Land of Escagrill, covered in chocolate

Given how late this post is, I shall be short and sweet. I shall even use bullet points!

• My birthday celebrations ended with a white tablecloth, silver dining ware dinner at a restaurant called Escagrill (Mt Alexander Road, a mere five minutes' bus ride away from my street). This was the first time I had ever booked a table five weeks in advance, thanks to a guest's advice, so I was expecting great things (and a bit of pain in my new blue suede high heel shoes).
• I immediately loved the fact that it is split into three levels in the restaurant, with one level discreetly tucked away for parties. The mood lighting akin to that of upper-class New York restaurants, extensive wine list, dedicated white shirted waiting staff with black aprons and the iced display of fresh seafood sprawled across the front of the open kitchen behind a low glass counter all lent to the visual impact.
  
• We all chose to go for three courses from the menu - I shared oyster kilpatricks with two other guests (yes I prefer fresh ones but for the benefit of others I was happy to go for the cooked ones) while others had entrees such as fresh seafood platters (which was bigger than we expected) and king prawns (the boys had to tolerate our jesting over their table manners but their faces told us their mess was worth is). My grilled tuna with red pepper sauce and olives as a main was lovely, as was the seafood papadelle that VL had but the poussin(s) TW and KMZ had looked so succulent.
• Choosing dessert was fun because I had heard so much about the individual bombe alaska but then I got distracted by the chocolate platter. TW convinced me to share one with him right before Fi had a chance to ask me which led to some mock debating :P. In the end our table had 2 bombe alaskas, one tiramisu and three chocolate platters. What a wonderful platter it was, so beautifully composed. We had a lot of fun working out which items best complemented each other.
• To top it all off, the company was great, we all had fun (I know I did) and I received flowers, (more) chocolates & a chocolate tour voucher for two as a birthday package from those there! Least to say, I went home from this dinner a very happy (older) person :)

On that note, guess who is in town?!?!?! I am not a huge fan but hey an extra place to go to (when there are no queues) is always a good thing for competition.