Metro West Building, 27 Albert St, Footscray. Phone: 0401 328 334

THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED.

Since our earlier story about Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar, we’ve been back a couple of times, so this here is by way of a diary as we pleasurably go about eating our way through their menu.

We got a lot of good feedback about that first review, and things seem to be going well for this joint that in its own way is as singular as Yemeni Restaurant.

But the best thing we can do this time around is emphasise the telephone number – 0401 328 334.

You see, the other interior clients of the Metro West building – Centre Link and the like – are not open at night, so hungry potential customers are strongly advised to give the girls a call if access presents a problem. They’ll happily swing open the back door in Albert St for you.

Now ain’t that SO very Melbourne?

On a visit a few weeks back, Bennie had more of the mo mo (chicken and cheese, steamed), while our buddy Kurt opted for the chowmin.

I had the kukura ko masu ra bhat for $9.95 – a wonderful plate of mild chicken stew/curry with rice, a bowl of beaut black dal and trimmings.

For our most recent foray here, Bennie, too, opted for the chowmin ($9) – he gobbled up every shred of this cheerful stir-fried jumble of egg noodles, vegetables and chicken.

I had the chicken choilla with chura and aloo ka achar – “smoked chicken marinated with Nepalese spices and beaten rice”.

The chicken was served cold, the smokiness matched with the spicing to create a distinctive flavour, with chilli content about as high as I am comfortable with. The beaten rice? Sorry, I found this a little weird – crunchy and not unpleasant, but I didn’t feel it worked that well as a complement to the rest. The potato achar was terrific, however, being a sort of cold curried potato salad.

On both our recent visits our main meals have been preceded by a complementary bowl of clear chicken soup, in the way so familiar to us from the local Vietnamese eateries. We always love this! Our Friday night soups were heavy on the salt, but we slurped up every drop anyhow.

Hey – a few more visits and we’ll have more or less been through the menu!

In the meantime, we’re led to believe there are new additions being pondered and planned.

We’ll keep you posted.