Category Archives: Blah blah blah

A letter to KFC …

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Dear KFC Australia,

Hello there!

My 11-year-old son and I could before now hardly be described as fans of your, um, food – I mean, we find it difficult to picture what someone who  wants to win a year’s worth of KFC would actually look like.

But nor have we been antagonistic – ambivalent or apathetic would be closer to the mark.

Until now.

Now we detest your company and its greasy products.

You see, what we are fans of is sport – which is why we indulge in the affordable luxury of pay TV.

At this time of year, when there’s not much going on, we’re definitely up for watching a bit of T20 cricket, the domestic competition of which has provided us with much viewing pleasure in previous years.

This year, though, that enjoyment has been severely lessened by the rampant repetition of KFC adverts – on and on and on and on ….

Worse, this year they feature the Madden brothers, a couple of charmless US rock “stars” of a band so hot most Australians have never heard of it and are probably glad that that’s the case.

Worse again, the pair have been involved in vegetarianism and animal rights in the past, although you guys seem to be confused about that according to the website Umbrella.

It’s all very confusing, not to mention profoundly irritating.

I mean, do you really think showcasing a couple of, ahem, animal rights activists, or at the very least sympathisers, in your ads is a winner in terms of marketing?

Especially when it comes across very clearly they’re in it just for the money and it’s also very noticeable they are not shown at any point in the act of consuming your products?

Whose idea was it to employ these has-beens?

But then again, we are pretty much out of the loop when it comes to corporate marketing and branding.

So for all we know getting a reaction such as this letter from disgusted punters could have your PR and marketing types wildly high-fiving.

But the fact remains – we now hate your “food” and we hate you.

Cheers, Kenny

Our Top 10 for 2012

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Mighty thanks to our many visitors, eating companions, leavers of comments and providers of tips!

Remember, it’s only a list.

If I did it on another day, it’d likely be different.

And there’s lots of other places and people we like.

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1. COFFEE

We love the vibe at Cup & Bean in Kingsville – welcoming and cool without trying too hard.

We love, too, the simple, nifty $5 ham, cheese and pickle sandwiches Tim knocks us up for cheap lunches.

And every cup of coffee is perfection.

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2. TOP NEWS STORY

The opening of super ritzy grocery A.Bongiovanni & Son in Seddon really had tongues wagging.

We’re happy to report we’ve become regular customers.

And not just for specialty items, either. More than often than not we’re in there for regular fresh produce and groceries.

The arrival in the west of a food truck, White Guy Cooks Thai, was hot news, as well.

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3. SURROUNDED BY INDIANS

Is there any doubt the western suburbs – especially the inner west – have become Indian Central for Melbourne?

Especially at affordable prices?

We have no particular favourite – we do, however, have particular favourites at specific restaurants.

It’s been a matter of horses for courses and all that for wonderful meals we’ve had at Yummy India, Biryani House, Salaam Namaste Dosa Hut, Pandu’s, Vanakkam, Indi Chutneys and Mishra’s Kitchen.

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4. BURGERS/F&C

Rockfish at Edgewater is proving a grand regular for us when we’re in the mood for burgers and/or fish and chips – old-school, good service, table seating both indoors and out, tasty food.

We dig Dappa Snappa Fish Cafe in Williamstown, too!

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5. A TOAST TO THE ROASTS

The old-fashioned charms of a roast meal really kicked in for us in 2012.

The incredible $10 Sunday roast deal at the Spottiswoode Hotel was a highlight, but we loved our dinners at Bruno’s Coffee Lounge and the Famous Blue Raincoat, too.

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6. BEST NON-WESTERN SUBURBS JOINT

Abbout Falafel House in Sydney Rd, Coburg, serves thoroughly wonderful, delicious, fresh and cheap Lebanese food.

Some days we’re pretty sure it’s the best restaurant in Melbourne.

And there’s times, too, we’re convinced it’s the best eats emporium in the known universe …

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7. BEST FRANCHISE FAST FOOD

We’ve been back Guzman Y Gomez Mexican Taqueria at Highpoint several times and always enjoy it.

The food may not match it in terms of presentation and zing of your more high-falutin’ Mexican places, but it’s cheap and we like it.

8. MOST “OUT THERE” ADVENTURE

Some musing on the nature of “crab sticks” saw me visiting Austrimi Seafoods in North Geelong for a tour of their surimi factory.

I’ve watched with bemusement as the original post has become a regular, daily Google go-to story for searches such as “is there tripe in seafood extender” and “what are crab sticks made of”.

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9. FAVOURITE RESTAURANT

It’s a tie!

We only made it to Safari in Ascot Vale once this year, but we continue to hold the establishment, its fabulous Somalian food and the welcome in the very highest of regards.

Ace Japanese place Ajitoya in Seddon has become a regular for refined comfort food – even if that is a contradictory term.

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10. BEST SANDWICH

We adore La Morenita in Sunshine every which way, even if Bennie has gone off having cold empanadas in his school lunches.

All the sandwiches are good, but we especially love the chacarero of steak, cheese, tomato, mayo, greens beans and hot green chilli.

The beans squeak!

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11. TOP MEAL

Such a simple, earthy pleasure – chicken curry with a fresh baguette roll at Xuan Xinh, a rather anonymous St Albans cafe.

Irony

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My new paying gig takes me from Southern Cross Station, up the road and along Clarendon St to York St in South Melbourne for work on publications and with management that overlap with my already existent and ongoing gig at Media House.

The first couple of mornings, and with plenty of time before my 9.30am start, I enjoy the leisurely stroll.

But those two days’ work become three, with a fourth declined because of another commitment, and by now I’ve had enough of the whole Flinders St, Crown noise-and-ugliness, so I hop the light rail.

I’m looking forward to ambling through the early hours of a new day at South Melbourne Market, pondering lunch options as I go.

But to my surprise, the market is closed.

It seems bizarre that such a major-league market is closed on a Thursday.

Oh well, I happily settle for a coffee from a  top spot adjacent to the market at which I have already become a regular. Only two more coffees and I’m up for my first freebie.

As well, just up York St is a low-rent Indonesian joint – just the sort of place to set my pulse racing. At lunchtime, though, I majorly wuss it, deciding against one of the ace-looking laksas that several customers are slurping for fear of ponging up my new office and irritating new colleagues.

It’s a mistake – the gado gado I go for is barely acceptable, though my two fried pork balls are pretty good.

My new workplace is fine and the work nothing but a pleasure. Over the course of three days, I work on a lot drool-worthy food stories and mostly well-written pieces and profiles about many interesting topics and people.

Predictably, I already a know a few of my new colleagues from other places and times – including one fellow sub-editor with whom I last worked on the long-defunct Sunday Herald more than two decades previously. There is barely one degree of separation between myself and every other journalist in the place.

But while I work across a number of mastheads, I have been summoned here for one specific purpose – to work on Geelong stories for the flashy, glossy new Weekly Review that is being launched in the town of my former employment.

The irony is rich and deep.

Just a few months after being given the flick from the Geelong Advertiser, I am happily working on a project that is targeted directly at that newspaper’s advertising base.

In the process, I am handling stories written by people likewise dismissed from the Advertiser and writing captions for photographs taken by another former colleague who left about the same time.

Moreover, my understanding is that this new publication is no tentative step into Geelong and that this is very much about being in it for the long haul.

There are jokes in my new workplace that the Geelong Advertiser should be renamed the Geelong No-Advertising.

If this was just a matter of sticking it to News Ltd management that has seemingly been so busy, um, streamlining the company, by some accounts turning its suburban and regional titles into branch offices for the Herald Sun and seeing sub-editors as a cost burden rather than assets to be fostered and fought for, I would glory in every story, every headline written and every paid hour, and all those to come.

But the pleasure is muted somewhat by the knowledge that this is bad news indeed for many good people who were so recently my colleagues at the Advertiser.

Still, I can’t help but reflect on the swings and roundabouts of it all.

There’s no permanent positions for me, or a whole lot of other folks with whom I’m currently working. Those days, perhaps, have gone forever.

But there’s security of a kind in being in places and at a time where what I’ve always done is accorded value.

Best eats to snack on while cooking

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1. Corn chips and taramasalata.

2. Olives.

3. Indian snacks bought from Barkly St, West Footscray.

4. Parmesan shavings.

5. Pickled onions.

6. Sour pickled gherkins.

7. End nubs of really excellent sourdough bread dipped in VOO.

What are yours?

Do you, like me, often spoil enjoyment of the finished dish by snacking too much while cooking?

Fast food/food court etiquette

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Just out of curiosity …

When eating at a fast food joint, be it a franchise or otherwise, or a shopping centre food court, do you:

1. Gather up all your food scraps and packaging yourself, and put them in one of the rubbish receptacles?

Or …

2. Treat it like a normal restaurant experience, and leave it all for restaurant employees to clean up?

If you leave your mess for employees to clean-up, are you:

1. Inflicting more pain and drudgery on staff who are already over-worked and under-paid?

Or …

2. Creating job opportunities by refusing to be guilt-tripped by the business into doing work that should be done by staff members.

Random notes …

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One of the pleasures of 2012 for us has been checking out the Thai-centric blog Krapow.

So passionate are these folks about their tucker that one of them, Andy, has constructed a street stall truck, from which he will be dispensing his tried and tested version of Boat Noodle Soup at the North Melbourne Spring Fling in Errol St on Sunday, October 21.

We hear there’ll be Thai-style Doryaki, too.

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And don’t forget the combined Footscray Food Blog/Consider The Sauce Spring Picnic the following Saturday.

The wonderful poster was created by Ms Baklover’s sister, whose work you can check out here.

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Coming very soon: The New Zealand Adventures of Gumboman and Gumbolad.

Flying solo

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I can’t remember a time – since I split my parents’ joint as a teenager and even somewhat before then – that I haven’t been comfortable eating in public by myself.

Right from the first years of my life as independent adult, a lot of my solo dining was a matter of circumstances – shift work, shared housing in which cooking routines were haphazard or  non-existent and so on.

Not to mention an almost complete absence of cooking skills.

It was very early in the piece that I headed out into the world – specifically, at first, to the US with a head full of Jack Kerouac and the Grateful Dead, and a thumb in the wind.

Hitchhiking across the US meant solo dining wasn’t just fun but also a necessity and a neat way of engaging with people.

Then followed a couple of years in London, a few more in various parts of New Zealand and eventually – in the mid-’80s – Melbourne.

During none of this could I have been described as a foodie in any way.

In fact, I remember on the long trek home from London – via Greece and India – staying on Crete for four weeks and getting terminally bored with daily fare of chips and omelettes, because at that point I would have no truck with fancy-pants food like fetta cheese, olive oil or olives.

Somehow, a level of foodiness clicked into gear upon arrival in Melbourne and has been present and growing ever since, along with a complete ease at a table for one.

Again, much of that was to do with circumstances – more shift work and living on my own for the first time in my life.

As well, my first apartment was in Fitzroy and just a few seconds’ walk from the then embryonic Brunswick St strip. It grew as I lived there.

Fitzroy was followed by the then wilderness of Brunswick (how things have changed in that regard!), St Kilda and the CBD.

Through it all, one of the greatest pleasures was always a meal, a stool, a book or a newspaper.

And glorious solitude.

Meanwhile, on many journeys to New Orleans and South Louisiana, often I was faced with a simple choice – eat at that swish restaurant by myself or not at all.

Thus I slipped into the habit of occasionally visiting a fine-dining restaurant while over there in  a way I would never bother with in Melbourne.

From various accounts I’ve read, I know I’m not alone in finding travel a great liberator in that regard.

I think it can be argued that if there has ever been any stigma attached to solo eaters, it has as much to do with the inner self-confidence and brio of individual diners as with any tut-tutting by society at large.

Or that’s the case at least, I reckon, for the past three decades or so.

Nevertheless, I think there are a number of factors that have made it even more practicable, easy, convenient and deliciously enjoyable to sup on one’s own.

Here’s some of them – I’d love to know if there’s more I haven’t twigged to.

*Pho and associated food.

*Indian thalis.

*The sort of workaday attitude that goes with both of the above, where eating out is just part of daily routines for families and individuals alike.

*The Italian cafe vibe.

*Sushi bars in Japanese restaurants.

*The influx of Asian students to Melbourne and the western suburbs, and the attendant growth in food shops to feed them.

Solo dining has, naturally, become part of Consider The Sauce – my partner, Bennie, is not always at hand, nor are the various other pals I sometimes get on the fang with.

This means that some posts are more succinct than others – such as yesterday’s effort on Cafe Konjo.

I can live with that.

In fact, I can see a benefit – not all posts need to be detail-packed essays; there’s room, too, for sketches and impressions.

I’ve sometimes wondered if the ease of mind surrounding solo dining is more easily attained by men than women.

A number of female food bloggers I’ve talked with have told me they’ve never had any issues with it.

But they have all told me they still draw the line at flying solo in bar situations.

A couple have also suggested that food blogging is little more than a way of making solo dining even more legitimate.

It’s always said with a laugh, but there’s a twinkle of truth in that.

Early heads-up: Combined FFB/CTS Spring Picnic …

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In its two years and counting, Team Consider The Sauce has enjoyed eating with, meeting and getting to know a variety of characters.

Inevitably and happily, a goodly number of them have been food bloggers or folks otherwise deeply involved in cyber foodiness.

We’ve even met some of them at a couple of blogger picnics and other outings.

As cherished and revered, though, are the many regular visitors who have left so very many entertaining, supportive and enlightening comments.

We’ve met a few of them, too!

And we love sharing a vision and purpose with Lauren aka Ms Baklover of Footscray Food Blog fame, whose advice and support has been invaluable.

So … we’ve decided to arrange a combined FFB/CTS Spring Picnic.

This will be held to coincide with the Yarraville Farmers Market in Yarraville Gardens on Saturday, October 27.

The market runs from 8am-noon, so we’re provisionally planning on picnic time being 10am until … whenever.

This way, we can all relax and enjoy meeting folks without the hassles and angst that go with arranging a more formal restaurant-based gathering.

And if you don’t want to bring your own eats, there’ll be goodies available from the market, as will coffee.

There’s a barbecue, toilets and a playground for the kids.

Stay tuned for further details, but get it in your diaries!

Incident on a train

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Missed this weeks Epicure section in The Age.

No biggie, but still …

Rude as it may seem, I couldn’t help but glance at the copy a passenger next to me on the train from work was reading.

My eye was caught by a long single column of responses by readers to a question about what are the top signs you’ve entered a Bad Restaurant.

Top of the list was … flat-screen televisions.

What?

What kind of parallel universe is that?

In our world, wall-mounted flat-screen TVs are a harbinger of delicious food on the way.

South American soccer games, Viet song and dance extravaganzas, Bollywood epics and – recently for me – even Fox News (sound off, thankfully) in a Foostcray Ethiopian place.

What could be better?

I even had the temerity to voice these opinions to the Epicure lady.

She seemed bemused I’d been surreptitiously reading her newspaper – but that’s better than snarky.

As we neared a station and she prepared to depart the train, she even presented me with her “pre-loved” copy of Epicure, God bless her.

I asked her where she lived; locally, obviously.

So I gave her a Consider The Sauce business card.

I hope she checks us out.

New lunchtime vistas of foodiness

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The coffee/food joint on the ground floor of Media House, on the corner of Spencer and Collins streets, is called Espresso Hub.

Some of my new colleagues – some of whom are also old colleagues – are unstinting in their negativity in assessing the food available there.

But today I had a sensational rice salad – herbs, cashews, peas, red onion. Gosh, it was yummo.

But my large serve of salad came with another – spinach leaves, pumpkin, beetroot, bocconcini, roast capsicum – that was nowhere near as good.

Worse, I wasn’t paying too much attention, so failed to notice that my server placed the salads one on top of the other – instead of side by side.

Sheesh! Why would anyone do that?

The coffee however is barely OK and I will be seeking a worthy alternative.

Across the road, Purple Peanuts Japanese Cafe is crazy crammed each and every lunchtime so I have yet to give it a go.

The dark, cool laneway it is part of has a couple of cafes, an interesting looking F&C place, an old-school barber who has already shorn my copious locks.

And a divey looking Chinese place called Wonderful Garden that boasts it has “The best Chinese food in town”.

I wonder if it’s true?

In Southern Cross Station, there’s Mad Mex, which I have tried – Guzman Y Gomez Mexican Taqueria at Highpoint is better.


GRAM birthday party

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Prime Creative boss John Murphy looking chuffed after successively opening a round of beers as dessert is served.

GRAM birthday party, Malvern.

It’s midweek, it’s a full moon, I wish it was on a Friday night … but I am looking forward to the GRAM birthday party.

It’s not so much a celebration of the magazine itself as a party about its eventual handing to the stewardship of Prime Creative Media.

As a food blogger, I’ve been involved from the magazine’s earliest days and am happy to have an ongoing involvement.

In the face of some resistance, I even wrote a piece expressing my support – you can read it here.

The party is in a function room far from my usual stomping grounds, the finger food is good and the beer is free.

I take the earliest opportunity to quiz Prime Creative Media boss John Murphy about how GRAM is going, given that it has expanded to Brisbane and Adelaide, Sydney is on the way and national distribution not too far away either.

Prime Creative boss John Murphy with GRAM editor Danielle Gullaci and yours truly.

I dig, too, catching up with Roberto Cea, whose brainchild GRAM has been and who has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with his “baby” as it has been rolled out in other cities.

Roberto Cea, Maria and yours truly.

I enjoy hanging with Nat Stockley, my handbag for the night. Sorry, buddy, none of the pics worked out. It was a challenging situation, as I’m sure you understand.

I believe there are other bloggers in attendance, but get to talk with just a few before bedtime deadline looms.

I forget to take a GRAM showbag with me as I depart.

Oh, well, it’s been cool and a treat to attend the sort of party that not so long ago was a weekly, almost daily, part of my life.

Yes, but is it authentic?

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A comment on our review of Kawa-Sake and a couple elsewhere got me thinking about the notion of authenticity.

I spent a few months in India a long time ago – up north – followed by a few weeks in Nepal. A lifetime ago, really, in the context of this rave.

More recently, but getting older by the day, I spent a lot of time in New Orleans and South Louisiana, chasing food with the same fervour I chased the music. But all that’s of only limited relevance to the food covered by Consider The Sauce.

Those two examples aside, a quirk of my life is that I’ve never set foot in any of the countries whose migrants to Australian have so enriched or collective lives.

So my impressions about the authenticity of the food we eat and buy is based solely on what I learn along the way, from talking to the food business folk themselves, to friends who have travelled to the countries concerned and a great deal of enthusiastic reading.

I’m under the strong impression that the most genuinely unchanged migrant food is the humble pho.

I’ve met a bunch of folk who have travelled to Vietnam and maintain the pho there is better than the pho here.

But that’s a different issue.

As far as I can see and learn, issues of comparative quality and regional variations aside, pho is pho whether you be in Vietnam or Footscray.

It’s tempting to conclude that the food served up so lovingly by our community of Ethiopian restaurants is identical to that served in Ethiopia itself.

After all, these are newish residents whose memory and cooking of their homeland is still a first-generation living, breathing thing.

But even here, appearances are deceiving.

For one of the foundations of Ethiopian food – injera – has long been baked here using a mixture of grains chosen to replicate as closely as possible the tiff with which it is made in Ethiopia.

Does that make it not authentic?

How about Indo-Chinese food – so much the mongrel it incorporates its fluid nature in its name?

In fact, I’d wager that within the Indo-Chinese food style pretty much anything goes and there’s not a soul who could question its authenticity.

From central and eastern Europe, Greece and Turkey through the Middle East and on to East Asia, the food styles appear to overlap and borrow from each other with such chaotic abandon that it is sometimes hard to gauge where one ends and another starts.

Japanese food is, like all the other cuisines covered here, these days very much an international food, and like all the others is bound to change as it travels.

Whether that means the various mutations can or should be called “Japanese” is arguable.

Just as it is arguable that vegetables deep-fried using panko crumbs should not be called tempura. (They should rightly be called, I believe, fuurai.)

But if panko crumbs can not tempura make, what to make of the widespread use in Japanese food of mayo? Or noodles and curry, for that matter. I’m sure there are other examples of Japanese food harnessing outside concepts and products.

These are just a few examples of the sort of issues that are raised in all sorts of foodie media – which methods or ingredients go, or do not, into making a perfect, “authentic” laksa or biryani or  curry or goulash.

Being peeved as a punter if a restaurant does not live up to its own self-description is one thing and is up to each individual, although I believe the very notion of authenticity is very much a moving target anyway.

Being irate at deliberate misrepresentation is not the same thing as criticising a restaurant’s food on the basis of what it is not, which can seem a little on the perverse side.

Food blogger irritants

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1. Laminated menus.

2. Overly shiny tables.

3. Photographic displays of dishes with too-bright back-lighting.

4. Forgetting to re-charge camera battery.

5. So hastily and furtively scribbling notes they are indecipherable once home.

6. Sucky, insincere spam.

7. Methodology used to rank bloggers on Urbanspoon. (Irritates this blogger anyway … no doubt those on  top of the heap think it’s great! I’d opt out for sure if that was possible …)

8. Forgetting to write down prices.

9. Reflection in restaurant window of blogger taking photographs.

10. Repeatedly being asked to provide free content for digital start-ups looking to make money.

Top 10 cooking smells

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1. Roast vegetables with garlic, rosemary and olive oil.

2. Chicken stock.

3. Pasta aglio, olio e peperoncino.

4. Flour-and-oil roux for a gumbo.

5. Just about any Indian food.

6. Our tomato sauce.

7. Poached quinces with cloves and cinnamon.

8. Bacon.

9. Frying onions.

10. Cookies/cakes.

Bennie eats smoothies, pancakes and corn (:

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WORDS, PHOTOS, MUSIC, TAP-DANCING AND HUMOUR BY BENNIE WEIR!

Hola, Bennie here.

This week at my school our class had a low GI week. The idea was to get all of us kiddos into groups and think of some low GI recipes to eat.

Yummy!

First we think of the recipes, which we did on Tuesday.

At first, my group’s (led by my teacher Mrs Clarke) idea was to make garlic and parmesan popcorn, buckwheat pancakes with berry sauce-like stuff and a banana and mango smoothie, and just to make it harder we were only allowed to use $30 everything we wanted.

In the end, we replaced the popcorn with corn on the cob – apart from that everything stayed the same.

On Thursday, we had to walk to Woolworths to do our shopping. I took my dad’s camera with me.

When we got there, we went into our groups and started shopping.

My group had to get skim milk, vegetable oil, vanilla yoghurt, maple syrup, plain flour, bananas, frozen berries, frozen mango, buttermilk, corn, unsalted butter, honey and frozen maggots – just kidding!

When we went to go get the bananas, they were so green. So my group had to go get some bananas from the greengrocer.  Then the whole class got together again and we all went back to school.

When we got back, everyone was really excited about cooking.

One group went to the hall, another group went to the staff room and my group stayed in the classroom. First we started off with making the mango and banana smoothie.

1. We peeled some bananas and put them in the blender with the skim milk and the vanilla yoghurt, put the frozen mango in and blended it.

2. Um … Kind of fitted it all in to step 1.

3. Let’s continue.

Then we did the corn on the cob.

We put the corn in boiling water for 12 minutes. While we were waiting, we started the buckwheat pancakes. We made the batter. The recipe would take to long to write so I made a simpler version.

1. Search it on the internet.

Then the corn was done. YAY!

We got the biggest piece of corn we could get smothered it with butter and ate it.

Then we were making another batch of pancakes.

My friend Gabriel cut up the banana.

While we were eating the corn, Mrs Clarke put the berries in a small pot put with a couple of teaspoons of sugar and water on top, then she went off and put them in the microwave.

She came with this really nice berry sauce like stuff.

We finished making the pancakes, put the berry sauce on, the yoghurt on, ate it all.

There was no more pancakes so we all pigged out on the berry sauce.

While we were, the bell rang for snack break and we all went outside with the berry sauce still on our plates with us trying to eat it with forks.

Confucius say man who eat soup with fork starve.

We went outside and ate it while being watched by jealous the 3/4 class.

Then I had an idea put some berry sauce on my finger and pretend I was bleeding, yelling at everyone: “I CUT MYSELF AHHH! THE PAIN!”

They actually believed me and all ran up to me, then I told them it was a joke.

LA FIN!

A working week of meals

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DAY 1 (DINNER)

Tub Oraganic Indulgence hommus

Pan-browned pita bread from Gerry’s Pittes

Kalamata olives

Pickled cucumber, sliced

biscotti from Pace Biscuits

Banana

Apple

Mandarin

DAY 2 (DINNER)

Roll with pastrami, red capsicum, dijon mustard

Chocolate/almond nougat from Pace Biscuits

Banana

Apple

Mandarin

DAY 3 (LUNCH)

Lunch pack from Khan Curry Hut in Ryrie St – chicken, vegetables, rice and a can of that Coca Cola stuff ($7)

(In Geelong this scores a 5. If it was being scored in the western suburbs it would be a 2  – or 3 with the lamb curry.)

Serve of papadams ($1)

Apple

Banana

Mandarin

DAY 4 (DINNER)

Minestrone

Irrewarra sourdough ciabatta roll

Banana

Mandarin

Biscotti from Pace Biscuits

Would you like a serve of hypocrisy with your burger?

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So Grill’d doesn’t like, among other things, blogging, facebooking and tweeting.

But … wait a minute … let me check.

Why, yes – Grill’d does indeed have a Facebook page and a Twitter account!

Hey, this is pretty lame.

Always liked the product, but maybe not so much any more.

(Yes, I know it’s a joke and that by posting it here I am a witting participant in their sneaky PR exercise, but still it’s a bit rich! I’ve posted a link on their FB page, so will be interested to see what – if anything – they say!)

An old argument …

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Meet Peter and Annette.

These lovely folks service my coffee needs when I’m working in Geelong.

Their old-school coffee shop is situated in the equally old-school Centrepoint Arcade.

The arcade, like so many of its kind, is a little dowdy these days, forced to stand in the metaphorical shadows of two nearby shopping centres.

It has a beauty salon (of course), a frock shop, a loan merchant, while quite a few of the shop fronts and other spaces are used by Diversitat for training purposes.

No surprise there are few empty shops as well, while at one end is a beaut barber emporium staffed entirely by also-lovely gals of a certain age.

Peter and Annette serve up sangers and a range of homemade goodies to customers almost all of whom seem to be long-standing regulars.

They display a generosity of spirit and patience with the dears who expect a bit of a natter as they mull over the choice schnitzel or meatloaf.

I’ve learned to depart and return in 10 minutes or so when there are more than a couple of customers waiting to be served.

I’d always had them pegged as a retired couple who were using their business as a way of staying active and topping up the super a bit.

So I was delightedly surprised to discover they have been doing business in the same premises for 25 years.

I doubt Peter and Annette consider themselves baristas, but nevertheless they consistently turn out affordable coffee ($3) that tastes like coffee – something that cannot be said of their various competitors a block or so in any direction.

The whole vibe could not be of a contrast to that of Padre Coffee at South Melbourne Market.

On a recent visit to the market, I enjoyed a superb coffee at the Padre out let there.

Writing about it, I tossed in the casual observation that Padre seemed to to be “one of those new-school cool coffee chains staffed exclusively by young hipsters”.

Later that night, I thought to myself: “Am I really OK with that?”

To tell you the truth, I’m still not really sure.

But giving free rein to some good-natured curiosity, I emailed the company asking about its policy regarding mature-age workers and whether only young staff were employed.

The company did reply, the gist of it being:

In response to your query – you can rest assured our company is not one ‘in
pursuit of a certain look and image’.

As you would have seen – we’re all about coffee, our customers and a great
space to relax and enjoy a coffee (although South Melbourne can be very
hectic on the weekends).

Kudos for actually replying to my inquiry, except for the fact it did not address my main question.

In fact, it’s pretty much a gold-plated fob-off!

And had it not been for the nature of the reply, I most likely would’ve let the matter drop.

But, instead, it spurred me top check out one of the company’s other outlets – the Brunswick East Project in upper Lygon St.

There, by contrast with the South Melbourne Market shop, the coffee was barely average.

The fittings, furnishings, the whole vibe were pure-bred inner-city hip to an almost painful degree.

And the half-dozen or so staff had many, many years – decades, in fact – to travel in life before anyone would think of calling them mature age.

Padre Coffee seems in many way admirable endeavour – passionate about its product, professionally run and so on.

But …

Like so many employers, Padre would no doubt claim it does not discriminate on the basis of age – that those employed are chosen simply on the basis of merit.

Such may even be the case.

Equally obviously, though, there are cases in which discrimination is at work.

Proving so, of course, is well nigh impossible.

Commenting on my thoughts on this topic, a friend said:

And anyway, if I owned an inner city cafe, I probably wouldn’t employ anyone over the age of 25 anyway. I suspect that younger people could be more easily trained, they would have the stamina to do the job, and as a group, it is far easier to get a team to bond when they’re all in the same age bracket. And younger people are more likely to accept the pitiful wages they would be earning and be more flexible with the working hours required.

My reply to that is simple: Piffle!

As this is a subject of personal significance to me, I have read much about it.

I cannot recall reading about a single instance in which these hoary old (!) arguments have been substantiated or quantified in any way.

Indeed, the available research seems to overwhelmingly indicate the exact opposite – that mature-age workers are rich assets on almost every level.

And anyone who thinks I’m raking in the dough working as a part-time sub-editor for the Geelong Advertiser is utterly deluded.

Besides, at the risk of sounding precious, I’m interested in work that is an enriching, creative part of life; the money side of it is very negotiable depending on the circumstances.

In terms of the hospitality industry, there are many grey areas when exploring this issue.

All power, for instance, to the self-employed of all ages who run owner-operated businesses.

A sub-set of that are the many great family-run businesses that provide so much of our eating-out pleasure.

That’s some real hard yards right there, too, spread right through whole extended families – from toddlers to venerable elders.

But presumably the benefits, investment and security derived are likewise spread.

But when it comes to an employer like Padre, it seems fair enough to ask the question.

Getting a straight answer, of course, is another issue entirely.

In the meantime, I plan to make it my business to direct my business – and my mature-age-dollars – wherever possible towards food and coffee outlets and employers that obviously do NOT discriminate on the basis of age.

And in discriminating against those I suspect of doing otherwise, I won’t be breaking the law.

Besides, in the case of Padre and its Brunswick outlet, the welcome mat is not out anyway: