Wednesday - The Nash, Richmond

Walking through the front bar past the pool table and the regulars resting their elbows, the lounge area had a good number of tables, but wasn't exactly packed out for the Wednesday cheap steak night.

The red wine selection was good and the steaks didn't take a long time to arrive after ordering. I had a medium well with mushroom sauce, with my colleagues having a rare with mushies and a medium rare with garlic sauce.

The steak came with fries (really nice ones, too) and a common garden variety salad and each was cooked to order which continues to impress. I found the quality of the meat was ok - certainly not the tenderest or best steak I've had, but not the worst either - the portions were on the smallish size too (certainly compared to the Peacock's). The consensus was that the steaks were probably a 6.5

Interestingly, there was no dessert menu and just before we left a projection screen was lowered in the dining room and Ferris Bueller's Day Off was screened (this was done with no fanfare or explanation - apparently they have the occasional movie night)

Overall rating: 6 -6.5 An honest pub in Richmond - the pub capital of Melbourne

Stay tuned....

...there is definitely more reviews of cheap pub specials to come.

Tuesday - The Peacock, Northcote

This pub dating from the Victorian Gold Rush is very, very busy on Tuesday nights because of the quality of its cheap steaks.

I partook of a medium well with mushroom sauce while my colleagues in the team of professionals had a medium rare with garlic butter and a rare with garlic butter. All were pleased with how the chef cooked their steak (in my experience, medium well is hard to find - either being burnt or bloody).

The bruschetta entree was beautiful, but introduced the only quibble for the night - serving two bruschettas when there are three seated might be what the menu called for, but maybe some common sense should have prevailed.

In summary, make sure that you book this one in advance - it is popular - but well worth it for a good size steak cooked well and priced right.

Rating: 7 out of 10 (first post, might change this after a few more to judge against)