Quick Stop Cafe, 146A Mickeham Rd, Tullamarine. Phone: 9335 3040

A business meeting of sorts is to take me, for the first as far as I’m aware, to Sunbury.

After studying the whereabouts of my destination and the ways of getting there from Yarraville, I resolve to give the ring road and Calder Highway a miss and go for the ease of the $14 toll route instead.

It’s then that I recall a tip-off from Juz, No.1 leaver of Consider The Sauce comments, about a kebab joint just off Mickelham Rd on the way to the airport.

Now there’s a handy lunch option for my return post-meeting travel!

Sadly, the joint is closed – maybe it’s too soon after the Christmas/New Year hullabaloo for a cheap eats establishment to open when situated in an otherwise drab light industrial precinct.

So I go tooling off along Mickelham Rd to see what, if anything, this part of the world offers by way of foodiness.

It’s within only a block or so that I spot Quick Stop Cafe. The size and style of the signage is so similar to that of the unopened place suggested by Juz that my immediate thought is that the business has simply shifted to a site with more potential drive-by customers.

Upon entering, I soon discover that is not the case.

Still, I resolve that – come what may – this will be my luncheon venue.

Quick Stop does a range of takeaway kebabs, some eat-in plates and even some keen looking Turkish-style breakfasts, such as the Menemen Breakfast of “lightly pan-fried pepper, tomato, cheese with egg” for $8.

I order the $12 chicken plate solely on account of the fact I like nicely, deeply tanned look of the chook going around and around behind the counter.

As I sit back to await my meal, I look around this small and very basic cafe, which I surmise does a good lunch trade for tradies, drivers and the like, and revelers of various kinds and sobriety later at night – all of which, I subsequently discover, is indeed the case.

A handful of the aforementioned tradie types order after me and depart with their takeaway goodies before I lay eyes or teeth on my meal, and I am beginning to feel a little forgotten.

It turns out the slight delay has been caused by the house rice being completed.

And what rice it is – still slightly al dente, nicely salty and studded with heaps of short bits of vermicelli.

It goes real good with the chicken off the spit, which is not as crispy as I have been expecting. It IS delicious, though, and of surprisingly un-oily texture.

Both rice and chook, in turn, are super fine with the tangy, fiery chilli dip and the more mundane cucumber and yogurt number.

All of which goes to show you can never run out of surprises when it comes to getting a good, affordable feed in Melbourne.

I enjoy talking to the staff, including the boss, Amber, before departing in the somewhat sad knowledge that it will surely be a long time before I’m in this neck of the wood again.