Musica E, Beissel St, Belconnen

Musica E, Beissel St, Belconnen
Friday 13 April, 2007

Tonight was dinner on the northside with some old & new friends. The setting was Lake Gininerra in Belconnen and the promise was music and food.

The promotional blurb states,

"Mario Gamma (owner, pictured) was involved in film and television for many years. He was on Heartbreak High, Home & Away etc, and has alot of friends that frequent Musica é Restaurant Bar Pizzeria.

Set across from the Lake Gininderra Musica é Restaurant Bar Pizzeria provides the perfect lookout location. By night, you could be mesmerised by beautiful melodies from our live musicians with delicious food from our very own professional chef."

The dining space is small and spills into an outdoor courtyard - the doors were kept open so Mario ( and his staff) could easily move between each area. We ordered an entree of rosemary, salt, garlic pizza bread for the table to share and just as it arrived so did the evening's entertainment. Mario put on a headset and backing track and started wandering through the dining space as he sang. He's got a half decent voice and did a few numbers from Dean Martin, Andrea Bocelli and John Travolta. It was entertaining and he invited some of the chefs from the kitchen to come out and join him. There's some banter, humour and audience participation required.

For mains we all got stuck on what to order as the menu is so extensive offering pastas, salads, pizzas, chicken & veal dishes - the menu goes on and I had to ask our waiter for a recommendation. She steered me in the direction of the marinated chicken with avocado, sour cream, sweet chilli sauce and caramelised pineapple and not towards the house speciality - woodfired pizza.

The mains arrived......except mine. Our waiter disappeared and seemingly forgot that we had another dish to arrive so I encouraged my dinner buddies to start. A few minutes later mine arrived and looked sensational. In fact, every main looked sensational, served on large white plates and beautifully presented. The chicken was cooked to perfection and the sweetness of the caramelised pineapple was offset by the avocado - whilst it sounded a little sickly sweet it was absolutely heavenly - I loved it as did my dinner buddies with their selections which ranged from Penne with Balmain bugs to Veal medallions.

We polished off our mains and were presented with dessert menus - yes please! Just as we had ordered the entertainment started us again. This time around more audience participation was required and a congo line was formed. I hadn't had enough wine to make me want to join in and it was hilarious watching a young couple at the next table who obviously didn't know there was entertainment and clearly wanted the ground to open up and swallow them whole!

For dessert most of our table ordered the Choco Ozzy Bozzy - a chocolate pudding with warm chocolate interior served with vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate syrup. This arrived as a warm chocolate muffin with a side of Street ice cream. It wasn't what we had expected but it didn't stop us from eating every mouthful - it was warm, chocolate and gooey inside.

The music occurs every Friday/ Saturday night so be prepared. The best advice I can provide is get involved - if they invite you to sing along - go for it - if they encourage you to stand up and participate in Grease Lightning - start moving. It's fun if your table is into it but otherwise be warned there is no place to hide.

Musica E - 62/1 Beissel St, Belconnen - (02)6251 0410

http://www.musicaewaterside.com/about.htm