Twelve, Newtown

“Are you ready to order?” asked the waitress at 7.25pm.

T, U & I paused in our conversation. T and U had been at the restaurant since 7pm; I had arrived shortly after at 7.10pm.  ”Uh…2 minutes please.” The waitress nodded and walked away. Luckily the service was not of the attentive type, which was appropriate given that the rest of our dinner party trickled in soon after.

Including a visitor from Canberra.

However, the highlight of our night was the pie that El had baked for T, as a belated birthday present.

“A pie?!!” T was very excited and immediately decided to eat the pie for dessert at the restaurant. We were conflicted whether the restaurant would be okay with us BYO dessert. Luckily, we discovered that ‘cakeage’ was applicable to baked goods in a class greater than cakes.

These girls had been one of my ‘groups’ that I had hung around with. A combination of mutual friends, mutual defection from one university to another and a lucky coincidence of law class timetabling meant that we had stayed in somewhat close contact over the years. This also meant that we had somewhat regular dinners at Newtown consistently.

‘Twelve’ was one restaurant we stumbled upon last year before S and L exchanged for a semester overseas. We were immediately in love with their food – namely their pastas. Could we replicate the experience? (Descriptions missing actual names off menu…)

My spanner crab linguine was tasty, but I had to add pepper and salt, which is unusual for me (the salt adding). Not a very heavy tasting dish though, but had beautiful texture, with the crab and the rocket balancing each other out.

El had the orchiette with broccolini? It had a strong taste of broccoli from my sneaky grabs from her plate. (Good thing I like broccoli!)

W had the chicken and pesto risotto. Awesome dish. Cheesy, al dente and fragrant pesto.

S had the pepperoni pizza with extra chilli. I didn’t try any.

L & T had the seafood risotto. Also fantastic. T was very excited about it as well.

yeah pie!

Upon thinking about dessert, we asked the waitress whether we could have ice cream with the apple pie. Ice cream + Apple pie – success, and all for a very reasonable $2.50 cakeage.

I’d totally take El as my housewife.

The Verdict? The service wasn’t great, but it was busy and the staff were polite to us even though we didn’t order about an hour. They probably could have upsold us to a bread or something if they had asked; T and U were pretty hungry when I first arrived. They were also understanding about the pie issue and happy to accommodate. They were a little on the pricey side though but their food was excellent and when you have good company, it’s not such a bad thing to be left alone. It would be awkward if you were on a bad date though.

I’d totally do Twelve again though.