Lady Lunchalot

Saturday night proved that The Union Club Hotel in Collingwood still serves one of the best pub meals in Melbourne.

It was Zoe’s birthday and she wanted to go salsa dancing at Copacabana on Smith St, Collingwood. I went to Copacabana once, many years ago, for a work Christmas party and was immediately struck by memories of swashbuckling waiters bearing long life-threatening sword-spears of meat. I had to duck every time they came to our table to avoid a swift decapitation.

Anyway, when Zoe asked me where we could go for dinner nearby, I immediately thought of The Union Club. Although, that’s not surprising. It’s easily my favourite place for a casual dinner in the inner north suburbs.

There were ten of us for dinner. The men were vastly outnumbered - O and another guy held their own up the back of the table, but there was no way they could compete with a gaggle of eight alcohol-fuelled women at a 30th birthday party.

I’d had a monumental achievement on the bathroom scales only hours before (I’ve lost 4 kilos in 6 weeks - woo hoo!) and I didn’t want to lose my momentum, so I went with the most calorofically Spartan item on the menu - Moroccan chicken salad.

This menu choice showed the unwavering Ghandi-esque determination I have to fitting into a size ten wedding dress. It killed me not to order the chicken parmigiana. I LOVE the chicken parma at The Union Club. But not only that, I was forced into ordering a dish that not only contained chickpeas, but even featured (I can barely bring myself to type the words)…. lentils!

Although I rarely eat dhal and am a dyed in the wool meat-eater, I actually have nothing against either chickpeas or lentils. It’s just that I tend to associate them with tofu-eating politically active women called Hannah who drink soy lattes and look like they are in dire need of a protein injection and a hair brush.

As it turned out, the salad was delicious. And it did have chicken in it, so my vegetarian fears were promptly allayed. The added unexpected bonus was that I felt very saintly tucking into my lentils and chickpeas while everyone else got stuck into steaks, parmas and chips. I kept my mind fixed on my rapidly evaporating waistline and the fact that I was wearing a pair of jeans that I hadn’t been able to button up since before I met O and the happy fat started to muffin-top over the waistband of my Levis.

As to be expected, O’s parma was up to The Union Club’s usual exceptional standard. He even gave me his last mouthful, which just proves that I am marrying Mr Right. One of the girls rolled her eyes at the massive porterhouse and mountain of mashed potato that was placed before her, declared that she’d never manage to get through it all, and then didn’t come up for air until she’d polished off every morsel. She looked mortified when she realized she’d eaten that much food. But I would never hold that against anybody. If anything, she moved up a few notches in my esteem. And The Union Club is that kind of place. If you can’t enjoy a good pub meal once in a while, what’s the point?