Monthly Archives: August 2011

Il Paesano home delivery

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223 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 2772

It’s Saturday night and we’re hunkered down on the sofa, waiting for the start of the Tri-Nations rugby union decider between the mighty All Blacks and the Wallabies.

Bennie’s asked about dinner three times in the past half-hour.

There’s all sorts of goodies in the kitchen – including ripe avocados and a tip-top loaf of sourdough bread.

But frankly I’m as sick as a dog and the thought of getting amongst it in the kitchen holds zero appeal.

Earlier in the week, Bennie had stated he’d had enough of Lebanese pizzas and was hankering for a slab of old-school Aussie pizza pie – specifically, of the “meat lovers” variety.

Why not?

A few minutes on the phone and the deal is done.

Il Paesano is certainly one of those ubiquitous old-school Aussie-Italian pizza joints. We pass it virtually every time we head to or from Footscray central.

We’re extremely unlikely ever to set foot in the place, but have found it fuss-free and efficient when the very odd and occasional mood strikes us for home delivery. And that’s despite the fact that there are at least three very similar establishments much closer to home.

I find our pizza – a large meat lovers for $12 – much less greasy and gloopy than I had feared it would be. That processed ham stuff seems to dominate, and I discern no chicken at all. Then again, my sense of taste is shot, so what would I know?

Bennie loves it, granting it a rating of 7.5 out of 10, which he subsequently revises upwards to 8 out of 10.

I manage just two slices, the boy eats all the rest bar one.

Foodie criteria and processed ham be damned – sometimes it’s nice to give somebody precisely what they want, especially your kids.

Pizza for $12, two cans of that Coca Cola stuff for $2 each, $1 for the driver – $20 the lot.

Il Paesano on Urbanspoon

Barkley Johnson

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11 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 6663

Perhaps it’s a sign that we’re putting down significant roots – that we have vivid recall of previous incarnations of premises inhabited by flash new businesses.

Certainly, both Bennie and I spent a goodly amount of time having our heads shorn – and, in my case, face shaved – in the old-school barber shop that previously filled 11 Anderson St.

After a long innings, he closed up shop quite a while ago.

He was part of what is a disappearing breed, often of Mediterranean or European extraction and usually cheap as chips. Well, compared to, ahem, hairdressers anyway.

We love them. We “collect” them. We may even start a blog on them in due course.

Anyway, being the nosy locals we are, we followed with interest the subsequent renovation. We had some idea what to expect, with Keith from Heather Dell telling us early in the piece that a wine bar of some sort was on the way.

And so it is. There’s wine, but not a whole lot of it. There’s deli produce and high-quality pastas, anchovies and other grocery items, but not a whole lot of them, either. There’s wholemeal baguettes for lunch at about the $7-8 mark, but virtually nothing else ‘cept antipasto options. There’s only toast for breakfast, very good coffee and less than a handful of sweeties such as baklava.

So what exactly is Barkley Johnson, and where does it figure to fit in the busy neighbourhood of Anderson and Ballarat streets?

The lovely staff tell me they’ve got to do the best and most they can with the space available.

I ask why I would make an extra stop for their deli items when I could cover them while at IGA across the road – or the new place being fitted out as we converse.

They reply in terms of quality, price and personal service.

I reckon they have a point, especially on the service angle.

As we sit at stools at the front window, with the early spring sunshine streaming in, Bennie and I feel like we’ve found a new favourite place in Yarraville to hang for a while and watch the world go by.

Despite space limitations, Barkley Johnson has nice vibe. There’s a smallish courtyard out back, a few more stools just inside the door to it and the handful of stools we’re hogging up front.

Bennie’s been a bit crook, so can’t even be tempted to have a hot chocolate, making do with a light, fluffy yoyo of, we are informed, Greek derivation – hard choccy top, sponge-like halves and creamy centre. It’s yummo and he digs it.

I have a similarly sized-and excellent coconut macaron with almond slivers.

Both sweeties and thoroughly superb coffee set back $8.

The previous week I’d had one of the filled baguette portions – ham, cheese, pickles. It was good, but the lovely wholemeal bread was of such robust flavour that the other ingredients struggled to make themselves known.

Nevertheless, on the basis of two very fine coffees, some sweeties an a couple of visits, we feel at home here.

Becoming regulars seems to likely to be both pleasurable and profitable.

Barkley Johnson on Urbanspoon

Very appeeling …

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Open-air fruit & veg operation, Little River/Avalon servo, Princes Hwy, Geelong-bound

The bad news is that price of bananas at Sunshine Fresh Food Market have gone up a couple of dollars since our recent discovery of the place.

They’re still, relatively speaking, cheap but still …

The good news is that if you’re prepared to take a jaunt down the Princes Hwy, or happening to be passing through on the way to the coast, you can grab an armful or three of what are surely the cheapest bananas in Victoria – and maybe even Australia.

Despite having gassed up countless times at the Avalon servo, I’ve never slowed long enough to have a gander at the outdoor fruit & veg enterprise, Mainly because I’m always headed for a long day or night of work and don’t want to leave fresh food in the car all day.

But the above sign, on the highway side about a kilometre before the servo exit, certainly turned my head.

And, going by the story written by my Geelong Advertiser colleague Alex Oates, it’s been turning heads all over, with Geelong locals, tourists and bakeries from all over Melbourne snapping them up.

The bananas are on the small side, as they all are these days, but at that price they’re almost affordable enough to once more become a regular grocery item.

Other than the bananas, I was a little surprised by the prices. They’re competitive, but not – as far as I could tell – super dooper cheap. Though a bundle of parsnips for $2 seemed a pretty good deal. Which begs the question: Why are they, too, so damn expensive?

A permanent structure is being erected for the servo greengrocers, and one is going up across the road for those Melbourne-bound as well.

Good move no doubt, but removes some of the charm, I reckon.

New Yarraville supermarket …

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UPDATE 29/9: It’s open – read about our first visit here.

Goodbye sad-sack predecessor; hello swish new joint!

Fit-out now righteously underway, with the new boss taking a profoundly hands-on role – that’s him in the forefront!

He tells me they’ll be opening in about two weeks.

Ooohh, so exciting!

I may have even inveigled my way to an invite to the launch party.

Community Chef

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43-47 Drake Boulevard, Altona. Phone: 9368 5900

I’ve been so looking forward to laying eyes on the Community Chef building.

Especially since reading glowing praise by the The Age’s architecture commentator.

As it turns out, the location near the intersection of Kororoit Creek Rd and the train line to Geelong means I’ve been passing nearby on a weekly basis for a couple of years.

I’m a little underwhelmed. It looks, to my stupendously untutored eye, not much different to the other buildings and enterprises with which it shares its Altona industrial estate.

Which only goes to show, of course, that if I can claim expertise in anything, architecture is NOT one of them.

The welcome I receive, happily, is a whole lot more warm and generous than I perceive the premises to be.

Community Chef customer relations manager Trish Love seems genuinely happy to spend as much time showing me around as required, making me lunch and answering my seemingly endless list of questions, some of which I suspect strike her as a little whacky.

Community Chef is the newish whizz-bang multi-jurisdictional outfit that is taking Melbourne “meals on wheels” into a new century.

It is collectively owned by 20 councils, with its tucker finding grateful customers from the Surf Coast to Dandenong.

Locally, that includes the councils of Hobson’s Bay, Brimbank and Moonee Ponds, but not our own Maribyrnong, which has chosen to use another provider.

Having already emailed an earlier list of questions to Trish and checked out the Community Chef website, I am well prepared to have preconceived notions dispensed with.

Mental images of steaming hot meals issuing forth from the Community Chef kitchens and being dispatched with cheerful haste to customers are way, way off base.

But first, lunch … following the hopeful hunch that I’d be presented with an opportunity to sample the Community Chef fare, I have avoided a noon meal, and Trish is happy to oblige.

After adjourning to the staff canteen, she quickly whips my meal into shape.

Knowing what passes for our usual criteria while out on the fang are of little or no use in this kind of setting, I try to sup with an open mind. As I expect, though, the food is a lot less salty and seasoned than is the Consider The Sauce norm, though Trish tells me there are curry dishes in the line-up with an element of oomph.

The pumpkin and red lentil soup is the big winner. Tasty!

The osso bucco with polenta is none too shabby, either.

The Community Chef statistics are staggering.

It prepares up to 2.2 millions portions annually.

It employs 72 staff in total, with 61 staff in production roles and 11 in administrative roles.

Community Chef offers six menu choices per day – Anglo-Australian, international, Asian, vegetarian, roast or a salad or sandwich.

Within its broader parameters, Community Chef is able to cater with flexibility for a wide variety of nutritional requirements.

For those customers with specific needs such as halal, kosher and gluten-free, Community Chef provides supplier contacts.

“The majority of meals are also offered in four texture modified versions – soft, cut, minced and moist or pureed,” says Trish. “These are particularly important for older adults with swallowing difficulties or who have other medical needs. We also have a special needs kitchen where a specialised meal, able to meet complex medical requirements, can be made for meal recipients.”

Unlike other such providers, Community Chef’s meals are pasteurised, meaning they have a shelf life of up to 30 days.

Community Chef’s two trucks deliver the meals to individual councils, who in turn deliver them to their clients.

More than ever, our experience in bringing Consider The sauce to the world has convinced us that food rituals are about far more than food on plate or in bowl.

I express concern that Community Chef seems forever at arm’s length from the very people who eat its food.

I am vastly reassured when Trish tells me that councils regularly bring their clients through for “the tour”, tastings and feedback sessions. (Feedback – ho ho!)

“Some councils even seem to make a point of bringing their toughest customers,” says Trish with a grin.

As well, in due course, Community Chef hopes to cater to community interest by offering the same sort of tour that I am privileged to be enjoying.

The building and systems – the work of Williams Boag Architects, with French food-processing systems architect Francois Tesniere – put a premium on health safety and environmental concerns.

Ewater is used, the ceiling in the massive food preparation area is low to save energy and interior lighting responds through sensors to outside weather conditions.

Having been warned that for safety and hygiene reasons, access by visitors such as I to the food preparation area is very restricted, I’ve been bracing myself for the merest glimpse.
Happily, the “viewing corridor” provides a good idea of the whole process, from arrival of supplies through to the giant pasteurisers (which also serve as cookers for the vegetables) and crating for delivery to client councils.
However, the contrast with small family-run eateries we love to frequent – and in which the cooking, and its fragrant scents, are routinely a big part of the fun – could not be greater.
****
My warmest thanks to Trish Love for spending so much time satisfying my curiosity and interest!


Sunshine Fresh Food Market

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25-27 Devonshire Rd, Sunshine. Phone: 9311 9897

Sunshine Fresh Food Market has been right there, hidden in plain sight the whole time we’ve been hanging out in Sunshine.

As I enter, the feeling and surroundings are so familiar I wonder just why it is we’ve never checked this place out before.

For this is our kind of establishment – a cross between a supermarket and fresh produce market along the same lines as Fresh On Young and the nearby Big Fields.

But is it any good?

The shopping list I am grasping in one hand, with about a dozen varied items scrawled upon it, should tell at least some of the tale.

Will SFFM be able to fill my basket with cinnamon and cardamoms for that night’s dal AND rolled oats and big, fat, juicy white sultanas (“white maggots”) for the next batch of muesli?

It’s been a while since I was out and about with camera in hand, so am a little nervous to begin with. I soon relax as it becomes apparent that no one – customers or staff – mind much or at all what I’m about.

The human rainbow array of races, genders, skin hues, sizes, shapes, ages and dress styles augurs well for a fun time.

The array of fresh herbs and leafy vegetables is not as swank as that found at Saigon Market in Footscray, but they all look in pretty fine nick. My bunch of good-looking coriander costs 99c.

My spice requirements? No problem …

I’ve not seen the Gold line of packaged spices before, but I like the size and price – they’re all $1.49. We do quite a lot of Indian cooking, but nevertheless I don’t like buying large lots of spices as they go stale and lose their zing. Small and often is generally our motto with all sorts of shopping.

White sultanas? Why certainly, sir, right this way …

I happily scoop about half a kilo into a plastic bag at $8.99 a kilo.

The place seems to be fully halal.

On the other hand, the deli counter does have Polish sausage, salami and mortadella – meaty things all normally brimming with porky bits.

To make sure and satisfy curiosity both, I make inquiries of the two young women behind the deli counter.

They assure me that all the above, and indeed all the cured and prepared meats, are halal and made with beef.

As I amble towards the adjoining seafood display, one of them tells me: “Even the fish are halal …”

What?!

As the realisation quickly dawns that I’ve been suckered, a burst of giggles issues forth from behind the counter.

Sheesh! Good one, ladies!

As I wander about, I begin to realise how good a find this place is – and cheap!

Bargains everywhere, with none of the pressing weekend hordes found at Saigon Market.

The pace is a few significant clicks short of frantic but the staff are friendly and helpful, and the vibe is relaxed.

Parking is plentiful.

I even go “off-list” for a few items – a handful of okra at $4.99 a kilo included.

Blimey, I even buy four bananas! They’re tiny specimens, but the price – $6.99 a kilo – is the cheapest I’ve seen this century. Well, that’s how it seems  …

How good is this – $24.43 for the lot, only falling down on the matter of rolled oats?

I get a whole lot of cool stuff to take home for about the price of a movie-drinks-popcorn combo, take much less time and have a lot more fun.

Ebi Fine Food

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Ebi Fine Food, 18A Essex St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 3300

It’s been a year since Consider The Sauce started and what a fabulous time we’ve had.

Right from the start, though, and without thinking too hard about it or really trying, we have instinctively tried to find our own way, avoiding places and businesses that are too regularly lauded, reviewed and serially blogged, sometimes to excess.

Some things, however, simply can’t be denied.

The pleasures, personality, character, pricing and, well, fine foods make Ebi Fine Foods one of them.

As regulars know, this West Footscray Japanese eatery-cum-fish ‘n’ chip shop is on the diminutive side.

Seating is restricted to half a dozen or so stools facing the kitchen, two two-person tables inside and a couple of bigger tables on the footpath outside.

We’re casual visitors, though, and have never bothered booking. Our early-ish dinner times usually see us right, anyhow.

This night, though, we’re hitting the joint after 7pm, the result of an inspired spur-of-the-moment decision after football practice.

Our luck holds as we gleefully snag the last pair of stools at the bar.

It’s busy, busy, busy.

The place is doing a roaring takeaway trade.

The banter flies between boss man John and regular customers coming and going.

Happily, all this activity falls well on the right side of adding to the experience, as opposed to falling into the simply-too-much bag.

I fancy straying into the Japanese territory on the menu, instead of the fish and chips I’ve had every other time we’ve been here.

Bennie insists on ordering the bento of the day.

So there I am … once again ordering the fish and chips I’ve had every other time we’ve been here.

No problem!

My large serve ($12.50) involves two mindblowingly scrumptious chunks of the fish of the day, gurnard. The batter is crispy and holds well to the fish, the white flesh of which is superbly cooked, being tender yet also offering just the right amount of resistance to the bite.

Oh my!

My plate of joy is completed by a piece each of tofu and the eggy slice usually found on sushi, two kinds of pickle (preserved and freshly made), some good greenery and lovely mayo for fish and chip dipping purposes.

If the handsome bowl of chips on the side are a few percentage points below the state-of-the-art levels that are routine here, they’re so close it matters not.

Bennie’s bento ($15) is equally fabulous, mostly attended by the same Japanese bits and pieces as my fried platter – with a few different twists.

One is a smallish half-bulb of grilled eggplant with a gooey miso sauce – nasu dengaku. Watching this being sucked up by the lad is profoundly enjoyable, as this is the only place in the entire known universe that Bennie will not only eat eggplant but be thrilled by it.

His slow-cooked boneless beef ribs in red miso consist of two hearty meat pieces that come across as a Japanense version of Italy’s osso buco. A with the fish, the meat is tender but with just the right amount of bitey-ness.

The gravy is sweet, sticky, unctuous, delicious.

Quite apart from the quality of the food and the experience here, the prices are astonishing.

Price is relative, of course – the previous night we’d eaten a rice dish at Pandu’s, one that could feed both of us no problem for a cost of $8.90.

But still …

Fish, chips of this quality, with such lovely trimmings for $12.50? Insane, amazing!

Similarly for Bennie’s bento at a price of $15. You’ll find cheaper bentos in the CBD, but none matching the quality of food found here. And at places such as Kuni’s, you can pay a whole bunch more.

As our dinner activities wind down, from the general banter going on it becomes apparent that for a bloke sitting at one of the tables behind us this is the third dinner here this week.

A small part of me thinks: “Geez, mate, get a life!”

The rest of me is envious.

Here’s a tip:

According to the yet-to-be-completed website address found on John’s business card, it seems he’s soon to go mobile.

Ebi Fine Food on Urbanspoon