busy times and admire his great multi-tasking skills! bravo!) with a wine display counter mounted at the back.  And what a fine and extensive selection of wine to complement the menu.  Nice!

We didn’t actually get a menu of the degustation menu so we trustingly waited for the staff to bring them out and explain what they were.  Poor me was trying to remember the names so I could blog about them – Iphone to the rescue :)

PS:  Please excuse the light exposure in some of the photos – they are inconsistent and mostly overexposed, my camera doesn’t take good night photo!  I need a new one!!

Anyways, back to the menu, here we go:

• Potato and celeriac soup - the soup came in a cute little white cup and was thick and tasty.  Like. 
• Thai papaya salad – simple dish and complemented the meat dishes well.

• Bread, olives and dip – great bread, soft and warm and went well with the olive/balsamic, olive and white bean dip, you can never go wrong with this starter!
• Duck liver and brandy pate with port and cranberry jelly and baguette - this dish seem to be an acquired taste and I was a convert since last year after tasting a few in various degus, so a win for me.  It was very good!

• Smoked ham terrine - a fancy ham pate/meatloaf, didn’t quite like the smoked ham taste but it was an ok dish.
• Exmouth king prawn with Singapore sauce - lovely big prawns with an interesting sauce, almost reminded me of the singapore chilli crab..except with prawns.

• Goldband snapper with chervil and butter sauce – my favourite dish that night with the snapper skin grilled to crisp whilst retaining the flesh softness and finished with a creamy butter sauce.  Yum!
• Aged sirloin with field mushroom – my 2nd favourite dish as it was a meat dish (needed something to fill me up!) and the field mushroom is a bonus, love them!
• Lamb fillet with Dijon mustard and drunken currant - after the previous 2 dishes, this didn’t quite compare :p

• Broccolini - love this veggie, becoming popular recently and great accompaniment to any dish!
• Kiwi and midori granita – had a cleansing effect in between dishes, great!

Overall it was an awesome night and a great degus menu.  We only had one hour to dine and they managed to serve everything in time.  Service was great – staff was friendly and took time to explain each dish to us.  The only thing I missed was the dessert, I think I need to go back and try the other degus option!  A great option for a nice and reasonably priced tapas degustation dinner! 

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Rating by: N.L.   

Just Wine and Tapas Bar
Telephone: 08 9474 1977
Address: 20 Preston Street, Como