Golden Grill Turkish Restaurant
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Melbourne, Turkish restaurants, Werribee restaurants, western suburbs 3 Comments »
Felafel plate at Golden Grill Turkish Restaurant in Werribee.
Golden Grill Turkish Restaurant, 38 Station St, Werribee. Phone: 9741 7101
A dry argument, dry like wine?
Neither, but this is a story of dryness.
Golden Grill in Werribee had been on the radar for a while.
Somehow, I’d picked up the vibe that this was more than just a quickie kebab joint.
But every time, for quite a while there, I was in the vicinity, it was closed.
Today I’m in luck.
A bunch of uniformed chaps are bustling through the fag end of the lunch hour.
The marinated meats in the display at the front look succulent, as do the displayed sweets.
Out the back, Golden Gill becomes a real-deal Turkish eatery.
There’s lovely wooden furniture of a certain age – not antique, but not shiny new either.
There’s travel posters of Turkey – a couple of which I even recognise from them playing a similar role in our beloved Footscray Best Kebab House.
Also adorning the walls are newspaper clippings about the restaurant and photos of staff posing with happy customers.
It’s all good, it’s all familiar and it all augurs well.
So, as you can see, I am most favourably inclined towards Golden Grill.
So what goes wrong?
I order the felafel plate ($15.90).
Before then, however, I indulge in one of the place’s stuffed vine leaves ($2.50).
This is big and hard – making me think that for once it may have been better to have my dolma cigar heated through.
But all is fine once I’m into the eating of it – the tomato-infused rice has that distinctive, familiar tang. It’s delicious!
The felafel plate price is quite high, but I figure the gauge will be in the results.
The felafal balls themselves are large and also quite hard. The flavour is fine. But – oh dear – they are so dry that eating them becomes a jaw-taxing chore.
Perhaps my eggplant dip, which has no smokiness but a nice garlic/lemon thing going on, will help ease the way?
Nope.
Claggy is the word.
If it’s possible for a dip to be dry, then this is dry.
I turn for help to the salad bits and pieces – which include some tabouli.
All is crispy, crunchy and fresh – but unadorned to the point of austerity.
My meal cries out for some moistness – specifically a generous hand with the olive oil and lemon juice.
Maybe next time the gorgeous-looking marinated meats spied on the way in!
The TeaPot Cottage Cafe
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Melbourne, Tea houses, Tea rooms, Werribee restaurants, Werribee South, western suburbs Leave a comment »
25 Beach St, Werribee South. Phone: 0409 138 181
Is it possible to get a lunchtime feed in Werribee South?
This is my cheery challenge for the day.
My rudimentary online research bore little fruit – just unhelpfully vague mentions of a takeaway joint and some tea rooms.
And I can recall no eateries from our previous visits to Werribee South – and there were actually quite a few.
I find it interesting that even in our relatively short 10-year stint in the west, we have already gone through several phases – in eating and other contexts.
Gravy Train in Gamon St, for instance, and to a lesser extent Hausfrau in Yarraville used to be an almost daily part of our routine, for breakfasts and more.
But no more.
We’ve left the cafe habit behind, prefer our brekkies at home and save our pennies for much more interesting – to us – fare available for lunches or dinners.
Likewise, we were once reasonably frequent visitors to Werribbee Mansion, often availing ourselves of the light but tasty and affordable bar menu before gamboling in the lovely grounds.
Often, too, such outings would entail a leisurely drive through kilometres of large vegetable patches, around Werribee South and then home.
As was the case then, today finds me a surprised and delighted to drive through large areas of intense market garden activity before suddenly finding myself in a seaside holiday destination so close to Melbourne.
There’s a good-sized caravan park, outside the main entrance of which is the takeaway establishment, which I quickly verify is not for me.
There’s a coast guard station, a lagoon/estuary, jetty and play areas.
And then, just as I have almost completed a circuit of the entire burg, I come across the TeaPot Cottage Cafe.
This, of course, is the tea rooms business I had stumbled across online without discovering its real name or nature.
Its real nature is wonderful – this a charming, classic, old-school tea house!
As such, it perhaps behooves me to order something appropriate to such a setting – the scotch fillet steak burger or beef burgundy pie (both $18), for instance.
The breakfast menu includes “Eve’s Traditional Scottish Breakfast”, which shovels up potato scones, Ayrshire gammon (yes, I had to look it up), black pudding, Scottish sausage, Aussie eggs, baked beans and toast for $20.
Whew!
Had I a companion for the day, the ploughman’s lunch for two and for $30 would appeal.
But I chance my arm by ordering the beer-battered whiting ($18).
I enjoy sitting in overcast warmth at one of the outside tables, flicking through one of the local rags until my lunch arrives.
Oh dear! The salad bits are dreary and the tartare sauce is in the dreaded sachets!
The chips are better – a little under-done for my tastes, but they’re hot and taste fine.
The fish is better again – much better.
I’ve never been a whiting fan and certainly never order it when we’re out at one of our usual F&C haunts.
But this is really good!
What looks like a rather modest serve of four smallish pieces of fish is actually a surprisingly filling meal.
The fish is firm and flavoursome, and the slightly thick and chewy batter adheres to the fish admirably well. This all a bit chunkier than is usually the case with the sort of beer-battered whiting you find is flash F&C places or more expensive seafood eateries, but for me it’s a winning approach.
Even at $18, significantly above our normal F&C rates, I love my lunch, especially given the nice setting.
Back inside, I happily check out the classic tea-room decor, decorations and trimmings.
I don’t specifically recall laying my eyes on any doilies, but I’m sure they’re there somewhere.
I tell my host, Eve, and her staff (top photo) that their place not only reminds me of tea-room visit of my long-ago South Island childhood – it smells the same, too.
“I know,” says Eve.
My mum would love this place, for sure!
Eve also confirms what I had already suspected – the two-scone Devonshire teas with jam and real cream are the place’s best-sellers by a mile.
And no metric conversion necessary or even appropriate.
No EFTPOS available.
Noodle Land
Posted: January 15, 2012 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: Asian food, cheap eats, Chinese food, Melbourne, Werribee restaurants, western suburbs Leave a comment »
74 Watton St, Werribee. Phone: 9741 8331
The main drag of Werribee is surprisingly rich in cheap eats potential.
Within a couple of blocks are a number of Indian restaurants, including Bikanos, purveyors of fine chole bhature.
There’s a handy-looking fish and chip joint, a couple of charcoal chicken shops and a variety of cafes.
As well, there’s a couple of mixed noodle places – like the recently reviewed and fine Dragon Express, I suspect they’re both Chinese-based but have wider-based menus that dabble in South-East Asia.
Certainly that’s precisely the case at Noodle Land, which I choose for my Sunday lunch, fuel for my first night shift in Geelong after a two-week break.
Inside are all the usual food photographs, a table of locals who look like regulars happily fanging away and – unusual for such establishments – the cricket on TV.
Even better, there are newspapers.
Being a veteran newspaperman, I take special and perverse delight in reading newspapers I haven’t paid for, even if they are a day old and particularly if they still include the foodie bits and pieces.
Perfect!
I start with a trio of chicken dumplings ($3.50).
Far from being aghast at their khaki green skins, I take them to mean these babies are made on the premises.
They’re quite delicate and tasty, though like their chook cousins, chicken sausages, they have no chicken flavour at all.
Pickled cabbage and carrot – of the kind often found served with Vietnamese vermicelli and rice dishes – on the side is a nice touch.
Hard-won wisdom tells not go with roti with my beef rendang ($10.50), so I go with rice instead.
Quite predictably, this will never make the grade in the Malaysian hot spot of Racecourse Rd and environs in Flemington, but it’s actually pretty good.
It’s very mild, but the gravy is plentiful and of fine taste, and the meat is tender and almost fat-free.
We’re so lucky to be surrounded by incredible and uncompromised food so close to our home that it’s tempting to get a bit sniffy about such fare.
But certainly, I’ve had much, much worse, ahem, “curries” in places of Chinese derivation
If I lived in Werribee, I’d probably be a regular at Noodle Land.
As it turns out, I’m partial to having a feed after having put myself a few kilometres closer to my work duties in Geelong, so the occasional stop in Werribee will likely continue to be part of my routine.
It just may take a long while to get a handle on what’s hot and what’s not.
Bikanos Sweet And Curry Cafe
Posted: April 16, 2011 Filed under: Places we like to eat at | Tags: cheap eats, Indian food, Melbourne, Werribee restaurants, western suburbs 8 Comments »
Shop 3/70 Watton St, Werribee. Phone: 8742 6450
Well within my lifetime Werribee will be folded quietly into metropolitan Melbourne.
On a sunny Friday afternoon, though, it has the feel of a bustling country town.
Except for the traffic congestion – that’s of big-smoke class already.
And the eateries – there’s far more cheap eats destinations than you’ll find in a similar-sized burg up-country, up-state.
It’s apparent Werribee hosts significant Indian population. There’s groceries and eat shops, and a few restaurants that seem to be of the flash variety.
Happily, I snag a park right opposite my destination – Bikanos.
This is my first visit, but I’ve already set my mind on ordering a vegetarian thali, should there be one.
There is.
It costs $15,
What? I’ve seen thali prices of that order and more before, but only in the swankiest of operations. The $15 is about $4-5 more than I’m currently paying in and around Footscray.
A quick Plan B is required. Having noticed a number of photo display non-menu dishes in the front window, I inquire about the pricing of the chole bhature.
It’s $7.50, I am informed.
That’s more like it.
For variety’s sake, I also order a serve of onion bhaji ($5).
These aren’t quite as good as those we inhale at Vanakkam India, but get real close.
It’s a big serve; the batter is mostly ungreasy; and the onions are cooked through but maintain a nice degree of crunch beneath the batter. A gooey tamarind syrup accompanies.
Whatever wariness I harbour about the price of the thali is banished by the brilliance of my chick peas and fried bread.
This is the best, most awesome example I’ve had in these parts of this tremendous snack/breakfast dish.
It makes me very, very happy.
The creamy yogurt is spiced with flavours that I can’t identify but that are nevertheless tantalisingly familiar.
Bikanos boss man Ashok Bal subsequently tells me it’s a mix of garam masala, black salt and roast cumin. Yum!
My two bhatoora – a slightly heavier version of puris – are so fresh they are filled with air and look like tanned bladders. They are light and delicious.
The chick peas, too, are perfect – nicely al dente and residing in a gravy that is slightly salty and with a mild chilli kick.
Ashok tells me the seasoning is a matter of cinnamon, cloves, black cardamom, cumin, bay leaf, garlic ginger.
So fine is the magic of these three components that I completely ignore the raw onions shards and pickle. Maybe next time.
As I’ve enjoyed my late lunch, a succession of Indian locals have come and gone – this a popular haunt.
The shop has a display of fine and fancy looking Indian sweets. Appealing, but I inevitably find them too rich for mine.
I do wish I’d grabbed, before departing for Geelong, a small bag of the spiced cashews arrayed with other savoury snacks.
Maybe next time.
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