honey & coco
Posted: May 15, 2012 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Coffee, Melbourne, Newport, western suburbs 2 Comments »
Honey & Coco, 42B Hall St, Newport. Phone: 9399 4493
It’s the neighbourhood immediately surrounding Newport train station that saw me renounce the use of public transport for my quasi-daily commute to Geelong.
Especially during the colder – and darker – months, the station and nearby shopping strips were grim, bleak and even occasionally forbidding and threatening.
In a more relaxed space on a sunny mid-week mid-day, the vibe is quite a bit more welcoming.
Not that this appears even now as a foodie destination.
There’s a range of traders doing most things most locals probably need, but it’s hard to conjure up more enthusiasm than that.
Perhaps the Thai restaurant? Prices pretty steep by our standards, but I have a hunch it’ll be a good one when – not if – we finally visit.
There’s two cafes of the urban chic variety – one either side of the tracks.
But the prices in one scare me a bit when I am only seeking a cheap and cheerful lunch.
And the other has a dauntingly high baby/toddler head count whenever I’m in the vicinity.
Which is how I find myself settling into Honey & Coco.
It has a slightly more utilitarian feel than its two immediate competitors, but it smells good, and the deal is sealed when I spy something on the menu that I find I want and didn’t even realise it.
The enticing aroma, I suspect, is emanating from the day’s soup special, vegetable, which the majority of customers are enjoying.
There’s a smallish range of filled Turkish loaves that look pretty good, while the muffins, cupcakes and so on seem standard.
But I go for the Greek salad.
It’s available with various protein additions at a price, but I keep it plain and simple, seeking a light, healthy, crunchy lunchy.
Surprisingly for lunch-on-the run cafe-type places of any stripe, my salad is made to order and from scratch.
It’s thus super dooper fresh – the cos lettuce is especially toothsome.
If there are things about it I’d prefer to be otherwise – plain olive oil instead of a balsamic dressing of some kind that stains the fetta cheese brown, the cheese itself too highly crumbled, kalamata olives I’d rather the stones were still in, the ’70s-’80s rock music – I’m prepared to write them off as personal preferences.
And at $10 with two segments of Turkish bread, it’s a good price for a big serve.
I’m happy with my lunch.
My cafe latte is even better – very good, in fact.
Honey & Coco has a down-to-earth warmth and welcome that has obviously earned the loyalty of the regulars who come and go as I enjoy my time there.
Jolly Rogers redux
Posted: April 23, 2011 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Melbourne, Newport, Ripples Fish And Chips, seafood, western suburbs Leave a comment »
306-308 Melbourne Rd, Newport. Phone: 9399 5499
UPDATE 26/1/12: This restaurant has closed down. Becoming, according to a post on Urbanspoon, a Subway! Booo!
It doesn’t take much venturing into the world of Australian food blogging to discover passions, threads, posts, discussions, debates and controversies.
Some of the topics such hot air revolves around include blog adverts, paid posts (in which a blogger writes a post about a product or service for payment) and freebie meals.
For the time being at least, we like the clean, uncluttered look of our site so it will remain advert-free.
As well, we are somewhat horrified at the sense of entitlement some bloggers display.
As hopelessly naive as it may seem, we continue to consider ourselves customers, food fans and amateur sleuths who have more in common with anoraks of the train-spotting variety than with any sort of professional restaurant reviewers.
Yet when an American friend asked, “Are you a restaurant reviewer?”, well I had to concede that, yes, we write restaurant reviews, so …
Still, we try to do our thing as discreetly as possible when enjoying our outings.
Truth is, many places simply ignore – or couldn’t care less about – the surreptitious note-taking and photography going on.
Plenty more, though, pick up on it straight away, which can sometimes lead to comical standoffs over our determination to pay for our meals.
It’s a fine line we’re trying to tread, but some situations seem to require a degree of graciousness, ones in which continual refusal could be considered plain rudeness.
This is especially so when we’ve returned to an establishment after posting a piece full of enthusiastic praise.
So, yes, we have accepted complementary coffees along the way – not to mention a single, superb gulab jamun and other sample treats. We hope like hell we have not become hopelessly compromised in the process!
Such a situation arose on a dark and stormy Thursday night on which I was very happy to take Bennie to Jolly Rogers as a follow-up to my own recent solo foray there.
On that visit, co-owner Anthony Scarlata had raved about his char-grilled calamari.
Sure enough, after we had placed our order for a burger ‘n’ chips meal, out came a sample plate of said calamari courtesy of the chef.
What were we meant to do? Send it back to the kitchen?
In any case, Anthony is right to be proud of this dish.
My calamari-loving son thought it was merely good; his dad thought it was sensational.
Resting on a bed of lovely brown rice, were about a dozen strands of ultra-tender and tasty calamari that had been grilled for about five minutes and then dressed with olive oil infused with lemon zest.
The char-grilled calamari comes in $9.95 and $13.95 sizes.
That “little bit extra” and our hearty appetites meant we over-ordered somewhat:
Bennie dug the onion rings ($4.95), which were done in the American style. Dad, being so enamoured these days with the lighter style of Indian onion bhaji, was not so impressed.
Large chips ($4.95) were, as on the previous visit, OK.
Our burgers – Jolly’s ($7.50) for dad, Lot ($8.95) for Bennie – were perplexing.
Burgers are routinely described as being a variety of sandwich – but these really WERE sandwiches.
Instead of being served in buns, our burgers were encased in some sort of flat bread that had been toasted and, seemingly, flattened in the process.
Look, we like to think of ourselves as adventurous and open-minded foodies.
But in this case, the product so defied a lifetime of conditioning about what burgers should look and taste like that we were left bemused.
The fillings seemed fine, though the flat-bread approach left dad coping with bits slipping and sliding beyond his two-fisted grasp.
Bennie did better with his one with the lot, which held together well and was so packed with goodies that he was stonkered about two-third of the way through.
Whatever – we like Jolly Rogers a lot and will be returning.
Certainly for more of the char-grilled calamari, maybe for the fish and chips enjoyed first time round.
Bennie opined as we left that next time he’d like to try one of the kebabs.
The Jolly Rogers website is here.
Snowballs Ice-Cream And Lollies
Posted: April 2, 2011 Filed under: Places we like to eat at, Places we like to shop at | Tags: cheap eats, Lollie shops, Melbourne, Newport, western suburbs 4 Comments »
320 Melbourne Rd, Newport. Phone: 9391 0711
We make a solemn and sober vow – we will restrict ourselves to three items.
Such a display of overt determination may seem a little extreme.
But we are, after all, entering a cathedral dedicated to all things sweet and sugary.
Worse – we are doing so on empty stomachs and just before lunch!
There’s plenty of lollie shops scattered across Melbourne – until quite recently there even used to be one in Anderson St, Yarraville.
But Snowballs is a doozie – a sort of superstore for those of a sweet tooth persuasion.
There’s a mind-boggling array of goodies stuffed into quite a small space.
There’s rows and rows of simply packaged lollies and liquorice, many of them quite traditional.
There’s much that is gimmicky and gives us many chuckles – metres of bubblegum, candy necklaces and much, much, much more.
The staff tell us that the American candy – Milk Duds, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey’s lines and so on – is very popular.
Likewise, the New Zealand products are popular.
My Dunedin childhood was packed with Whittaker’s Peanut Slabs, Buzz Bars and Chocolate Fish – but in my mind they were bigger and far more alluring than those on display here. And back in those days – yes, so very, very last century! – they were sold by milk bars and corner stores WITHOUT WRAPPERS.
Just being in this place, goofing around, discovering new, ingenious and weird excesses in tooth-rot marketing gives us something akin to a sugar high – with not a thing passing our lips.
The staff tell us this is quite common.
We settle on:
A box of Petit Ecolier dark chocolate bikkies – we’ve had them before, but not for a very excellent $2.
A small bar of Cavalier dark chocolate from Belgium ($3,80).
A Wonka Fabulicious Sour With Nerds for $1.80 … whatever that is (Bennie’s choice!).
And, from England, a Tunnock’s Milk Chocolate Coated Caramel Wafer Biscuit for $1.10.
I’m happy to report that while we love our sweeties, they by no means rule our lives or diets. That little lot will last at least a week with the exercise of little or no willpower. Honest! Besides, as we like our chocolate frozen, the biscuits and Belgian product will get bunged in the freezer. And it’s quite easy to forget there’s sweet stuff in there rubbing shoulders with the chicken stock and pasta sauce.
Jolly Rogers
Posted: March 26, 2011 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Fish and chips, Melbourne, Newport, western suburbs 9 Comments »
306-308 Melbourne Rd, Newport. Phone: 9399 4339
UPDATE 26/1/12: This restaurant has closed down. Becoming, according to a post on Urbanspoon, a Subway! Booo!
Stepping on to the train to Newport, I muse on the disturbing truth of how car-dependent we have become.
Our wheels are in the car doctor’s rooms for the weekend, hopefully with an affordable resolution the outcome on Monday.
In the meantime, a man has to eat.
And a blog is whispering about a scandalous week of neglect.
I am headed for the Souvlaki Hut outlet that took up residence a while back in what was once a fish and chip place, interested to see what resides at the intersection of Greek and Franchise.
I am thoroughly bemused and confused, therefore, when I near the establishment and see signs that say Jolly Rogers.
What’s going on?
After an enjoyable lunch, co-owner Anthony Scarlata gives me the lowdown.
He and his business partner bought Jolly Rogers a tad short of five years back.
Eventually, they signed up with the Souvlaki Hut people, but for various reasons that didn’t work well.
So now they’re back with the original name and have been open five weeks when I visit.
Along the way, they’ve retained a Mediterranean flavour – and hence signage that says: “Jolly Rogers … with a twist.”
So what does that mean?
Well, there’s still a heap of fish and chips going around.
But there’s also the likes of grilled halloumi cheese, dips, onion rings, burgers, souvlakis and salads. Gosh, there’s even brown rice for $3.95.
There’s kids meals for $5.95 – nuggets, calamari, F&C – which can upgraded with a slushie or soft drink for a very excellent $1.
“Mamma’s seafood salad” costs $15.95 while an entry level burger clocks in at $7.50 ($2.50 extra for chips) and char-grilled calamari at $9.95
Despite an ambiance that suggests fast food and franchising, this is a full-service restaurant. You can order a wine or a beer, my order is taken at my table, the cutlery and crockery are real and the service and welcome are efficient and chipper.
As such, the prices seem very fair and I suspect I’ll be returning quick smart with Bennie on hand to explore the menu in greater detail.
It presents as a really good place of the “family restaurant” variety. Moreover, it also seems to be a place where we will be able to pursue our occasional longings for seafood without going broke in the process.
Your flashier seafood joints, of none or any ethnicity, are usually well beyond our means, so this could be the beginning of a cool friendship.
Take, for instance, my “Seafood for 1 deal”, which costs $12.95.
The three calamari rings are as good as any I’ve ever had, the batter light and dry, the calamari tender and tasty. Outstanding!
The fish – rockling, I am informed – is just about as good, the nice-sized fillet encased in a batter that could be crisper. The fish itself is really, really good and flavoursome.
The chips are OK, likewise the salad, although both come across as a bit of an afterthought.
Upon inquiring about tartare sauce or mayo for chip-dipping purposes, I am presented with a bowl of good aioli for which I am not charged.
I’m having such a grand time – eating, relaxing, reading the newspaper – that I linger a while longer over a truly fantastic latte.
Extra brownie points to Jolly Rogers for in-house music that runs through the likes of the Temptations, Van Morrison, the Zombies, Dusty Springfield and the Monkees. Sure as hell beats the high-volume and teeth-grindingly awful Led Zep I endured at Mankoushe a week or so before!
I figure my enforced train trip to Newport has been a good omen, so I catch another choo choo back to Yarraville. As if I have any choice, walking side.
Cedar Grill
Posted: December 5, 2010 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Melbourne, Middle Eastern food, Newport, western suburbs 7 Comments »
422 Melbourne Rd, Newport. Phone: 9391 0563
Mediterranean tucker may not be the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of western suburbs food, but we are nevertheless blessed with some gems of that persuasion.
Specifically, there is a magnificent Turkish joint right in the heart of Footscray, and another almost as good in Flemington.
There’s Greek places as far apart as Williamstown and Moonee Ponds we have yet to explore.
And there’s the Lebanese hub of The Circle in Altona, including a great bakery sure to be the subject of its own CTS write-up before too long.
For all we know, there could be dozens of old-school Italian doings going on behind the facades of pizza shops all over the place.
Still, Mediterranean food – and that of the Middle Eastern kind, in particular – is thin enough on the ground that any possibility is worth exploring.
So it was that we concluded Cedar Grill was worth checking out, an earlier visit by Kenny dating back to the very early days of our decade-long western adventure.
Cedar Grill is like Footscray Best Kebab House, in that its public face as a kebab joint disguises some much more tasty and righteous food proceedings.
In this case, the disguise is even more profound, as Cedar Grill also sells burgers and your typical Aussie pizzas.
Being the reprobate he is, Bennie waves away the far more alluring, tempting, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, nutritious and flavoursome Middle Eastern fare and opts for the $9 combo of burger, chips and a can of soft drink.
Oh well – I guess there’s a degree of hipness in being able to do BOTH. Although he ruined even that silver lining by choosing creaming soda …
He pronounced the burger – with onion, tomato, cheese, bacon – as fine and more than sufficiently filling.
We both thought the chips were very good. Freshly made and crisp, they were salted just right and tasted very fine dipped in the kebab-style garlic and chilli sauces that accompanied my meat/salad/dip platter.
I liked my $11 platter a lot.
The lamb was off the spit, and suitably crunchy and salty.
The pickled turnip – turshi – was earthy, crunchy and redolent of the beetroot used in its production. It was far cry from the recently purchased jar of turshii – a dull, sad pink, and mushy on the fang – that recently found its way into our home and thence into the garbage bin. Fresh turshi only seems like a rule for life.
For my dip, I wish I’d chosen the humus or something with a little more substance than the yogurt/cucumber number, which tasted fine but was too runny to eat easily with the bread.
I opted for the pita bread over the Turkish option, hoping for the very flat, very dry Lebanese-style pita. Instead, I got the more doughy pita routinely used in making kebabs. Which means it was OK, but either of the other options would have been preferable.
The tabouli was sensational and just the way I like it – moist to the point of wetness, a jolly mix of finely chopped tomato, cucumber, bulgur, parsley and lemon.
I reckon Cedar Grill is worth cultivating. On an earlier visit, I’d seen the vegies for the salads being patiently chopped by hand – as I suspect just about everything here is.
And as we leave, the waitress hinted very strongly that with a bit of luck and an expression of interest, the boss might even come through with some kibbeh and foul.
From Chinese and Greek citizens selling fish and chips in earlier decades through to the present day – just because a shop or cafe or takeaway outlet is selling one kind of food, doesn’t mean the folk concerned are not fully capable of producing something altogether more interesting or funky.
Nor does it mean that they’d not leap at the chance to do so.
Maybe sometimes all it takes is some interest.
For that reason alone, we’ll be returning to Cedar Grill.
That the commercial radio, aircon and traffic whizzing by outside make a racket that makes the experience about as far from fine dining as is possible matters not a bit.
Bennie gets a photography lesson in Newport.
Um, yeah, right: Truth in advertising spotted by Bennie at 7/ll in Newport.
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