Pho Chu The

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Pho Chu The, 92 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 8265

What’s your pho ritual?

Mine invariably goes something like this …

1. Order medium (slice beef sliced chicken) when I know quite well small will do fine.

3. Sip soup for a bit.

4. Add a few slices of fresh chilli.

5. Sip more soup.

6. Empty chilli/lemon bowl and fill it with chilli sauce.

7. Sip more soup.

8. Add basil and bean sprouts to soup/noodles; mix well.

9. Eat, all the while dipping meat in chilli sauce and sipping soup.

10. Near the end, squeeze lemon juice over soup to freshen it up.

11. Finish.

12. Sigh happily.

My Pho Chu The experience differs from this near-rigid norm in several regards.

There’s no fresh chillies with my basil-and-sprouts. Instead, they’re provided in bulk in jars on each table. I’m not sure this is such a good idea, as these look a little tired. But they do – and I end up dosing my meal with more than usual just because I’m in the mood for heat.

There are stacks of those little bowls, though, and I fill one of them with chilli sauce AND hoisin sauce. I won’t try this again – it goes OK but I prefer the lean, clean chilli hit over the sweetly compromised blend of both sauces.

My beef is unusual – it’s sliced quite thickly. But it’s still the top-class lean beef you’d expect in any pho joint with pride, and I rather enjoy the experience of chomping on what seems like real steak.

My chicken is likewise more chunky than is usually the case. But that’s OK, too. It’s minus the gnarly bits that often accompany chicken that is not just sliced breast meat.

The broth is OK but lacks any sort of wow factor.

The basil is fresh, all class and plentiful.

And it’s all mine – one of the undoubted cool benefits of eating pho at a table for one.

My meal is a good, honest pho effort and I eat far more of it than I expect.

Pho Chu The is a lot more bright and cheerful than the exterior hints at.

It has one of the most succinct pho-joint menus I’ve ever seen.

But there are photos on the wall of beef stew and spring rolls.

There’s a photo, too, of a meal – “Rump Steak” – that looks like it may be a Viet version of steak ‘n’ eggs.

Steak, fried egg, tomatoes, basil, bread rolls and what appears to be a small bowl of mustard.

My efforts to discover the availability and price are thwarted by a too-high language barrier.

Still, I’m intrigued.

Pho Chu The on Urbanspoon

Gumbo Kitchen

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Gumbo Kitchen website

The good news is very good indeed.

Melbourne’s mobile Gumbo Kitchen has secured a licence for Maribyrnong and its first visit to the western suburbs is in mere weeks, as opposed to months.

These glad tidings are delivered to me by Jimmy and Kurt, who are manning the truck for a Sunday visit to Brunswick Bowls Club in Victoria St.

They promise to keep me up to date with the when and the where, so when I know, you’ll know … right here on Consider The Sauce.

This news may not have been greeted by myself with such delight before sampling their wares, such has been my mood in venturing out for a first taste of Gumbo Kitchen offerings.

That mood has been laden with very low expectations and even pessimism, fostered by a number of factors …

Many visits to New Orleans and South Louisiana, so standards are high.

The cooking at home – though not so much in recent years – of my own very fine gumbos.

Inevitable disappointment spread over many years when Melbourne restaurants tried to cook anything remotely New Orleans.

Cajun this, creole that, blackened whatever?

Bah!

As well, based on the behaviour of friends and some comments on Gumbo Kitchen on blogs and social media, I know very well that Australians generally just don’t understand gumbo.

It’s a soup, not a stew.

It’s meant to be runny.

Rice is just a small part of the experience – maybe 10 to 20 per cent; certainly no more than half a cup of rice per bowl of gumbo.

The rice is not a leading ingredient as with African, Asian or even Middle Eastern food.

This rice-heaping habit is NOT the fault of the Gumbo Kitchen crew, of course.

They nod their heads knowingly when I mention it and seem relieved to be serving someone who knows the ins and outs of New Orleans.

They respond to my pessimism by offering a small sample serve of their chicken and sausage gumbo.

No chicken or sausage, just soup and trinity vegetables – celery, onion, capsicum.

All doubts are removed with the first ecstatic mouthful.

This really IS a gumbo.

The flavour is deep and rich with the twinned magic of just-right seasoning and a flour-oil roux.

Fantastic!

Stupidly, foolishly, I ignore this most obvious of hints and order something else.

My beef debris po’ boy sandwich ($12) is the real deal, too.

It’s big, so the $12-15 prices range for the sandwiches is more than fair.

The handsome, fresh French bread and the dressing of lettuce, tomato and two crunchy halves of pickled cucumber are right on the money.

The beef, though, is a bit of dud.

Beef debris means  to me the bits that fall off a roast beef and continue cooking, becoming crunchy and delicious. Like the crispy bits from a Greek souvlaki rotisserie.

This meat is more like shredded beef. It’s very moist to the point of being sopping wet, and the whole thing falls apart – that’s a roast beef po’ boy for you, so no fault there.

But the meat seems to have little or no flavour, even after a liberal dosing with Crystal sauce.

Some of the deep-fried seafood I see folks around me tucking into looks much more the go.

That’s where I’ll heading next time, hopefully in the west and much closer to home.

Or even better, I’ll go the gumbo.

That’s if I don’t make one myself in the meantime.

It’s been a long time!

While I’ve been eating, the music has mainly been by the Rebirth Brass Band and their former leader, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins.

But when I get home, there’s only one New Orleans tune I wanna hear … by the great Smiley Lewis:

Gumbo Kitchen on Urbanspoon

Rubble & Riches Market in Laverton

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Rubble & Riches Market, 8-18 Leakes Rd, Laverton. Phone: 9369 6426

The shock of stumbling upon Rubble & Riches Market in Laverton is intense and pleasurable.

The reason?

Earlier in the day I’d been contemplating an entire day – indeed, an entire weekend – free and clear.

Extremely desirous was I of adventure, an outing, something good to eat and generally having my mind blown.

But not for the first time I was struck by a feeling that after more than a decade in the west, and after two years of full-on blogging activity that has entailed much exploration, I’d tapped our region out, that I’d been everywhere and done pretty much everything.

I even resorted to a slightly panicked perusal of Google maps in order to discover some shopping strip or industrial estate we had yet to examine.

As I say, this nagging feeling has visited previously.

It’s ridiculous. It’s misplaced. It always is.

So off I head, driving west on the freeway and taking the Kororoit Rd off ramp, with only some vague awareness of a Laverton market to steer me.

On Leakes Rd, I am happily stunned to see thousands of people and thousands of cars.

Many people are already departing, even though it’s just on noon, arms laden with market-bought goodies of many kinds.

I park in a vast, muddy parking lot and make my way to one of the market entrances, where I pay my $1 entry fee.

Yes, that’s correct – this is a market that charges an entry fee.

The market is pretty darn amazing – in the range of goods on sale, the diversity of the customers and the varied range of dogs, all of it underscored by amplified, slightly distorted Vietnamese Cheesy Pop Cover Versions such as Hank Williams’ Jambalaya.

The longer I spend in the west, the more I come to believe that Vietnamese Cheesy Pop Cover Versions are a lofty, refined and magical artform.

According to its website, the market has about 1400 stalls set on about 14 hectares, including two large pavilions.

Naturally, the market bears some resemblance to markets Victoria and Footscray.

But it’s also very, very different.

For Rubble & Riches also has elements that make it feel like part swap meet, part garage sale and part op shop.

There’s secondhand small machinery, furniture and brickabrack of a bewildering variety, along with all the usual clothing and knicknacks that are market staples.

There’s a quite nice range of food-to-eat-right-now stalls, but only a very small coverage of fruit and vegetables, and none at all that I could see of fresh meat, poultry or fish.

To my utter delight, there’s an outdoor Vietnamese eatery set up in an old bus and with patrons eating under adjacent canvas.

The food they’re eating looks fine – banh mi, rice and pork chop and even some interesting looking vegetarian soup noodle options.

But after checking out the entire site, I opt first up for a bratwurst from the grill shop set up by Radtke Catering, the intoxicating aromas from which permeate the hall in which it is situated.

As well as a range of snags, they’re cooking up ham and chicken steaks.

My sausage is sold to me under the name German bratwurst, but is quite different texture and even taste to those I am familiar with from the Vic Market. Still, at $5.50 it’s good.

Still, hungry I choose next a chorizo ($7) from a stall run by a lovely, smiling Chilean dude and his friendly staff (top photo).

I go with the green salsa, but soon discover it’s tame, so return for a big dollop of the its red sibling. It’s not red hot either, but spices things up nicely and leaves a tingle on my lips.

At this point, I say to myself: “Righto – enough of this health food stuff … fruit for the rest of the day!”

Accordingly, I purchase a baguette-shaped chocolate brioch loaf ($2.50) from Nikola, who is manning the Noisette baked goodies stall.

His company has been at the market for just three weeks and his verdict is still out on its merits.

On reflection, I have some doubts about the practical utility of this market.

I could never see us choosing it over our other favourites for stocking up the house with food or anything else.

But for a weekend visit of high entertainment value, it’s all class.

Having assumed that the folks who are collecting the $1 entry fee are doing so on behalf of some local community or sports group, I ask if that is the case as I am departing.

Not so, I’m, told – this is weekend work for them, they get paid and the fee dosh goes to the market operators.

The market, which I gather has been running for at least 15 years, is open from 7am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Bagel & Juice Cafe and Catering

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Bagel & Juice Cafe and Catering, 736 Mt Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds. Phone: 9375 2947

The signs on the wall above the coffee machine are eloquent and indicative.

“The deadline for complaints is yesterday,” reads one.

“Sarcasm – just one more service we offer here,” says the other.

As you’d expect, Bagel & Juice proprietor Leanne is a formidably tough, hard-as-nails broad.

Just kidding!

Actually, everything about this homely Moonee Ponds enterprise – the food, the welcome, the staff singing along to the music, the decor, the cooking aromas and more – is a lively, nurturing antidote to the hipper-than-thou coffee joints sprouting up like mushrooms across the west.

Hey, I can go with that flow quite happily, but Bagel & Juice is something else again.

Being no great fan of bagels, I’d previously ignored the place despite driving and even walking past it countless times.

But earlier in the day I’d set out with the determined purpose of finding somewhere interesting to eat on the stretch of Mt Alexander Rd between Kensington and Puckle St. That’s not as easy as it sounds.

As I discuss with Leanne after my lunch has been and done, it’s a weird stretch with a bit of a Jekyll & Hyde about it.

Heaps of traffic, a fish and chip joint that does sushi, lots of Asian places further up near Puckle St that seem generally pricier than we are used to in our other westie haunts, plenty of cafes and the like. And lots and lots of light industrial and commercial activity.

There’s not a lot of footpath traffic and many eats businesses are not open for lunch, though I suspect there’s a nightlife vibe generated by the pubs and clubs in the hours I am least likely to be in the neighbourhood.

Maybe all that accounts for why about 80 per cent of Leanne’s trade is found on the catering side of her business.

Actually, the word bagel in the name is a little misleading.

There’s plenty of them – brought in par-baked from Glicks and finished on the premises – but there’s a revolving cast of other goodies going as well, including these days what Leanne calls her “Winter Warmers”.

There’s soups and wraps and pastas and stews – the range from week to week varies, sometimes for no better reason than staff preferences.

“We don’t want to eat the same stuff all the time either!” says Leanne.

What draws me through the door is the list on sandwich board outside, and specifically its mention of “Beef or Moroccan stroganoff”.

I opt for the beef version – and it’s a doozy.

Made, Leanne informs me, by using beef, beef stock, mushrooms, onions, sour cream, wine, garlic, black pepper and lots of love, this is classic stroganoff territory.

Served over nice penne pasta, its richness is ameliorated in just right way by the wine. The beef could be a little more tender, but it’s the mushies, sour cream and pepper that dominate the flavour proceedings in a grand fashion.

It’s very good and I luxuriate in every mouthful.

It’s a good-sized serve, too, making the $10.95 price tag something of a bargain.

Bagel & Juice is open 8am-4pm five days a week.

Leanne has all sort of special deals and customer loyalty schemes going on.

And a big mouth.

There’s a nifty courtyard out back, too.

Who knows? Given the great vibe, I might even opt for a bagel next time around.

Bagel & Juice Cafe and Catering on Urbanspoon

Abbout Falafel House

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Abbout Falafel House, 465 Sydney Rd, Coburg. Phone: 9350 4343

My third visit to Abbout Falafel House.

My third visit unaccompanied.

My fervent desire to share this great place and its amazing food with one or more of my eats buddies is thwarted again.

Last time I was in this Coburg neighbourhood, I had brother Kurt with me, but Abbout’s was closed; we found a more than acceptable alternative anyway.

As for today … oh well, I have the foodie bits from a newspaper and a door-stopping American classic by John Sayles for company.

Meet “Hommos Belahma”.

The zingy hommos is topped with pan-fried lamb mince and pine nuts.

It’s incredible!

The slightly sweet grease of the lamb works like a perfect teammate with the mild astringency of the dip.

Unlike on my second visit here, when perfectly acceptable commercial pita bread was served, today I once more get the rotund house-made bread. It’s beaut – a bit thicker than its commercial cousins and emitting steam when punctured.

No olives today, but the sour, crunchy pickled cucumbers, pickled chillis, pickled turnip, tomato slices and a profusion of mint are all present.

My lunch is perfect, even if I am unable to even go close to finishing it.

It costs $8 and at a pinch could serve as a light lunch for two people..

As I am packing up to leave, the young Asian cat sitting at the next table says to me: “Don’t you do a food blog? Consider The Sauce, right?”

His name’s Sern.

And not only is he familiar with Consider The Sauce, he’s evidently studied it quite closely.

In fact, his presence in this particular Middle Eastern noshery is a direct result of the previous CTS review of Abbout Falafel House.

Sean is of Malaysian derivation, lives way, way on the other side of town and works in the northern suburbs.

But in his soul and in his tummy, he’s a westie at heart.

He’s familiar with almost all of Footscray’s African restaurants and is a big fan of Safari in Ascot Vale.

“The food in the west just seems to have more soul somehow,” he says.

He’s a fellow traveller, he’s a soul brother.

We swap phone numbers and email addresses with a view to a lunch arrangement the following week.

I ask him what other food blogs he likes: “Ms Baklover!”

Abbout Falafel House on Urbanspoon

Top 10 cooking smells

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

2. Chicken stock.

3. Pasta aglio, olio e peperoncino.

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

5. Just about any Indian food.

6. Our tomato sauce.

7. Poached quinces with cloves and cinnamon.

8. Bacon.

9. Frying onions.

10. Cookies/cakes.

Sweet Rice

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Sweet Rice, 102 Millers Rd, Altona North. Phone: 9315 3691

We arrive for our early and long-awaited dinner at Sweet Rice to find a rather dowdy cheap eats cafe.

The atmosphere seems a little gloomy, perhaps because the place is empty except for us and is barely warm on a very cold evening. And even though the lighting glare is soon to play havoc with photography.

Happily, by the time we are well into our meal the room has filled considerably, presenting a much more merry impression.

We are delighted about being joined by Consider The Sauce regular Keri – for the fine company, for the extra breadth three folks confer on the ordering process and the fact she gets into the swing of things by reminding me on a couple of occasions to take photos.

I get that way sometimes when I’m hungry and excited about eating in a new place!

The food here is cheap by any standards – by the standards of Thai restaurants in Melbourne, it seems exceptionally cheap.

Making us more excited is the fact there are quite a few novel items on the menu.

Some things we want to order – spicy lamb roti, beef noodle soup (whatever that is in a Thai context) – are unavailable.

The vegetable curry puffs ($4.50) are nice enough. But they’re so tiny that they seem almost all pastry and the filling gets lost in the jostle.

Keri’s no big of fish cakes; neither am I, to tell you the truth.

But these ($5.90), in my experience, are as good as we’ve had.

In this case, the rubbery effect is rather pleasing and it’s obvious by the internal greenery of sliced spring onion that these are house-generated.

The chicken satay skewers ($6.90) are ordered by command of Bennie; the rest of the team is happy to go along.

He loves them; his dad finds the chicken meat OK but a little fibrous.

But it’s the sauce that impresses – not so much peanutty, but with a lovely flavour that has a tang of curry about it.

Soft shell crab (top photo, $12.90) is Keri’s choice and it’s an outright winner.

The tiny crabs are tender and a little crunchy at the same time, while the batter and seasoning seem very much along the same lines of those found on salt-and-pepper calamari and chicken ribs in Malaysian joints.

Chu chee curry fish ($9.50) is, I’m later told, like a cross between a red curry and a panang curry.

Some rudimentary online sleuthing indicates that is very much the case, while I find one reference that maintains that it “is based on a red curry sauce and distinguished by the use of kaffir lime leaves and basil – it is a thick spicy sauce that is different from other Thai curries because of the texture“.

In any case, it’s delightful that in our dish the battered fish (we forget to forget to ask the species) is both crispy and covered in the gravy.

The accompanying vegetables are both vibrant of colour and lovely to eat.

Only problem is the parsimonious quantity of sauce.

When I’d earlier asked about the pork shank ($12.90), I’d been told it is deep fried.

We thought: Why not?

Still, we are surprised by the sheer size and imposing presence of our dish. Definitely a first for all of us!

The whole thing has been rubbed with five-spice and cinnamon.

There’s quite a lot of meat, which is pleasantly tasty and chewy in a nice way but a long way short of fall-off-the-bone tender.

The crackling is dry but actually quite tough, but yours truly gobbles a fair amount of it anyway.

Just as well there’s three of us – this dish would be ludicrous for a single diner and a bit on the over-the-top side for a couple. It’s made, we suggest, for group dining.

The presence of some unusual items on the Sweet Rice menu may have led us – oh, OK, me! – astray.

Had we stuck with a more orthodox order that included, say, a tangy salad, a regular curry and a vegetable-heavy vegetable wok dish, we may have enjoyed a more well-rounded dinner.

However, despite some oddities along the way, we’ve seen and tasted enough to reckon Sweet Rice may provide not only some of Melbourne’s cheapest Thai food but also some of its very best. There’s a home-cooked vibe here that defies any expectations of sauce-out-of-a-bottle.

The service was obliging and our food arrived in good time.

It’ll be interesting to see what the experts at krapow think about the place when they get around to it.

Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog is certainly a fan.

Thanks to Keri for being part of the team!

Sweet Rice on Urbanspoon

Yarraville sushi boat update

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Read our first official review HERE.

So Team CTS dropped into the new Yarraville Japanese restaurant today (Saturday, July 6) to get the latest lowdown.

We had another enjoyable chat with Lucy as we admired the fit-out, which is now complete.

No photos, as we don’t want to spoil the surprise – suffice to say it looks absolutely lovely!

Here’s what we learned:

Opening night for the restaurant (at 3 Anderson St) is scheduled to be Monday, July 16.

The phone number is 9787 8690.

The uninspired Little Tokyo name has been ditched for the much more distinctive and evocative Kawa-Sake Sushi Boat & Grill Bar. Kawa means “river”.

The restaurant will seat 46, including outdoor seating. The sushi boat bar will accommodate 16.

Lucy and her colleagues are in the midst of testing all dishes and nailing down every process and routine.

There’s a website – here – but not a lot of action going on there yet.

Cafe Global

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Cafe Global, 373 Sydney Rd, Brunswick.

Having satisfied our desire for new, fresh reading material, the Consider The Sauce lads find ourselves kicking around a part of Sydney Rd we didn’t expect to be anywhere near come lunchtime.

We’ve tried Mediterranean Wholesalers, open to the idea of cheapo pizza slices and cannoli, but we find all the tables taken.

So we wander on.

There’s no hurry, I tell Bennie, and this is Melbourne – let’s let the Food Spirits guide us.

And so it is that we contemplate what looks to be – from the outside – just another drab inner-city bakery.

We get a delightful surprise when we step through the door – here’s a grand room done out in rococo style with an emphasis on red and gold, a pizza oven at the far end providing a clue to the premises’ previous incarnation.

He looks at me. I grin. We nod to each other – this is it, this is lunch.

These days this is Turkish territory.

Cafe Global, we are told, has been open about four months and has family connections to another, famous Sydney Rd Turkish establishment.

As such, Cafe Global has the dips ‘n’ kebab landscape covered, but we like the look of the place for home-style food potential.

That’s all a moot point for us, as we’re immediately captivated by the gozleme production process being undertaken just inside the front door.

The pastry is being rolled out using the traditional wooden pole and stuffed with goodies on the one side, the completed parcels being cooked on the other.

There’s four fillings available.

We leave the four-cheese-and-mint and capsicum-eggplant-mushroom-onion-parsley for another day, going with the lamb-parsley and cheese-spinach for $6 a throw.

Our lunch is insanely good.

The pastry is rich and buttery and light. The fillings are flavoursome, their spare lightness and delicacy providing plenty of impact without heaviness.

The service is a bit muddled – we get no bread to go with the avocado dip we ordered. But it tastes like a regulation, if very smooth, guacamole anyway.

And we don’t receive the two stuffed vine leaves we requested.

But this is all to the good, so well fed and well pleased are we with our gozleme – so slim, so cheap, so delicious.

Gogo Sushi

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Gogo Sushi, 212 Swanston St, Melbourne. Phone: 9876 2130

Memory is a fickle, changeable thing, but I seem to recall there used to be more sushi train outfits scattered around Melbourne a decade and more ago.

These days, as far as I know, Gogo Sushi is the only one of its kind in or near the CBD.

Our immediate neighbourhood is about to undergo a significant change in that regard, with a Japanese outfit with “sushi boat” soon to open.

In the meantime, a visit to ACMI for a holiday movie presents us with an opportunity to visit what was once quite a regular for us.

Gogo Sushi is a popular place and high turnover means the food is invariably fresh.

In addition to the ever-moving feast before us, they make up rice bowls and the like if specifically ordered.

It’s good, honest fare, even if lacking some of the exquisite refinement and flavours found in more formal Japanese restaurants.

In its earlier days, Gogo Sushi used to price the sushi train items according to plate colour, with basics about $2 and more for flashier servings with more expensive seafood.

These days, all plates are $3.50 – which can make for an expensive meal if you let things get out of hand.

As it is, for this lunch we spend a touch over $30 in about 15 minutes flat. And we’re still hungry.

In that way, sushi boat meals are a bit like tapas – easy to spend big – except worse, as it’s all there all the time right in front of you.

There’s a couple of other things that really annoy me about Gogo Sushi and mean I’ll never have much love for the place – even if it’s a pleasure to take Bennie somewhere he so obviously delights in.

They don’t provide water.

And the non-Japanese soft drink options are restricted to those tiny bottles of Coke, lemonade and Fanta – for the same price, $3.50, as the sushi.

Ouch!

Still, we have a nice time during our over-too-soon lunch.

Bennie gets to practise his chopstick skills.

And he even opts for some sushi involving raw fish, instead of the more usual line-up of fried items.

That’s progress!

Gogo Sushi on Urbanspoon

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

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We’re not really bakers in our home.

Which is probably why this recipe has become a staple – although it’s been quite a while since we’ve knocked it together.

It’s a robust, idiot-proof recipe. There’s nothing too delicate, fussy or technical going on here – just throw some stuff in a bowl and bake.

The result, using our floppy non-stick cake “tin”, is maybe not so deep but is certainly dark. Rich, too.

I love its rather austere chocolatey-ness.

I think the added sweetness of icing would spoil a perfectly fine cake.

The high moisture content means a very runny batter – and presumably ensures a really moist product despite the unrefined nature of the recipe.

This recipe comes from a dandy and slim community cookbook from Canvastown, an area in the northern South Island province of Marlborough.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake was contributed by Shontell Green, to whom we are very thankful. I suspect this Shontell Green is the one and the same.

INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 cups unsifted flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 cup boiling water

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

METHOD

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Add all remaining ingredients, except boiling water, and beat together.

3. Add boiling water, stirring gently until a thin, consistent batter is formed.

4. Pour into greased cake tin.

5. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

6. Eat, enjoy.

Pier 35 Bar & Grill

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Pier 35 Bar & Grill, 263-329 Lorimer St, Port Melbourne. Phone: 9646 0606

It’s a bleak, bitterly cold Melbourne winter’s day, so undoubtedly there are better times for visiting Pier 35 Bar & Grill.

But as it turns out, for a school holiday treat that is affordable and tasty, our visit could hardly be bettered.

For starters, the place is nice and warm!

And it’s classy, with very good service, in a way that we don’t come across too often in our trawling of the western suburbs.

Even better, a big ship cruises past just as our meals arrive.

The waterfront vistas are unremittingly grim and industrial, but even that strikes us as a change of scenery worth savouring.

Pier 35’s menu gravitates towards Italian food and steaks, with an assortment of other influences.

Main courses generally hover between the mid-$20s and mid-$30s and up to the mixed grill for $48.

We, of course, hone right in on the lunch menu, which has a longish list of meals for $14 and is available seven days a week.

The line-up includes fish and chips, calamari salad with red capsicum pesto, and grilled lamb skewers with cabbage salad, pita bread and tzatziki.

The BLT is described as “classic” yet comes with chicken – which strikes me as something of a contradiction.

I’m unsurprised Bennie orders it anyway – it’s a winner, too.

The chips – there’s just enough of them – are crunchy and good.

The chicken looks like it should have that nifty charcoal flavour. Not so, says he, who describes it as “just chicken”.

The bacon, though, is of high quality, there’s lots of it and it’s well cooked.

Good, thick bread, mayo, lettuce, tomato – I put it to Bennie that this is probably the best BLT he’s ever had.

He doesn’t disagree.

Ordering seafood pasta from a $14 menu may seem like pure folly, so I’m very happy to announce that my seafood spaghetti “with market fresh seafood, garlic, white wine and basil” is fantastic.

As you’d expect, there’s only a modest amount of seafood – a couple of fat prawns, two smallish mussels, some salmon, a chunk of calamari, some other fish of a broken-up and indeterminate nature.

But it is indeed very fresh, as well as beautifully cooked and delicious.

But the best part is the pasta itself – it’s immersed in a sauce that is decadently, almost obscenely, oily; there’s garlic overkill that is nevertheless just right; fresh tomato bits add texture; and, best of all, all is imbued with a delightful wine flavour.

No basil to speak of, but I’m a long way from complaining – I love my lunch.

Pier 35 presents as a really cool option for western suburbanites looking for a change from injera, pho or curries.

And, based on our lovely budget meals, could be that the more formal side of the restaurant is worth a look, too.

Check out the full Pier 35 menu here.

Pier 35 Bar & Grill on Urbanspoon

Tandoori chicken

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One of the many pleasures of eating out for us is taking the opportunity to peruse copies of the immigrant community street press that may otherwise not come our way.

Far more often than not this means reading one or more of the many of the variety of rags that issue forth from the Indian community.

What an idiosyncratic treat they are … charmingly quirky use of English, heaps of Bollywood news and interviews, sport, politics, astrology, adverts seeking marriage partners and, of course, food stuff, recipes, ads for restaurants and producers that may be the next pot of gold.

It was while reading a copy of Indian Times – I forget exactly which Indian estebalishment was involved – that I came across this recipe for tandoori chicken.

I’d never thought of attempting this dish at home before, though we do eat it sometimes.

Bennie and I enjoy the affordable tandoori chook available from Classic Curry in Sunshine, for instance.

Though much like a lot of other people, I’m guessing, we wonder about the health aspects of that lurid colouring.

But why not give it a crack at home?

For starters, the skin-off chicken used has to be at least a little bit more righteous than the deep-fried and barbecue chicken of Filipino, Malaysian and Japanese derivation we often enjoy.

As well, I was beyond doubt that cooking this would fill our home with the most amazing aromas.

Instead of a whole chook, I used three marylands cut into leg and thigh pieces.

I pan-toasted the appropriate spices, though I didn’t get so gung ho as to do them separately.

I omitted the chilli powder, which no doubt accounts for the mild tan colouring.

Indeed, this ended up looking unlike any restaurant tandoori chook I’ve ever seen.

But I didn’t let that worry me – I was far more interested in the taste.

To that end, it tasted very fine – and Bennie dug it, too.

I used a single teaspoon of salt instead of the two stipulated in the Indian Times recipe.

Finally, I chose to not brush the pieces with oil before putting them in the oven, figuring the marinade and chicken fat combined would ensure a moist and juicy result.

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken cut into bits, or equivalent in chicken pieces, skin off.

1/2 cup plain yogurt

juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh garlic

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon green cardamom pods

1/4 teaspoon whole cloves

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

METHOD

1. Heat fry pan over low medium-heat. When hot, throw in cumin and coriander seeds and cardamom pods. Stir/shake frequently until the spices are tanned – but be careful not to burn them.

2. Throw roasted spices in mortar and pestle.

3. Crack open cardamom pods, return seeds to vessel and discard the pods.

4. Add peppercorns and cloves.

5. Hand grind spices until a fine powder is formed.

6. Throw in grated ginger and chopped garlic, and pound/grind with spices until a dryish paste is formed.

7. Add paste to a large bowl, add yogurt, lemon juice and salt, and mix until well blended.

8. Add chicken pieces to yogurt blend and ensure all the chook is well coated.

9. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least eight hours or overnight.

10. Pre-heat oven to 220-230C.

11. Shake off excess marinade from chicken pieces and place on a rack placed over a baking tray with a tin foil lining.

12. Cook, turning once, for about half an hour or until cooked.

13. Eat, enjoy.

We had our tandoori chicken in the simple style in which it is most often served in restaurants – with tomato and cucumber slices.

McKebab

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McKebab, 49 Gordon St, Footscray. Phone: 9317 9132

It’s not precisely, literally a hole in the wall, but McKebab has that sort of vibe about it.

This tiny kebab shop is situated next door to a convenience store, with both of them sitting on the ground floor of what is otherwise as a spectacularly ugly building.

Across the street is the pokies pub known as the Powell. Across Ballarat Rd, but still on Gordon St, is a foodie strip – a fish and chip shop, pizza place, Korean noodle hang, a couple of Indian eateries – that seems forever to be waiting for that magic spark.

It seems that often in the west, and no doubt elsewhere, businesses and their operators must make do with situations, locations and premises that are presented to them, that are affordable.

In this case, we suspect that what presents as a simple kebab joint has the capacity and knowledge to present more home-style cooking of the Turkish/Iraqi family that runs it.

We wish them well if that is the case.

Certainly we enjoy our brief visit and the friendly service we receive.

As we take one of the two tiny interior tables, we strike up a conversation with two blokes at the other who turn out to be senior players for the same rugby club for which Bennie plays. Like him, they too have enjoyed success earlier in the day.

It is the home-style dish that draws our eyes and impresses the most.

Well, impresses me the most anyway.

As we’re returning from a friend’s birthday party in Hoppers Crossing, Bennie is already quite full of party pies, sausage rolls, saveloys and chips, and would prefer to be at the burger place up the road anyway.

Later in the week, buddy!

We order “green beans, rice and salad” ($9.90), with the main protagonist turning out to be fasolea.

This is a fantastic, tangy dish of green beans tomato, capsicum, what is described to me as an “Arabic herb”, onion, garlic, salt and pepper.

The beans are, of course, very tender, but I find the whole thing delicious.

The tabouli is a tad too dry and onion-y for us, but the rice is fine.

The house-made turshi – pickled turnip – is fantastic, salty, bitter and crunchy.

We order as well four felafel balls, which are freshly made and good, with an inwardly greenish hue and a smooth, ungranulated texture.

The hummus that accompanies is smooth and mild of flavour and the bread – housemade, too – is like a cross between Lebanese pita and Turkish bread.

No doubt because of their location – students above, boozer across the road – the McKebab folks face heavy demand for your typical kebab options.

But we hope they hang in there with some more home-style fare.

Roxy Kebab Cafe

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Roxy Kebab Cafe, 801C Ballarat Rd, Deer Park. Phone: 8390 1007

Roxy Kebabs – doesn’t sound too flash, does it?

But as with so much else about western suburbs eating, looks are deceptive.

This Turkish establishment was noted down for close-to-immediate investigations after being spied while perusing the Deer Park shopping strip as part of Consider The Sauce’s visit to the new Chef Lagenda.

Seeing a bunch of fellows slurping up lamb shank soup has that sort of effect upon us.

School is out early for the start of the holiday break, so up the road we head, having a strong hunch the place will rise above its daggy name and humble exterior.

That it does.

Roxy Kebab Cafe is a small operation but all the expected goodies seem present and they’re doing wildfire trade on this Friday lunchtime.

Looks are deceptive, too, with the lamb shank soup, one of three – there’s also lentil and tripe varieties available.

The small serve ($6), with fresh Turkish bread, would do nicely as a light meal.

The opaque surface hides heaps of marvellously tender globs of shank meat and the broth flavour is strong.

Our soup is also rather fatty, so a hefty squeeze of the lemon segment provided is definitely required.

To make up the rest of our $20 lunch we go with the small meal of the day ($13), with both lamb and chicken from the spit, chilli and hummus dips and salad.

There’s no rice but it’s a goodly sized serve nevertheless.

In order of impressiveness …

The salad is beaut – a crispy, fresh concoction of lettuce, green, onions, cabbage, carrot, parsley and – quite probably – more.

It may seem odd to rate salady bits as prime in a visit to a kebab joint, but for us these sorts of places are as much about the trimmings and condiments as they are about the carnivorous aspects.

The chilli dip is tangy and crunchy and fab – and it’s of only mild disposition, meaning we can (just about) slather it on the bread like a normal dip.

The lamb is tasty and tender. The chicken is a bit bland for me, but then I generally find it’s always so.

The hummus is fresh, creamy and smooth but seems almost shockingly devoid of flavour.

Still, all up this has been a most satisfactory kebab shop lunch.

Stepping outside, we step right next door for a fun visit to Hollywood Costumes.

Even though it’s clear we’re not in there as paying customers, the staff could not be more friendly and welcoming.

Bennie checks out the long rank of Superhero Costumes with an expert eye, though we also note with approval the presence of Ghostbusters and Spongebob garb.

We make a diversion on the way back to the car for a stupendously generous $2.90 cup of berry gelati and a cafe latte and hot chocolate at Pane e Latte, just behind the shopping strip, thus rounding out a most excellent Deer Park adventure.

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Vy Vy

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Vy Vy, 318 Racecourse Rd, Flemington. Phone: 9372 1426

THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED.

The exterior signage says: “Vietnamese, Chinese & Malaysian Cuisine.”

But the internal furniture and fittings give the game – if that’s what it is – away.

This is a Flemington favourite with a Chinese lineage that attempts dishes from other Asian traditions.

And mostly, we’ve found over the years, it does an excellent job – so much so that for us and many regulars, it is preferable for Malaysian food to its far more lauded neighbours around the corner in Pin Oak Crescent or just up the road, or even right next door.

Oddly, for this mid-week dinner, that proves not to be the case – what we get are good plates and bowls that are nonetheless full of food that is only loosely Malaysian as filtered through a Chinese kitchen.

But tonight we care not a whit for authenticity.

It’s cold, we’re hungry, football practice has been long of duration.

Even more auspiciously, just as we’re about to order, a supreme example of humanity enters the restaurant to hand me the $20 note I’d left dangling out of the ATM across the road.

We salute you, Sir!

Our shared lobak ($5) has none of the usual vegetable texture from the likes of carrot.

This is just about all pork of a sublimely chewy kind and, as always, we love the crunchy, crispy tofu outer.

This is a very meaty entree!

Bennie is absolutely adamant – in the face of advice based on infinite wisdom from his dad – that he wants to order the satay fried beef noodles.

Thankfully, our bubbly waitress, Tiffany, talks him out of such a course on the basis of high levels of spiciness.

Instead, he gets hokkien fried noodles ($11.50), which goes down a treat – its array protein keeps the lad happy, while the profusion of greenery mollifies his father.

He rates it a high 8.5 out of 10, but it’s very much a toned-down version of the Malaysian hokkien mee – less dark, less lusty, just less.

Much the same could be said of my beef curry with noodles ($10).

The menu describes the curry as “rendang”, and such has been the case on previous visits.

But not this time – there’s no coconut to speak of and the gravy is soup, and a pretty runny one at that.

The meat is good, but a little on the fatty/gristly side. And I wish I’d gotten hokkien noodles instead of the rather dreary egg noodles I get.

But – surprisingly – the dish as a whole kicks goals.

I love the high chilli levels and plentiful amount of bok choy.

Certainly a curry bowl in which the sum is greater than the parts.

We’ve been here too often to be even slightly deterred by an oddly “un”-Malaysian experience.

As she shows us before and after photographs of her splendid work as a make-up artist, Tiffany tells us that the family business was one of the very first Racecourse Rd eateries.

They’ve been in the current premises for more than 10 years and before that inhabited the building a couple of doors down that still houses Chop Chop and a few others.

Besides, sometimes there’s an awful lot to be said for formica, tiles, smiles and equine artwork.

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Alchemy with tinned tomatoes

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Our basic tomato sauce

We can tell you exactly how much of this stuff we have eaten over the years.

It is precisely the mid-point between lots and lots on the one hand and, on the other, heaps and heaps.

Seriously, we really have tucked away plenty, though that has been less so in recent months as our blender broke and has yet to be replaced.

However, a few weeks back – when we were having a dinner that included a rare, for us, commercial bolognese sauce – I opined that it was actually pretty good.

“Not as good as yours,” Bennie said.

“What, you mean my tomato sauce?” asked I.

“Yeah,” said Bennie.

Dead chuffed I was, but it also was a signal that it was time to fire up, blender or not.

Truth is, just chopping or otherwise smashing the tomatoes is fine.

We prefer our tomato sauce to be a sort of blank canvas, so we keep seasoning to a minimum.

So no garlic, no basil or other herbs, no meat.

We add all those and more – bacon, chorizo, polish sausage, Italian sausage meat, tuna, depending – when we unfreeze and use the individual portions.

As well as with pasta, this goes good with roast chook, fish, snags & mash and so on.

Makes the house smell sweet, too!

The vegetable quantities are negotiable, though if you use too many you’ll get a vegie stew rather than a sauce.

INGREDIENTS

Celery

Onion

Carrot

6-8 cans whole or chopped good-quality tomatoes

Olive oil

Bay leaf

Salt (about a teaspoon)

Pepper

Sugar

METHOD

1. Without being too fastidious about it, chop the carrot, onion and celery as finely as you can.

2. Cook vegetables over medium-high heat with plenty of olive oil.

3. As the vegetables cook, whizz or otherwise smash the tomatoes.

4. When the vegetables are well cooked and wilted, add tomatoes, keeping the heat the same.

5. As the sauce comes to the boil, add salt, sugar, bay leaf and pepper.

6. Cook for several hours at the lowest possible simmer – at least until the oil rises to the top.

7. Eat, freeze, enjoy.

It’s really cool how the tinned tomatoes and vegetables you have at the start become something entirely different after a couple of hours.

Chef Lagenda

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Chef Lagenda, Shop 9/10, 835A Ballarat Rd, Deer Park. Phone: 8358 5389

Why on earth order a vegetarian laksa?

Well, I can think of a couple of really good reasons, actually.

For one thing, to get more than just the single piece of eggplant that customarily accompanies laksa soup/noodles of the chicken or seafood varieties.

For another, sometimes – and just like most carnivores of various kinds I know – I just feel like vegetables.

My Chef Lagenda vegetarian laksa ($8.90) scores highly in both regards.

My TWO pieces of eggplant are magnificent – larger than is usually the case, slippery, tender, tasty and with a luscious smokiness.

The laksa broth is very creamy and of only mild spiciness, but has fine depth of house-made flavour.

There’s vegetable galore – bok choy, broccoli, bean sprouts, along with plenty of chewy leather-skinned cubes of tofu sopping with gravy juices.

This Chef Lagenda is, of course, a sister restaurant for the establishment of the same name in Flemington, the one that often seems as famous for its symbiotic and/or competitive relationship with its neighbour, Laksa King, as it is for its food.

The Deer Park joint’s menu is mostly the same as the one in Flemo, but there seems to be a whole lot more room here – perhaps because it’s a single room, as opposed to the Crooked House dynamics in Flemington.

When I visit for lunch it’s only the second day of operation.

The manager, Francis, tells me that while this lunchtime is slow, on opening night they were 70 per cent full without any advertising at all.

Meanwhile, whatever tricks I’d played on my mind – if not my digestive system – by ordering a non-meat dish are soon brought undone. 

For by this time, unsurprisingly, Francis and her enthusiastic staff have twigged that I am writer, reviewer, blogger or some other sort of busybody.

So I am presented with a complementary sampler plate of the house-made roast meats.

Now, I may be able to summon a sufficiently straight to face to claim that had I been asked if I wanted this freebie, I would’ve replied in the negative.

But when the goodies are already right in front of me?

No way, Jose!

And I’m ever so glad.

Roast duck, roast pork, crackling pork – all really good, smoky, salty, tender. Better, in fact, than most places that specialise in such meaty goodies.

I gobble it all up yet am unable to finish my huge serve of laksa.

And FWIW, I doubt very much that anything I am served is in any way different from what is served to any other customer.

I see no reason that Chef Lagenda shouldn’t be riotously successful.

For starters, as far as I’m aware it’s the only Malaysian restaurant for 10km in any direction – maybe even 20km.

For another, and based on what I have for lunch, the place comes with the already well-established Chef Lagenda reputation for consistency and quality.

Locals are no doubt wildly happy about this opening.

As for the rest of us, it’s worth the trip.

For the time being, and very much so when compared to Flemington, the car parking is a breeze.

Before hunkering down for lunch, I’d strolled the entire Deer Park strip and was gratified by the potential riches I had noted – including a couple of classy kebab joints, one with a killer-looking lamb shank soup and chilli dip; an interesting and cheap Viet/Chinese  off the main strip; and a fine-looking deli. 

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Ras Dashen

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Ras Dashen, 121 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 3293

For a day off – the first of two in a row – it’s been a helluva day so far.

My nerves are rattled.

It’s taken me three goes – and three separate documents – to fill in the Working With Children Check correctly and with no messy scrawl-outs.

I’ve still got a stat dec to acquire.

As well, the world – or at least the newspaper part of it that’s such a big part of my life but may be so for not much longer – seems to be entering its End Days.

That’s common knowledge, it’s true, but it seems to be gathering momentum.

I need a blanky, some comfort food, some lunch – and the exquisite pleasure of writing about it afterwards.

Ras Dashen provides me with splendid succour.

121 Nicholson St last made an appearance in the guise of the nice but short-lived Baraka Restaurant.

Somalian food has given way to Ethiopian, with Ras Dashen – I’m told it means “mountain” – having been open about seven months.

It seems like less time than that I’ve been aware of the change, but time is flying.

There’s new furnishings and I feel right at home in the bright, cheerful ethnic cafe atmosphere.

The smiling, gentle and hospitable welcome I receive for Monday lunch is as important as the food.

The menu has many of the usual suspects – tibs, foul, “khey wot”, kitfo – but I know what I want.

I want soup.

Is there soup?

“Yes.”

“What kind is it?”

“Beef rib.”

“That’s what I want.”

I am offered a choice of bread or injera.

In the interests of maximum comfort factor, I choose the latter.

My soup ($10) arrives with one each of regular and wholemeal injera, along with a little bowl of chilli paste.

I’m often surprised that in all the coverage Melbourne’s African eateries receive there is so little mention of the soups that are available – based on our experiences, they’re certainly among the high points.

And this is an excellent one.

If you were to judge it on the vegetables – carrot, onion, celery and more – you’d be excused for thinking it not much different from a Western-style meat/vegetable broth.

But the result here is unmistakably African.

It’s there in the peppery tanginess and the random slices of fresh green chilli.

It’s there in the heady, intense and flavoursome broth that soaks up the injera so well.

My soup bowl has four bits of beef rib, with some meat sticking to them and more juicy, tender morsels doing magical stuff independently.

There’s just the right amount of meat to provide hearty fare without seeming like too much of a Monday midday carnivore.

This all makes the world seem like a much less threatening place as I go about my business.

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Wholefoods Cafe

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Wholefoods Cafe, 2 Baylie Place, Geelong. Phone: 5221 5421

Spending some time in Wholefoods Cafe in Geelong is, for me, like being in an echo chamber.

Long before I plonked myself down in Melbourne, I had immersed myself in a sort-of hippie scene that started in Dunedin during my school days, was nurtured in London even as many of us were simultaneously embracing punk rock and its more caustic love children, and became firmly entrenched in Wellington.

Truth is, almost all my mates were and are too young to claim true hippie status, but we ran with it anyway.

Yoga was big – or, in my case, tai chi and a deep involvement in Tibetan Buddhism that has continued to have profound influence on my approach to life long after I became disenchanted with the baggage that went with it.

Patchouli oil was hot and the pretty much the whole gang – of both genders – sported hairy armpits and legs.

The parties were wild.

It was during this time that I started my long love affair with Indian vegetarian cooking.

It is no doubt extremely immodest of me to say so, but my recollections are that my efforts in that regard were far better than what was generally being eaten.

The food was awful!

Brown rice casserole, anyone?

We cooked with woks, but in our utter and complete ignorance, would chop up the onion, throw it in the wok, then chop up the next vegetable, throw that in … and so on.

The results were, as you can imagine, nothing like the flash-fired wok food we all eat today.

More like mucky, mushy stews … edible is about the best that could be said.

But mostly the memories are fond, so I have no hesitation about wallowing in the nostalgic vibe Wholefoods Cafe summons up in me.

It starts with the mandala signage outside and continues inside with the lovely burnished and creaky wooden floors and the wholefoods takeaway section out back.

The noticeboards have signs for share accommodation, budgies and zumba.

But – oh yes! –  there’s all sorts of people flogging the likes of reiki, shamanic hoop drumming, meditation of various kinds, compassion exercises and worthy causes and belief systems too numerous to list.

(Time out here as Kenny cranks up a Grateful Dead CD …)

The deja vu continues with the menu:

Thus it is that in a happy and reflective mood – and, for once, with time to spare in a Geelong working day lunch break – that I look forward to my meal.

Moreoever, having scoped the place out some time ago, I am intent on sampling their “dahl”.

Regular visitors will know that I am never happy about paying upwards of $10 or more for a bowl of lentils when we do such a fine job of cooking them and their pulse cousins various ways at home.

But today I’m relaxed about that, too.

I am expecting a bowl of hippie-style dal (mildly seasoned, unoily) – as opposed to Indian-style-dal (highly seasoned, oily).

Here, customers order at the counter.

The wait seems long, but maybe that’s because I’m standing and the staff seem very busy.

Given my number and taking a seat at one of the communal tables, another longish wait ensues, but I’m happy reading the various newspapers on hand.

What I get for my lunch is a $9 bowl of … hippie-style dal with trimmings.

It’s lovely – and just what I expected and desired.

The dal is smooth and goes down easy.

The yogurt is creamy and even the smear of what I think is commercial chutney works a treat.

The pappadam is crunchy and grease-free.

It’s been more years than I can recall since I had brown rice, but here its nuttiness is the perfect foil for the rest of my meal.

Wholefoods – cafe, shop and catering – has been around for what I am told is “decades”.

These days it’s an arm of Diversitat, so is deeply embedded in its community, offering training and cooking courses and the like.

If I lived locally, it’d be a regular part of my routine … for all sorts of different reasons.

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