A bleak night in Brunswick

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

It’s a very odd few hours that end in sheer delight.

Good pal Nat Stockley and I have fronted for the launch of a new food truck, one that excites us both.

As he points out, whenever we tee up a foodie excursion, neither of us arrive at the appointed location early – but we are ALWAYS on time.

In this case, that is bad timing indeed.

The scene in a Brunswick back street is bleak.

It’s pissing down with rain and the dub music issuing forth from the venue is doing strange, unpleasant things to my internal organs.

Now look, I’m someone who has always fully embraced volume as a music asset – but this is just no good and no fun.

About three-quarters of an hour after the announced starting time, and with food seemingly no closer to appearing, we give it up and head for Sydney Road.

Our first stop, a perennially popular Lebanese joint, is chockers like I’ve never see it before – and will require a 15-minute wait for a table. If we’re lucky …

So we amble on up the Sydney Road hill and settle on Rezah.

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I’ve been here before, so know what I’m getting into. Nat has his reservations, but is soon won over.

We have a really, really fine meal in a restaurant that has now climbed onto the list of Melbourne places I most warmly regard.

Perhaps the love that unfolds is because of my previous visit. Or, more likely, the folks who run this joint are just extremely lovely people.

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Whatever … I soon start a dialogue with Firoz.

Firoz tells me the restaurant has been running for nine years and that he and wife Aasiah have lived in Australia for 16.

I’m even invited into the kitchen to see our dinner being prepared – so cool!

Nat and I, being of robust hungriness, go for the mixed kebab set menu that’ll cost us $20 each.

It’s terrific!

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The rudiments of our feast are the same as on my previous visit …

Wonderfully vinegary pickles of carrot, onion, cauliflower and even a plump, round chilli.

A minty chilli dip of only mild hotness and a stiff, tasty yogurt dip.

Chewy, hot Afghan naan – so different from the Indian variety.

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Our chicken one way and lamb two are fab, especially the lamb and chicken pieces – tender and extremely tasty, with that charcoal thing really going on.

The minced lamb sausage is nicely chewy but I find it a bit bitter in the garlic manner.

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The rice, festooned with currants and carrot strands, is every bit as good as that we love eating at this Westies winner.

It’s made, Firoz tells me, with stock made from long-simmered lamb bones and spices including two kinds of cardamom, cinnamon and cumin, as well as salt and pepper.

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In a testament to what kind of restaurant this is, Aasiah provides us with a complementary serve of aushak.

The green onion dumplings, smothered in yogurt and a pulse stew of some sort, are wonderful.

As we are wrapping things up, smiling Firoz several times places his hands over his heart to demonstrate his appreciation of our enjoyment of his family’s food and cooking.

He does so again when he makes clear his desire that we not pay for our dinner.

With gentle determination, we eventually persuade him that there’s no way we’re going to allow that to happen.

After a shaky start to our evening, Nat and I have had a fine old time.

And I even got to hear previously unheard – by me – details of my friend’s sordid rock ‘n’ roll past.

What do you reckon?

Would it be completely out of order for Consider The Sauce to arrange a CTS Feast in such a non-western suburb of Melbourne?

 

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RSVP: Account terminated

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As a result of my “don’t get stuck in a rut” story, a journo mate strongly suggested I register with RSVP.

She had plenty of mates who used it, she told me, and the only problem was a chronic lack of blokes.

Blokes like me? Ha – I found and find that very, very hard to believe.

But I did it anyway.

Interesting exercise – and bit of a creepy one, too.

A few nibbles here and there but nothing of substance.

A few weeks in, I compiled this list of quotes from those with whom RSVP had “matched” me:

“I can think of better things to do with my time than read a book.”

“I enjoy novels and have read Gone with the Wind and the sequel Scarlett and many more.”

“Does reading my Melways and emails count? Time poor for a good read.”

“Don’t read much but do enjoy reading my Woman’s Day, New Idea and Fashion Magazines.”

“Not much time to read novels, but I enjoy magazines.”

“Not a big country & western, jazz or classical fan.”

“Definitely no country music!”

Obviously, when compiling my profile I had not done a very good job of communicating about myself.

So I updated by inserting the following sentences:

“I don’t read women’s magazines.”

and …

“These tastes very much include country music. But only the real old-time wailing, bluesy downhome sounds of the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Not today’s ‘rock with hats’. Yuck!”

And then today, in one of the three “matches” that RSVP seems to automatically spit out every day, I got the following from a person who claimed to be very much in to “music, music, music”:

“Please no country and western.”

Oh dear … account terminated.

Pho Fever in Sunshine

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Like the wonderful and somewhat similar Rickshaw Run in Footscray, Pho Fever is a great enterprise – in this case, throwing a tasty spotlight on the Vietnamese food of Sunshine.

I didn’t make the previous year’s event, so am delighted to accept a complementary invitation from the Sunshine Business Association to attend in 2014.

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After being welcomed by Simon and Phong, it’s up the red carpet for tonight’s punters.

Oooh, funky glamour in Sunshine!

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As we enjoy a drink of iced coffee, I love chatting to CTS reader Loren (on the right) and her sister, Kate.

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And chatting, too, to my good pal Jacqui of Urban Ma and her hubby, Wes.

It’s been far too long between drinks, so to speak, for Jacqui and I … so a good thing it is that later on in the night, and from our respective homes, we tee up not just a lunch but a dinner, too!

After introductory words, the punters split into two groups to visit three different restaurants each.

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Our first stop in a CTS favourite – Pho Hien Saigon. (See most recent story here).

Cung explains how his restaurant’s pho is the result of experimenting with his father’s “too strong” recipe.

He talks, too, of the various condiments and how they are used.

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I have a simple pho of sliced chicken. It is superb, with the broth having that coveted “crisp and clean” thing going on.

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Then it’s across the road to Thuan An, where Julie and her team have set out a beautiful table featuring candles and pho spices and condiments.

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Here I switch to equally simply sliced beef – and it, too, is very good, the broth having a robust but not overpowering flavour.

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I really enjoy meeting and talking to fellow westies Le Yen, Peter, Tracey and Malcolm. That latter pair are actually from Woodend, but as always I am keen to cast the westies boundaries net wide!

Besides, Tracey is the brand new marquee manager for the Sunshine Business Association.

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Before departing, we are invited into the kitchen to gaze admiringly at the stockpots already hard at work for the next’s day’s brew.

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Then we’re off for a minute stroll to right next door and Nhi Nuong 2 Sister Restaurant, where we are greeted – and entertained – by the sisters, Yen and Elizabeth, themselves.

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Here the food and drink goes in another tack in the form of wonderfully chewy and delicious bo la lot (beef in vine leaves), spring rolls, freshly-squeezed sugarcane juice and Nhi Nuong’s signature tra moc tien tea with its subtle flavour of pandan.

Thanks for having me!

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Rickshaw Run 2014

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A whole weekend fuelled by Vietnamese iced coffee, freshly-squeezed sugarcane juice and love …

Last year, I volunteered for a couple of shifts pulling a rickshaws, Bennie joining me for one of them.

This year, we are up for way, way more.

As much as we can get, in fact.

Why?

Well, our continuing adventures with Consider The Sauce and projects such as The Westies: Dishes of Distinction and the CTS Feasts are only strengthening our commitment to and love for the west, its food and its people.

As well, this year the Rickshaw Run is being co-ordinated by our great pal and partner in the Westies, Lauren Wambach of Footscray Food Blog.

We’ve been eagerly anticipating this night and the days ahead for many weeks.

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Getting set for the first night.

Several months before RR14, Lauren had suggested I would be perfectly suited for the role of meeter-and-greeter at our guests’ first stop – D&K Live Fish for fresh oysters.

And so it was agreed.

Turning up at about 5pm after my regular (paying) gig, I take in the scene and then get busy familiarising myself with my job.

Lemons, napkins, time schedule, touching base with David of D&K, oysters … tick, tick, tick, tick tick!

Am I nervous?

Only a little – the simple truth is can’t wait to get into it.

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Maribyrnong mayor Grant Miles gives rickshaw pointers on opening night.

And then it’s on!

I handle my first group, and then another, and then another – and so the night unfolds sweetly and with intense pleasure.

I find I am getting a real kick out of sending our guests on their way with smiles all round.

I develop a spiel that takes in the western suburbs, their many marvels and their incredible food, with plugs for the Westies awards as I go.

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My first group at D&K make short work of their oysters.

I soon discover that in each group of eight, there are some who oyster and some who don’t.

I let them sort it out for themselves.

A week or so before the run, Lauren had tipped me that a group from my NZ hometown of Dunedin would be passing my way.

But that is meant to be on Sunday arvo.

So I am utterly gobsmacked by what happens halfway through Friday night.

There I am, settling into my “welcome to the Rickshaw Run” groove and happily entertaining a wonderful group of gorgeous gals.

Then, with the conversation being focused on oysters, one of them asks me: “Have you ever had Bluff oysters?”

Here’s how the conversation unfolds:

Me: “I’m Dunedin born and bred – of course I’ve had Bluff oysters!”

She: “So are we!”

Me: “What?!”

She: “We’re all from Dunedin!”

Blimey!

Then unfolds a fabulous conversation and gales of laughter.

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From the left, Pip Gardner, Nicole Hesson, Maureen Williams, Sheryl McCammon, Barbara Anderson, Kenny, Alison Glendining and Karen Dalzell.

All of these women are about the same age as me, and the degree of separation between them and myself in terms of connections between friends, family and business is way below six degrees.

Here’s more conversation with the same chick, Barbara, who asked me about Bluff oysters:

Barbara: “So King’s High School – did you know Geoff Anderson?”

Kenny: “Yep – he was pretty much in the same class as me all through high school. His old man was deputy principal. He was a cranky old bugger!”

Barbara: “I married his son!”

Cue more uproarious laughter …

(Confession: My somewhat jaundiced memory of my high school years paints all the King’s High School staff – including those who were young and female – as “cranky old buggers”!)

Thank you, beautiful Dunedinites – I loved meeting you. Where were you in my teenage years?

In the meantime, my newly teenaged son has been having a ball and making himself useful at the same time.

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He’s bonded with Duncan at Toh’s Bakery and is stepping right up in terms of serving the Rickhshaw Run guests banh khot as they listen to the fabulous drummers of Wadaiko Rinko Noriko Tadano.

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As Friday night winds down, we head to Sen for a feed with our similarly ecstatic fellow volunteers.

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Then it’s home for some well-deserved sleep before arising and doing it all over again.

Fronting on Friday, I had been tired from a hard day’s work and wondering how I was going to get through the Rickshaw Run night.

By the end of it, I’m outrageously high on natural love juices.

I struggle to bed down for the night – and I’m not alone.

Lauren texts me in the morning: “I took ages to go to sleep!”

I get there eventually, despite the racket emanating from our next door neighbours’ party and their hideous taste in music.

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It’s fabulous to return to the scene on Saturday morning and watch our wonderful event unfold as the Saturday Footscray street similarly comes to life.

I happily swing into action at the “oyster bar”.

By this time, I am embellishing my spiel with tales of events and people who have already passed my way.

As well, depending on the group, I am finding there is sometimes a lot of interest in food blogging, how it works and my own personal journey.

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Adding to the fun and colour are periodic episodes involving some Footscray locals who think they know a good thing when they see it.

On several occasions I am obliged to explain that, no, the oysters are not for general public consumption and are actually part of a paid, ticketed event!

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Rickshaw passengers Tony and Rosa are offered sweet treats from their own business!

With the lunch rush over, I am able to wander around a bit and take in the greater Rickshaw Run picture.

For a lucky few groups on Saturday afternoon, their journey includes the impromptu generosity of canoli, beignet and biscotti from Cavallaro’s.

Wonderful!

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Then it’s time for us to go on our own Rickshaw Run.

I had been somewhat reluctant about this, seeing as both of us have been having such a swell time in our volunteer roles.

But we’re food bloggers, too, and duty calls … and the truth is we are looking forward to a yummy break and seeing life from the other side of the rickshaw.

We have a real nice time with Kylie, Gee, Sean, Paula, Jenni and Temple.

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We are delighted to be hauled around by our good friend Jane.

As with all other Rickshaw Run punters, our adventure includes making our own rice paper rolls at Sen and hu tieu soup noodles at Phong Dinh.

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As the day’s oyster action winds down, Lauren summons me to Sapa Hills for the dinner shift.

There’s a bottleneck of rickshaws happening.

Sapa Hills is mad busy so there is only one table available for Rickshaw Run purposes.

A suitably assertive marshal is required.

To my surprise, I find I enjoy this role, too!

It’s simple – explain to the guests what the situation is and that they have precisely 20 minutes from the time they are seated to enjoy their bun cha ha noi, charcoal grilled pork with vermicelli and herbs.

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After I’ve done my best to make everyone involved in the flow of what is, after all, a glorified progressive dinner, things move along nicely.

Long and his crew do their bit by making sure the food is on the table pretty much as soon as their guests are seated.

There is one group, though, that is uncomfortable with being given instructions and perhaps even with the whole Rickshaw Run arrangement.

One member of this group gives me a “death stare” of epic proportions.

That’s OK, lady – I love you, too!

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Out on the street and during this logjam, I witness a truly heartwarming scene.

As four rickshaws and their passengers await their tasty time in Sapa Hills, I see all eight guests deeply engaged in conversation with their haulers, who include our friend Georgia.

No way could this be defined as “killing time”!

We give the volunteer meal session at Sen a miss and head for home once more, tired but very, very happy.

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Sunday dawns beautiful, sunny and just right for a whole lot more of the same.

Today the rickshaw haulers are to include a beefy, friendly bunch from the Footscray Rugby Union Club.

At the “oyster bar”, I have long since done away with asking people their names. But I do persist with finding out from whence does every individual customer come.

They come from all over Melbourne – and in terms of the west, I am surprised how many emanate from West Footscray and Williamstown.

They come from all over, actually. From New Zealand, of course, and quite a few from Britain.

But it is only with my second last group that I meet my first North Americans – and even they’re Aussie residents.

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Halfway through our final day, I find my own passion and enthusiasm completely unflagging.

But Bennie is starting to feel a little jaded and bored.

So I am grateful to Lauren’s hubby, Paul, for whipping him away for a few hours to be in another place with other faces.

Hot food at the Croatian Club, if you don’t mind!

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My expected post-oyster Sapa Hills duties fall through on account of there being another ultra-keen volunteer raring to go.

And it’s too early to wait around to enjoy the camaraderie of the Sen volunteer shebang.

So it’s over for us.

Damn.

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A week or so before Rickshaw Run 2014, I became involved in some undignified dickering over the placement of the CTS logo relative to others on the official event T-shirt.

The matter was easily resolved.

But I later reflected on the episode with dismay, horror and revulsion.

It was a glimpse of the sort of ego-driven ambition that sometimes made monsters of myself and my colleagues in our big-time newspaper days.

I don’t want to go down that road again.

So I am profoundly grateful to the Rickshaw Run and all who sailed upon her for a timely reminder of what it should be all about.

I loved every single minute of it and enjoyed meeting with and talking to so many wonderful people from all over the west, Melbourne, Australia and the world.

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The photographs below constitute by far the biggest ever pic spread attempted on Consider The Sauce.

They are published in chronological order as our one night and two days of the run unfolded.

As I actually had a job to do and there were simply so many people and events going on all the time, I unhappily dispensed with the idea of taking names for captions.

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This Sapa Hills vegetarian alternative – eggplant done in the same way as is frequently accorded chicken ribs and calamari – was the best dish of the weekend for me!

Disc, disc, disc …

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disc1

It looks as if Bennie’s day of playing team sport are over.

We gave it a good shot.

A couple of seasons of Aussie rules.

He liked it OK, but personally I found such a long game played on such big grounds a dead loss for such young kids.

It no doubt had something to do with “our” team being hammered at every outing, but most of each game seemed to find Bennie and teammates standing around doing nothing and looking extremely bored doing it.

He tried a desultory season or two of cricket. Definitely not his go.

Most recently, we really enjoyed two season with the Footscray Rugby Union Club.

Bennie’s team had some success, he scored some tries and laid on a few beaut tackles, and we all loved the other boys, their parents, the coaches and the club in general.

More to the point, the smaller teams and more tightly structured game meant every player was involved to a far greater degree.

But now the logistics of school travel to and from Hoppers Crossing seem to have doused what was never a brightly burning flame.

That’s OK.

But much to my delight, Bennie has embraced with something approaching fervour one of my favourite pursuits – frisbee tossing.

I bought our current mid-weight blue model when he was about five and tried to get him interested.

No go!

He’s slowly improved his throwing and catching skills in the past year, though, so that he’s almost a match for his dad.

I can’t remember a time when frisbee-ing hasn’t been part of my life.

Is there anything more simple, magical, beautiful, spiritual, uplifting, graceful and satisfying?

It’s simply a tremendous feeling when the various kinds of throws – hard and fast, floating and landing gently for instance – find their target seemingly almost without deliberation.

I recall a story about how North American Indians were introduced to tennis by the white man. According to this story, the native Americans immediately assumed tennis was a game of co-operation instead of being one of competition.

Frisbee is like that.

It’s also a supreme vehicle for chillaxing.

Frisbee is something I rank with what I think of as the “zen” sports – shooting, archery, bowls, snooker and billiards, curling and the like.

If you’re uptight or anxious in the slightest, you will suck big time.

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South India in Werribee

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padma7

Padma’s Kitchen, 96 Watton St, Werribee. Phone: 8742 6756

One of the great joys of moving to Melbourne so many years ago was discovering the joy of being able to walk a few blocks, or hop on a train or tram, then enter a restaurant and proceed to eat Indian food or food of related genres.

For me, that was all so sophisticated!

But it wasn’t too long after that I started reading and hearing the oft-repeated lament that if only Melbourne’s Indian restaurants served more than the rich, heavier food of north India.

I hesitate to call this demand an incessant clamour, but nevertheless there was obviously a desire shared by many for the lighter, runnier and more coconutty food styles of southern India.

Well, that revolution is truly upon us.

First it was dosas – and then came dosas in West Footscray.

These days, almost all the West Footscray eateries – and those in equally Indo-happy Werribee – offer some form of south Indian food on their menus.

And to that we say: “Yay!!!”

There is still plenty of scope and potential, we reckon, for potential restaurateurs to go even further in exploring regional Indian food, but for now we’re happy to enjoy Werribee’s very own dedicated south Indian restaurant.

The story behind Padma’s Kitchen is an intriguing and romantic one that involves two Indian restaurant dynasties.

Both Ayyappan Ramasubbu and Padma Balakrishnan are from restaurant backgrounds with groups of hotels across Tamilnadu, India, where the original Padma Hotel originated in Trichy.

The couple are planning a vego-only place for the CBD, but in the meantime are working hard on their new Werribee enterprise, helped by Padma’s brother, Sreeram, and a chef and three assistants extracted from the combined family business in India.

Ayyappan tells me the immigration aspects – including accommodation issues and potential family re-unifications – are among the trickiest he and his wife are facing.

Their restaurant is plain but sparkling. Perhaps a little more of a lived-in vibe will come with time.

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The Padma’s Kitchen website is one of the more functional we’ve come across – there’s some shockers out there!

So it’s easy to see what sorts of bases they have covered – heaps of dosas, idlis and vadas; regional curries; biryanis … and quite a lot more.

But we choose to visit on Wednesday night, when the restaurant offers a $23 buffet.

This costs more than had we rocked up on a regular night and ordered more modestly and strictly according to appetite requirements.

But we really appreciate the broad range of food the buffet offers us.

The $23 deal comes with the choice of plain or masala dosa, which are cooked to order.

Given the quantity and choice of food open to us, we found our plain dosas superfluous – we reckon ditching them and offering the buffet at, say, $20 would be a winning move.

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Here’s how our starters shape up:

Bennie and I each take a single bite of our idlis and immediately think: “This is the best idli I’ve ever had!”

Where idlis are frequently tough and doughy, these are petite, gently crisp on the outside and featherlight inside – excellent dunked in the accompanying sambar!

By contrast, the idli 65 is a on the plain side.

The chicken pakora we are really looking forward to – it’s OK but tastes a whole lot like any kind of pakora and not at all of chicken.

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And here’s how our buffets mains work out (clockwise from top):

Curd rice – steamed rice tossed with yogurt and seasoned with curry leaves – sounds so appealing, but I find the literally cold reality uappetising.

But I’m happy to admit that’s most likely down to my own expectations – same goes for the cabbage poriyal. I lust for an Indian cabbage dish that is zingy and crunchy, and more in the flash-fried east Asia styles – but like every cabbage serve I’ve ever had in Indian eateries, this seems to me limp and overcooked. As it is no doubt meant to be!

The mutton milagu curry is a winner – towards the upper limits of what could be called mild and featuring wonderfully tender meat free of fat and gristle in a home-style gravy peppered with peppercorns.

The mixed vegetable kurma is a treat, too, its tender beans, peas and carrot residing in a creamy coconut gravy.

Sambar rice – “steamed rice tossed with lentil curry” – is another good one that illustrates why folks like us are gravitating towards this lighter style of Indian food. This is the sort of thing we make at home!

Our meals are completed with biryani rice (sort of like a damp fried rice), lime pickle and a very good layered flat bread call parotta.

For dessert there’s kesari – and I love it!

As one who finds most Indian sweets simple too rich, this is the go – a semolina-based sweet treat that is subtle and laced with cashew nuts.

We’ve loved our first visit to Padma’s Kitchen, and have appreciated the zeal with which Ayyappan and Padma are going about their business and the eagerness with which they discussed their food, restaurant and stories.

 

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Take it where you find it …

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peace1

Bennie’s new school routine is requiring a new domestic routine from both of us.

A 6am alarm may not sound so different from a 7am alarm, but the effects have been profound.

For starters, we’re both fading away and heading for bed not too long after 9pm.

As well, as my own start times are much later – usually around 10am – I am finding myself with time on my hands at a peculiar time of the day, one during which returning to bed and sleep is unlikely.

Breakfast done and dusted, school/work lunches made and packed, big load of laundry done, dishes washed – and still an hour or so until it’s time to hit the road.

What to do?

Or perhaps the question should be: What not to do?

Perhaps with a little practice, I can learn how to use this space as a gift … an oasis of calm.

In a period of time that has proffered many satisfactions and happiness and love, but also what seems an equal measure of anxiety, fear, anger and loneliness, a few pages of a book and some gorgeous, uplifting music seem like a blessing.

Meeting Lorisse

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Dandenong World Fare, Dandenong Market

It’s all a bit confusing.

We’ve been Facebook friends for a while, hooking up there on the basis of our numerous friends and former colleagues.

We’ve had some fun chat and even a few more reflective and personal moments through messages.

I certainly didn’t have Lorisse – or anyone else for that matter – in mind when I posted about not getting stuck in a rut.

But several weeks back, I was gazing rather absentmindedly at my computer screen and Facebook, when I thought: “Now that’s someone I want to meet!”

I mean, what’s not to love – big heart, whacky sense of humor, Stephen King fan, ardent feminist and sports nut without out being humourlessly obsessive about either, fully paid-up member of the sub-editor sub-clan of the journalist fraternity …

Why leave it to chance and some possible future gathering of former staffers of the Sunday Herald Sun, where Lorisse worked for about four years starting – it seems – almost immediately after my own departure?

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My inquiry about meeting up for dinner was greeted with an unequivocal “Yes!” … but a nasty virus intervened and some rescheduling was done.

And then came the big announcement – Lorisse is departing in a matter of weeks for a gig in Abu Dhabi.

So … am I meeting a new friend or bidding farewell to an old one?

It feels like something of both, which seems about right.

Picking up my pal at her Frankston pad, we hit the road for the Dandenong World Fare and proceed to have a swell time – alternatively gobbing some pretty good food and yabbering away about our numerous mutual interests, as well as talking rather briefly with fabulous foodie Nat Stockley.

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival event is not as big and sprawling as I have been expecting.

But the stalls, numbering about 50 all up I reckon, are well laid out; getting around is easy and the crowd not too overwhelming.

Overall, the food available is quite diverse, seems of uniformly high quality and is all very affordable.

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We start with some crunchy bhel puri that could’ve been a bit more tangy.

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Then it’s on to some pretty good grilled chicken with salad from the Nepalese stall. The mildish chilli sauce is a winner and we wish there was more of it.

Despite the diversity, the one thing we are having difficulty spying is something spicy, something with a real heat hit.

So after a few more bits and pieces, we finish on a high note with Korean popcorn chicken from the Ghost Kitchen crew.

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It’s a true cliche – this is how KFC should be: Tender, slightly peppery, delicious.

The chilli sauce is what we’ve been craving – it’s homemade, hot and divine

We look at the dab they’ve supplied, we look at each other … and then I return to the Ghost Kitchen stall to have ALL our chook bits smothered in the fiery elixir.

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Alfrieda Street gem

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phuong1

Phuong Thao, 28 Alfrieda Street, St Albans. Phone: 9366 5686

We first wrote about a restaurant at these premises a long time ago when it was called Just Good Food.

Since then it’s also been branded as Quang Thao but now has settled on Phuong Thao.

I have no idea if there has been or is any continuity between back then and now in terms of management, staff, cooks and so on.

Though the giant roast-meat ovens out back are still very much evidence.

I like the fact that it’s roomy and not as packed as a handful of the other Alfrieda Street hot-spots.

I like, too, that every time I’ve arrived at the place there has been a reassuring number of locals and regulars who obviously know what they’re about when it comes to their tucker.

I like it that for third lunch in a many weeks I am greeted similarly.

Yes, I have grown to like this joint.

(It was here, too, by the way, that I sourced the chicken feet that made Bennie’s thankfully short-lived stay in Sunshine Hospital just that little bit more tasty …)

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You can order pho at Phuong Thao, but why would you when there is so much other fun stuff to ponder?

There’s Chinese roast meats, of course, but the heart of what’s available appears to be Vietnamese.

They have four-person banquets that go from $107 way up to $357 for the bells-and-whistles lobster version.

On a more prosaic level there’s soft shell crab with salted egg yolk (cua lot rang hot vit muoi, $18.50), coleslaws that are surely mammoth serves given they cost $25 a pop, rare cooked beef with lemon (bo tai chanh, $25), fish in clay pot with caramel (ca kho to, no price lised with the photo on the wall) and goat casserole (lau de, $35 and $55).

For my first couple of visits I have the same fine dish – hu tieu nam vang or rice noodle in Cambodian style (top photo, $10).

It’s a super soup blast.

In addition to the rudimentary green onions and coriander, there’s quite a lot julienned celery for extra and delightful crunch.

The prawns have good, strong and fresh flavour and the slices of pork are grand, though I could live without the gooey-centred small eggs.

The broth is hot and fine, and has floating in it minced pork and – the bowl’s primary flavour factor – granulated garlic.

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For today’s lunch I go more basic and familiar with tomato rice with marinated diced beef ($10).

As I have found elsewhere with this dish, looks can be deceiving – what appears to be a smallish serve is more than adequate. Something about cocooning the main players in a lettuce-leaf cup, I reckon.

The beef chunks are a little larger than is usual, beautifully tender and nicely crusty on the outside.

The rice seems more like just plain fried rice with negligible tomato factor and is a little on the dry side.

 

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Lives lived in public

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Through long residence in the west, a son who is progressing through the various school levels and Consider The Sauce, I appear to have surrounded myself with a pretty darn good network of family, friends, acquaintances, connections and various mixtures of all of the above.

And for that I am truly grateful.

We enjoy meeting and greeting friends and followers of CTS at our now regular Feasts, other foodie events, pre-arranged smaller, more private gatherings in restaurants or even spontaneous introductions on the streets of the west.

That figures – Bennie and I have hardly been shy about running photos of ourselves; and our T-shirts!

We enjoy these opportunities immensely.

But the truth is, other people’s homes – with a couple of exceptions – are a mystery to me. As is ours to them.

Perhaps this is one of the downsides of having such wonderfully easy access to outstanding cheap eats.

Why bother cooking for a crowd when you can just as easily – actually, much more easily – hit one of the great local noodle or curry joints?

This seems to be not just true of a quick feed on a regular week night when the fridge is empty, but also for myriad celebrations that would’ve once been held in family homes.

Although, in a broader context, there are far more profound forces and factors at play than those merely pertaining to our great westie eats circumstances.

It really is a different world.

Forget my very early days in Dunedin.

Even in my 20s and in Wellington, the pubs (and the music) would finish about 10pm or 11pm, and then it was usually off to somebody’s place for a party!

How often do regular folks hold parties these days?

OK, tick them off – elections, AFL Grand Final, Melbourne Cup, New Year’s Eve.

And that’s about it.

Even kids’ birthday parties are conducted out and about.

So perhaps in many cases it makes sense to think of the places where people sleep as living spaces or some such, rather than as homes.

I think there are both positives and negatives to what really is a seismic shift in how people in metropolitan settings live their lives.

But maybe it’s time to get back into the habit of having guests at our joint for great Indian thali meals – as we so often did at our previous abode.

That’s right – the one right next door!

Buy a BBQ and start a garden?

Hmmm, maybe not so much …

Not all food blogers are the same

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Larissa Dubecki is, as I’m sure almost all of you are aware, the No.1 restaurant reviewer for The Age.

In a comment piece she has let fly in spectacular manner about food bloggers, rampant compromising and basically all the general all-round sleaze she can fit into her magnificent rant.

Here are just a couple of the paragraphs:

“You see them on blogs the next day with really enthusiastic write-ups about how fabulous the venue, the food, the drinks and the owners are (always, mind you, with a little disclaimer at the bottom about how the writer attended as a non-paying guest – their integrity is scrupulous).

I’d love to go (I might even get my face in the social pages!) but, alas, there simply aren’t enough nights in the week. When everyone else is off having their fun, boring old me is off trying to slip into a restaurant unnoticed under a fake name so I might appraise it from an objective point of view to give consumers the best advice about where to spend their hard-earned. How about THAT for a shit sandwich.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Wow …

Actually, I agree with many of her points.

And if the “Melbourne food blogger who is well known for approaching newly opened restaurants for a feed in return for a ‘review'” she refers to is who I suspect, then I share that disdain.

But, oh dear, she’s taken such a broad-brush approach.

It’s simple – not all food bloggers are the same.

Consider The Sauce regularly covers restaurants in the west that are extremely unlikely to ever gain coverage in The Age.

As well, while the writer may grumble about the “shit sandwich” she is so unhappily forced to eat, she works for a commercial organisation that accepts advertising moolah from all and sundry and which no doubt makes all sorts of deals along the way.

The Age and Fairfax are in the marketplace.

Such a high-handed approach would only make perfect, irrefutable sense if Epicure and The Age Good Food Guide carried no advertising whatsoever.

But they do.

And while The Age may be scrupulous about always paying for meals it reviews, is it such a stretch to mention the “media passes” its sports writers utilise to gain non-paying access to AFL games and much, much more?

The Age is also listed as a “partner” on the website of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. The nature of that partnership is not disclosed, but naturally the newspaper can and does run heaps of stories about the festival.

As well, such a sweeping put down fails to acknowledge the good work that many of Melbourne’s food bloggers do.

This fact, by the way, is periodically acknowledged by The Age and its Epicure section themselves.

Indeed, they have helped Consider The Sauce itself on a number of occasions and I remain very grateful for that assistance – including two stories on the fabulous Westies: Dishes of Distinction!

Perhaps if I am to worry, the very real prospects of becoming an unemployed journalist should occupy my mind.

Truth is, though, the idea of becoming considered a flogger is much more troubling!

Sunshine Hospital

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Ongoing but nothing too scary …

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Son of a food blogger assesses supplied breakfast.

Food blogger dad makes urgent cafeteria run for bacon and egg sangers x 3.

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Just right!

Coffee quite good, Greek salad looks great.

Staff fantastic, other kids and parents cool as.

Could be a long day!

Dad makes Alfrieda St lunch run; returns with awesome, freshly cooked chicken feet.

Having already dispensed with his hospital lunch, Bennie makes short work of the chook bits.

They’re awesome!

UPDATE:

Bennie and I left Sunshine Hospital at about 5pm. He’d been transferred there by ambulance from Footscray just after midnight, after his mum had taken him there about 9pm on Friday night.

We left with prescriptions for antibiotics and ventolin, and an asthma plan. Even though this is probably not asthma.

It’s an outbreak of a bronchial condition we’ve been dealing with for quite a few years. The staff at Footscray were concerned enough, specifically about pneumonia, to transfer him to Sunshine.

We appreciate the care and the cautious approach that was taken.

I have told Bennie he’s old enough to assume some ownership of this, including medications and weather-suitable clothing.

There’s lots worse things to be visiting doctors and hospitals about. But this kind of thing can and does kill people.

I also found out that, at a pinch, I can publish a blog post – including photos – using just my phone!

We may even return – we liked the look of the chicken korma and chick pea and egg curry in the Sunshine Hospital cafeteria.

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Job insecurity as the new job security

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Today I went to work … for the simple reason I had a job to go to.

I will do the same on Monday and Tuesday.

And, hopefully, presumably, next Friday, too.

Given the ongoing ructions in the media in general and the newspaper lark in particular, this is not a situation I take for granted – even in a good week.

And this has not been a good week. (But perhaps it hasn’t been ruinously bad one either … read on, dear reader, read on …)

Once again, my colleagues and I have been tossed around by the winds of change.

In this case, it was announced on Thursday that the western suburbs affairs of the MMP group, for which I work, are to be merged with the western suburbs affairs of the Star group, which lives on the other side of the Ring Road from our Airport West HQ.

Details remain a little sketchy, but it seems the new set-up will be a completely separate entity from both parent companies.

Two things have surprised me about this:

1. It’s the first time I can recall in regards to similar announcements that sub-editors and production staff, of which I am one, have not been earmarked as pretty much the first to be given the boot.

2. My own reaction – which has bemused me with its sanguine outlook.

OK, in this case my own immediate work situation remains unaltered … for now.

But I wasn’t to know that when my boss called me on one of my days off to give me the news.

This rather ho-hum response couldn’t be more at odds with my feelings when faced with such potentially dire news on two previous occasions in recent years.

During both, I was teary and felt a wild, thoroughly unpleasant mixture of bleakness, anger and terror.

I know not if this equanimity is attributable to simply being too exhausted by anxiety and stress to summon up any sort of primal emotional response.

Or if it is simply down to a mature acceptance of facing the unknown and what I cannot change with whatever optimism I can summon.

Possibly, it is a combination of both.

For you, the citizens of the west, this will mean that in about three months you will get not three but two suburban papers stuffed into your mailboxes – providing they get delivered to your particular neighbourhood at all!

For myself and my colleagues, there is potential upsides to all this even as, as I have been led to believe, job losses in the MMP group alone number about 30.

Having three companies publishing community newspapers across the west has proven to be unsustainable.

So now it will be something of an old-fashioned head-to-head newspaper war between the Leader group of News Ltd and what I have been told will be called the Weekly Star publications.

It’s perhaps too easy and glib for journalists to proclaim suburban newspapers as the great hope for the future.

But I reckon they do provide some cause for optimism.

After a career mostly undertaken in metropolitan newspapers, I am thoroughly enjoying working on and with stories that have real meaning in local contexts.

Politics and sport are just two of the areas in which we seem to be providing a much-wanted service largely abandoned by the big guys.

I was told today that the circulation of the Herald Sun has slipped below 400,000 and that of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph below 300,000.

I am unsure of the accuracy of those figures, but still …

In the meantime, should Consider The Sauce continue to grow and develop in the next four years in the same manner it has for the past four, maybe by the time the whole newspaper mess goes down, I will be in a position to survive doing something I really, truly love.

PS: I wanted to use the word sanguineness … but I don’t think it IS a word!

Consider The Sauce Feast No.5: Indian Palette

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Indian Palette, 140 Victoria Street, Seddon. Phone: 9689 8776

NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT!

It’s on – the fifth Consider The Sauce Feast will held at Seddon gem Indian Palette on Friday, March 21, from 7pm.

But there are changes to the previous Feasts format of a table of 10 eating complementary food provided at no charge by a CTS-endorsed restaurant.

Regular readers will know that for some time I have been trying to find a way of continuing these fabulous events while at the same time deriving some modest income for my efforts.

Oddly, the resistance to having paid, ticketed Feasts has not come from you, our readers and followers.

As one friend put it to me a few weeks ago: “It’s not about free food – it’s about great food!”

We agree!

And now, with the lovely Francis and Sue from Indian Palette, I have found the right people and the right place to really up the CTS Feast tempo.

They immediately saw the advantages for them in joining with CTS in this event.

The income will be split 50/50 between CTS and Indian Palette, allowing Francis and Sue to cover at least some of their costs and affording CTS a reward for organisational and promotional efforts.

As well, without the natural limits set by providing free food, we three have been able to think bigger.

As we planned this Feast, we thought: “If not just 10 people, then how many – 15, 20, 25? Let’s make it 30!”

Yes, CTS will be taking over Indian Palette for the evening.

So with this Feast, the days of first-in first-served emails and a limit of two seats per applicant have come to an end, as has the need to monitor how many Feasts particular CTS friends are attending.

Nor need I fret about those who have been missing out despite repeatedly trying to get in!

All four Feasts so far have been filled up within an hour, so often it has been a matter of timing – good or bad – for the applicants.

Buy as many tickets as you want – whoever you may be!

But never fear, for this will still be a grand, most enjoyable and delicious event.

As we were discussing the menu, Francis told me how their restaurant started out offering authentic Indian food but had started catering for Western tastes.

I enthusiastically and adamantly assured him that any such compromises would be greeted with horror by the CTS clan and that the more authentic and hardcore the food he cooks for us, the happier everyone will be.

His eyes twinkled when I told him that.

And as you can see from the menu below, this CTS Feast will be a sooper dooper bargain even at an asking price of $20.

CTS Feast No.5: Indian Palette,

140 Victoria Street, Seddon. Phone: 9689 8776

Friday, March 21, from 7pm.

MENU

Entrees

Cut mirchi (fresh green chillies cut and dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried)

Lamp pepper fry (boneless lamb pieces cooked with pepper and Indian spices)

Mains

Gutti vanakaya kura (mini eggplant seasoned with ground nut, tamarind pulp, finished with South Indian spices)

Andhra kodikura (a favourite homestyle Southern Indian spicy chicken dish with garam masala, caramom, green chilli, cloves and cinnamon)

Dal fry (yellow split lentils cooked and fried with onions, ghee and coriander)

Other

Vegetable raitha

Butter naan

Saffron rice

Kachumbar salad (finely chopped onions, tomatoes, cucumbers mixed and tossed with lemon dressing)

Dessert

Badam kheer (ground almonds cooked in milk and sugar, flavoured with cardamom)

NOTE: Soft drinks, beer and wine are exclusive of the CTS Feast payment.

BOOK YOUR TICKET FOR CTS FEAST NO.5 HERE – $20 per ticket!

See earlier story here.

Yarraville Festival 2014

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We’re a bit ho-hum about this year’s Yarraville Festival.

Well actually, I am.

Bennie’s pumped.

So it’s a good thing I made him knuckle down yesterday by spending a couple of hours on his first high school project. Said project is going to take several more hours today for it to be completed to our mutual satisfaction.

While he’s been doing that, I’ve been doing blog work (with clothes) and house work (without).

By the time we’re just about ready to roll – going our separate ways to the festival for the first time – the pace outside our home has quickened considerably.

The parking in our street is gone and people are walking to the festival from blocks away.

Sauntering the two blocks to the festival is always a strange sensation.

Turn a corner and – blam! – I’m straight into the intensity of crowds, stalls, music, food aromas and, as always, dogs of all shapes and sizes.

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Perhaps because this the first festival to be held on a Sunday – normally a relatively quiet day in the village – this year’s fest seems even more crowded, even more thronged with people and eats commerce.

The food stalls are doing such hot trade that there are queues everywhere.

So I hit a snag – two of them actually.

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The first comes from a stall under the jurisdiction of the Maribyrnong Swifts Football Club – and it’s perfect in its simplicity.

A superb pork sausage – sourced, I am told, from Footscray Market – on a slice of very good white bread has me sighing with pleasure.

It’s the best food I’ve enjoyed at any Yarraville Festival in any year.

Further along Anderson St, in the mad car park, I hit snag No.2.

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This lamb number ($7) comes from Snagga’s Healthy Sausages and is also perfection – a loosely-filled sausage with top-class greenery.

At this point I run into my good pals Pastor Cecil and his wife Jane.

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I hang with them for about half and hour, enjoying some lively conversation that includes the saucy tale of their courtship and eventual marriage in Bundaberg.

And just for the record, I record once more the fact that my favourite clergyman has once again been seen out and about and in public wearing sandals with red socks.

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Moving on, I hook up with three new friends, two of whom happen to be of the junior human variety.

So it’s a pleasure to spend my remaining festival time in their company, experiencing second-hand the day through young eyes.

This includes a thrilling merry-go-round and faint-painting …

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… and even a remarkably placid but assuredly razor-toothed ferret.

Another notable feature of living so close to the village – I can hear the festival’s last hurrah of amplified music as I complete this post.

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eat.drink.westside – a fab preview

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Heaven forbid Bennie and I should ever, through sheer familiarity, take the riches that surround us for granted.

Heaven forbid, too, we should ever become blase and unappreciative of the marvellous opportunities continuing to be afforded us because we are, by now, well-established food bloggers.

A media/blogger “famil” to promote eat.drink.westside, for instance, is something we could easily blow off as it is to cover ground with which we are very familiar – in a general sense, if not specifically.

But front up we do – and have a brilliant time, seeing ‘Scray central through new eyes.

eat.drink.westside, part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, is a suite of really fine food events in and around Footscray presented by Maribyrnong City Council.

They include the famed and fabulous Rickshaw Run – for which volunteers are still being sought.

Other events include Dancing with the Tides, Malt Hops Yeast and Water, A Trio of Astrological Bites and Melbourne’s Fish Mongrels.

eat.drink.westside runs from February 28 to March 16, and further details can be discovered here.

Of course, much of the intense enjoyment of our several hours in Footscray is down to the food we eat and the people who make it that we meet along the way.

But we take much pleasure, too, from rubbing shoulders with a bunch of fellow food nuts, including a number of familiar faces and friends.

Among those we do the Footscray Boogie with are food scribe Cara Waters, Ros Grundy from Epicure, Sofia Levin of Poppet’s Window, awesome foodie-about-town Nat Stockley, Cindy and Michael from Where’s the Beef, Dan Kuseta of Milk Bar Mag, Charlene Macaulay of the Star newspaper, Benjamin Millar, my colleague at the Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay Weekly, Claire from Melbourne Gastronome, and last but far from least Lauren Wambach of Footscray Food Blog, who does a typically top-notch job of being our guide and host.

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We start at 1+1 Mandarin Dumpling Restaurant, where Amy and Julia take us through the rudiments of making dumplings.

The restaurant’s food is based around the Xinjiang province of northern China, which has a large Muslim population, so our dumplings will be of the lamb genre. For those among us of vegetarian bent, there is a filling of cabbage, mushrooms, fried tofu and spring onions.

Amy and Julia show us how to carefully roll out the dough balls of plain four and water so there is a lump in the middle for the filling to sit on.

Gloved and aproned, we have a grand time having a go. We’d all hate to be making enough to feed a hungry family, never mind a busy restaurant!

But we do surprisingly well – mostly the results look like dumplings of a suitably rustic (ugly) variety.

Later, we boil ours up as per the instructions. They hold together really well and taste amazing!

Next stop is a few doors’ up and a real treat – a visit to the legendary T. Cavallaro & Sons.

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Here I finally get to meet Tony Cavallaro (pictured with Sarina).

We try some amaretti and – oh my! – some of the joint’s heavenly and freshly-made canoli.

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Even better, Tony takes us out back where he shows how he makes his Sicilian specialty marzipan lambs using 100-year-old plaster casts.

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On our way to inhale the heady sights, sounds and smells of Little Saigon Market, our group ambles to the sugar cane juice/iced coffee stand for beverages of choice.

Then it’s onward and up Barkly Street for our final destination – Dinknesh (Lucy) Restaurant and Bar.

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Here, Mulu has prepared a magnificent Ethiopian feast – I mean, how ridiculously, enticingly superb does this look?

As is unlike the case with many other Ethiopian eateries hereabouts, Mulu makes her own injera, which joins rice, a typically zesty and simple African salad, three pulse stews, four meat dishes and two of vegetables.

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I could be flip and say I happily content myself with a non-meat platter.

But “content” would be a lie – this is simply fabulous Ethiopian tucker.

I particularly like it when African cooks meet beetroot.

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To complete our journey, Mulu prepares traditional Ethiopian coffee – and as Bennie turns teen in a matter of days, I allow him his first serious taste of this forbidden fruit.

It’s strong, hot and sweet.

I’m horrified to note that he lustily knocks it back like pro!

Thanks for having us – we always learn something new in the west!

And it’s always a pleasure doing so.

Random updates

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So Bennie’s got through his second week of high school.

This has initiated major and not unwelcome changes in our home.

And a growing sense of independence for both son and father.

He’s handling the public transport and all that goes with it with aplomb.

He has his own phone, albeit a basic prepaid model.

And I’m happy for him to beat me home or be there, as was the case this week, while I am out and about on CTS-related business.

With the following ground rules – do your homework, read, chillax, no open flames and no TV until dad gets home.

It’s all going really well … except for the daily start routine.

Our longstanding 7am alarm has given way, for transport reasons, to 6am.

And it’s doing my head in.

By noon, it already seems a very long day indeed! By late afternoon, I’m cactus. I hit the hay the same time as he.

Before we know it, I’ll have him cooking our meals on a regular basis.

At the parent/staff gathering at his new school this week, one of the teachers spoke briefly about the looming challenge of puberty – his not, mine.

The gist of it was empowerment and involvement.

Truth is, I already rely on him very much for support and counsel … so I think we’re going to be fine.

There have been recent occasions on which I wished I had followed his wise advice to the letter.

I’ve mentioned the idea of me starting a sort-of father-of-a-teenage son blog.

He most adamantly thinks this is not a good idea.

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One of the rarely mentioned downsides of us all – very much including myself these days – being connected, what with mobile devices and even our Foxtel remote control and so on: It’s impossible not to know, at any given time, exactly what time it IS.

So the days of “lost track of time” have entered the realms of nostalgia.

How sad!

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Consider The Sauce Feast No.5 will hopefully be unveiled in the coming week.

And there’ll be changes to the routine.

Bigger, better … but equally delicious and enjoyable.

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As a result of my “gotta get out a bit” story, a longtime journo pal convinced me – via Facebook messages – to sign up with RSVP.

I had and have massive misgivings about this

But I did it anyway.

It feels truly weird and uncomfortable.

More than 20 souls have checked out my profile and pics, though I remain mostly clueless as to who or how they may be on account of the site requires me to pay for most such information.

And I am, so far, resisting that.

But yesterday someone who has the right attitude and the right kind of interests expressed definite interest in meeting me.

Oddly, the face and the smile are kind-of familiar.

I think she may live local – as in REALLY local.

Oh my!

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This weekend?

A Footscray frolic, the Yarraville Festival and sleep.

Lots of sleep.

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Some time in the next week or so pleasure bombs will arrive.

Namely, what will no doubt be a stupendously mindblowing and lavish box set of 1951-1983 gospel from the Nashboro label and long overdue reacquaintance with Freddie King, Little Milton, Junior Parker and Jimmy Reed.

Oh boy!

Words with baggage

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Feedback and comments are oxygen for bloggers – even when they’re not exactly in “pat on the back” territory.

This assertive comment on matters sartorial in my recent “must not get stuck in a rut” story for instance:

“Good on you Kenny. I don’t mean to sound terrible but i think you need to find yourself as a man in the appearance department. Your sponge bob tshirts and the like are not really a look that women would be attracted to. You would look amazing in a casual shirt and nice pair of pants. At your age a man should look like a respectable gentleman, not like a teenager. As many would scorn what i have just said, i am being honest in my opinion. A woman wants a man who acts and dresses like a man, not a teenage hippy boy. All the best with finding a mate, im sure you will find the perfect one for you.”

Today’s post on the fab Famous Blue Raincoat burgers spurred comments from a friend about the following paragraphs:

“We spy a young mum tucking in to a parmagiana as her partner’s steak sits unmolested.

He’s walking their toddler.

He returns; they swap roles.

Been there, done that … many, many times!”

For her, the word “unmolested” is simply too emotionally charged to be used in such a way and in such a context – especially when the following paragraph mentions a toddler.

What do you think?

I am genuinely interested to know. 

Great burgers – $12 with chips

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Famous Blue Raincoat, 25 Vernon St, South Kingsville. Phone: 9391 8520

“You look familiar – you look like a blogger!”

Ahhh, our cover is blown.

Hardly surprising, given my anonymous moustache and the fact this likely to be our third post on this Kingsville institution.

FWIW, I doubt very much that our splendid burger meals are in any way compromised, good or bad, by the ‘Coat’s knowledge that Consider The Sauce is sitting in the back garden.

This is an impromptu visit – we like that.

There’s Greek salad makings in the fridge at home, but we’ve hit the road … lured by the restaurant Facebook reminder that this is $12 burger night.

On a pleasantly muggy, hazy summer’s night, the back garden is a wonderful place to await our dinners.

We spy a young mum tucking in to a parmagiana as her partner’s steak sits unmolested.

He’s walking their toddler.

He returns; they swap roles.

Been there, done that … many, many times!

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They may have been purchased at special burger-night discount price, but it’s interesting to note that our whole meal deals end in dollar terms where a food truck stand-alone burger begins.

And here we’ve got real cutlery and crockery, and a lovely setting in which to enjoy.

The chips are deeply tanned and very good. And there’s a good-sized serve of them on both our plates.

Between standard but good buns are some greenery, tomato, beetroot, bacon and tomato relish.

All good.

The meat looks less patty and more big, fat meatball.

But they squash down well to serve our burger purposes well.

They taste magnificent – beautifully seasoned and a little bit peppery.

Bennie, happily smiling, raves about our burgers all the way home.

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Different India in Seddon

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Indian Palette, 140 Victoria Street, Seddon. Phone: 9689 8776

Indian Palette has been open quite a while – Footscray Food Blog reviewed it in early 2011.

So given the zeal with which we’ve hastened to check out many other Indian eateries blooming across the inner west, we’ve taken our time in getting here.

Happily, our dinner visit coincides with the restaurant’s half-price deal on mains and entrees on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, shaving a significant amount off our bill.

The long room is cool and rather elegant, and we enjoy the service of Sue, Francis and their staff, while the wait times are just right for the kind of food we order – we go full-on vegetarian for this dinner.

And it’s very seldom indeed that Bennie and I sup at a dining establishment with real-deal napkins.

We like and appreciate that!

The longish menu has many staples such as butter and tandoori chicken, and the Indo-Chinese element seems less obvious than at other neighbouring Indian eateries, but we are delighted to find some really novel – for us – dishes to order.

So we do.

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Mirchi bajji ($7) – fresh green chillies dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried – is a good, if rather heated, starter for us.

The batter is pliable and a little chewy. I’m proud as can be that Bennie no longer hesitates for even a millisecond when confronted with such a dish.

My boy is hot!

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Bennie also dives with relish into the kachumbar salad ($6.50) of chopped onion, tomato, cucumber and carrot with lemon dressing.

The lovely and fresh vegetables have been dusted with a mix of chilli, turmeric, garam mssala, pepper and lemon.

I would have preferred some more tomato and lemon juice to moisten things up a bit.

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Gutti vankayakura ($13) is the most wonderfully distinctive Indian dish we’ve tried since the honey-infused number enjoyed on a memorable visit to Deer Park.

About three or maybe four baby eggplants, butterflied, reside in a smoky, nutty and chilli-studded sauce.

Nutty in fact, I subsequently discover – Francis tells me the sauce involves peanuts, cashews, tamarind, sesame seeds and coconut powder.

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Our dal, gongura pappu ($13), is lentils cooked with sorrel leaves and is just as refreshingly unusual for us dal lovers.

So thick is it with sorrel leaves that it’s actually more like a vegetable stew than a soupy dal.

It starts good for me, but further in I feel a little overwhelmed by the quantity of bitter leaves and rather wish we’d ordered something a little plainer from the five-dal lineup.

Both our mains and our entree have had high, for us, spice levels, so we fully expect to be singing the Johnny Cash tune the next day.

With plain rice ($3.50) and onion raita ($5.50), our bill comes to $47.50, which comes down to a good-value $37 once the mains-entree half-price deal is factored in.

We reckon Indian Palette should be more crowded than we generally observe to be the case.

Maybe we should line up a Consider The Sauce Feast here.

Stay tuned!

The Indian Palette website is here.

 

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