Awash
Posted: November 29, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: African restaurants, Awash, cheap eats, Footscray, Melbourne 6 Comments »
Shop 2, 46-82 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 1955
We don’t mean to celebrate the frequently wicked ways of the world, but we feel blessed nonetheless to be able to enjoy the diversity and flavours varied African tribes have bestowed on Melbourne’s west.
Only problem is, some of the nicer and more appealing places these days have pricing that marks them – for us – as likely venues for a night out and/or special occasion.
Not that the prices are in any way exorbitant – especially in contrast to “proper” restaurants of the classier category.
Adulis, for instance, is calling to us – particularly after a full-blooded endorsement by Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog.
But the prices are such that we’re saving that experience for a windfall day or something similar.
And that’s why we headed right next door, to Awash, for a cheap and cheerful Saturday lunch.
I’d dropped in the previous week and had been mightily impressed with the mixed non-meat sampler ($12).
This time around, though, Bennie as adamant: “I want meat!”
So after discussing the non-meat option with the staff, we ordered the meaty pea stew ($10) and a side salad ($5).
A little while later we were presented with … the non-meat sampler.
Oops! Communication breakdown among the staff!
To their credit, they repeatedly offered to replace our meal with the food we had actually ordered.
However, I was equally adamant that we’d make do with what had arrived. After all, the food had already been placed on the injera, so presumably would go to waste if we sent it back. No way!
And so it went.
Bennie overcame his disappointment at his non-meaty repast, and joined me in devouring the lot with glee.
There were pulses three ways – brown lentils and yellow split peas rather plain, and another lentil brew a rich dark red with just the right kind of chilli kick; all good.
The vegetables consisted of the familiar cabbage/carrot mix and a serve of the likewise familiar silverbeet concoction; all also good.
A bonus of going the non-meat route in an Ethiopian eatery is that the food uses enough oil/butter to get the job done, but falls way short of the very high levels found in many of the meat dishes.
I’m also often impressed with just how good the salads are at a great number of Footscray’s African restaurants. Usually there’s nothing whiz-bang involved – just incredibly fresh vegetables beautifully presented and anointed with a lemony dressing.
The Awash salad was a good one that upheld that tradition.
There was nothing remotely spectacular about our food – it was plain, but also wholesome and tasty. And at $17 for two, truly sharp on the pricing – a bargain, in fact, that required no troubling mental maths or hesitation.
Moreover, such was the warmth of the service – and the upfront and happy manner in which the ordering contretemps was handled – that we are looking forward to returning for the likes of their doro wat or tibs.
I remember the first time I tried injera – and found the rubbery clamminess of it rather unappealing.
All ancient history these days – injera has become just as commonplace, delightful and essential as a bowl of pho!
As we ambled over the road to Footscray Market, Bennie opined: “That was a mistake – but it was a good mistake!”
Heather Dell
Posted: November 25, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to shop at | Tags: cake shop, cheap eats, Heather Dell, Melbourne, pie shop, western suburbs, Yarraville 6 Comments »
7 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 1721
Heather Dell makes one realise how over-used and mis-used the phrase “old school” has become.
Instead of being used to bring credibility to lame pop culture manifestations, it really should be restricted for use when describing joints such as this fabulous Yarraville pie and cake shop.
Heather Dell is the very essence of old-school.
It starts with the signage, frontage and funky old-time wooden screen door.
It continues with the interior – racks of, yes, “old-school” cakes, slices and pies – and the welcome.
It goes on with the vintage mixers and other equipment – none of your new-fangled metrics here!
The vibe continues with a product line that includes neenish tarts, mince pies and much more.
“Old school”, too, are the production methods – Heather Dell’s goodies are made by hand and with a whole lot of love.
*****
Oh, sweetie! Clockwise from top left: Apple turnover, hedgehog, boozy Christmas mince pie, neenish tart, coconut tart, sprinkle biscuit, swiss blueberry tart, swiss lemon tart, regular mince pie. Centre: Jam slice.
TASTE TEST
Apple turnover: OK, but could’ve done with some more spices.
Hedgehog: Pretty good, but only a little classier than your average hog.
Boozy Christmas mince pie: Fantastically yummy!
Neenish tart: Stuffed with butter cream, this was too rich for Kenny, but Bennie loved it.
Coconut tart: Head of the class! Moist, coconutty and not too sweet. Kenny’s fave.
Sprinkle biscuit: Despite an aversion to hundreds & thousands and the like, Kenny liked this. Two crunchy wafers, plain but good.
Swiss blueberry and lemon tarts: See neenish tart (above).
Regular mince pie: OK, but not a patch on the boozy pie (above).
Jame slice: OK, but a little anonymous in such company.
*****
Then there are the prices – you pay for quality, but the most expensive sweet item at Heather Dell is the vanilla slice ($2.60). Prices for the likes of swiss pineapple and swiss blueberry tarts (both $2.20) and jam slices ($1.90) are significantly below those demanded at more trendy and high-falutin’ bakehouses.
When I bowl up to witness the daily pie-making session, the first thing proprietor Keith says to me is: “We’re old school!”
Indeed.
Heather Dell has been in Keith’s family ever since his maternal grandparents and grand-aunt bought an existing business in 1951.
He says they inherited many of the recipes, which have been somewhat modified over the years. The biggest change is in the use of vegetable shortening. In 1951 and thereabouts it was animal dripping all the way!
Heather Dell produces about 100 of their meaty, hearty pies ($3.80) a day, along with a handful of family pies ($8.90). Mind you, Bennie and I can scarf a family pie in about five minutes flat, so we presume they’re working on a rather narrow definition of “family”.
The meat is brought in from Keith’s butcher and cooked fresh each day. He sniffs dismissively when mentioning those who use “pre-mix meat” in their pies.
Many thanks to Keith, Carol, Millie and Ines for letting me watch them at work. It was a hoot!
Below: Heather Dell’s Pie-Filling Fella Performs His Daily Ritual
Kitchen Samrat
Posted: November 22, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Footscray, Indian restaurants, Kitchen Samrat, Melbourne 6 Comments »
36 Leeds St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 9776
If you live anywhere near Footscray, you’ll be at the least subliminally aware of Kitchen Samrat, so enthusiastic are they about letterboxing their takeaway and delivery menus.
Must work for them, I guess.
Like a number of Indian eateries in the neighbourhood, it provides cheap and cheerful food, catering to the student set through thalis and snacks while also offering a substantial a la carte menu in a casual cafe-style ambience.
Prices for full curries are a little cheaper than some of the fancier joints hereabouts – chicken tika masala or lamb rogan josh at $9, for instance.
But as ever, I go looking for the unusual and the harder to find.
In that regard, Kitchen Samrat has a couple of aces up its sleeves.
First up is the jal zeera, a little glass of which is presented to each customer as a complementary non-alcoholic aperitif. It translates as “cumin water”; looks likes dirty drain water; is also made with tamarind, sugar, salt, pepper, mint, coriander, puffed chick peas and just a trace of chilli; and tastes bloody great!
The other highlight on the regular Kitchen Samrat menu are a couple of light meal/snack-type dishes that are purebred Indian and somewhat analogous of dosas, yet very different.
I have seen cholle bhatrua at other Melbourne Indian places, but not with any consistency.
On a thali plate, you get a nice serve of chick pea curry, some pickle and raw onion slivers and a couple of deep-fried naans that are like a heavier version of puris ($9).
The Amritsari kulcha ($0) is the same deal, except the breads are baked and stuffed with potato.
I order the latter and chat to the manager while waiting for my Sunday lunch. He tells me students make up a big part of his clientele, that there are always tradeoffs between service levels and prices in such operations and that his Indian customers order quite differently from those of the paleface persuasion. The latter usually order from a small and predictable list of dishes such as butter chicken, while the former like the Punjabi chicken, in which the meat is served on the bone. One for next time!
It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and my Amritsari kulcha is even better than I recall from previous visits.
The hot breads come with a knob of butter atop and already melting; the potato/spice/coriander filling is wonderful without being too heavy.
The chick peas, too, are superior, resting in a rich brown gravy just right for mopping up with the bread.
Between the pulses and the carbs, there’s enough of spice kick for me to leave the mango pickle untouched, although I mix in a few of the onion slices to add crunch as I devour the lot using a mixture of Indian-style hands-only and cutlery methods.
It’s a great lunch and a fine bargain.
La Morenita Latin Cuisine
Posted: November 19, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at, Places we like to shop at | Tags: cheap eats, empanadas, La Morenita Latin Cuisine, Latin American restaurants, Melbourne, South American food, Sunshine, western suburbs 2 Comments »
67 Berkshire Rd, Sunshine North. Phone: 9311 2911
Update 19/9/11: Review of La Morentia’s new menu here.
I reckon Bennie and I could have spent many years longer without twigging there was a significant Latin American/South American enclave living in the midst of our extended neighbourhood.
But a switch of schools from Footscray to Sunshine removed the veil.
The first sign came on a school day on which the lunch box was not packed, so we resorted to the sandwich shop on the shopping strip adjacent our school. As we waited for our ham and salad roll to be made, I took great interest in the pie heater in the corner. “Hey, Bennie, I reckon those there are empanadas,” said I.
And so they were. We bought a bunch to take home after school, had them for din dins that night and they were beaut.
As we settled in to the new school routine, we devised a slightly longer route that avoided the franticness of Ballarat Rd for back roads that at least featured a more measured pace and a few trees, along with hundreds of auto repair shops of various stripes, barbed wire and a junk yard dog.
As we were closing in on school one day, tooling along Berkshire Rd, I spied some interesting signage, and said to my food hound buddy: “I’m betting that’s another South American bakery.”
And so it was.
We dropped in that afternoon after school and have been returning ever since on a very regular basis.
Cheese and prawn empanada.
La Morenita (the signs outside actually say Empanadas Las Penas) caters mostly to the local South American community – orders for cakes and catering, along with wine, chorizos, ribs and a variety of cured meats. It also hosts a modest range of grocery lines.
But there are several attractions for blow-ins such as us, and the place has been steadily fostering lunch-time trade from the hundreds of close-by workplaces.
The big stars for us are the empanadas – flat pastie-like parcels of deliciousness.
We love the beef ($2.50, each of which comes with a little sliver of black olive and another of hard-boiled egg) and the chicken ($2.80). Both oven-baked, these can be had hot and tasty on the premises.
However, we’ve also found they’re great to takeaway and bung in the freezer.
Even better, they provide a cheap and fine way of breaking up the boring routine of work and school lunch boxes – even if the more traditionally minded patrons, we have been led to believe, are somewhat aghast at the idea of eating empanadas cold! Works for us!
Some of the other empanadas – such as the cheese ($1.80) and the prawn and cheese ($3) – are deep fried, no less delicious, but don’t work when unheated.
Also strictly for eating-in are the sandwiches – so gooey with goodness that taking away is simply unthinkable.
My favourite is the churrasco ($5) – steak sandwich with avocado, tomato and mayonnaise (above). The sliced beef is juicy and tasty, the rolls fresh, the whole thing a delight. And certainly a whole lot more appetising than my photo indicates!
Bennie likes the completo ($5) – a South American-style hot dog with the same trimmings.
Unlike the other two South American bakeries in the area, La Morenita doesn’t specialise in cakes and sweets, though the ones we’ve tried have been good. There’s a lot of crunchy pastry and much use of a sticky caramel cream filling.
And even though it’s not really set up as a cafe, we’ve also had many, many lattes and hot chocolates of a pretty good standard.
We love this place and the welcome we get.
You won’t get anything approaching a proper sit-down meal here – there’s no tacos or the like, as found at the newly famous Los Latinos just down the road apiece.
But the empanadas and the sandwiches are unreal!
Closed on Mondays.
Phu Vinh
Posted: November 11, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Footscray, Melbourne, Phu Vinh, Vietnamese restaurants, western suburbs 4 Comments »
93 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 8719
The week’s work is done and it’s time for the serious stuff – Friday lunch is on the agenda.
Not only lunch, though – I also have plans of spending the afternoon making big pots of 1. chicken stock and 2. lentil soup supercharged with a tablespoon of freshly pan-roasted and ground cumin seeds.
So chicken bones, celery, onions and carrots are ALSO on the agenda.
So I head for the Footscray Market.
Look, I may regularly and merrily refer to it as The Market That Doesn’t Allow Cameras, but I’m not so much a goose that I’m going to go elsewhere when it suits me. Especially when the parking is $1.30 for the first hour – or $6 all day if you’re into that. Bargain!
Before the shopping I head straight for Phu Vinh, one of several Vietnamese eateries the adjoin the market on Hopkins St.
I’ve been a regular for many years, but this is my first visit since it’s been done over, freshened up and revamped with a new look and a new, and very much longer, menu.
I’ve always thought Pho Vinh something of just a face in the crowd of busy Hopkins St, and certainly I’ve never seen many folks of the paleface persuasion in there.
Turns out it does have its keen fans – you can read their thoughts (both pre- and post-upgrade) here and here.
Like me, several are a little apprehensive about what Phu Vinh’s new look will have wrought.
In my case, this has become a “single dish restaurant”, so I am only interested in ascertaining that their banh mi bo kho (stewed beef) is still on the menu – and that it’s as fine as ever.
A young staff member reassures me that, yes, it’s still a feature – as is every dish to be had at Phu Vinh Mark 1.
Banh mi bo kho is a little confusing for the name of my fave Phu Vinh dish. Banh mi is also the name given the name of those delicious, crusty rolls filled with various meats, salads and condiments. Googling tells me that bo kho also means beef stew. As far as I have been able to gather, Vietnamese beef stew is served mostly with those bread rolls – especially, it seems, in the US – hence the name used at Phu Vinh. Although, of course, my research is far from definitive.
The bread/stew combo is less familiar to me and my Melbourne haunts – in fact, Phu Vinh is the only place I’ve come across that has it as a feature.
What I find in ordering Vietnamese stewed beef is that it offers a paradoxically endless variety. It seems to depend on how long stewed each particular batch is. Get it relatively new and the carrot pieces, as vital to success as the beef, have still their sharps edges and a bit of bite. Get your stew a little further along in the process, and the carrots get a little blurry and become more of a texture thing.
I’m an equal opportunity stew man – I like it both ways, and all those in between.
Phu Vinh offers its stew four ways – with a bread roll, with egg noodles, with rice noodles, or with both kinds of noodles.
After ordering my lunch ($9), I sit back and have a good look around. I like it – Phu Vinh Mark 2 is a bright, cheerful space in which to spend some time and it’s doing pretty good business on this Friday.
My lunch arrives and all is well with the world!
The carrots are midway between crisp and mush, the beef is meltingly tender and simply falls from the bone, it’s spicy but just so for my tastes. And this banh mi bo kho is notably less fatty than those in other places that boast it, both in Footscray and Sunshine.
The bean sprouts join the raw onion slices topping the stew in providing crunch and the basil leaves provide colour and flavour. This time out, I’ve ordered my stew with rices noodles, and they mix it up in divine fashion with all the other ingredients.
The chilli salt and chilli slices go usused, while the lemon segment gives the dish a lift as I near its completion.
Phu Vinh’s banh mi bo kho just as good as it ever was? The verdict is in: Yes!
Phu Minh Mark 1 offered only a small range of dishes – my beloved stew, spring and rice paper rolls, a few rice dishes and a few more clear soup noodle efforts.
As the staff member cheerfully informed me, all those remain available, but have been joined by a great deal more. They include soup noodle, rice and stir fry options.
That’s not always a great thing, of course.
But I come away with the very strong sense that, in this particular case, a restaurant makeover and menu enlargement have been embarked on with a firm focus on not sacrificing those dishes and qualities that made the place so appealing in the first place.
So I’ll keep on returning to Phu Vinh, and will doubtless attempt to elevate it beyond “single dish restaurant” status.
Hey, I know the little photos that appear on menus at many of my favourite eateries can be misleading.
But the braised duck with egg noodles ($12) looks luscious and worth a try.
Guess I’ll soon find out eh?
The view from the Footscray Market car park (aka Kenny discovers a new trick of which he didn’t know his camera was capable).
Hien Vuong Pasteur
Posted: November 8, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Footscray, Hien Vuong Pasteur, Melbourne, Vietnamese restaurants, western suburbs 7 Comments »
144 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 9698
We love our next door neighbour Dulcie.
She’s got a bent sense of humour, is a seasoned traveller and a jazz fan.
But a few weeks ago we were aghast to discover her rich life was unpardonably devoid of one of life’s great experiences – pho!
What a spectacular honour, then, that it fell to Bennie and Kenny to initiate her.
There was never any question that we would go anywhere other than Hien Vuong Pasteur.
This place has gone from being our default pho joint to very much our preferred pho joint.
We started going there because Hung Vuong, just a few doors down the road, had become so wildly popular that tables were hard to come by and the service frequently got a bit mad and sloppy.
Since then Hien Vuong Pasteur has repaid our loyalty many times over.
I’m not about to suggest it’s the best pho in a phocentric neighbourhood.
But it IS right up there, the staff are lovely and it’s never so busy that getting seated becomes an issue.
With pho, surprises are generally not good and predictability a virtue.
Hien Vuong Pasteur’s pho is consistently excellent.
The broth is perfection, be it beef or chicken. The meat is always good and the bean sprouts and basil leaves always fresh.
The sliced beef is lean and tender, and there’s always a fair bit of it that comes to the table pink and still to be cooked in the broth.
What more could you want?
All the usual meat options are available, except pizzle, but we like ours plain.
Like all classy pho joints, Hien Vuong Pasteur has a handful of other dishes available – but why would you order crispy fried chicken with egg noodle soup, stewed beef or broken rice when you can have pho? I guess we DO vary our orders about once or twice a year.
For our Saturday lunch, Bennie and I ordered our regular small size slice beef and sliced chicken ($7.50). For many years, my standard order was medium size, please, but that seems too big for me these days. And who eats a large serve of pho? You don’t see one ordered that often.
Given she was a pho novice, I suggested Dulcie go for the sliced chicken, its broth being less funky and likely more familiar for her. She liked it a lot, although went without the sprouts and herb leaves.
Dulcie even ordered spring rolls to go to have for her dinner that night.
Bonus: On paying, Hien Vuong Pasteur has a lolly jar for the kids.
For a far more authoritative, enjoyable and insightful rundown on Footscray’s amazing Vietnamese eats scene, some serious reading time at the Footscray Food Blog of Ms Baklover is highly recommended. She knows her stuff!
Olivessence
Posted: November 6, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at, Places we like to shop at | Tags: cheap eats, Footscray, Melbourne, Olivessence, western suburbs 1 Comment »
Shop 2/277-285 Barkly St, Footscray, Phone: 9687 5202
Each of my visits to Olivessence at its previous incarnation in Victoria St, Seddon, had coincided with the recent purchase of olive oil elsewhere.
For my first to its new digs in the Barkly Theatre apartment building, olive oil is short at home and definitely on the agenda.
First, though, another of life’s essentials – coffee.
And very good it is, too.
Olivessence’s range of olive oil may not seem that grand – but the accent is very much on homegrown quality rather than quantity, with a tasting table set up beside the VOO racks.
The store also stocks a fairly handy range of goodies such as condiments, pastas and so on.
The big change from Victoria St is the addition of a coffee machine, something the in-built apartment-dwelling customers no doubt appreciate to the hilt. In a broader sense, and like Pound Cafe up the road a bit, Olivessence should benefit from a dearth of coffee options in the immediate surrounding neighbourhood.
Food-wise, Olivessence runs to breakfast of the toast and muffins variety.
Lunch comes via a modest list of platters that range from $6 to $20 for two that include a revolving range of olive oils, oilves, cheeses, Turkish bread, dukkah and so on.
The sweets highlight is the presence of Cavallaro canoli.
And out I go, Glenora Grove VOO firmly clutched under arm and happy in the knowledge of another friendly drop-in coffee spot.
Visit the Olivessence website here.
Pound Cafe
Posted: November 1, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Footscray, Melbourne, Pound Cafe, western suburbs 3 Comments »
Whitten Oval, 417 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9680 6300
We may be sports pigs, but AFL is not high on our radar, even if the Western Bulldogs are our nominal team of choice.
We’re more your Melbourne Storm/Melbourne Victory kinda guys.
But we pass the Bulldogs’ headquarters many times each week – sometimes while out on the food hunt, sometimes while hitting the Sims grocery just up the road and sometimes while simply tooling around.
So since a glowing review of Pound Cafe by Ms Baklover at her Footscray Food Blog, it was a matter of sooner rather than later that we’d be visiting the newly revamped HQ.
My, what an asset it is to the neighbourhood – especially in terms of diversity, as for our Monday lunch when the usual round of African/Viet/Indian and the like just simply didn’t appeal.
And with a brand new housing estate rapidly taking shape right next door, you’d think this place will do real well.
At first blush it appears to be a rather cold space wrested from the vestibule of the revamped stand.
But we felt relaxed and welcomed the more time we spent there.
As did a number of customers who came and went as we enjoyed our lunch, all of whom seemed already comfortable with using Pound Cafe as a drop-in, catch-up sort of place. The immediate neighbourhood is light-on for coffee places, so that’s another niche handily filled.
Copies of both Melbourne dailies were available at no cost and – glory be! – there were hand paper towels in the loos.
For our first taste of Pound tucker, we weighed in with two of the three available burgers, Bennie ordering the plain beef ($8) and Kenny the lamb ($9.50). Thankfully, we restricted ourselves to a side order of chips ($1.50) rather than a bowl ($4). There were heaps of them, so the bowl must be huge!
The burgers were pretty good, with Bennie’s beef having the edge thanks to its bacon and tangy sauce. My lamb job was tasty, too, though the advertised Moroccan element seemed elusive and the beetroot chutney lent it a mushy aspect. In both cases, the bread and trimmings were fine, even if salady bits and pieces not actually in the burgers served only as redundant garnishes.
The chips were crispy and unoily, like we like ‘em, but the seasoning – salt and paprika the manager informed me – had a sort of odd baconish flavour. Not bad, but – yes – a little odd.
There were lighter lunch options.
The specials board boasted a $6.50 potato, leek and bacon soup, while the bloke on the table behind us was enjoying what looked like a fine risotto of mushrooms, pesto, spinach and fetta ($11, $15).
Other menu items included a steak sandwich ($10.50) and flathead fillets with beer batter, chips, salad and tartare sauce ($12.50), as well as more snacky items and premade rolls.
A can of that Coca Cola stuff cost $2.70, which seemed pretty steep considering the general tenor of the pricing.
However, whatever our minor quibbles, Pound Cafe is a winner – and who knows? It might make more fervent Bulldogs supporters out of us yet!
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