Category Archives: Places we like to shop at

Cyprus yum

3 Comments

Cyprus Time, 74 Glengala Road, Sunshine West. Phone: 8589 1968

The shopping strip on Glengala Road in Sunshine West is one that falls squarely in our food roaming territory, but it’s not one we’ve visited often.

So it’s neat to be here – and thanks to Juz for the tip!

Cyprus Time falls into a category we fully adore – somehow places with something of a takeaway vibe serve some of the best restaurant-quality food we enjoy.

So it is here.

We expect the food to be closely akin to that of Greece.

It is – with a couple of cool twists.

Small chips are a good-size serve for $5.

We figure we’ve received the last of the previous batch, rather than first of a new one.

But it doesn’t matter and these serve to re-affirm our belief that the best chips are generally to be had from places that serve Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food.

Greek salad ($10) is another handsome serve, with the flavours nicely blended.

Mixed dips + pita ($12) are just OK and seem to be lacking a bit of the zing factor.

And while we really do appreciate that the tarama is made in house, it’s a bit too much on the sweet side for our tastes.

But the real action here, for us, is in the meatiness.

My lamb gyros is superb, the lamb meat that perfect mix of crunch and tender.

Bennie’s pork souvlaki is every bit as good, the cubed meat pieces just-right tender and seasoned lovely.

We love that the Greek-style pita has been stuffed, pocket style, rather than used as a wrap.

These two-handful jobs stay self-contained and undripping to the last!

The price for his is $16, the price for mine is $18.

We know there are folks who may think souvlaki/gyros prices heading towards $20 are a step too far.

But we have no problem with this when the food is good.

And going by recent experiences at both the Brotherhood in Seddon and Olive Oil & Butter in Yarraville, this is very much the going rate for such.

Cyprus Time carries a range of groceries – and they make their own sausages.

This pack of five costs us a good-deal $13.

We are expecting snags along the same lines as the Italian-style pork numbers we love so much.

But these are quite different thanks to the red wine and whole spices such as peppercorns and coriander seeds.

They are excellent.

Yum factor: Extremely high

Leave a comment
Jimmy’s Deli, 30 Anderson Street, Yarraville

In the earlier years of Consider The Sauce, a sign in the doorway of a Yarraville shop heralding the imminent arrival of a new food emporium would’ve got my foot-in-door journo blood pumping.

Consequently, very little effort would have been spared in getting the lowdown.

These days – post-work, post-lockdowns and (perhaps) post-pandemic – we’re taking things quite a lot easier around here.

So we waited just like everyone else.

And didn’t it take a while?

But that’s hardly unusual in such crazy times.

But now we do have answers.

Answer: Jimmy’s Deli is a sibling for the Eleni’s, the fine Greek establishment right next door, with the new venture tapping into Yarraville’s greek heritage treasury.

And much of its goodness is being sourced from Andrew’s Choice, a further door away and another Yarraville gem.

Answer: Jimmy’s Deli? Well, the “deli” bit could be seen to be a bit misleading. Sure, there are some deli grocery items arrayed around – but they seem more like decor than the heart of the place.

That heart is … very much about house-baked desserts and sweet treats, of which we have sampled but just a small portion and which may warrant another story further down the line.

And that heart is also … sandwiches.

Answer: Jimmy’s Deli is very, very good.

We can become a bit ho-hum about our own background village, but we really love what’s happening here, specially as it’s such a family thing.

Over a few visits now, we have tried two of the three in-house featured sandwiches.

Why just two?

Well, we have no interest – at all – in the other, which features multiple different cheeses.

Just not out thing!

The Original Jimmy’s Roll is a stunner – and an outright bargain at $12.

A whole heap of that excellence comes down to the quality of the bread – these in-house rolls are just right; of firm substance but with enough softness and freshness going around to keep the eating easy on teeth and gums.

The rest of the goodies are every bit as wonderful – ham, mortadella, salami, provlone, antipasti, red pepper pesto.

Wow – so good!

The reuben sanger is quite a different proposition – yet it, too, is superbly yummy.

That’s a lot of pastrami in there – fully warranting the price tag of $16.

The beef is joined by sauerkraut, gruyere and “Jimmy’s sauce”.

This crispy-toasted marvel is abetted by potato chips and a crunchy pickled cucumber.

The service at Jimmy’s is of the smiling and efficient variety and the wait times are minimal.

There are a few interior small tables and stools and more of the same outside on the footpath.

Spicy? Yes.

1 Comment

Spicy King, 21 Sun Crescent, Sunshine. Phone: 0410 574 523

Did we miss eating-out food?

Cafe, eatery, restaurant, greasy-spoon, pub, hole-in-the-wall food?

Well, of course.

But it was complicated – and still is in some ways.

And we’re sure that was and is also the case with all our readers.

For starters, we discovered we really don’t like take-away food – whether eaten on the hoof or at home.

The same is true, even more so, for delivered food.

All those containers – ugh!

And, it unsurprisingly turns out, what we really, really enjoy just as much as the tucker are the sights, smells, smiles and sounds of our fave eating places, old, new and still to come.

But such is our life-affirming addiction to western suburbs food and its undoubted benefits – nutritional, spiritual, emotional – that we did find a way.

It’s a mental health issue, hey?

Basically, we embarked on a rolling series of picnics, wherein take-away food from a revolving gang of some of our fave places was enjoyed at nearby parks and outdoor spaces.

I suspect that at least some of the time what we were up to was outside the restrictions in place at any given time, in terms of kilometres from home and perhaps social distancing.

But we certainly felt we were operating within the spirit of restriction requirements, if not the actual letter of them.

And, of course, we were far from alone in our adventures.

One of the place often favoured for our lockdown picnics was Spicy King, a Sri Lankan outfit in Sunshine.

I’d been aware of – and had eaten at – Spicy King before the world went all nutty.

But, to be honest, I found the food a bit on the basic and rough-hewn side and very, very spicy.

But over the course of several virus-induced outings, we fell in love with Spicy King’s food.

So, when we are able, we leap at the chance to dine in.

We do so grandly – two plates, two soft drinks, a pack apiece of chilli cashews and of chilli peanuts and we barely bust $30 in terms of spending.

Spicy King offers a range of rolls and snack items, as well as string hoppers and puttu, but the latter seemingly come into play at dinner time only.

Lunch is all about the bain marie and combos.

Bennie enjoys his deal of chicken curry, okra, breadfruit and two parottas ($10).

I, too, go for the chicken – I guess neither of us liked the bedraggled look of the lamb and beef options; such is often the way with bains marie.

My poultry is accompanied by rather chewy breadfruit, good dal and a jumble of beans, carrot and more, with my combo costing $11.

It’s all fine, though we both wish the beetroot dish had been available for this visit.

And we both love the coconut roti ($2.50) we acquire out of hungry curiosity.

Spicy King will continue to enjoy sporadic visits from us, lockdown or no, and we love having another Sri Lankan option from which to choose.

But buyers beware – the food at Spicy King is mostly very spicy. It’s no problem for us, but IS pretty much at the outer limits of what we find comfortable.

Homely and heavenly

Leave a comment

 

Afghan Bread, 250 Hampshire Road, Sunshine. Phone: 0468 559 955

The eatery/bakery known simply as Afghan Bread has been mentioned here before – as part of a CTS Westie eats goss post a year ago.

But that was just in passing.

On this lovely Sunday, we’re back in modest force simply to eat.

And we do.

Really, really well.

 

 

In quite a few ways, Afghan Bread – which spruiks Afghan and Persian cuisine on its window signage – is the epitomy of what CTS adores in an eating place.

Seemingly something of an accidental restaurant, its dining room (such as it is) has just a few tables and chairs, the place’s bakery operation spilling out into this area via a flatbread-carrying conveyor belt.

The menu is mounted above the serving counter, with the prices being very low.

The service is welcoming and smiling, albeit requiring goodwill and patience to surmount happily a language barrier.

There you go – just about everything we love!

And while, given its nature, this isn’t the sort of place to have won attention and plaudits in the wider community (yet), the buzzing coming and going we observe as we enjoy our meal leaves no doubt this is very definitely a mainstay of the Afghan community and others “in the know”.

 

 

Bennie and Deb both choose the tikkah kebab ($15).

This consists of fabulously delicious cubes of high-class lamb, barbecued just right.

The serves are huge.

Marinated?

We think so, though nothing so robust as cumin. The meat speaks and eats for itself.

Bennie even opines: “I think this may be the best lamb I’ve ever eaten!”

 

 

The meat dishes are accompanied by a wonderful dipping sauce – minty, vinegary and of only mild spiciness.

Cheap prices?

Well yeah, but the dishes are basic – add-ons up the overall cost just a little.

We order two breads ($2 each), a bowl of yoghurt ($5) and a plate of rice ($5).

But even then, we eat royally for a miserly total of $55.

And most of the rice and yoghurt – and one of the breads – go home with us.

 

 

My chicken korma ($13) is cooking of quite different kind.

More stew than curry, it is a typically Afghan concoction – cooked down, tomatoey, mildly seasoned.

It, too, is wonderful.

And not a bone to be found.

 

 

Because of my excitement over our Sunday lunch, I forget to photograph the bread.

So I return a few days later for a solo lunch, this time choosing the shami kebab.

So far as I can tell, these are the same as – or very similar to – what in other places are usually referred to as shish kofta.

The meat is sublimely juicy and I buzz with the joy of it.

The shami kebab ($13) plus one bread see my lunch costing $15.

 

Happy 10th anniversary, CTS!

11 Comments

 

The first Consider The Sauce post was foisted on to the public on August 25, 2010.

This is the 1444th post.

In those 10 years, Consider The Sauce has enjoyed more than 1,792,016 page views and there have been more than 7000 comments.

As of today, Consider The Sauce has 902 email subscribers and 2666 FB followers.

Of course, this solitary post was NOT what I had in mind to celebrate the CTS 10th birthday milestone.

Planning, in my mind and early this year, took the form of a fabulous and big fund-raising dinner.

But circumstances have rather intervened, eh?

In hindsight, my unseemly departure from the regular journalistic workforce late last year can be seen to have been rather timely – a nice segue into the enforced idleness of pandemic times, a chance to take many deep breaths after a 40-year career and blessed opportunity to revel in what has become a truly magnificent music collection.

There’s ink in my veins, so I have not ceased to be a journalist, but I’m pretty sure that whatever non-CTS writing/editing endeavours await in the future, they will not be of the orthodox kind.

Some people have suggested we should be forging ahead with CTS on the basis of take-away food and deliveries.

Well, yes, we’ve done some of that – and will doubtless continue on a sporadic basis.

But it just isn’t the same as getting out and about and meeting wonderful folks and eating their food.

I admire immensely those in the game – both food providers and food media – who are gamely going about their business during lockdown.

We are cheering you on – from the sidelines!

In the meantime, we really are enjoying taking a blog break and doing a surprising amount of good home cooking.

Bennie has grown up with Consider The Sauce and is now a fine young man with a pronounced taste for Spicy Food. He regularly drags his mates all over Melbourne to enjoy CTS discoveries. Or, at least, he used to!

Likewise, he regularly messages me when he finds cool food stuff when he is not actually “in the house” at CTS HQ.

He finished school last year and entered the workforce early this year – just casual labor through a nice, small recruitment agency.

Dreams and plans are being formulated in his noggin, but in the meantime he is basically taking a year off – and that is fine by me.

After a sometimes meandering and maddening approach to school life, he took to the working life with gusto, aplomb and – gosh! – discipline.

So much so that now the phone has stopped ringing, I am equally and perfectly at ease with him NOT working – given that all his work, including at FoodBank, has to date been in the rather risky supply chain world in the west.

We will return!

We miss eating out SOOOOOO much!

In the meantime, thanks so very much to all our readers and fans, including the lurkers, the tipsters and the leavers of comments!

And thanks most of all, and as ever, to the amazing multicultural communities of Melbourne’s western suburbs and their food traditions and welcoming smiles.

Rib and curry sensations

Leave a comment

Santorini, 1 Parker Street, Williamstown. Phone: 9399 8520
podatpid, 638 Barkly Street, West Footscray. Phone: 0404 904 900

Never order ribs from a non-specialist barbecue joint.

This is the emphatic lesson rammed home to Consider The Sauce through tedious confrontations with mediocrity.

Or worse.

But in the case of Santorini, we figure this is a rule worth ignoring.

Observing on FB the ingenuity and passion with which the whole Santorini crew is confronting the virus brouhaha is truly heartening.

That includes free delivery – yes, even as far as Yarraville – and specials events such as “souvlaki night”, free donut nights and more.

So order ribs, we do.

What we get is simply sensational.

Great lemon potatoes and heaps of them.

Greek coleslaw, and heaps of that, too, with just enough onion to add a little bite and quite a lot of feta, which crumbles into the dressing.

What a magic mix!

Given the superb accompaniments, and the fair asking price of $25 per person, we’d be quite unfazed to get a single big beef rib each.

Unfazed, but disappointed.

But no!

We get two of the beefy blighters each.

And – you guessed it!  – they, too, are very, very excellent.

And tender.

And delicious.

To order from Santorini online, go here.

 

 

Another of our faves, podatpid on Barkly Street in West Footscray, is also having lots of fun and satisfaction in keeping on trucking.

The cafe is selling a select range of top-notch grocery items, including bread.

And pick-up/take-home meals.

After having two encounters with it, we’ve become particularly fond of their pork-and-pineappple curry.

A really big serve for two cost us a fine $22.

It’s not so hefty in the pineapple department – it being outweighed by sweet potato.

Now that’s something that normally have both of us wrinkling up our noses in disgust because of its similarity to pumpkin.

But here, mixed in with the rich brown (and mild) curry gravy, it’s fab.

And our curry boasts a really good amount of tender pork chunks.

 

 

This particular meals ends with a sweet treat from yet another of faves – Olive Oil & Butter on Somerville Road.

Baklava for two – with yogurt. Greek, of course.

Hunkering down at home like everyone else, we’ve actually been cooking/eating healthily and affordably to a quite amazing extent.

So it’s been good to enjoy such great food from outside.

Even if we’ve not been sitting inside.

 

Naked and hungry

2 Comments

 

Naked Egg, 32A Ballarat Street, Yarraville. Phone: 9396 0309
Panjali Banana Leaf Malaysian Restaurant, 3/10 Sun Crescent, Sunshine. Phone: 9193 1740

We’ve been hearing the talk – that Yarraville cafe Naked Egg has been doing fab takeaway meals.

So we check them out.

And the outcome is outstanding.

Some takeaway meals don’t suit us as we don’t have a microwave oven.

So I get two serves of chicken cacciatore at $18 each.

Actually, with its sausage and beans involvement, it’s more a cassoulet.

But let’s not split hairs, eh?

 

 

Bennie has somehow become the tightwad of the family, so gets a bit sniffy about the asking price of $18 a serve.

I beg to differ.

Adamantly.

Our “stew” is gloriously rich and delicious, with seeming multitudes of chicken bits, sausage and vegetables, all in a rich, thick sauce of profound delectableness.

Expert cooking going on here, methinks.

In a restaurant setting – oh, those were the days and hopefully will be again – I’d expect to pay in the mid-$20s or even more.

So this strikes me as very good pricing. I expect any decrease in price would inevitably mean a drop in quality.

The side serve of spuds and sauerkraurt is OK, but no match for the main event stew.

In a word: Fabulous!

 

 

For another take-home meal, we venture a bit up the road – to Panjali in Sunshine.

This time, I’ve phoned in our order beforehand and the whole procedure is sweet and swish, our food (mostly) awaiting when I turn up.

We get two murtabaks – one lamb ($12.90) and one chicken ($11.90).

It may be thought in some quarters that anything involving flatbreads purchased for later heating up is a recipe for ugh.

But we know from previous experience that is not the case with murtabaks.

Panjali murtabaks, anyway.

 

 

Our Saturday night meal is, well, orgasmic.

Perhaps we’ve been missing a certain level of spice and oil and funkiness?

Anyone else in that bag?

In any case, our Panjali meal of murtabak has us both ooh-ing and ahh-ing an sporting happy grins.

Not only do the murtabaks re-heat very well, but the accompanying gravies – one beef curry and one dal and vegetables – are wonderful.

 

CTS Readers & Friends Eats Digest 13/4/20

1 Comment

Lisa writes from Airport West: “Hi Kenny, Happy Easter long weekend. I’m a long-time reader of your blog that lives and works in the west, so have thoroughly enjoyed your posts and recommendations.

“Thought I’d send through a pic of home-made pumpkin and olive bread (c/- Dan Lepard) and spicy cauliflower soup. Have been dabbling in no-knead bread and easy bread recipes, since my previous disasters in breadmaking (bagels and the like).

“I live in Airport West (more north-west, but consider it west) and work in Braybrook, so have tried pretty much every restaurant along Barkly Street, West Footscray! Always look forward to your updates and goss to try somewhere new with friends.

“I always seem to be returning to Latin Foods & Wines, various Afghan restaurants in Sunshine, Brother Nancy and Smokehouse 101. Have yet to try Theos in Keilor Park – have been wanting to try their spanakopita, but have sold out a couple of times by the time I get there late afternoon.”

 

Sylvia writes from Caroline Springs: “Some photos of my home made hot cross buns. As an enthusiastic home baker, it was really stressful seeing supermarket shelves devoid of flour. I found some at a convenience store and decided to start some festive Easter baking. One batch is chocolate and orange, second batch traditional fruit buns. I soaked the fruit (which was a little old and dry) in earl grey tea to revive it which worked a treat!”

 

 

In West Footscray, Justin and family are cooking up a storm – including this pumpkin, chick pea and harissa soup.

He says: “Truth be told … the sort of recipe I would never have considered in normal times. Too many steps. But not when you’ve got all the time in the world on your hands!”

 

Also emanating from the Justin kitchen – lasagne and …

 

… “pork meatballs in sugo that I made and froze a couple of weeks ago. And using up the fag ends of three pasta packs. So easy. Classic meatball mix of mince, breadcrumbs, onions, herbs … fried and simmered. So good.”

 

In Carnegie, the Nat family enjoyed this “excellent tripe with the spicy Thai dipping sauce”.

He tells me the meal also included larb with chicken mince, a kilo of boiled prawns and a Chiang Mai herbal chicken soup and steamed rice.

 

Our lovely neighbour Vanessa, whose garden we raid regularly for herbs, enjoyed these fish tacos.

 

Up on the Gold Coast, Judith Weir and partner Tim enjoyed this classic steak and salad combo.

 

My own nourishment, during two weeks of solo living, has included this yummo coconut, spud and chick pea curry sourced from Woven in Stpehen Street, Yarraville and …

 

 

… classic basic sausages from Andrew’s Of Yarraville with rough-mashed potatoes and tomato and …

 

… your standard chicken biryani ordered in from Dosa Corner in West Footscray.

Asked for “mild”, got blazing over-hot heat!

 

I also enjoyed this rustic pasta dish, yiouvetsi, from Olive Oil & Butter on Somerville Road.

Their menu describes it as: “Slow-cooked lamb and orzo pasta baked in stew pot in a rich tomato base, finished with grilled kefalograviera and feta.”

Despite its humble appearance, it was fabulously delicious!

CTS Readers’ Eats Digest 31/3/20

3 Comments

From Sharnae in Werribee: “My almost five-year-old learning the joys and deliciousness of homemade pasta. It’s a simple carbonara with bacon, garlic, eggs, and parmesan and parsley.”

 

From Greg in Flemington: “Grass-fed rib eye for two, done sous vide, parsley and roquette salad, parmesan dutch creams, fresh horseradish. Please forgive the opened boxes of vinyl gloves … a sign of our current time.

“The wine was exceptional – Hickinbotham Trueman vineyard cabernet Sauvignon 2012. Have cellared since 2014. Sadly, no change from $75, but we wanted to say to ourslelves, ‘great produce deserves great wine’.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long-time Consider The Sauce readers and supporters Sian and Michael are eating well in West Footscray.

Sian: “We’ve had a couple of takeaway meals from Bruger and West 48, but probably the favourite thing I’ve eaten so far has been Eat Me Soulfood’s lasagna. But I didn’t take a photo of that. They’ve upped their range from single-serve meals (which we typically get two serves out of anyway) to include some ‘family size’ dishes since all this started, which has been great.

“So while we haven’t been shopping ourselves, we’ve had some fresh food to eat anyway!  I did make my own bread the other weekend – AND mozzarella from scratch!

“This Saturday past I ventured out to see what Restaurant Navi were doing with their new bakery option. Turned up five minutes before opening and stood in a carefully distancing queue for an hour, ordered at the door and brought home my sourdough and treats eventually. Turned some of the sourdough into epic three-cheese toasted bread.

“I also made my own pickles for the first time, pictured with a lunch frittata (we’re working from home now, a cooked lunch is viable).

“Next weekend I’m thinking of giving Cobb Lane a go _ they’re offering delivery for orders over $20 in the inner west and I’ve missed them a lot since they went wholesale only.”

 

From the Nat Stockley family in Carnegie: “Chiang Mai-style dishes – pounded jackfruit herbal and herbal chicken soup with mushrooms,”

(Editor’s note: I’m pretty sure Nat took the photos and Kanchana Auttama did the cooking!)

 

Some of what we’ve been eating

1 Comment

Here’s some of the fare we’ve been enjoying while being sociable distancers …

 

Our own Yarraville tomato sauce with smashed pork sausages from A&L Gugliotta & Sons and spaghettini.

 

Stewed quinces with flourless choc brownie from Second Ave Grocer and Greek yoghurt.

 

A great delivered deal from Cheezy Pizza on Gamon Street – one large Australian, one large American, garlic bread, bottle of soft drink for $30!

 

Lamb koftas (hamburger style) from Andrew’s Of Yarraville, tzatziki, fennel and tomato salads, grilled ciabatta.

 

Fabulous Chilton’s Moroccan lamb pie from Second Ave Grocer with green beans in olive oil, salt, pepper.

 

More of our tomato sauce – this time with ricotta and parsley, basil and marjoram from Vanessa’s garden. And rigatoni.

Show us what you’ve got!

Leave a comment

Hello Readers!

Well now, what use a food blog these days, eh?

Particularly one primarily based around eating out and about at eateries all over the western suburb and then going home and writing about them.

Not much use.

Not much use at all.

Truth is, we’ve been eating extremely well and (mostly) healthily – and I suspect we’re far from alone in that.

So here it is – Consider The Sauce is throwing open its doors to community contributors.

We’d love you out there to send us photos of your socially distanced meals.

Anything goes – burnt toast, a cup of instant noodles, a lavish five-course feast, a backyard barbecue.

Words?

Not if you don’t want to or can’t be bothered.

But OTOH feel free to send reviews, recipes, poetry or even reflections on our current situation and how it’s affecting your world – and what you are eating.

We are in utter awe at the passionate, ingenious and brilliant efforts being put in by so many restaurants, cafes and shops all over the west – many of them run by people we know personally – in turbocharged adventures aimed at keeping their businesses going, their staff employed and the rest of us well fed.

I want to order deliveries and/or takeaways from each and every one of them.

But, of course, I can’t do that!

And while my journalistic instincts are to go zipping all over the place gathering snapshots of them in smiling action, even that is not advisable.

So feel free to sing the praises of your favourites by sending pics and words conveying your pleasure on how your fave eateries are rising to the occasion!

Unfortunately, I cannot pay for reader contributions.

And, sure, you can post your pics on your favourite social media platform – but that means they will be seen friends and family and then rapidly buried underneath the daily post flow.

Send them to us and they may be enshrined in perpetuity on the western suburbs’ longest-standing and most widely read food blog.

Depending on response, I will turn contributions into individual stories – or perhaps a weekly or daily digest.

Digest?

Hah!

C’mon – show us what you’ve got!

Send your efforts to Consider The Sauce by either of the following methods:

email: kennyctsblog@gmail.com

Or by Messenger through the CTS Facebook page.

Nutty stuff

2 Comments

Clockwise from top left: Peanut butter Nutella, salted caramel, choc orange, cinnamon, cookies ‘n’ cream, lamington jam cream.

 

Daniel’s Donuteria Hoppers Crossing, 4/150 Hogans Road, Hoppers Crossing. Phone: 8742 4997

Despite having – until now – never visited Daniel’s Donuteria, I am so used to thinking of it as a Hoppers Crossing fixture, that it comes as something of a shock to discover it is but one.

There are others – thanks Bennie, Nat for wising me up – in Springvale, Carnegie, the CBD and even (blow me down) at Highpoint.

But here we are at Hogan’s Corner in Hoppers.

How to describe Hogan’s Corner?

It’s a weird collection of shops and and caparking seemingly distributed at random.

When it comes to shopping centre/precincts, Hogan’s Corner is definitely at the unlovely end of the spectrum.

 

 

But it serves the local community pretty well, I suspect, and we enjoy the unfamiliar setting as we get familiar with Dan’s “donuts”.

They are very, very good, though it may be some time (maybe never) before we partake of a post-midnight deep-fried batter run to Hopper’s Crossing for the place’s popular 24-hour opening hours on Friday and Saturday.

 

 

We have been envisaging sharing three donuts between us for lunch.

But we succumb to the attractions of a great offer – six of the joint’s top-line specimens for $14.

That’s about $2.30 an item – and that makes for a ripper deal when compared with the prices I see Krusty Kreme products going for closer to home.

 

 

We do indeed account for three of our six – peanut butter Nutella, salted caramel and choc orange.

And I, for one, am very full at that point in what is an usual non-savoury, non-spicy lunch for us.

I had half expected the Daniel’s range would involve plain donuts with different frostings/icings.

But, no, all our donuts not only have their own individual toppings, but also fillings to match!

How splendid!

But better was to come.

The next day, for a mid-morning snack-with-coffee, I gobble our lamington, jam and cream donut.

Now, I’m not going to claim that donuts are anything but at the top of their game when fresh as.

But in this case, a certain amount of day-after staleness lends my snack pronounced extra yumminess.

The chocolate/coconut frosting, in particular, has a crustiness that works in explosively fine tandem with the great gobs of real cream and jam that constitute the filling.

Divine and decedent!

 

Westie eats goss 06/02/20

 

Located below Chinese eatery Palace Royal and in the premises of a former clothes shop, Footscray will soon have a swish new Japanese-style barbecue restaurant.

 

 

The 45 Leeds Street food emporium looks like it will be quite something, will feature at-table cooking and is expected to open in a couple of months.

 

 

Staying in Footscray, the shopfront location on Barkly Street, right next door to Anh Tuk and just around the corner from the mall, is being fitted out.

 

 

The presence of many stools suggests something of an eat/drink nature is on the way here – but I have yet to see anyone in the place to find out more.

Goss about this most welcomely received!

 

 

We’re a bit sad to see that Ammas Pantry has closed – we really enjoyed the meals we had there.

The corner shop at 33 Parker Street, Footscray, right opposite Footscray City Primary School, will soon be up and running as Baby Elephant.

 

 

Work continues (slowly) on Filipino joint Chibog at 553 Barkley Street in West Footscray.

 

 

Management has been seeking staff on Facebook.

 

 

At Rifle Range shopping centre in Williamstown, the chicken shop is being transformed into a Greek taverna.

 

 

On Anderson Street in Yarraville, what was until very recently the Village Store has been well and truly gutted as the property is prepared for a forthcoming Woolies Metro outlet.

Once it’s open, CTS will walk the aisles to gauge how it goes in serving the local community.

 

 

Across the road, the former Bakers Delight shop is being prepared for a new venture under the auspices of Anna Quayle.

To be known as Romanee, its Facebook page is here if you’re interested in monitoring progress.

 

 

Around the corner on Ballarat Street, one of our fave village places, Little Advi, is now doing dinners.

 

 

We have yet to avail ourselves of this service, but the menu looks like it’ll be just the ticket for us!

 

 

The latest whisper I have heard regarding the ComBank building on Anderson Street runs along the lines of brewery downstairs and botox upstairs.

 

 

Sunshine’s Afghan Bread bakery, at 250 Hampshire Road, sells its wonderful flatbread for $2 for a bag of four.

 

 

And it’s also serving eat-in Afghan/Persian food.

When I tried the lamb qorma, the salad bits were just OK, the bread was typically the size of a front door mat and the dish itself looked ugly.

But it was of prime deliciousness – and cost a mere $12.

 

How we ate great in 2019

3 Comments

 

August of 2020 will mark the 10th anniversary of Consider The Sauce.

There will be a party.

The outlines of what I have planned are, at this stage, very hazy.

I am open to suggestions about a venue or any other ideas.

Likewise, I remain open to suggestions for employment – paid or not.

For the time being, Consider The Sauce IS my job – and that’s a pretty cool place to be.

As for 2019, for the Consider The Sauce family it has been a momentous year, one filled with loss and several varieties of pain, but also one full of wonderful life, love and surprises.

Thanks as always to our readers, the many friends who lent us their eating and the small business people of the western suburbs, without whom etc etc!

The following wrap-up by no means covers all the fine food we enjoyed this year – if I were to bash this out tomorrow, the outcome would quite likely be different!

 

 

Cannoli Bar

This Avondale Heights treasure has become a firm favourite – not just for sweets, but also for pasta and other lunchy delights.

 

 

On The Bone

Nat and I finally made it to One The Bone in Maidstone and had an incredibly super time of it.

We lucked into the very first of their Sunday lunch deals.

The advice is simple and adamant – once the Sunday lunches resume in the new year, just go.

 

 

Kites

Away from the western suburbs, we loved our visits to Kites in Clayton South for top-notch Sri Lankan tucker.

 

 

Fusion Ceylon

Just before Christmas, Bennie and I struck out in search of Lebanese food in Hopper Crossing.

The place, our destination, was boarded up.

And definitely not serving lunch.

So we headed for an old fave – Fusion Ceylon in Werribee.

He had one of their fabulous fried rice dishes.

I opted for the $9 “curry in a hurry” bain marie deal – and it was a lot more glamourous and sexy than that sounds.

“I’d forgotten how good this place is,” Bennie enthused.

Yes indeed – absolutely a star of the west.

 

 

Chi Bao

We welcomed Chi Bao to Yarraville – and loved its dumplings and more.

 

 

Balkan Grill

We first made the acquaintance of Danilo Majmunovic at Balkan Grill when it was set up in an Ardeer soccer club.

After he moved to a more orthodox eatery premises in St Albans, we adored his brilliant take on burgers.

 

 

Biryani King/Barwachi

Welcome, too, to two new additions to the West Footscray Indian scene.

We had happy times at both Biryani King and Bawarchi.

 

 

Panjali/Annapoorna

For a different take on curry, we very much enjoy having the banana leaf meals and more from Panjali in Sunshine and Shri Annapoorna in Braybrook as part of our regular fare.

 

Doug The Barber

In the course of food-related research, I discovered Doug, formerly of Williamstown Road and Francis Street, had set up shop in Brooklyn.

Getting a haircut from Doug is always a pleasure.

 

 

Tanoor

No story about Tanoor this year, yet this Hopper Crossing purveyor of Lebanese tucker remains one of our leading regulars – both for eat-in dips and accessories AND for takeaway pies and pizzas.

 

 

Mama Lor

Our troubled relationship with Filipino food was given an affirming filip thanks to the arrival of Mama Lor in Werribee.

Love that crackling and roast pork!

 

 

Kingyo Izayaka

The best Japanese food we had this year was provided by Kingyo Izayaka in Moonee Ponds.

And it was very, very good.

 

 

Mun Kitchen/Mumchan

Korean food?

Oh, yes, we were right amongst that, too.

Mun Kitchen at Williams Landing and Mumchan in Laverton both served us great fried chicken and more.

 

 

Cafe d’Afrique

We were excited and delighted to welcome Faisel Pkesy and his Cafe a’Afrique back – here be the heart of Footscray.

And excellent food, too.

 

 

Cheezy Pizza

“Making Aussie pizzas better” is the motto of Cheezy Pizza in Yarraville.

And that’s precisely what they do.

Make ours a large American plus whatever.

 

 

Laksa King Kitchen

For several reasons, we do not favour the main Laksa King on Pin Oak Crescent in Flemington.

Yet we are returning regularly to the new branch office on Racecourse Road – particularly for the various chicken rice options.

 

 

Olive Oil & Butter

We are looking forward to the forthcoming provision of evening meals at Olive Oil & Butter in Yarraville.

In the meantime, it has become another much-loved CTS regular.

 

 

Karlaylisi

Hand-made noodles, cumin lamb and many other spicy delights – there is nothing not to love about Karlaylisi on Gordon Street in Footscray.

 

 

 

Second Ave Grocer

It’s gone from Altona Fresh to Second Ave Grocer – but we continue to love this place, which has become a big part of our weekly routines.

 

 

Ragusa

We enjoyed a number of swish meals this year – none better than that served to us at Ragusa in Williamstown.

Croatian joy on many plates!

 

Much more than cannoli

2 Comments

 

Cannoli Bar, 23 Riviera Road, Avondale Heights. Phone: 93377049

In the months since CTS first wrote about Cannoli Bar, the place has become wildly famous.

A great big bunch of media coverage has ensued, but I’d like to think it’s the sheer outstanding quality of what is on offer that is the main driver of all this feverish fandom.

Since then, too, Cannoli Bar has expanded its fare.

There’s a much longer range of cannoli available, many of them of a colourful and creative bent.

And that expansion means lunch.

 

 

Lunch options include really good-looking pizza slices.

And a couple of daily pasta selections.

I decide against the cannelloni with beef, opting instead for the eggplant parmigiana ($18, top photo).

Oh my, my, my – this is heaven.

It arrives in a very hot bowl, its contents still bubbling.

It’s a glorious mix of eggplant, the top bits nicely crunchy, tomato and cheese.

Perfect.

My lunch is wonderfully enhanced by a parade of hardcore blues classics – Albert King’s Born Under A Bad Sign, Bobby Bland’s Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, Sonny Boy William’s Help Me and more.

Thank you very, very much.

 

 

My wonderful lunch is completed by biscotto cherry ($2) and cafe latte – both equally fine.

I had originally intended this outing to be the basis of a story about panettone – more precisely the merits of the cheap, mass-produced ones we get from the supermarket compared to more rustic renditions.

 

 

But all that seems a bit redundant in light of the fact that I grab the very last of Cannoili Bar’s pistachio amaretto panettone ($25) and that the eight remaining choc chip versions will likely be gone by the time you read this.

 

 

Back home, Bennie and I soon discover that all panettones are most definitely not the same.

Yes, the pistachio crust is super.

But it’s the “cake” itself that truly wows us.

It’s chewy, much more fibrous than the cheapo versions we’re familiar with, delicious.

We won’t be casual about this one.

No hacking off a slice at a mere whim.

This is something to be savoured.

Cannoli Bar is open Wednesdays through Saturdays.

If you can make it, I suggest week-day visits, as I suspect this place gets crazy busy at the weekends.

There is something ridiculously fine about tootling down a rather ordinary suburban street, headed for this very cool Italian establishment.

 

Snag mission

2 Comments

 

A&L Gugliotta and Sons Butchers, 314 Blackshaws Road, Altona North. Phone: 9391 1606

After noting the front-of-house upgrade at Gugliotta and Sons in the most recent edition of Westie eats goss, I have been invited back to observe the making of sausages.

The old joke goes that after watching sausages being made, you’ll never want to eat one again.

In this instance, that is definitely not the case.

I am impressed by the simplicity of the process and the freshness of the ingredients.

The odours are likewise fresh and clean – if odours can be clean!

I love watching Nick and his offsider, Anthony, at work as their colleagues hussle about us taking care of other meaty chores.

 

 

The business makes quite a big range of sausages, but the main task today is a big batch of your basic Italian-style pork snags.

They start with two tubs of cut-up pork, one leaner and …

 

 

… one that includes a good deal more back fat.

As Nick says, a sausage without fat is a tasteless sausage.

 

 

The two tubs of meat are put through the mincer.

This is one of three machines used in the sausage-making process.

The machines are all simple affairs and, really, provide quite close facsimiles for what would take place if the whole process was done by hand.

 

 

To blend and bind, the meat is then put in the mixer.

At this stage, salt, pepper, some wine and a little water are added.

That’s it – that’s your basic pork sausage!

 

 

Given the homespun approach taken here, you’ll be unsurprised to learn Gugliotta and Sons use natural casings.

 

 

They are delivered to the Blackshaws Road shop packed in salt.

So while the meat is being prepared, the casings are being rinsed in lemon-infused water to remove the saltiness.

 

 

The minced-and-mixed meat is placed in an air pump and the meat forced into the casings.

The comes the most magic part – and the most manual!

With flashing dexterity, Nick ties off the long tube of sausage into near-equal lengths.

Here it is the thinner pork sausages that are being created.

Nick looks for all the world like a grandad making balloon animals for the grandkids.

 

 

Also being made today is a smaller batch of Sicilian sausages.

 

 

The provlone, chopped fresh and canned tomatoes and endive are mixed into the same meat base.

 

 

Anthony tells me it took a while for him to fully get the knack of the tying off process, but that these days he could pretty much do it in his sleep.

 

 

Here’s Nick with a water pump/sausage filler of the kind used in an earlier era.

Thanks for inviting me, guys!

 

Westie eats goss 17/10/19

11 Comments

 

A&L Gugliotta and Sons Butchers has been operating at 314 Blackshaws Road, Altona, for 50 years.

Nick Gigliotta (on the right) has been working there for as long.

These days he does his meaty magic there with brother Nick and six other staff.

This is a proudly old-school butcher shop where everything is done on the premises.

 

 

The place has just unveiled a whole new look and upgrade, better enabling the team to showcase such delights as the range of sausages, the quality of which is familiar to CTS.

 

 

There’s room, too, for a nice line in high-class pasta and sauces.

 

 

Just around the corner and a few blocks away is what used to be Altona Fresh.

The wonderful shop has a new name – Second Ave Grocer.

 

 

I figured the name change was probably down to trying to make the place’s renown part of the greater western suburbs, rather than just Altona.

But smiling Phil tells me that’s not the case.

He says with a laugh that the only people who called it Altona Fresh were those visiting from the other side of the river.

“All our other customers just say, when they’re on their phones in here, ‘We’re at Second Ave’,” he says. “So when we were upgrading our systems, we thought it was the obvious thing to do!”

Since first writing about this food emporium, it has become a weekly regular for the CTS household, including brunch last weekend for the regular Saturday kranski barbecue outside.

 

 

The Mid-East food presence in the western suburbs has received another lovely lift with the arrival of Oscar’s Teta in Spotswood.

Located at 143 Hudsons Road, just of Williamstown Road, Oscar’s Teta boasts a wonderfully welcoming dining room.

 

 

The menu is pretty much straightahead Lebanese – which is a fine thing, we reckon.

 

 

CTS is very much looking forward to taking the Oscar’s Teta food for a spin.

 

 

Opening this Sunday, October 20, is Le Petit Cafe Rose at 229 Somerville Road, Yarraville.

 

 

Taking over the premises formerly occupied by Happy Maree, the place will be doing a nice line in cakes, muffins, sandwiches, croissants and the like.

 

 

Now operating at 67 Berkshire Road in Sunshine North is burger joint Coal Workshop.

It’s in the shop once home to Latin Foods & Wines.

The burger, onion rings and fries CTS tried were good, solid efforts.

Kurt’s place

4 Comments

Be Quick boss Kurt Schwier is enthusiastic about Dietz range of organic, Fairtrade teas.

Be Quick Bargains, 465 Ballarat Road, Sunshine. Phone: 9312 7244

There has been a discount grocery on the corner of Ballarat Road and Leonard Street in Sunshine for a long time.

In fact, it was suggested by a reader as a worthy of a story right back at the start of CTS – closing on 10 years ago.

I didn’t follow-up then.

But now I’m in the place – and happily confess that’s because it’s been run for the past year or so by long-time CTS pal and fellow hardcore music nut Kurt Schwier.

Kurt’s background in the biz shows – I am impressed by the foodie-friendly nature of his line-up and, of course, the prices.

 

 

Use-by dates?

Well, they’re part of this sort of set-up.

Kurt tells me he his straight-up and honest with his customers about individual products being offered here.

My understanding is that for some products, those dates are vital.

For others they are less so – and for many, they are effectively meaningless.

 

For years, CTS HQ has been going through a pack of these every week or so. I wish we’d been paying this price all that time!

 

Kurt tells me his customers come from a wide catchment.

Sunshine locally, of course, but also from the likes of Caroline Springs, Taylors Lakes and Deer Park.

And among them come a wide range of folks with various European backgrounds, as well as many with roots in the Philippines.

 

Kurt knows his booze.

 

One of the first things Kurt did when taking over the business was install a suitable sounds system.

Of course!

He confesses the music is mainly for the enjoyment of he and his staff – but customers are free to enjoy it fully, too.

The volume is far from obtrusive, though the strains of good, funky sounds are always thereabouts.

 

 

The most impressive thing in Be Quick for the CTS foodie sensibilities?

This array of pickles and the like – almost all of which are regularly stocked items.

 

 

Though I’m told these sloths are also good, steady sellers.

I leave Be Quick with quite some booty – mainly cookies and so on – for which I have paid $15.

 

Sweetness!

1 Comment

 

Theo’s Greek Cakes, 11 Fosters Road, Keilor Park. Phone: 0434 099 450

We are delighted to herald the arrival of new Greek baking emporium on the smallish shopping strip on Fosters Road in Keilor Park.

Theo’s has all your sweet Greek dreams covered at great prices.

Parking is no problem.

And it’s simply a cool place to be.

 

 

We suspect most customers treat it as a shop, taking their goodies home.

But for eating-in purposes, the place is set up in simple cafe style.

 

 

Theo’s is very much about the sweeter side of life, but there are limited savoury options available.

We love our slices of spanakopita ($6).

Rich and flavoursome in a home-style way, they eat bigger than they look.

And at a place in which we would’ve been unsurprised about being presented with plastic plates and implements, we are very happy to have our lunch accompanied by real-deal unplastic gear, along with water.

 

 

For dessert, Bennie opts for this profiterol creation ($5).

He enjoys it, but perhaps not as much as he’d been hoping – likely because the chocolate is not the dark, more bitter kind he likes these days.

He plainly envies my politiko ($5, top photo).

And in that he’s right on the money – as this is superb.

It’s bit like a heftier Greek version of tiramisu, the base of syrupy semolina cake topped by a layer of cream and plenty of powdered coffee.

It is wonderful – and so healthy, too!

Our $4 cafe lattes are a fine foil for all this sweet heaven.

As an added bonus, a delicious trek to Theo’s can become a one-stop outing that includes, a few doors away, Frank’s Supermarket, a happy business a bit like a scaled-down version of Altona Fresh or Mediterranean Wholesalers in Brunswick.

Though, sadly, it is closed during our Sunday visit.

Theo’s joins the D’s Souvlaki is building a whole new food vibe at Keilor Park.

Long may they both prosper and the trend continue.

 

Expanded taverna

2 Comments

 

Olive Oil & Butter, 196 Somerville Road, Kingsville. Phone: 9315 1060

Before there was Eleni’s, Meat The Greek or Brother Hood, there was Olive Oil & Butter.

Yes, the renaissance of Greek eateries in Yarraville and nearby suburbs was spearheaded by this Somerville Road institution.

We’ve done two stories on it, but they’re getting old now.

And in the meantime, Olive Oil & Butter has become a regular for us, but mostly for takeaway coffee and treats.

Eating in?

Not so much.

Time for another look?

Yes.

Because we feel like it for a post-kung fu Saturday hoot and lunch.

And because it’s worth recording that Olive Oil & Butter has expanded considerably, the dining area stretching down the back to an outdoor area.

These days it’s got a lovely feel of a real-deal Greek eatery with happy bustle all about.

Of course, this is Melbourne, so coffee and breakfast are front, centre and popular.

But the menu (see below) also features a nice round-up of rustic Greek dishes for lunch.

It’s for them we’re in the house.

 

 

Bennie opts for the open souvlaki ($23).

All present and accounted for as per the menu – two fine skewers of lamb, herbed pita bread, chips, tzatziki, tomato and onions.

He loves; he clean it all up.

I suspect he’s probably making unkind comparisons of the price-to-quantity ratio kind with his beloved Brother Hood in Seddon.

Buddy, that’s unfair – this is a sit-down restaurant situation and you’ve just had a lovely feed.

I get, as recommended by our wait person, the fasolakia lathera ($22, top photo).

Oh boy, this is so wonderful – green beans slow cooked in tomato, onion, garlic (and, I’m sure) a heap of olive oil.

Again, I can hear naysayers proclaiming: “What – $22 for a plate of overcooked beans?”

Ah, but there’s so much more here than that – this is rich and complex, the lemon potatoes and olives fit right in and it’s an ample serve for an all-veg dish.

So delighted am I, that I have another look at the menu and take note of the other home-style meal available here – spanakorizo, moussaka, yemista, fakes – for future consumption.

It’s these sorts of dishes that are the heart of Olive Oil & Butter.

We spy only one seafood dish on the menu, for instance, and the lavish mixed grills you’ll find at other Greek eateries are absent.

But, for me at least, that makes the place all the more appealing.

 

 

All of the above AND the outstanding sweet treats, many of them syrup-drenched, and …

 

 

… the equally terrific spanokopita, tiropita, kreatopita and bougatsa and …

 

 

… and a nice line in Greek groceries make this a Very Cool Place.

And the staff are always on-the-ball and smiling.

See earlier stories here and here.