Category Archives: Places we like to shop at

Nourishment, various

2 Comments

Under-11 cricket, Hansen Reserve, West Footscray
Hound Dog’s Bop Shop, 313 Victoria St,  West Melbourne. Phone: 9329 5362
Sushi Kissaten, Shop 26-27, F Shed, Queen Victoria Market , Melbourne. Phone: 9328 8809

As a parent, I’d love to be able to say – with a straight, sincere face – that the sacrifices and time spent fostering my son’s growth, development and happiness are nothing but a matter of sheer joy.

That, however, would be an outright lie.

It is, therefore, with some wonderment that I can say that time spent attending the Saturday morning cricket matches, supporting him and his team and watching their skills develop has very quickly become a sublime pleasure.

The start is early enough to leave room for other activities – and we have a few planned for today.

The previous week we’d been at ground adjacent Altona Beach, upon which I had a nice mid-game walk/paddle.

Today we’re at Hansen Reserve in West Footscray.

There’s shade trees and a nice breeze.

In the corner, wedged between two different industrial and/or commerce properties, I find a beaut picnic table and two attached bench seats that will surely come in handy in the forthcoming holiday break.

The park bench I choose manages to contrive shade coverage for most of the morning and the cooling breeze takes care of the rest.

Although not an ardent cricket fan, I’ve been around more than long enough to be able to effortlessly switch into the rhythm of reading but looking up just a ball is about to be bowled.

In this case, the subject of my attention is the latest tome by Stephen King.

As with cricket, I am no diehard King fan, but have read many of his books with pleasure and more.

Enough, in fact, to rate him as a master storyteller – and perhaps the greatest living American author.

A few months previously I was surprised when friend, learning of my King fandom, pronounced: “But he’s just a horror writer!”

Well, it’s been a long time since I considered King merely that.

In this case, I tumble right in, breaching the 100th page as the match progresses.

After the game, we head straight to Hound Dog’s Bop Shop in West Melbourne.

Denys Williams has been running this glorious emporium for something like 30 years, but will be closing up shop on December 24.

I think he’s had enough, although I suspect the ease of online buying has something to do with his decision, too.

That’ll leave a mighty big hole in the lives of several generations of roots music fans in Melbourne and around Australia for whom Hound Dog’s has long been a magnet stuffed with all sorts of rockabilly, country, western swing, bluegrass, doo wop, soul, pop, gospel, R&B and blues goodies and much, much more.

I remember when I first entered Hound Dog’s upon my arrival in Melbourne in the mid-1980s.

I looked around for a few minutes and then hastily departed. Spending any time at all in a place brimming with such musical riches while being flat broke was just too painful.

In subsequent years, indeed decades, Hound Dog’s became a focal point, a place of good friends made, a gazillions beers drunk and countless records – vinyl and CD – purchased and discussed.

For a while there, my life and musical interests took me elsewhere, but recent years have seen me once again become a regular.

The Hound Dog’s farewells have begun, overseen today by the continuation of a long and venerable tradition – a gig out front.

In this case, it is the mighty Dancehall Racketeers doing the business, laying down some fine western swing.

For most long-time customers and friends of Hound Dog’s it’s been a while since the joint was a social magnet, so it’s good to catch up with old friends not seen, in most cases, for many years.

It’s especially nifty to catch with my old mate Peter Bruce.

Now a retired taxi driver, Peter – from what I can tell – has become something of a man about town. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man about the country.

Moreover, I am delighted to find that he, too, has become a blogger.

I Was A Teenage Rail Fan details at glorious length his railways fandom, he being one of quite a few Hound Dog’s regulars who have always had a thing about trains.

“Trainspotters” has never been a term that fits for these folks!

It’s time for lunch, so Bennie and I head up and down Victoria St towards Victoria Market.

We are amazed at the number of eating places that are closed on a Saturday just before Christmas.

We’d love to hang for a while at Dolcetti but move on after confirming our fears that it’s sweeties only.

Thus it is rather by accident that we end up at Sushi Kissaten, which is part of a foodie laneway at the market but which has a street frontage not too far from the Spanish donut operation.

Apart from sushi rolls, the menu is pretty basic – various don dishes for $9.50 and three bento offerings – curry chicken, teriyaki chicken and beef – for $11.50.

Chicken teriyaki for him, beef for me, please.

Our bentos are identical, even if the protein components are different.

This is not like teriyaki like we have been served before elsewhere – like my beef, it’s more of stew with sweet onion strands.

In both cases, OK-to-good but nothing really notable.

The rest of our bentos are better – very good, in fact, especially for the price.

Rice with pickle; two excellent pieces of roe-crusted sushi; two hot, fresh but rather anonymous spring rolls; two deep-fried and very tasty dumplings encasing cellophane noodles and prawn; an elongated crumbed offering of what could be fish but may be, ahem, seafood stick; salad bits and pieces.

It’s good and we’re happy, especially considering our rather haphazard lunch hunt in an area all hustle and bustle with pre-Christmas activity.

As I say to Bennie: “With a bit more effort we may’ve done better – but we could also have done a whole lot worse around here!”

We wouldn’t go out of our way to get to Sushi Kissaten, but it works for us on the day.

Back at Hound Dog’s, we catch a few tunes by second band of the day, the Starliners, before saying our goodbyes and heading home.

Back in Yarraville, it’s serious chill time.

Into the old iron pot go a pound of red beans soaked overnight, hambone trimmings, celery, onion, green capsicum, garlic, sugar, vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, ground allspice and ground cloves – it’s red beans and rice New Orleans-style for dinner tonight!

Sushi Kissaten on Urbanspoon

Consider The Sauce Top 10, 2011

4 Comments

Everyone loves lists!

We love lists!

Our Top 10 for 2011 should not be taken to be in any way definitive.

If we did it again next week, the results would quite likely be quite different.

Nor does it necessarily include our favourite and/or regular eating houses, or even our most memorable meals for the year.

It’s just 10 things that caught our fancy and made our tastebuds sing for one reason or another.

The most shocking about our list is that there is no overlap at all with the equivalent list drawn up by the restaurant critic of The Age. Poor thing – how did she ever miss all this Good Stuff?

What are your highlights?

In no particular order …

Barkley Johnson antipasto platter

We could get this divine offering tailormade if we so wished, but we prefer to leave it up to the staff. That way we may get marinated pumpkin, which Bennie likes but dad doesn’t, but we also get the marinated sardines (as above) – a surprise that delighted. But some things are standard – always a very good dip, three or so incredible cured meats, several different kinds of olive, marinated vegetables, a stuffed vine leaf and more. Always with just the right amount of bread. As a light/medium meal for two, it’s brilliant at $21.

La Morenita new sandwiches

We love ’em all and the extra variety they add to one of our fave haunts – especially the the chacarero ($5) of steak, cheese, tomato, mayo, greens beans and hot green chilli.

Heather Dell coconut tart and jam slice

Mmmmm … classic and sensational old-school sweeties.

Classic Curry gol gappe

Despite our passionate liking for Indian snack food, we’d never come across these before trying them at Classic Curry in Sunshine, so have no way of knowing how good they are by comparison. But we love the fun of them and the tamarind tanginess.

Cafe Advieh baklava

We like your standard baklava, too, but this is different and better – rustic, chunky, fragrant with spices, delicious. They do excellent salads and dips, too.

Hyderabad Inn dosas

Most of all we’re grateful the dosa experience is now easily available in the west, and we’re happy to frequent any of the places that sell them and similar food. But Hyderabad Inn remains our choice for quality and diversity of combo deals and the like.

Broadmeadows Station Kebab House lamb shank soup

We have yet to make the trek to Broadmeadows so Bennie can have a crack at this ambrosia. When we do, he’ll love it in a slurping, joyous kind of way – guaranteed!

Yoyo’s Milkbar feijoa lollies

Where have these been all our lives? We love the pineapple chunks, too!

Pace Biscuits

Leo is our go-to man for divine and affordable choc-covered cookies, cookies in general and nougat.

Affordable bananas

Now they’re going for well under $2 a kilogram, the nightmare months of insane prices of well above $10 are starting to fade. Yay!

Kebab Shops In Melbourne – An Architectural Survey

Funky, fantastic Melbourne ethnic food finally gets the sort of academic scrutiny it deserves.

Cross-cultural hot dogs

9 Comments

We do love hour hots dogs and frankfurters.

Most regularly we keep a bunch of beef dogs from Al Amena in the freezer.

Sometimes we splash out on the smoked – and much more expensive – versions from Andrew’s in Anderson St, Yarraville and elsewhere.

Problem is, we find when eating them in traditional style – in a roll – the balance of meat to bread is out of whack.

No matter what kind of bread roll we use, there is too much of it compared with the frankfurters, making two of them quite a big ask even when we’re really hungry.

So routinely we split the bread rolls lengthways and scoop out the soft middles, leaving hot dog receptacles that look like canoes.

Load up with franks and our choice of extras and condiments, and we’re happy.

However, our most recent hot dog frenzy took a different turn initiated by the happy presence in the fridge of a bag of fresh pita breads.

Place hot dog on half a pita bread; dress with homemade roast red capsicum, dijon mustard and dill pickle; roll up so it’s like a big fat cigar; eat.

(Roll up one end as you would with a kebab so the goodies don’t ooze out!)

Perfecto!

And with a bread/meat balance pretty much attaining our ideal.

(We had an earlier version in our hot dog dinner that had the above ingredients PLUS chopped tomato. Turns out the halved pita bread is very moisture sensitive. Turns out, too, the mustard, capsicum and dill pickle provide enough flavour lift and moisture to do the job without the doggy wrap falling apart before its eating is completed.)

We sometimes also avoid the Bread Problem entirely by having our dogs with our version of spud salad – roughly mashed or chopped skin-on potatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper and a handful of chopped parsley.

I googled “cross-cultural hot dogs” and was surprised to find the results mainly concerned with curry powder and franks of various kinds, along with some interesting results obtained through introducing Japanese elements such as bonito flakes.

Funny that – I had a hunch that a universal dog may’ve had just as much cyber action as, say, the many variants on deep-fried dough or the countless genres of fried rice.

Hot dogs: What works for you?

Dal-ing, may I check your pulse?

10 Comments

Until very recently, the happily growing number of years we have spent in our current abode have found us – well, me actually – falling into slothful habits when it comes to food storage.

Thus it became routine when a new bag of pulses, beans, lentils were acquired from one of the Indian groceries in Barkley St, to fling the opened bag in a corner of our kitchen where it joined many others.

I was a little more careful with grains – rice and oats and so on.

But still, it was a sloppy look and it had to end.

The mice made sure of it.

I was finally spurred into action one recent night when I heard, while trying to fall asleep, a bunch of the little buggers obviously not just eating … but having a grand old time, a real party, as well.

I found four of them, immobilised and trembling with fear, behind one of our chopping boards.

They looked small and pitiful. But I knew, too, they were the party animals I had heard, for they were all wearing shades.

I did what I could that night, vowing to get some food container action going at the first possible opportunity – probably on the coming weekend.

In the ensuing few days I discovered, however, that while mice may prefer other goodies, when push comes to a shortage of yummy grains, they will indeed consume pulses.

In this case, they turned to a bag – yes, an opened bag – of those small, dark chick peas.

They were dragging them out of the bag, shelling them with paws or teeth and scarfing the innards.

The dark shells were washing up in the benchtop corner.

The resultant detritus reminded me of a bar near where I used to stay In New Orleans, in the days when I travelled there regularly.

O’Henry’s was not the sort of place in which me or my Crescent City friends frequented, it having none of the funky music or food we were into. It was a sort of burger ‘n’ beer place, and I only recall spending time there to watch major league sports events.

What they did offer patrons was an unlimited supply of peanuts in the shell, consumed in vast quantities along with equally vast quantities of beer. The peanuts were, of course, pristine but the shells were salted – meaning thirsts were inflamed.

By closing time, the shells were damn near ankle-deep throughout.

Happily, our storage woes were solved in a single stroke by Peter from Yoyo’s Milkbar, who provided us with two boxes of plastic containers that formerly housed Gum Balls.

I read somewhere a while ago that archaeologists examining ancient human remains can tell whether any given corpse is from the upper classes or the peasant class simply by amount of meat (in the former case) or pulses (in the latter) they have eaten.

We eat meat, but we’d like to think we keep the pulse count up very high.

Of course, it’s the norm that peasant/working class food traditions sometimes work their way up the, ahem, food chain.

Hence the ongoing use of puy lentils in some of your pricier restaurants.

Our minimal exposure to such food – and the use of lentils and other pulses therein – leaves us no doubt that for us such food is a bit flaky and unfulfilling when compared, say, to the recent foul meddammes I had at Al-Alamy.

Nor does it do the job, or have the same oomph, as the many pulse-based dishes we make at home.

We have red beans and rice, New Orleans style, made with a ham hock, ham bone, bacon bones or – at the very least – bacon fat.

We have southern-style backeyed peas the same way. Nice and smoky even without the porky bits!

We use red beans, too, in dal makhani with black lentils, channa dal and perfumed with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, garlic and chilli powder.

We have all sorts of other dals, using mung dal and many other varieties, most often with roasted cumin seeds, ginger, lemon juice, fresh green chillis and fistfuls of fresh coriander.

White beans – sometimes canned – go into minestrone and other thick soups and stews.

Ever since reading many years ago a very evocative passage in a crime book set in the Florida Everglades describing a simple lentil soup/stew heady with cumin, I have been trying to recreate the same.

With only limited success, it has to be said, as the more roasted ground cumin I use, the more bitter becomes the flavour. Generally speaking, Bennie likes the results more than his father.

But my most recent pulse project involved the simplest, and in many ways best, concoction of all, the result of a little ongoing whisper in the back of my mind banging on like a mantra: “Red lentil soup, red lentil soup, red lentil soup …”

Onion, garlic in olive oil, throw in a mashed can of good tomatoes, a cup of red lentils, water, salt, freshly ground pepper.

So simple, so very tasty – with a tangy flavour attained without the use of lemon juice – and so incredibly cheap.

We love our pulses!


Al-alamy

3 Comments

Al-alamy, 51 Waterfield St, Coburg. Phone: 9355 8866

Since making  a mental note of this intriguing, fantastic joint while checking out the adjoining Wang Wang Dumpling, a fair bit of time has elapsed, during which we’ve ascertained that Al-Alamy is something of a magic foodie hotspot.

And not just for those, bloggers and more, who love to blather on about food in the cyber world, either.

In the hour or so I am in-house for a Monday lunch, an endless stream of savvy regulars comes and goes – young mums with tots, workers in suits and shorts, grandparents with tots, larger family groups, singles such as my self, content to hunker down with their chosen lunches and a newspaper/magazine/book.

There are a number of reasons for the intense popularity of Al-Alamy.

The prices, for starters.

A plain zaatar pizza costs $1.50, dressed with onion and tomato $2.50.

The rest of the usual lineup of pies and pizzas range from $2.50 up to $4.

For about the same price, you can have one of the saj pizzas, in which saj bread is stuffed with fillings and then draped over a spherical heating plate. Different!

The dips platters cost $7.

Outside of the pay-if-you-want Lentil As Anything outlets, could be this is the cheapest of cheap eats in Melbourne.

But that, of course, would mean nowt if the food wasn’t as spectacular.

It is, well based on my magnificent foul meddammes ($7) anyway!

This perfect little spread is cheap, healthy and likely to set a template in our house for lazy don’t-feel-like-cooking summer days – vinegary pickles, olives, pita bread, dips/foul, what could be better?

The plate of pickled cucumbers slices and pink turnip, beautifully fresh tomato chunks and wrinkled, chewy olives is the perfect foil for its lunch companions.

It might be thought all the zing and tang would come from them, with the beans playing straight man, but that’s not the case. Yes, the beans (and a few chick peas) have some of the pasty blandness I expect and desire, but there’s an undertow of lemon in there, too.

What an incredible feed!

A few tables over, I see a couple of blokes tucking into a spread that has the same bits and pieces as mine, but with awarma (scrambled eggs with minced meat, $8.50) instead – and that looks so fine, as well.

My cafe latte is hot, strong, sensational and another bargain at $2.50.

Al-Alamy is one of the enlightened, sensible places that will feed you and sell you stuff to feed you and yours at home. Think Mediterranean Wholesalers, La Morenita or Little Saigon Market.

So obvious on one level, such genius on another – and a potent alternative to the supermarket for shopping, restaurant for eating out syndrome.

It’s been open for about five years, but feels a lot more homely and lived in than that – in a positive way!

I only wish it was closer to home – the traffic hereabouts is a mess just about all the time, and on my way across town I made the killer mistake of joining Sydney Rd WAY too early in the piece.

On the way home I do better by a mixture of Bell St, Moreland Rd and Pasco Vale Rd.

Before departing Al-Alamy, I buy some eggplant and beetroot dips to go, pita bread and half a dozen pieces of a wonderful sweetie that is part marshmellow, part nougat, each piece studded with a piece of Turkish delight.

I truly love this place – how can I not when it’s an establishment that has a head-scarfed female staff member placing my lunch on my table with a cheerful, “There you go, mate!”

Al Alamy on Urbanspoon

Yoyo’s Milkbar

28 Comments

48 Monash St, Sunshine. Phone: 9311 4382

Nothing, or very little, is quite as it seem at Yoyo’s Milkbar.

For starters, based on the window signage and that on the back of the owner’s wheels parked out front, I am expecting the joint to be called Kiwi Stop.

It’s not so.

I’m also expecting, to some extent at least and based on the same signage which includes the term “mutton bird sold here”, the owner to be a Kiwi, perhaps of Maori heritage, and like myself a long-time resident of Australia.

One look at the friendly demeanour of Mr Yoyo and my mind whispers “Mediterranean”.

And so it turns out to be.

It’s been until now a Saturday morning of pleasurable routine – early cricket game in Port Melbourne, stocking up the house with goodies from Sunshine Fresh Food Market.

A stop at Ambe Spices for red beans and frozen momo from Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar.

We’ve driven past Yoyo’s countless times coming to and fro from Sunshine, but this is the first time I’ve crossed the threshold.

I’m glad I do so, as I receive the same sort of smiling welcome I received during a similarly impromptu visit, to Pace Biscuits and Leo Pace.

Greek-born Peter – Mr Yoyo – is utterly and smilingly unfazed when I state my intention to ask a bunch pesky questions and take photographs.

“Pull up a seat,” he says in a most welcoming fashion.

Peter is a veteran confectionery man who has been working from these premises for five years, his previous Sunshine joint these days operating as his packing and distribution centre for sweets and treats bound for other retailers.

He’s not only not a Kiwi, but the Godzone part of this particular shop is just part of what he’s got going on, a facet of the business he introduced about five years ago in order to keep a wide level diversity going.

As he says: “Milkbars are dying out!”

It started when he visited Queensland to see his sister, who perhaps not so coincidentally has a Kiwi husband. He bought some boxes of Pinky bars home, they went good and he’s been at it ever since.

It’s not at all unusual to see New Zealand confectionery lines around Melbourne, at the likes of Snowballs, for example.

Nevertheless, I spy some familiar shapes and names from childhood that I can’t recall seeing before in my long-adopted home city and others now easily and widely had …

Into the latter category fall Whitaker’s Peanut Slabs, which in my long ago childhood were sold on milkbar counters unwrapped but still taste pretty good today – even if they seem a whole lot smaller.

“Everything’s smaller,” quips Peter.

I lay eyes on other familiar favourites – pineapple lumps, spearmint leaves, scooping a bag of the latter to take home.

Sour feijoas? Now that’s something new to me. I scoop up a bag of them, too, excited about discovering if they really do taste of the heady perfumed flavour of real feijoas.

Being raised in the deep south of the South Island many centuries ago – with all the social, cultural and foodie conservatism that went with it –  all I’d ever heard about muttonbirds was that they were “too oily, too greasy, too salty”, part of the country’s heritage that I never even came close to sampling.

Likewise, the only method I ever heard of for cooking them was boiling.

However, Peter tells me the mostly New Zealand customers who buy muttonbirds from him – two for $25 – not only boil them, but use them also for hangi purposes and even make pies with the birds.

This is some crazy stuff – a Greek-born sweets man filling me in on some of the more arcane details of my own Kiwi food heritage!

At home, it’s a pleasure to discover that while my feijoa lollies are tart rather than outright sour they do indeed taste of feijoas!

Peter and daughter Angelique.

La Parisienne Pates

2 Comments

290 Lygon St, Carlton. Phone: 9349 1852

Remember the Rainbow Warrior?

There was a time of several years in my life – and in the lives of just about every Kiwi around the world – when I’d sooner have gouged my eyes out than let anything French, liquid, solid or otherwise, pass my lips.

Thankfully, those days are long gone.

France is rehabilitated into the brotherhood of nations, even if it is no closer to sainthood than any of them.

Like several of its near neighbours and many others, France is up to its eyeballs in the wickedness of the arms industry.

The mock-solemn pronouncements of national leaders regarding the misbehaviour of tyrants in the Middle East and elsewhere deserve no more than snorts of derision.

From whence do the guns come?

Do they take us for fools? (Rhetorical question!)

And, of course, villains are far more likely to be of a transnational variety these days.

Corporations with tentacles in just about all countries who pay taxes in none.

Dangerous, stupid, ignorant ideas and the people who believe them also show complete disregard for nominal national boundaries.

And, no, I am not referring just to the usual terrorist bogey men! Christianist sharia law, anyone?

In any case, having briefly surveyed the surrounding Lygon St options and then engaging the staff in some pleasant chat, I am delighted to sit back, chill out and generally have a ball for an hour’s worth of lunch time at  La Parisienne Pates.

This is a splendid temple to all things French, with dazzling displays of lollie water, mustards, jams, pates, snags of many kinds, cheeses, sweeties and so on, including cassoulet that appears to be incredibly rich and fatty but a bit of a bargain at $25 a portion.

Most of the business seems to be of the take-out variety, though up the back there are a handful of marble tables where patrons can partake in the pleasures of a simple and affordable eat-in menu.

Being in a charcuterie, I do the smart thing and order the piggy platter of the same name.

Although never big consumers of cured meats, just lately we’ve backed away even more from having them around – been a long time since chorizo was a weekly event!

So it is with an easy heart and no guilt at all that I tuck into my lunch, which looks on the diminutive side for $16.

But as is so often the case, looks are deceiving – this is a filling repast and quite a bargain.

The OK baguette bread, of which I’m told there is plenty more should I require it, teams up with a handsome, juicy slab of pork and pistachio terrine. Wowee – it’s brilliant!

The other porky bits consist of a piece apiece of three different and very fine salamis and a rolled-up slice of ham.

The odd man out is a slice of pastrami, its coriander crust providing a flavour grenade.

Unmeaty variety is provided by a single chargrilled artichoke and a handful of sour and sublimely crunchy cornichons.

Such an unapologetically fatty meal renders the knob of butter surplus to requirements.

I eat much slower than is my usual habit, savouring every delicious mouthful.

Around me, other customers are getting stuck into one-man quiches and filled baguettes.

My cafe latte and the service are outstanding.

I leave with a caramelised onion tart and a small serve of swell-looking potato salad.

There’s heaps of good stuff to eat in and around Lygon St, but you’ve got to be smart about it – it’s all to easy to stumble into one of the many options that are of profound mediocrity.

In that context, La Parisienne Pates presents as an extremely handy and tranquil alternative. 

La Parisienne Pates on Urbanspoon

Small is beautiful …

2 Comments

At the weekend, Bennie and I attended a kids’ festival celebration at Taylors Lakes.

It was a nice affair, though the publicised age range of 5-12 seemed a little wide of the mark.

There was plenty going for littlies, but precious little for such an urbane hip kid as my son, let alone a dad more than capable of mixing with our smaller citizens.

Consequently, we found ourselves, after an hour or so, aboard the shuttle bus back to the Water Gardens train station, where we had parked our vehicle.

Before braving the sticky, over-heated car, we decided to check out Water Gardens Town Centre – Bennie’s interest arising from the fact many of his school mates mention it in passing, my own less enthusiastic interest lying in no more than the ability to be able to say “been there, done that”.

Past Max Brenner, Grill’d, Hog’s Breath Cafe we strolled and into the centre, which according to its website has 240 of “your favourite stores all located on the one level”.

Not that we were ever going to stick around to verify the number.

One brief stroll around the food court that was our entry point – Subway, KFC, Ali Baba, the usual suspects – was more than enough.

We didn’t expect to be unnerved or creeped-out, but we were.

Even Bennie, for whom the glittering lights and sounds and displays of hardcore retailing hold the same appeal as for any kid his age, was moved to comment: “It’s just like Highpoint – but bigger!”

The sheer immensity of the complex we fled made me think of E. F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered.

This book once seemed such an integral part of the wider hippie manifesto that I was surprised, on checking, to discover it was first published in 1973.

Still, I suspect its premise continues to hold up in a way that, for instance, The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich no longer does – let alone the ravings of  The Illuminatus! Trilogy or Carlos Castaneda!

Our Water Gardens experience also prompted me to revisit an eloquent column in The Age by Richard Glover entitled “Hearts of our towns ripped out in vicious mallings”.

In it he addresses the “malling” of the town of Mittagong in NSW and the mall phenomena in general.

This paragraph seems particularly pertinent:

The main competition that’s been brought to town is between shops serving rubbish food. For the first time, Mittagong locals have been afforded every Australian’s birthright – easy access to Michel’s Patisserie, Gloria Jean’s, Donut King and a KFC.

Though this one, too, bristles with righteous outrage:

As the British writer Mark Steel has pointed out, the Marxist left was always attacked for wanting to make the whole world look the same – the internationalist worker’s paradise. Actually, it’s capitalism that’s turned every town into a mirror image of the next.

Look, this is not simply a case of us being smug or snooty.

We fully understand that for many people in Australia and around the world, the ways they go about supplying themselves with life’s necessities are limited by events and circumstances way out of their control.

For many, many more, eating at all is not something ever to be taken for granted.

Nevertheless, we’ll use our recent mall misadventure to reinforce our appreciation for what we have.

Let us never get too glib about the many wonderful eateries we regularly frequent where the food is incredible, made with love and served at affordable prices only by grace of bloody hard work by those who provide it.

Let us cherish the family-owned enterprises in which the kids shoot up a helluva lot quicker than the prices … but nothing much else ever seems to change.

Let us salute wobbly tables, mis-matched chairs, dog-eared menus and places where English is a second language but smiles always the first.

Let’s never take for granted the market spreads like Sunshine Fresh Food Market or Little Saigon Market in Footscray.

Let’s appreciate the likes of Leo Pace and his Pace Biscuits, with which we’ve fallen in love – such good-quality chocolate and prices way below Brunetti’s!

Let’s give thanks for a business like Lemat Injera Bakery, which few may have cause to enter but which has been instrumental in deeply enriching our collective eating habits.

The bakeries, cafes, neighbourhood burger joints, human-friendly supermarkets, kebab shacks, specialist delis and butchers, and all the rest – we are thankful for them all.

What We Eat At Home: Part 1

6 Comments

Bum Hummers pickled onions – spicy (but not too much), piquant and sour. I wonder why they’re called that?

Before it became an eventuality, it was initially presumed Consider The Sauce would be a compendium of eatery reviews and other stuff we get up to when out and about … AND stuff we get up to in our kitchen.

That has most certainly not turned out to be the case.

One reason for that is that we are daunted from doing so because of the number of high-quality blogs and websites around who do cover cooking at home.

Another reason is we reckon there is likely very little interest “out there” for any sort of ongoing rundown regarding our limited, rotating selection of meals, be they stews, soups, dals, salads or whatever.

We love what we do and eat at home, but certainly don’t expect anyone else to find it interesting.

A final reason is that there’s no reason why a food blog has to do it all, so we don’t.

Nevertheless, just for fun, very much for our own entertainment and as a matter of record, here we start a look at our kitchen regulars that may – or may not – turn into a series.

Yes, there are hipper and more righteous yogurts around, but we go through heaps, so this is an affordable, dependable option for us. For breakfast, for dessert with strawberries or mango, for raita, for tzatsiki.

Kiwi Gold – one shared each morning for breakfast. Life’s too short for the bitterness of regulation kiwifruit!

Look, anyone can go out and buy salt-free and/or organic corn chips. Whether they’d want to actually eat them is another matter entirely. We find these have just enough salt for flavour purposes. We love em! The newly available Mission chips are a viable substitute, but – damn! – they’re hard on the jaw muscles!

Weetbix for him …

… muesli – rolled oats, crushed oats, white sultanas, roasted almonds – soaked in milk overnight for me.

Something new for us – Istra snags from The Village Store. There are cheaper options available, of course, but gosh these are good!

Also a relatively new thing for us – cookies and biscotti and nougat from Pace Biscuits.

Coffee – just about any reasonable quality vacuum-packed product will do me, especially if it’s on special.

We’re happy to pay for and experiment with really good, boutique virgin olive oils … but so often we find we have run out when the only viable option available is the reliable Cobram range from our local supermarket.

Bickford’s cordials … Bennie prefers lime juice, Kenny prefers bitter lemon – if he can find it!

Jam – we don’t use a lot, and find a good-quality local product does the job just as good as imports, either fancy and high-priced or of the budget variety.

ajitoya

2 Comments

82 Charles St, Seddon. Phone: 96871027

New review can be found here.

Adam and Maya have lived in Yarraville for five years, and for all of that time they’ve been thinking surely someone will get some Japanese action going in the neighbourhood in terms of eating out.

Nobody did … so they did!

They’ve been open for about a week when I visit and things are going good for them.

The concise yet astutely chosen Japanese grocery lines reflect Maya’s frustration about having to travel to Prahran, Moonee Ponds or Kyoto for the right products.

Adam tells me they were quite keen to do without selling the ubiquitous sushi rolls. But the fact they’re selling very briskly probably puts them in the category of things that simply can’t be avoided if you’re going into the Japanese eatery business.

For the time being,  they’re set up for providing quick, fine and affordable lunches and takeaway on a Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-7pm basis.

Adam tells me, though, that there’s space left in their musings and space on the premises, too, for a move towards more substantial dinner fare should things go well.

Adam’s background includes stints at Blue Train and Big Mouth while Maya has worked at Izakaya Den.

The ajitoya motto: “Does this train go to Osaka?” … that being something Adam was asked at least a gazillion times a day when he lived in Japan for three years.

Along with the rolls, the display cabinet holds four osozai, or salads. The soba noodles, coleslaw, salmon sashimi tataki and vegetables with sesame sauce dressing in shabu shabu style all look very lovely.

Being of robust appetite, I head straight for the menu section that details the bento meal combos.

They include karaage, agedashi tofu, sushi or a combination of three salads. With each comes rice, miso soup and a choice of one osozai, and mostly costing $16.

My miso soup is fine, of a good temperature and boasting a profusion of squishy tofu bits.

The coleslaw is everything I hope it will be, full of flavour from the sesame dressing and having that superb wilted crunchiness that only the Japanese and certain European cuisines seem capable of.

The fried chicken is little less tanned than is usually the case – maybe it was the first batch of the day? – but the coating is delicate and the chicken is just as juicy and flavoursome as I could want, beaut smeared with the dab of mayo on the side.

I suspect Adam and Maya are likely to find they were not alone in fervently wishing for a Japanese dining option in the neighbourhood, and certainly I’ll be returning very soon with Bennie – he’ll love the chook, but I reckon I’ll go for the clean and fresh salad combo.

Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog loves ajitoya, too, as you can discover by reading her review.

And check out the ajitoya Facebook page here.

Ajitoya on Urbanspoon

The Village Store – Yarraville

16 Comments

6 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 8375

Like its predecessor in these premises, it may still have the FoodWorks name and logo emblazoned on the exterior, but proprietor Marc Heine is adamant his new venture will be known as The Village Store.

The T-shirts worn by the staff agree with him.

Marc and his crew have only been open a week or so.

This is our first official visit, Bennie and I in this case joined once more by Rakha, who first joined us on blog duty for a visit to Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum.

We are sporting a modest mid-week shopping list and are interested to see how we fare.

The Village Shop in some ways initially seems to be captive to space restrictions, making it on some levels pretty much your typical small suburban supermarket – quite a broad range but not a lot of depth.

The fruit/vegetable and meat sections are both smaller the those of the neighbouring IGA, though the quality is high.

Marc is interested to learn that we did our fresh produce business, as per usual, down the road apiece at Dominic’s because we were specifically after Kiwi Gold kiwifruit and the smaller size of Fuiji apples, among other things.

If, as one poster at the Village Shop Facebook page pointed out, the new place has yet to command a “point of difference”, we are nevertheless appreciative of some of the speciality lines Marc stocks and even more pleased to somewhat unexpectedly find a couple of our utilitarian regulars on the shelves.

My suggestion is that if you have a beef or a suggestion, for sure take it up with the boss – he’s all ears, so to speak.

Just inside the front doors, on the left, is the Hausfrau Coffee Counter, signalling a collaborative effort between the Village Shop and the stalwart coffee joint/bakery around corner. It’s open from 7.30am to 12.30pm, but only for takeaways.

Then follow the bread, fruit/vegetable and meat sections – and even an ATM! We’re unaware as yet whether it’s a $2 or a $2.50 contraption.

The mainstream biscuit/cookie range leaves us underwhelmed so it’s a pleasure to lay eyes on the range of Italian and more speciality styles further back towards to deli counter.

That deli counter is modest in size but seems to cover most of the expected bases.

Best of all, is finding that the Village Shop stocks three essentials of our household – our favourite brand of corn chips and Black & Gold rolled oats and crushed oats.

We don’t tick off every item on our list, but manage to do so for more than I expect.

The wine section will have to wait until next time.

Bennie and Rakha thoroughly fail the mission I had set them – to each find the most crazy, whacky item they could.

We finish our shopping at Dominic’s before adjourning to Barkley Johnson for a well-earned coffee, hot chocolates and light-as-a-feather Greek-style yoyo’s.

Sharma’s Indian Sweet & Curry House

4 Comments

Sharma’s Indian Sweet & Curry House, 4/350 Taylors Rd, Taylors Lakes. Phone: 9356 4400

Sharma’s has been open for about a year and is situated in a small shopping centre a few blocks from Watergardens Town Centre.

Outside and in it superficially looks like a simple suburban Indian takeaway joint.

It doesn’t take too much of a closer look, though, to discover this is emphatically not the case.

Sharma’s is some serious Indian foodery, let me tell you.

They have so many bases covered, at prices significantly below those of more formal Indian places, that I am excited about the prospects of returning with my co-blogger and various friends in coming months.

I am saddened that Sharma’s is not just around the corner.

I am frustrated that today’s weekend solo outing so restricts my ability to graze the menu.

On the extensive menu they list dosas, Punjabi breakfast fare and chat snacks such as bhel puri.

And instead of a single goat dish as featured at so many Indian places, Sharma’s lists five.

There’s an Indo-Chinese section, meat curries are about the $13 mark, vegetable curries about $10 and the bread listing is long.

At the counter there are fine-looking displays of lusciously rich sweets ($18-24 a kilogram) and salty, crunchy spicy snacks know as namkeen ($16 a kilogram). I buy two $2 bags of the latter to take home – one heavy with puffed rice and peanuts, the other with crunchy noodles.

They even list six soups – and it’s with one of those that I start my lunch. I regret, though, ordering the lentil number ($4) when seeing and tasting how they do mushroom soup may’ve been far more interesting.

Consisting of dals mung, masur and channa, and turmeric, salt and mustard seeds, this is about as straitlaced as Indian food gets. It’s fine in its own plain way, but may be better appreciated as part of a thali or Indian vego feast.

Next up, I simply can’t resist Sharma’s version of the irresistible thali spread of puris, chick pea curry, yogurt and condiments that is here called chana bhatura – despite the nagging feeling that I should be pursuing more variety on behalf of Consider The Sauce and its readers.

Hey, it’s my lunch, OK, and I’ll try to do better next time …

Seriously, though, I don’t think the bar can go much higher on this dish than what I am served here – it’s magnificent in every way:

Puris hot, fresh and no more oily than is acceptable.

Yogurt creamy, lightly perfumed with cumin and a little on the sweet side.

Chick peas very good with a mild chilli kick.

Commercial piquant hot pickle, a little dab of spicy mint chutney and crunchy red onion bits.

And the price – $7.50!

It’s perfect!

Sharma's Indian Sweet & Curry House on Urbanspoon

Sunday morning at Vic Market

4 Comments

Two weisswursts – one with sinus-blasting hot English, the other with Dijon.

A pricey ($4) but very good cafe latte at a serious coffee joint.

A small bar of organic chocolate to take home.

I dimly remember a time when the Vic market was pretty much moribund on Sundays. A few stalls in the food hall open, and far from all of them open in the wide open acres of general merchandise and clothing.

It’s all go these days – almost everything open, but with a pleasing drop in the sometimes fraught ambiance and crowded scenes that are the market on Saturday mornings.

Sometimes it’s where I like to go – even with a house chockers with food and no special shopping needs pressing.

Outside the food areas, it’s fun to pick out the genuine products and bargains, shining like diamonds amid vast spaces of general all-round tackiness.

Loving Earth chocolate uses agave syrup instead of cane sugar and is described as “essentially uncooked, unprocessed chocolate in its pure rich essential form”.

Market Lane Coffee, adjacent the market food hall, is a Serious Coffee Establishment. I like my cafe latte and I like the passion of their endeavours.

There’s one at Prahran Market, too.

Pace Biscuits

15 Comments

202 Mt Alexander Rd, Flemington. Phone: 9376-8539

Unless you live, work or study in area, there seems precious little reason to linger – let alone stop for a while – anywhere on the Flemington end of Mt Alexander Rd.

Just a few blocks away, in the neighbourhood between Racecourse Rd and Mt Alexander Rd there are dozens of stunningly beautiful Victorian mansions and homes.

Yet this end of Mt Alexander Rd itself is far from salubrious.

There’s always a ceaseless stream of traffic, all of it busy going somewhere else.

Very, very happily a minor bingle sustained by my car the previous week necessitates a visit to the panelbeating operation just a few doors up the road, so for the first time ever I stop on this stretch of road and take the opportunity to look around.

So it is that I gaze up at the faded splendour of the Pace Biscuits exterior and step through the door …

Where I meet Leo Pace and get the rundown on a charming, fascinating and delicious slice of Melbourne food history.

Leo has been in the baking business for 37 years and at the Mt Alexander Rd premises since 1973.

He is Sicilian-born but was living in Rome when the idea of moving to Australia first took hold in the early ’60s.

His brother, already living down under, told him there was a demand for hairdressers, so maybe that was the way for Leo to go.

Leo started training for same in Italy and continued once in Melbourne.

He regales me with a very funny story of the robust encounter between his then rudimentary English and the 50-question exam he eventually had to confront.

Even funnier is his retelling of the excruciating experience of his hands-on test working with a living, breathing model with very, extremely straight hair. He was required to put in place curls using an iron – as one did in those days.

Becoming flustered and nervous, Leo pleaded illness and permission to return the next day to complete his curling examination.

Off he went – never to return!

He followed his brother’s lead and took up the baking game and has been at it ever since.

His brother, by the way, these days runs one of the famous Lygon St geletarias.

Pace Biscuits make all sorts of Italian cookies and cakes and a few other things besides, according to the company website.

While the name doesn’t strike a chord with me, I discover on the site that the company makes the yummy almond cake that we occasionally buy from the likes of Sims. The brand recognition may not be that high, but I reckon it’s a safe bet that just about everyone in Melbourne has bought one of Leo’s products at one time or another.

As with many other such operations, the shopfront sales constitute just a small part of Leo’s turnover, with most of his trade going to independent distributors, who in turn make sure the goodies get into supermarkets, continental delis and the like all over the city and country.  He is happy to keep what he calls the “the big operators” at arm’s length.

That said, the in-house prices are terrific – $3 for a 300g bag of Vanilla Choc Coated Cookies, for instance.

I leave with a bag of them, along with a package apiece of Almond Crumble and Tutti Frutti biscotti, the latter $1.50 for 250g!

As I gleefully discover when I return home, they’re all great – with the Almond Crumble turning out to be what most of us would call a chocolate-covered macaron, in this case with a very coconutty falvour and texture.

After a quick tour of the operation, I shake Leo’s flour-dusted hand and depart in the sure knowledge that Pace Biscuits is certain to become a regular stop for us.

La Morenita Latin Cuisine: New menu

4 Comments

 

67 Berkshire Rd, Sunshine North. Phone: 9311 2911

If La Morenita has fallen off our radar a little in terms of eating in since we first discovered the place, it remains a reliable regular for the odd coffee and sweetie and – even more so – take-out empanadas for the freezer and school/work lunch boxes.

We love those empanadas!

It was on a recent empanada run that we happily noticed that La Morenita’s in-house menu had grown with several new additions.

It’s time to check them out!

They include chorizo con huevos for a keenly priced $5, but we figure we’ll leave those for breakfast some time.

The rest of the new stuff is mostly South American sandwiches, but being robust of appetite we choose three of them to share.

We do a sort of reverse-Goldilocks, starting with the littlest, moving on to a bigger number and ending with the biggest.

First up is the arolloado ($5) of sliced pork, avocado and mayo.

It comes in a flatter roll than shown in the photo on the blackboard menu. The sliced pork seems to be more like some sort of pressed ham. Whatever the case, this is a tasty winner.

Next up … the chacarero ($5) of steak, cheese, tomato, mayo, greens beans and hot green chilli.

Now this different! As ever here the sliced beef is very tasty and nicely chewy. There’s a cool chilli undertow, but the best aspect is provided by the greens beans. They’re cooked but still have a little bite left in them, which delivers a most unsandwich-like texture. Another winner!

Rolling right along … we complete our increasingly enjoyable lunch with the chivito ($8), which comprises steak, bacon, ham, lettuce, tomato, tasty cheese, boiled egg, roast capsicum, black olives, onion mayo.

Wowee – what is this? A glorified steak sandwich? Well, yes, if you want to look at that way. It also bears comparison in terms of substance and price to the kind of ritzy burgers served up by Grill’d and Burger Edge.

As with the chacarero, though, there is something delectably different about it that makes it a sandwich to cherish.

And with the inclusion of olives, roast capsicum and cured meats, it strikes me as being a second cousin of the muffaletta, that famous sandwich of New Orleans.

I love it. Bennie likes it, too, but fastidiously picks out the egg and olive bits. Bad Bennie!

We love all our La Morenita sandwiches for their striking personalities.

Gooey with mayo, health food this is not; delicious it is.

With a couple of imported soft drinks the total damage is a fine $23.

Our earlier La Morenita post is here.

La Morenita Latin Cuisine on Urbanspoon

New Seddon supermarket …

Leave a comment

It’s open – see a rundown of our first visit here.

Hot on the heels of news concerning a new supermarket in Yarraville comes another Consider The Sauce scoop – a new supermarket in Seddon!

It’s going to be in the premises of what has been for our entire western sojourn a rather unlovely and profoundly unbusy furniture store – two doors along from Sourdough Kitchen and right next door to greenie household goods outfit LoveLuvo.

The lovely lady in LoveLuvo tells me that …

*As far as she’s aware the new business will have no franchise affiliation with any of the supermarket chains.

*It will have a Mediterranean feel with an accent on fresh produce.

*It harbours some ambition to be something like a smaller-scale version of La Manna at Essendon Airport, though presumably with a proper deli counter/section.

Bunnings sausage sizzle

5 Comments

Bunnings, 290-298 Millers Rd, Altona. Phone: 8331 5800

At just about high noon, as I depart the parking lot at the Altona branch of Bunnings, I am liberally adorned with the not unpleasant pong of Aroma de Sausage Sizzle.

This seems a small price to pay for the fun of watching the happy and hard-working crew from Seaholme Primary School going about the serious business of raising funds for their school via a Bunnings sausage sizzle.

Not to mention the scarfing of two delicious snags on bread, hold the onions, judicious dabs of tomato sauce and mustard.

The previous year, they’d raised $1200 and this year they’re looking to do significantly better.

I reckon their chances are looking pretty good.

There’s an ebb and flow to the sausage trade this morning, but it’s pretty intense, and there seems to be a rush hour, well, every 10 minutes or so.

Just about everyone who is done with their chores at Bunnings, and more than a few just starting, seems to stop by for snags for themselves and their families.

Bolstering the air of optimism among Team Seaholme is the fact that the following day is Fathers Day, so Bunnings is likely to be doing a roaring trade.

The school’s sausage sizzle co-ordinator, Suzanne Croft (that’s her in the pic above, with sunnies, third from right) fills me on the preparations required to get the show up and running.

The sausage sizzles are so popular and such an effective method of raising desperately needed money for all sorts of community groups that the waiting lists can often be longer than six months.

Bunnings supplies the cooking facilities and marquee, the community groups supply the rest.

Suzanne sourced the bread and sausages (at $4 a kilogram) from Aussie Farmers Direct. The local franchise holder is a school parent, but Suzanne tells me this sort of community engagement is what the company does anyhow.

She hit up various local supermarkets for vouchers she redeemed for canned soft drinks and condiments.

She estimates the cash outgoings for the school at about $50.

They’re selling snags for $2.50 and drinks for $1.50 – and it’s just about all profit.

These sausage sizzles are undoubtedly a good look and good business for Bunnings, but I reckon they’re pretty much a win-win situation all round – making a lot of people happy and doing good, too.

They’ve certainly become a colourful, notable part of the Australian weekend landscape.

Officeworks do them, too.

And as I head for Sunshine Fresh Food Market, I pass another in the forecourt of Tasman Market Fresh Meats in Brooklyn.

Sure seems to beat the drip-drip-drip and rather passive fundraising method of flogging sad-sack chocolate bears and other candy in workplaces!

***

Post-script:

Hi Kenny,

Just thought I’d drop you a line and let you know that on Saturday we made a profit of $1,553 from the Bunnings BBQ for our school – Seaholme Primary.

 I hope you enjoyed the sausage … we had many comments approving of them. It would be great if you could mention that Aussie Farmers Direct were the suppliers of those sausages.

 Cheers, Suzanne Croft.

Very appeeling …

5 Comments

Open-air fruit & veg operation, Little River/Avalon servo, Princes Hwy, Geelong-bound

The bad news is that price of bananas at Sunshine Fresh Food Market have gone up a couple of dollars since our recent discovery of the place.

They’re still, relatively speaking, cheap but still …

The good news is that if you’re prepared to take a jaunt down the Princes Hwy, or happening to be passing through on the way to the coast, you can grab an armful or three of what are surely the cheapest bananas in Victoria – and maybe even Australia.

Despite having gassed up countless times at the Avalon servo, I’ve never slowed long enough to have a gander at the outdoor fruit & veg enterprise, Mainly because I’m always headed for a long day or night of work and don’t want to leave fresh food in the car all day.

But the above sign, on the highway side about a kilometre before the servo exit, certainly turned my head.

And, going by the story written by my Geelong Advertiser colleague Alex Oates, it’s been turning heads all over, with Geelong locals, tourists and bakeries from all over Melbourne snapping them up.

The bananas are on the small side, as they all are these days, but at that price they’re almost affordable enough to once more become a regular grocery item.

Other than the bananas, I was a little surprised by the prices. They’re competitive, but not – as far as I could tell – super dooper cheap. Though a bundle of parsnips for $2 seemed a pretty good deal. Which begs the question: Why are they, too, so damn expensive?

A permanent structure is being erected for the servo greengrocers, and one is going up across the road for those Melbourne-bound as well.

Good move no doubt, but removes some of the charm, I reckon.

New Yarraville supermarket …

6 Comments

UPDATE 29/9: It’s open – read about our first visit here.

Goodbye sad-sack predecessor; hello swish new joint!

Fit-out now righteously underway, with the new boss taking a profoundly hands-on role – that’s him in the forefront!

He tells me they’ll be opening in about two weeks.

Ooohh, so exciting!

I may have even inveigled my way to an invite to the launch party.

Sunshine Fresh Food Market

5 Comments

25-27 Devonshire Rd, Sunshine. Phone: 9311 9897

Sunshine Fresh Food Market has been right there, hidden in plain sight the whole time we’ve been hanging out in Sunshine.

As I enter, the feeling and surroundings are so familiar I wonder just why it is we’ve never checked this place out before.

For this is our kind of establishment – a cross between a supermarket and fresh produce market along the same lines as Fresh On Young and the nearby Big Fields.

But is it any good?

The shopping list I am grasping in one hand, with about a dozen varied items scrawled upon it, should tell at least some of the tale.

Will SFFM be able to fill my basket with cinnamon and cardamoms for that night’s dal AND rolled oats and big, fat, juicy white sultanas (“white maggots”) for the next batch of muesli?

It’s been a while since I was out and about with camera in hand, so am a little nervous to begin with. I soon relax as it becomes apparent that no one – customers or staff – mind much or at all what I’m about.

The human rainbow array of races, genders, skin hues, sizes, shapes, ages and dress styles augurs well for a fun time.

The array of fresh herbs and leafy vegetables is not as swank as that found at Saigon Market in Footscray, but they all look in pretty fine nick. My bunch of good-looking coriander costs 99c.

My spice requirements? No problem …

I’ve not seen the Gold line of packaged spices before, but I like the size and price – they’re all $1.49. We do quite a lot of Indian cooking, but nevertheless I don’t like buying large lots of spices as they go stale and lose their zing. Small and often is generally our motto with all sorts of shopping.

White sultanas? Why certainly, sir, right this way …

I happily scoop about half a kilo into a plastic bag at $8.99 a kilo.

The place seems to be fully halal.

On the other hand, the deli counter does have Polish sausage, salami and mortadella – meaty things all normally brimming with porky bits.

To make sure and satisfy curiosity both, I make inquiries of the two young women behind the deli counter.

They assure me that all the above, and indeed all the cured and prepared meats, are halal and made with beef.

As I amble towards the adjoining seafood display, one of them tells me: “Even the fish are halal …”

What?!

As the realisation quickly dawns that I’ve been suckered, a burst of giggles issues forth from behind the counter.

Sheesh! Good one, ladies!

As I wander about, I begin to realise how good a find this place is – and cheap!

Bargains everywhere, with none of the pressing weekend hordes found at Saigon Market.

The pace is a few significant clicks short of frantic but the staff are friendly and helpful, and the vibe is relaxed.

Parking is plentiful.

I even go “off-list” for a few items – a handful of okra at $4.99 a kilo included.

Blimey, I even buy four bananas! They’re tiny specimens, but the price – $6.99 a kilo – is the cheapest I’ve seen this century. Well, that’s how it seems  …

How good is this – $24.43 for the lot, only falling down on the matter of rolled oats?

I get a whole lot of cool stuff to take home for about the price of a movie-drinks-popcorn combo, take much less time and have a lot more fun.