Category Archives: Places we like to eat at

Albanian Community Festival

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Albanian Community Festival, Footscray Park.

The Albanian Community is being held at the portion of Footscray Park right opposite Flemington Racecourse.

It’s the perfect setting – families have thrown rugs and are relaxing on the hill overlooking the sound stage and stalls, where most of the cultural and social action is taking place.

It’s so perfect I wonder why this space is not used for such celebrations more frequently.

Alabania is a small country so it’s right that this is a small festival.

But the vibe is wonderful and I have a grand time.

There’s only two food outlets – one selling baked good of both savoury and sweet varieties, the other selling meat-stuffed rolls – but what I have is just right.

But more of that later.

The most fun I have is meeting, and peppering with questions, the lovely Shelley, who is overseeing the fascinating display mounted by the Australian Albanian Women’s Association.

As ever I did some basic sleuthing about the country and what food I might encounter at the festival, but I am nevertheless woefully ignorant about Albania and everything to do with it.

Shelley, breaking off at various times to greet friends and relatives, happily and generously answers my questions at length.

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Shelley with some of the belongings brought by her parents on their voyage to Australia.

She tells me Albania is necessarily a multi-lingual country that is predominantly Muslim but with some Catholicism in the north and Orthodox Christian in the south.

She tells me of the unfolding surges of migration to Australia that started in the Depression era, with most of those Albanians being market gardeners and the like, so they mostly ended up in Shepparton.

Subsequent migratory waves were spawned by wars, both World War II and in Kosovo and, eventually, the collapse of communism.

While being a small nation tucked between Greece, Macedonia and the Adriatic Sea, Alabania was not spared the notorious attentions of Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin.

The Republic Of Albania was founded in 1991.

Shelley tells me that for younger generations of Australian Albanians, such history is becoming increasingly less significant.

She first travelled to Albania, the home of her heritage and ancestry but not of her birth, in 1982 when the country was still under communist rule.

Completely unsurprisingly, she found it a an extraordinarily bracing experience.

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Shelley points to her father’s former house in Albania and some of the mementos she gathered when she made her pilgrimage there.

I run into Enzo from Just Sweets, who is out enjoying the day with his family.

Like me, he reckons the simple $5 rolls – chicken or beef “chevap” – are wonderful.

Fresh, crusty rolls, simple cabbage and carrot salad, and marinated chicken or beef skinless sausages.

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I have one of each and they’re perfect in every way.

A funny thing – as I parked at the sports grounds a little way up the river, I was dismayed to realise I had failed to hit an ATM on my way to the festival.

As it turns out, my $20 is plenty enough to eat real swell AND buy groceries on the way home.

Ambling around the festival, I happen across another, smaller and unrelated gathering at which I bump into Pastor Cecil.

He’s looking just as suave and cool as ever, especially in the Burmese jacket given to him by his friend, Khai.

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White Guy Cooks Thai

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White Guy Cooks Thai, Yarraville Gardens. Phone: 0423 214 290

Food truck in the neighbourhood?

In fact, just two minutes’ drive up the road?

Frankly, I can’t get there soon enough.

This is such joyous news that I am therefore surprised to learn that I am White Guy Cooks Thai’s first customer for the day.

Then again, I also learn this enterprise has only been on the road – so to speak – for about a week and that it’s “very early days” in every regard.

The White Guy Cooks Thai crew members on duty for my Saturday lunch visit, Dave and Rachel, tell me the business did have to work patiently with the council to get approval to trade in the west, but that there were no great or insurmountable problems.

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Predictably, of the food available I go for the curry dish.

My massaman beef and potato curry with rice and Asian coleslaw ($11.50), served with recyclable container and spoon, is outstanding.

The rice is fine/OK.

The slaw is sweetish and tangy, rather limpid and wonderfully chewy.

The curry is very mildly spiced and the gravy is of lovely stickiness.

The meat is a just-right tender, as are the potato pieces, which are joined by carrot and fresh basil and some mung bean sprouts.

It’s fantastic lunch that’s not spoilt at all by the highish temperature, lack of seating – the garden stone wall does a fine job anyway – or the wind, the latter at least keeping the flies mostly at bay.

Heck, I may even go back for dinner! (Having been told they’ll be open until at least 8.30pm.)

Like ’em on Facebook so you’ll know they’re at.

Thanks to Andy of Krapow for the tip-off!

White Guy Cooks Thai Mobile Food Truck on Urbanspoon

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Cinnamon’s Sri Lankan Cuisine

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Cinnamon’s Sri Lankan Cuisine, 530 Little Collins St, Shop 1, Melbourne. Phone: 0412 939 482

A fellow in-office food hound had enthusiastically tipped us to an interesting alternative for what has come to be known as “Curry Friday”.

So off I trooped up Little Collins St with a colleague to be really, really impressed.

I mean, how often is it that you’re in a food court situation and the air is redolent with the aroma of cooked curry leaves?

And where there are dozens of people happily queuing for a lunchtime spice fix?

We did good, but takeaway is only a takeaway, as good as this lot was, and only ever a second-best option.

As well, while ordering I’d got a good eyeful of the magnificent-looking eat-in platters being dispensed, and that made returning for a proper sit-down lunch a matter of some urgency.

Even if that required a train trip to the CBD on a day off.

On the upside, it was the perfect opportunity to fulfill a long-standing lunch invite from Andy of the world-famous Thaicentric website, Krapow. Andy works at this end of the CBD so has all the top spots nailed, and later gives me a mini-tour.

Turns out he’s familiar with Cinnamon’s, is a fan, loves the eggplant curry as my colleagues did the previous week and is definitely up for a lunch meet.

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Cinnamon’s, a CBD sibling of a more formal establishment on St Kilda Rd and another branch in Docklands, is pure food court aesthetic – adjacent to a Hudson’s coffee outlet, a noodle place and so on.

But more accurately, it’s better to describe it as part of a rambling warren that is a jumble of office block lobby, various eateries and retail services such as a newsagent, drycleaning and so on.

The surrounding area is very food-intense, with some places looking very appealing and others seemingly of the quick-and-forgettable lunch fix variety.

There’s plenty of table seating to be had at this Cinnamon’s, though.

Even better, the food is served on large, handsome, square, white plates.

And having seen the sort of quantities being dispensed to customers the previous week, I am well aware that my lunch with Andy requires no more than the basic three curries, rice and raita for $10.50.

I believe that there are specials of a more specifically Sri Lankan nature on some days of the week, but today the colourful options seem like a basic if very attractive curry array that look not much different from one of the Indian species. Perhaps there’s a lighter touch, more coconut and more dry curries, such as cabbage and potato.

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Andy goes for the $10.50 plate of chicken biryani, eggplant curry, beef curry and an ace-looking dal, with a dollop of raita on the side.

Andy’s choices make me confront a straitlaced belief about of Indian/Sri Lankan food I am unaware I have been harbouring.

For me, biryani is biryani and a meal in its own right, and so has no business sitting side by side with curries on a mixed meal deal.

(I can hear Andy’s snort of derision even as I write …)

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So I get a very excellent plain white rice flecked with herbs the nature of which I do not know, a dry potato curry, the eggplant curry and the spicier of two chicken curries. (And, no, that’s not a fly sitting atop my rice …)

It’s all sensational.

The spuds have the aforementioned curry leaves and red capsicum, some chilli and turmeric. Simple and delicious.

The eggplant is sweet, smoky and packed with the sort of real-deal aubergine flavour that most of its kind hardly ever are.

The two chicken pieces are fall-apart good and the gravy thinner than would be found in the northern Indian equivalent.

One of the topics Andy and I discuss over lunch is how for so very long the Eurocentric meal template of appetiser/entree/main course/dessert had, in Australia, been forced on various cuisines, frequently giving a quite misleading picture of how such food should be eaten … and, of course, jacking prices up, too.

In the past decade, we seemed to have moved on from that rigid sort of set-up, and Cinnamon’s is testament to the change.

We’ve paid $10.50 for three curries, rice and raita.

Getting a similar diversity in a more formal restaurant situation will likely cost at least $20 and even $30.

And not too far from where we’ve supped in the CBD, there are places where you’d be looking at $40 or even $50.

Bravo!

Cinnamon's Sri Lankan Cuisine on Urbanspoon

Penang Road

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Penang Road, 177 Clarendon St, South Melbourne. Phone: 9690 0536

My non-blogging journalism career seems to be mirroring, in its own way, the rapidly changing nature of work in Australia and no doubt elsewhere.

After 15 and more years on the one masthead and pretty much two decades with a single employer, I am on to my third workplace in as many years.

I’m finding myself nimble enough to keep pace with changing circumstances and enjoying the various challenges.

Even better, a far higher number of the stories I am working with are to do with coffee and/or food and/or restaurants than has previously been the case, even if mostly they’re about places I am not viscerally interested in or can afford.

At my new South Melbourne office, home of the The Weekly Review and associated enterprises, there are a few familiar faces from other places and times, but a lot of shared history even with those I have never met before.

Ironically, the one staff member with whom I share a deep and lengthy job history went unnoticed by me, so long had it been since we worked together.

It was only when partaking in a discussion of the local lunch options that he reminded me of all that and the metaphorical penny dropped. Turns out he’s hip to Consider The Sauce, too!

Ben is deeply involved in the business development side of things and is the office wine writer/guru to boot, so not so coincidentally likes a good feed, too.

So when he robustly enthuses about the Malaysian place just around the corner, I take notice for sure.

Still, work continues to be deadline-driven, so opportunities for lunch escapes are not that common.

Finally, though, we escape for a brief but spectacularly fine Malaysian lunch.

Penang Road has a modest facade, so gives little away about what goes on within.

Stepping through the door, though, I am pleasantly surprised to find a cheerfully busy restaurant with quite classy dark wood furniture, a step up from, say, Coconut House.

Penang Road has all he expected bases covered – laksas, rice dishes, noodles and snacks.

The place is quite crowded but we quickly score a table and get down to perusing the menu, placing our orders at the counter and getting our “number”.

Our food arrives with gratifying haste – and it’s brilliant!

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Ben’s chicken rice ($9.60) looks fabulous.

Very good rice and plain soup/broth with what I suspect are chicken balls floating in it – neither of us get around to finding out, so intent are we on the meatier side of things and a wide-ranging conversation.

Best of all, the all-important mix of soy sauce, oil, chicken broth, ginger and garlic in which his boneless chicken resides is way more plentiful than is the norm in Melbourne’s Malaysian cheap eats joints.

And it’s tasty, too.

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My “chicken chop with rice” ($9.90) is superb, though it’s a nutritionist’s nightmare in almost every conceivable and excellent way.

Same fine chicken rice and broth, albeit minus the balls.

Good fried egg atop the rice.

Plenty of chilli sauce of just the right heat levels on the side.

And the chicken?

This is truly “OMG fried chicken” of a kind to make the Colonel blush with shame.

It’s boneless (despite being described as “chop”), crispy, wonderfully chewy, ungreasy and so plentiful that I am unable to devour it all, despite rampant deliciousness.

The garlicky, spicy tang of our lunch lingers with gusto deep into a hard-working afternoon.

I find it thrilling that such a beaut Melbourne cheap eats experience has eventuated through evolving changes in the media landscape.

Than again, it’s not surprising at all … and how about those prices?

Penang Road on Urbanspoon

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Spotswood Farmers Market

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Spotswood Farmers Market, Spotswood Primary School, Melbourne Rd, Spotswood.

Farmers markets have never been a regular thing for us, but we can see that changing as we enjoy a couple of hours at the Spotswood edition on a sunny Saturday.

Apart from fresh produce, preserves, bread, coffee and so on, we are most impressed with the range and quality of the food to eat right here and now that is available.

There’s kids and dogs of all sizes and descriptions, some live music, displays and many interesting things to see and experience.

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Bennie just loves his popcorn chicken and sausage on a stick from Ghost Kitchen Taiwanese Street Food.

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Ghost Kitchen also serves noodles and spring onion pancake, the latter for $7.

Sounds a bit steep, I opine.

I’m told they’re pretty much dinner plate size and are used as a wrap for various fillings.

One of those fillings is “Asian doughnut”, the mental picture of which has me furrowing my brow and Bennie cackling with glee.

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The Ghost Kitchen folk tell me they’re a relatively new to the game and have even been trying a few music festivals, but the younger punters at such events are allegedly hard to feed, with the discussion usually going something along the following lines:

Ghost Kitchen: “Hello, how can I help you?”

Punter (eyes glazed, swaying slightly): “Water …”

Ghost Kitchen: “Cool! Interested in something to eat?”

Punter: “Water …”

And on like that …

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I am most impressed with the work of a stall called Falafel People.

The falafels are quite coarse in texture but unoily and crispy and fresh.

The eggplant dip I sample is outstanding – smoky and lemony.

The hummus, not so good.

They’re not set up to deliver the platter spread I am familiar with after many visits to upper Sydney Rd, so I make do with a falafel wrap.

It’s a doozy – cucumber AND turnip pickles, good tabouleh and those falafel balls.

Falafel People on Urbanspoon

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Bennie moves on to a cone of Timboon ice cream.

Salted caramel? Blimey – genius at work!

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Then he has his sketch portrait drawn by David from St Marks Anglican Spotswood.

St Marks is also running a snag stall – $3 for Andrews sausages sounds pretty good to us, but by now we’re done with eating … until dinner time.

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The Hobsons Bay City Band has me bopping – sort of – with a medley of Four Seasons hits.

On the way home, having decided as usual to make our way back to the car via back streets, we meet some new friends.

We are lured into a garage sale by a swell-looking lemonade stand.

Off to one side are a plethora of large, deeply green leaves.

Inquiring as to what they are, I express my surprise – despite being a food nut, I’ve never before laid eyes on fresh bay leaves, only ever having used the dried variety for cooking.

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The lady of the garage sale house in turn expresses her surprise at my ignorance.

“I know you guys,” she says. “I follow your blog!”

This turns out to be Kristie, so we spend the next 10 minutes or so – while happily imbibing Ella’s Most Excellent Lemonade – discussing westie food topics at large, including the general uselessness of Williamstown and other subjects addressed too scathingly to go into here!

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Vanakkam

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Vanakkam, 359 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 7224

Ordering a feed for two at an Indian restaurant is a breeze, right?

Couple of snacks – samosas, pakoras, whatever – couple of curries, rice, some naan?

Well, no.

It isn’t that straightforward at all these days – especially not at a place like the relocated Vanakkam in Barkly St, with curries AND dosas AND a goodly line-up of Indo-Chinese dishes.

We muddle along and have a great time even if our choices are a little on the stodge side.

But they’re all good or better – and two are very excellent indeed.

And, naturally, we order WAY too much food – but happily, the final dish that arrives is the one most suitable for doggy-bagging and making do for Bennie’s school lunch the next day.

We’ve taken our time getting to the new Vanakkam – seems like there’s been a lot of Indian action to keep up to date with lately.

But we leave as extremely happy – and bulging full – chappies.

The service is fine and our food arrives far more quickly than such freshly made dishes might suggest.

We are not really thinking about our visits to the old Vanakkam as we nut out our order, but we sigh with memory-fuelled pleasure as our plate of onion baji ($7) arrives.

Of course we remember them – they’re so very good!

In this case, the serve is even bigger, but the onion rings are just as delicious.

The batter is not crispy, but is admirably unoily and scrumptious.

Our lamb dosa (&10) is good, too.

Crispy pancake and the usual slurp-worthy sambar, chutneys and potato filling, the latter a little more gooey than is usually the case.

The lamb is quite plentiful and seems to be mostly in the form of smallish, unspicy chunks that could’ve been carved straight from a roast leg.

Maybe they are.

It’s all well and good, but it makes us – OK, me – wonder why we ever variate from the tried-and-true spud-filled masala dosa.

Kaju uthappam ($12) is our standout dish.

The base of this “Indian pizza”, which comes with the same side dishes as our dosa, is made from rice and black lentil flours, and is a little crunchy, very delicate and utterly moreish.

The topping is of cashews nuts that have become soft in the cooking, coriander and what are described to us as “poori” spices.

So simple and so magnificent.

Our dinner adventure had been embarked upon with Bennie expressing a wish for noodles.

There are none to be had on the Vanakkam menu – the closest we can get is their take on nasi goreng ($13), which unsurprisingly has little or nothing to do with the south-east Asian dish of the same name.

Being more of a glorified fried rice, it’s still mighty fine, with a fried egg atop, and plenty of cubed, crunchy vegetables and battered chicken bits.

It has the same sort of peppery spiciness that comes with the fabulous schezwan chicken fried rice to be had at Dosa Hut up the road.

We’re stonkered before we get even close to halfway through this large serve, so the rest goes home with us.

Vanakkam is a very welcome addition to the intense and oh-so-welcome Indian activity in West Footscray, and we’ve only scratched the menu’s surface.

And BTW, the biryanis other customers have been eating look really great.

Vanakkam on Urbanspoon

Lazat: Malaysian food for Sunshine

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SEE REVIEW HERE.

Lazat, 495 Ballarat Rd, Sunshine. Phone: 9312 7880

Once upon a time, not so long ago and outside of Flemington, there was nary a trace of Malaysian food in the western suburbs.

Then arrived Wok Noodle in Seddon.

And then, more recently, Chef Lagenda hung out its shingle in Deer Park to wild applause of most who live in the vicinity.

Now those two are to be joined by another Malaysian joint, on a busy, unlovely bit of Ballarat Rd just up from the Gold Leaf eatery of Chinese persuasion.

When I drop in to get the lowdown, things are in a state of disarray, but management tells me they’ll be up and running in about a week – and even, “hopefully”, by Monday, December 2.

The building they’re taking over was most recently sporting signage that said something along the lines of “Grills Plus”, but it was closed down by the time I noticed it and so have no idea what, if anything, was cooking when it was running.

If it ever was.

The menus the Lazat folk provide me hold little by way of surprises but are reassuringly stacked with familiar faves – the usual noodles about the $11 mark, soft shell crabs two for $12.80, Hainan chicken rice at $9.80, roast meats, lobak for $5 and so on.

One word: Yummy!

Meetbowl

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Meetbowl, 95 York St, South Melbourne. Phone: 9696 4412

Meetbowl is so very much the epitome of a cheap ‘n’ cheerful ethnic cafe that it verges on caricature.

Dull decor that arrives somewhere between unlovely and shabby.

About a dozen tables inside, three outside.

Flimsy plastic chairs, though the eat-in cutlery and crockery are real enough.

A constantly revolving clientele that appears to be mostly Indonesian students and office workers.

I wonder if they’re here because of Meetbowl, or if Meetbowl is here because of them.

Next to me, there’s a mostly paleskin table of four that appears to be much more along my own lines in terms of age and style.

They look like social workers.

A drinks cabinet bereft of just about everything but bottled water and some dairy product refreshments in which I have no interest.

Fortunately, there are a stack of water containers and glasses for all.

Unfortunately, as I await my lunch, one of the industrious and obliging staff members manages to spill one of the water vessels right into the right shoe of the sole remaining social worker.

I could say she lets out a shriek, but that might be over-stating the situation.

In any case, everything stops.

A collective thought: “Is there going to be a scene?”

No, there isn’t.

Some earnest mopping and all is once again good.

The staff member even tries to refund the social worker’s meal money, but the offer is cheerfully dismissed as the lady returns to her noodles and Times Literary Supplement.

My own lunch is a combination laksa ($12).

Nothing in the least bit refined here – in fact, it’s macho.

The soup is a little disappointing, though – not really hot enough and just your standard, creamy laksa doings with noodles of both regulation kinds.

The chunky bits are big and bold – a pork ball not much smaller than the tennis variety; a large, chewy wonton; two slices of fish cake much heftier than is the norm; some rather drab roast pork.

It’s better than OK, but doesn’t really land a killer blow.

Still, I’m Very Glad this place is right here, right next door to my new place of employ.

Hopefully that gig will continue and roll on for … well, a bloody long time.

It’d be great to some day look back and know that I had the time and the work to get more adventurous and pursue the Meetbowl menu into areas at present unfamiliar to me.

I hear Bakso Special, Bakwan Special, Siomay Bandung, Batagor, Pempek Palembang and many more calling my name.

Meetbowl on Urbanspoon

Indi Chutneys

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Indi Chutneys, Shop 4, 203 Ballarat Rd, West Footscray. Phone: 9317 8624

Despite having eaten a lot of thalis, I have never before been presented with anything like the two tubes – one orange, the other a pale green – that accompany my non-vegetarian thali at Indi Chutneys.

I’m told they’re variously called, depending on your language of choice, wafers, bourugulu or gottalu.

Some online sleuthing turns up some Indian-food-related links when searching for those terms, but I remain not much more enlightened. A search for “Indian wafer tubes” turns up a whole results that refer to sweet wafer biscuit thingies of the sort that come from Europe.

What I do know is that the names of these “wafer tubes” and pondering their origins is a whole lot more interesting than eating them.

For these turn out to be identical in texture, crunch and (un)flavour to the prawn crackers dispensed at so many eateries of Asian persuasion.

The rest of my thali ($10.95)?

Gosh, that’s really fine.

A good chicken curry of greenish hue and mild spiciness.

Some rich, glorious dal of magnificent saltiness.

And equally salty lamb curry with a richly deep brown gravy.

Some fine raita with just the right amount of vegetable crunch (onions, I think).

And, of course, plenty of rice.

The restaurant that has provided my thali is in a shop once inhabited by Southern Spice and more recently another Indian eats business so short-lived its name has been and gone from my mind.

It is also opposite the newish Footscray branch of Biryani House, thus giving this stretch of Ballarat Rd/Gordon St an Indian vibe to rival that of upper Barkly St.

As such, I am eager to get a handle on what’s happening here by visiting Indi Chutneys, but soon realise I am on very familiar ground.

For Indi Chutneys shares the same ownership and management with Indi Hots of superb biryanis fame in Footscray.

The menu at the new branch is more extensive – there’s some rudimentary dosas and Indo-Chinese items.

But mostly it seems to inhabit the same entirely gorgeous realm of no-fuss Indian basics at cheap-as-chips prices as its older sibling.

And I like that a lot – just as much as I like the idea that there’s somewhere else to get one of those biryanis.

Indi Chutneys on Urbanspoon

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Masala House

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Masala House, Watervale Shopping Centre, 5/2-14 Calder Park Drive, Taylors Hill. Phone: 9307 9601

Another zydeco-fuelled drive, another outer west shopping centre, another case of chole bhature for lunch?

Well, actually it’s something of a surprise.

I’ve ventured to this modestly proportioned, newish shopping centre ostensibly for the purpose of checking out the Masala House doasas and the like.

But the appearance – not on the weekend lunch menu, but on the menu proper – of one of my favourite Indian dishes sways me in quick time to change my mind.

After all, it’s been a while since my last chole bhature, let alone a really, really good one.

The smiling, courteous staff are happy to oblige.

Though they seem a little bemused by the fact I have no need to have the dish explained to me …

“How come you know what chole bhature is?”

“You must eat a lot of Indian food?”

… like that.

Masala House is set up near one of the centre’s entrances, and in such a way as to cater for lunchtime takeaway punters and those seeking a more formal eating experience.

At the bain marie there’s rice, lamb rogan josh and butter chicken that I, naturally, ignore completely.

According to the Masala House website, they also have a $20 buffet on Mondays and Wednesdays that looks a lot more promising.

My $9 chole bhature is the biz and a splendid lunch.

Two breads the size of footballs – fresh and hot, but oh blimey, exceedingly, excessively oily.

I figure this is because they’ve fired up the deep fryer solely on my behalf so cut them some slack in my mind. Besides, they still taste great, though I do try to eat the less oil-drenched portions.

Chick peas divine and wonderful – mildly spiced, flecked with fresh coriander and almost-fresh tomato.

And I make good use, too, of the chunky raita and piquant commercial pickle, though leave – as ever – the raw onion.

After spending a few bucks to shout myself a big, fat carrot, a large onion, some celery and a cuddly bag of chicken necks for stock, making of, I cruise home in a meandering way.

I don’t crawl or otherwise drag my feet, but I don’t exceed the various speed limits, either.

Yet for almost all the way home I am constantly tailgated.

By bogans in clapped-out Commodores.

By bogans in SUVs.

By bogans in Beemers.

By bogans with caps on backwards.

By bogans smoking cigarettes.

By bogans using mobile phones.

And even by bogans using mobile phones AND smoking cigarettes.

Dickheads one and all.

Masala House on Urbanspoon

Spottiswoode Hotel

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Spottiswoode Hotel, 62 Hudsons Rd, Spotswood. Phone: 9391 1330

Quite a few months before our fine Sunday lunch at the Spottiswoode Hotel, we’d dropped in merely in pursuit of ATM facilities.

The Consider The Sauce ethos fully embraces bare-bones, old-school pubs, but in this case the gloomy vibe saw us heading for the exit as soon as our business was done.

Since then, the place has undergone a comprehensive makeover.

We’ve been hearing good things about it.

We’ve checked out the menu at the pub’s website, and found it to be meaty, matey and very good-looking.

We’ve been hearing good things, too, about the size, quality and price of the joint’s Sunday roast deal – Thanks, Sue! – so we’re upbeat for our visit.

The renovations have been drastic.

There’s a lot roomy space amid the three co-joined interior eating/drinking spaces.

There’s a lot of wood and vintage brick, comfy-looking armchairs, a big fireplace and a sweet spot outside with umbrellas and a woodfired oven.

And there’s even a room off to the side with pinball machines, into which we later pump a handful of gold coins.

It all looks great and we find the service matches.

The menu runs to a savvy list of pub grub classics and more priced around the $20 mark for main courses.

There’s specials during the week – steak and a drink on Mondays, F&C and a drink on Tuesdays, parma and a drink on Wednesday and curry and a drink on Thursdays, all for $15. We spy, too, another special scrawled on one of the mirrors – $16 for a whole grilled with salad and chips.

But we’re here for the $10 roast.

Thus continues this year’s Consider The Sauce romance of the roast that has taken in the Famous Blue Raincoat, the Footscray Club, Bruno’s Coffee Lounge and even New Zealand.

The Spottiswoode roast deal is as good as any.

The serves look a tad modest, but that turns out to be all about the large plates.

The vegetables – nice selection, cooked but not mushy – are really tasty.

The meat – it’s lamb on the day we visit – is tender and plentiful, although we seem to have struck a portion of the animal that’s quite fatty. No matter.

The gravy is dark and rich.

The spuds are fall-apart tender – if we have any regrets it’s that we don’t get more than the two halves each we are provided.

But that’s a minor issue considering the price, terrific atmosphere and really fine service that sees the needs of each and every table met with aplomb by numerous staff members.

We’re keen to return to explore the regular menu.

Spottiswoode Hotel on Urbanspoon

Kawa-Sake revisited

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Kawa-Sake Sushi Boat & Grill Bar, 3 Anderson Street, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 8690

It’s been a while since our first visit to Kawa-Sake so we’re glad to be back.

There’s a difference this time, though – we’re guests of management.

Instead of seeing us muddle through what is quite an extensive menu, manager Lucy is keen to place before us an array of her specific choices (full disclosure below).

We are most emphatically up for it.

Everything we have is good. Some of it is very good – especially the seafood.

Tuna tataki ($16.90, top picture) is meltingly tender inside and with just a sliver of tasty seared crust – quite different from the overtly garlicky beef dish of the same description.

Sashimi (various prices) – only two (regulation) species of fish but big serves and oh-so-fresh.

Bennie is taking with increasing gusto to raw fish – not his favourite thing by any means, but he’s getting there.

And Lucy admires his chopstick skills!

Likewise, he barely notices the gooey bits as we each devour a crispy, delicious soft shell crab ($8.80).

Ebi tempura ($8.50) is three good and big prawns in unoily batter.

Salmon age roll ($15) is described to us as “sushi for people who maybe don’t like eating raw fish”. I have no problem with that approach, but this crusty ball seems a bit of a blur to me, with no real distinct flavours.

Calamari skewers ($3.90) are chewy and nice, but maybe could do with some more of that chargrilled zing.

Sake-marinated quail (three for $16.80) are sticky, yummy and a nice counterpoint to all the seafood we’ve been gobbling.

It doesn’t take too much looking to find comments from people who really don’t like the food at Kawa-Sake – or the very place itself, including the decor, service and general approach.

There’s some, too, who seem hung up on the fact the place is run by people who are not born-and-bred in Japan.

If you’re fussy about notions of purity when it comes to Japanese food, or the people who make it and serve it, then maybe Kawa-Sake is not for you.

In the meantime … the staff are lovely, the service is good and – despite it being a tight fit space-wise – it’s very family friendly.

Our meal at Kawa-Sake was provided free of charge by the owner in return for a story on Consider The Sauce. The dishes in our meal were selected by management. Kawa-Sake has not been given any editorial control of this post.

Kawa-Sake Sushi Boat & Grill Bar on Urbanspoon

Jus Burgers

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Jus Burgers, 364 Chapel Street, South Yarra. Phone: 9827 1318

Consider The Sauce is listed with a fledgling social media service called Social Callout, which is endeavouring to connect bloggers with marketers, PR types and folks wanting to talk up their products and services.

I hooked up with this crew not because I’m eager to get my snout in the freebie trough – been there, done that.

It’s more about being open to new story ideas.

But while it’s very early days yet, I think it’s already fair to say there’s not much future in our relationship with this site – so far the “callouts” have been overwhelmingly of zero interest to CTS and the prospects of there ever being any with applications to the west seem nil.

The one that did catch our eye was posted by Perth-based burger outfit Jus Burgers, seeking bloggers to check out their new Chapel St emporium.

So I applied for the “callout” and … nothing.

The “callout” went up again, so I applied again.

Turns out there’s been some gremlins in the Social Callout system, but this time I eventually get an email reply from Melbourne Jus Burgers manager Cory.

When I finally talk to him on the phone, it’s clear we’re on the same page when it comes to bloggers, freebies, marketing and so on.

“There’s no way I expect blogger reviews to be all positive,” he says. “In fact, if they’re anything less than honest, then they’re not of use to us. Besides, if there’s critcism, that’s the kind of feedback we need.”

So on that basis, we’re happy to make a rare foray across the river to Chapel St for a complementary meal (full disclosure below).

In fact we’re quite excited, as the menu strongly hints at good eats to be had at a place that presents as a more tony, ambitious version of the sort of thing Grill’d does.

The line-up of burgers and sides is enticing – see full menu below.

There’s THREE kinds of slaw.

Among the JB boasts are “no frozen food” and “all Victorian”.

And to top it all, one of CTS’s very best pals, food obsessive Nat Stockley, is very much a burger expert – one who has given Jus Burgers the thumbs up!

The place is smaller than we expect, though there is a kid-friendly room “out the back”.

Exposed brick, graffiti-style sloganeering, too-loud hip-hop – it fits right into the Chapel St scene.

But ambiance be damned – we’re here for the food.

Bennie’s wagyu burger earns an instant 10 out of 10, what with its beaut, crispy charcoal flavour and texture – once he’s done licking his chops and fingers.

For like his dad’s excellent roo burger, it’s a truly sloppy handful.

This messy outcome is due to both the overkill in terms of the various sauces and dressings used on our respective burgers and the crumbly Turkish-style buns.

Truth is, though, we don’t care.

It’s a finger-licking feast time, the paper serviettes are of the more substantial variety and there’s plenty of them at hand not far from our table.

Apart from the terrific patty in my burger, there’s a nice spice hit from the “horseradish slaw and goan cuisine green chilli jam”.

Our sides arrive after our burgers, but we don’t mind that, either – even though, predictably, there’s more food than we can feasibly consume.

Chips – very good; hot and crisp.

Onion rings – way better than very good; sensational, amazing, as good as any we’ve had. Ever.

Honestly, these rings are near-perfect, with a mostly grease-free coating that adheres to the onion remarkably well. Maybe, just maybe, they have a touch too much salt.

Spanish slaw (“sherry vinegar, honey and smoked paprika dressing”) – the only blah part of our meal. We expect some real zing and some sharply defined tastes, but get instead a rather bland and overly sweet salad. If anything, the mint and sweet factors remind us of a bland Vietnamese coleslaw.

Would we have paid for our meal?

Yes, happily.

Is Jus Burgers worth a trip to Chapel St?

Yes, just for a different, quality take on the familiar.

Meanwhile, the CTS flirtation with Social Callout and the unease it is causing is leading us to reconsider our whole approach to such matters.

Our meal at Jus Burgers was provided free of charge by the owner in return for a story on Consider The Sauce. Neither staff nor management knew what we were going to order. Jus Burgers has not been given any editorial control of this post.

Jus Burgers (South Yarra) on Urbanspoon

Big slide, little boy, wimpers of fear …

Kitchen Inn

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Kitchen Inn, 471 Elizabeth St , Melbourne. Phone: 3330 0023

Kitchen Inn – at peak times – is no doubt already as mad busy as Coconut House, just up Elizabeth St about a block.

Evidently, there is significant interest in this newish place’s specialty – the food of Sarawak, a state on Borneo in Malaysia.

That Kitchen Inn has created a buzz among Sarawakian students and expats of various kinds is eloquently and expertly testified to by bloggers Kimba’s Kitchen, Arrow Foodie and Yellow Eggs, whose reviews are no doubt far more authoritative than my own will be.

Nevertheless, it is with a keen sense of adventure that I hit the place for lunch.

In our world, anything that fosters regional specialties has a good chance of going to the top of the “to do” list. It’s not just food but also things like music and languages that are being sorely strained, often to the point of extinction, by the forces of globalisation.

It’s a small eating house with a bottleneck at the cash register, where people paying for their meals dodge staff delivering food to customers yet to eat – or pay.

The longish menu has some familiar names – Hainan chicken rice, Singapore fried vermicelli and nasi lemak.

But I wouldn’t expect them to be routine offerings – the Sarawak laksa, for instance, looks and sounds quite different to the norm.

From what I can gather, if Sarawak was a nation, the national dish might well be kolo mee, so that’s what I order.

The Wikipedia entry for the city of Kuching describes kolo mee as “egg noodles, flash-boiled, then classically served with crushed garlic and shallot, minced pork or beef, white vinegar, either vegetable oil, pork oil or peanut oil, and sliced barbecue pork known as char siu or beef”.

The kolo mee special, at $11, is $2.50 more than the regular, for which extra money you get three plump prawns. “Deal 4” at $15 gets me kolo mee special with a bowl of “Special Soup”.

The soup’s broth has a quite intense and briny bitterness. It’s OK, I slurp it, but I won’t be in hurry to try it again.

The pork balls are tender tending to mushy, and delicious. The other meat is thin-sliced and has the delicacy and texture of lamb’s tongue.

I subsequently discover it’s actually pork liver.

Would I have ordered it had I known pork liver was involved?

No.

Did I like it?

Yes.

The kolo mee is fine – quite mildly seasoned, it’s much more interesting in the flavour department than it appears.

There’s a heap of thin house-made noodles, with just a enough juice/sauce at the bottom of the bowl to make the dish fly.

The prawns are OK but a bit of an irrelevancy.

The pork mince actually adheres quite well to the noodles, but predictably and delightfully the meal gets better as it is ending as there’s more juice, mince and roast pork to go in to every mouthful.

It’s an engaging taste overall – one I’ll inaccurately describe as “slightly smoky” because I can’t think a better way of putting it.

Next time?

Maybe I’ll try No.31 –  Marmite chicken ribs with rice.

Kitchen Inn on Urbanspoon

Bulsho Cafe

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Bulsho Cafe, 303 Racecourse Road,  Kensington. Phone: 9372 3557

In this case, the food and – presumably – the clientele is Somalian.

But individual differences and quirks aside, Bulsho Cafe could be Italian.

Or Polish or Croatian or Chinese or other African or Turkish or Vietnamese.

In its own way, it epitomises what I think of as “working men’s cafes”.

Or, more accurately, community hubs, hang-out joints and coffee stops for men, whether they be working or not.

You’ll rarely see women in such places.

You’ll rarely see them blogged or on Urbanspoon, either.

If they serve food – and it’s a big if – there’ll likely be no printed menu; just a hand-scrawled list, if that.

You’re mostly required to ask.

Such places can be quite daunting, but I’ve found often enough that perseverance and friendly inquiries can lead to fine food done dirt cheap and served with a welcoming smile.

My Sunday lunchtime experience at Bulsho, right next door to Flemington Kebab House, mirrors those experiences – and I’m eventually glad I hang in there.

Upon I entering, I see just a single customer, who is eventually joined by a mate, and no staff anywhere.

I hear sounds of activity emanating from the rear of the premises, but there’s no bell or other way of alerting the staff to the presence of willing customer.

I wait a few minutes and a few minutes more before deciding to split. That’s the way it goes at these sorts of places sometimes.

But as I am in the process of departing, I actually cop an eyeful of what the solitary customer is eating.

“Gosh,” methinks. “That looks good.”

So good, in fact, that I summon up some more perseverance by directing a robust, “Hello!” to the so-far unseen staff.

I am rewarded by a smiling young chap who is only happy to help ease my lunchtime fervour.

From there the process is easy …

“I want what he’s having,” I declare, gesturing towards the other customer.

It’s lamb curry with rice ($13).

Except, it’s not a curry at all. Or not in the way it’s generally understood.

Instead, it’s a lamb pieces on the bone – mostly shank, I think – in a clear broth of the same fashion as served by Safari in Ascot Vale or Ras Dashen in Footscray.

If the soup isn’t quite of the same spicy, piquant succulence as found in those two fine establishments, it’s good enough nonetheless.

Somewhat unexpectedly, given the nature of the meal and my previous experiences with similar feeds, the meat itself is quite different from the fall-from-the-bone kind I am expecting.

The meat is pleasantly chewy, comes from the bones easily enough with just a little effort and is ace in its own way. And there’s plenty of it.

A small pot of mild curry gravy is brought to my table after the rest of my meal, lubricating things nicely.

But the monarch of my meal is the plentiful rice – done in a way I am familiar with from other Somalian eateries, but here strongly perfumed with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon.

Not for the first time, I have been handed a lesson – that good food in the west can sometimes require a bit more chutzpah than merely walking in, grabbing a  menu and ordering.

And I think that’s a fine thing.

I would really love to hear other food hounds’ experiences – good, bad, indifferent, puzzling, frustrating, whatever – at such places as Bulsho.

There’s plenty of them, that’s for sure.

Yet they’re a part of our cultural and food landscape that goes largely unremarked.

As for women being rarely seen in them, I reckon that’s just an entrenched tradition – one I’d like to think is not based on any religious or cultural dogmas or taboos, such is the surprised delight I’ve invariably come across whenever I’ve chosen to make the effort.

Bulsho Cafe on Urbanspoon

Bruno’s Coffee Lounge

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Bruno’s Coffee Lounge, 39 Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds. Phone: 9370 0349

Bruno’s Coffee Lounge is an old-school cafe in an old-school, narrow arcade/mall off Puckle St.

It’d long ago registered in my mind as somewhere worth checking out, but it took a nudge from Consider The Sauce pal Nat Stockley to get me stepping through the door.

But I’m so glad I have.

I’ll cover the food I have on my initial visit shortly.

But what rally wows me about this place is the warmth and gentleness of the welcome – it’s like a soothing balm.

The blankie-blankie of eateries, if you like.

Many and Mick, originally from Shanghai, have been in residence at Bruno’s for about 13 years.

Before them, it was under the sway of Greek influences for eight years, and before that – and starting in 1961 – it was run by eponymous Bruno, he being of Italian extraction.

How about that?

A 50-year-old Moonee Ponds institution serving honest, delicious food across generations and cultural backgrounds! 

The couple tell me that they’ve pretty much stuck with food routines and menu they inherited, though I’m sure there’s been some tweaking along the way.

Besides – and based on my superb lunch – why would they change anything of substance?

The last thing I expect to be having is a full-on roast, but I let Mandy sweet talk me into it.

There’s salads, sandwiches and rolls and breakfasts – and more.

But maybe I’m roast pushover because of rather wonderful meals I’ve enjoyed lately at the Famous Blue Rain Coat and the Footscray Club.

The Bruno’s roast deal ($12.90) is every bit as good, maybe even better.

Really, really fine, in fact.

Sliced potatoes – roasted with salt, pepper, onion and oil; drained of the oil and then grilled; melt-in-your-mouth sensational.

Roast beef equally fantastic and moist – sliced thinly; cooked wrapped snugly in foil to keep the juices in; topped with heaps of lovely gravy.

The vegetables go pretty good, too; hand-cut carrot, cauliflower, broccoli; well-cooked but nowhere near mushy. And definitely not frozen!

Gosh, I wonder after a knockout lunch, how good might the roast pork be? Or the chicken parma or the rissole dinner?

And how incredible if the coffee’s as good as the food I’ve tried?

Bruno's Coffee Lounge on Urbanspoon

Biryani House

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Biryani House, 61 Gordon St, Footscray. Phone: 9318 8007

No prizes for guessing this new Gordon St venture is a sister restaurant for the well-known King St, CBD, place of the same name.

It joins two other restaurants and a grocery in fostering a mini-Indian precinct on this stretch of Gordon St.

The new Biryani House is a nice room but very plain – wooden tables and chairs, some swirly wallpaper that looks like an optical illusion on one side and not much more.

We’re told that in the meantime aside from all-week dinner hours, lunch is served Thursday through to Sunday.  More week-day lunch hours may eventuate next year when the students – and there’s heaps of them hereabouts – return for a new academic year.

We’re tickled to find the menu starts with a list of “Aussie Favourites” – butter chicken, lamb rogan josh, lamb vindaloo and lamb madras.

Righto, now we’ve got them out of the way, let’s see what points of difference there are in the rest of the menu … and we find some crackers, ensuring an interesting meal and a hasty return.

Just for instance …

Khichdi – “traditional Hyderabad rice with lentils”.

Nehari – “a spicy soup made with tender lamb shanks garnished with fried onions and fresh grown herbs”.

Marag soup – “a fine soup delicacy made from tender chunks of lamb”.

Kahtti dal – “a lentil stew in tangy juice of tamarind”.

And so on … but we start with gobi 65 ($8.50, top picture).

It’s more austere than the same-titled dish we’ve had elsewhere – just some curry leaves and battered cauliflower, but golly it’s very good.

The thin batter is a crispy treat and the vegetable pieces totally moreish.

And we really, really appreciate it when the natural flavours of a dish come through despite high levels of seasoning, especially with a mild flavour such as cauliflower.

We squabble over who’s going to get the biggest pieces.

Another big plus at this place – almost all the chicken and lamb dishes are available in half-serves, $5.90 instead of $9.

This enables us to have a broader meal than would otherwise be the case, and we find our two half serves none too shabby in the size department at all.

Hariyali chicken is described as “a popular festive dish of chicken simmered in a unique blend of fresh green herbs and peppercorns”.

What appear to be juicy chunks of thigh meat swim in a rich sauce that has the green of the herbs and a wonderful slow burn of heat that glows from the use of much pepper.

Lamb aloo methi, “cooked with potatoes and touch of fenugreek leaves”, is good, too, with tender lamb and a colour splash from the fenugreek leaves, though it seems to us it’s not as distinctive as our chicken dish.

The potato element is awesome.

Both of these dishes are at the outer limit of spiciness that Bennie finds tolerable.

For bread, we choose lacha paratha (2.50), which we are told is just plain dough that is folded very many times.

Our lovely buttery bread does indeed have a croissant-like flakiness, and it goes real well at its main task – mopping up the last of our curry gravies.

Check out the full menu at the Biryani House website.

Biryani House on Urbanspoon

Picnic time

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So the big day of the Consider The Sauce/Footscray Food Blog Spring Picnic finally arrived … would anyone turn up? Or would too many?

Neither, of course – just a really nice crew of friends, loyal blog followers, food fans and a fellow blogger, too.

The rain stayed away, but it was cool – though not to the point of discomfort.

Bennie and I loved meeting folks.

Ms Baklover brought some criminally delicious pastries from the South American Bakery in Sunshine.

Yours truly fronted with a beetroot salad and another of eggplant and tomato.

Best of all, Andy from Krapow fame rocked up with a big pot of Thai-style chicken rice and a tangy condiment.

Count on another Spring Picnic next year – almost certainly later in the year, but not too close to the festive season.

Thanks for coming!

Just Sweets

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Just Sweets, 26 Upton St, Altona. Phone: 9315 0553

You could go to the Just Sweets website to order their super rocky road, gingerbread houses and more online.

But to a large and loving degree, that would be missing the point.

Watching Enzo Amato preside over the 9am mummy rush hour for coffees and chats, in which he seemingly knows the names of each and every customer, it’s clear that this is a hands-on, community-based business full of passion and enthusiasm.

Like his wife and business partner, Maria, Enzo is Italian-born but was raised in Switzerland before coming to Australia.

His family background is very much of the shoemaker tradition, but here he found himself in the food industry, specialising in fruit and vegetables.

But he’s always had a sweet tooth, and eventually friends started suggesting that if produced his famed rocky road in salable quantities it would be a big hit.

He was very skeptical, but gave it a go – and after that first, and successful, outing at a Healesville market, they haven’t looked back.

Just Sweet sells a variety of sweet treats and candy from outside sources, but the prides and joys are the likes of the rocky road – 17 varieties! – and the gingerbread houses.

Nougat and individual chocolates are also made in-house.

I ask Enzo about the history of rock road.

He reckons it has its roots in the Great depression as a sort-of  “poor man’s food”.

Back home and online, I find some unsubstantiated information along those lines.

Yet an equally unverified entry on Wikipedia would have it that rocky road is very much a product of Australia’s 1850’s goldfields.

A mystery!

Just Sweets has been running for about three years at its Altona location, an old corner store that’s not actually on a corner, but is right across the road from Altona Primary School.

I suggest that such intimate proximity of a sugary shop and a school must surely be the principal’s worst nightmare.

Enzo laughs, saying Just Sweets and the school have a beaut relationship that stays on the right side of healthy eating habits.

Just Sweets even provides the supplied school lunches, including sandwiches and the like.

Enzo and Maria never envisaged their enterprise becoming a coffee stop and community hub, but after watching the business at work, their accountant advised to make precisely that move.

Yet the coffee machine has seen Just Sweets even more firmly embedded in the neighbourhood.

Rezah

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Rezah, 595 Sydney Rd, Brunswick. Phone: 9387 3730

Meet my new favourite things.

They’re aushak, they’re Afghani dumplings and they’re incredible.

I’ve ordered a half serve of them ($15), instead of one of the $20+ kebab mains, so I can get a taste of other bits of the menu at this lovely Afghani restaurant.

It’s a tactic to which I often resort when eating by myself, one that can often go wrong and worse.

But tonight I feel like a bleeding genius of ordering.

Encased in silky pillow casings, each of the dumplings is stuffed with splendidly vivid green sliced spring onion.

The distinctive bitter flavour of the onions goes absolutely divinely with the slightly sweet, slightly but just rightly chilli glow of the meat sauce and the minted yogurt around the fringes.

I can’t remember the last time I deliberately slowed my eating to linger over every mouthful.

But by the time I’m down to my last dumpling, it’s stone cold.

Yes, that good.

Accompanying my meal is a serve of toorshi ($3.50), described as “pickled vegetables in vinegar”.

These watery pickles, too, are just plain fantastic – mouth-puckering sour, there’s onion, cabbage, potato, chilli, cauliflower, cucumber, all of it soft to the point of mushiness but so fine.

Watery, sour and excellent, too, is the dip/chutney of “fresh tomato, coriander, garlic, fresh crushed green hot pepper” ($3.50) I order, which is joined by a regulation mint/yogurt raita, which I haven’t.

The aushak sauces, the dips and the pickles are all gleefully mopped up by nicely chewy fresh flat bread, which is like a cross between the Turkish and Lebanese varieties.

Rezah is decorated with Afghani artwork and photos, the service has been lovely and the food delivery as prompt as can be expected.

Frankly, I’m drooling at the thought of returning.

There’s plenty of meat on the menu (see below), including familiars such as tandoori chicken and various biryanis.

But there’s some points of difference, too, such as asheh lubia – homemade noodles with red kidney bean sauce and yogurt.  Sounds pricey at $25, but you never know …

Rezah Afghan Kebab on Urbanspoon