Tag Archives: Footscray

Lentil As Anything

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 Matty (left) with Lentil As Anything pals.

Lentil As Anything, 231 Barkly Street, Footscray. Phone: 9689 9784

You all know the drill about Lentil As Anything – pay as you go, or pay as you deem it worthy, or pay what you can … if you can.

The place has been through some well-publicised downs and ups, but seems to be hanging in there.

The reason it hasn’t become a regular for us relates strongly to a couple of rather ordinary meals we had there early in the piece.

Bennie, in particular, has a displayed a profound unwillingness to entertain the idea of a return visit.

For my part, not warming to the place has more to do with the sheer, overwhelming plainness of the food I’ve had there – this just doesn’t click with tastebuds used to the supercharged seasoning of all the other places we habituate, and moreover it all reminds me of vegetarian food nightmares.

And that’s a shame, because in terms of community engagement, Lentil As Anything is darn brilliant and the seasoning tactics reflect the place’s umbrella philosophy.

So with a brief shopping visit to Little Saigon Market dispensed with, it’s time for another look.

I’m rapt to be able to put together an Asian-themed plate with ease – and there’s seasoning to spare.

And this means I don’t have to mess with other offerings, such as coleslaw, sweet potato and pineapple salad,  baked macaroni.

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Dal – smooth and delicious with onion texture and a nice chilli kick

Spiced beans – lukewarm-turning-cold, but nice and crunchy if a bit stringy at times. There’s a nice chilli zing here, too.

Potato and bottle gourd salad – not as snappy as its companions on my plate, but quite acceptable.

Overall, it’s a fine lunch – and with seasoning and spice levels that could see me becoming a more regular visitor.

It’s as I’m completing my eating and looking to snap a few interior photos that I run in to an old mate from my Sunday Herald Sun days, Matty the photographer.

I am utterly amazed to learn he has been volunteering at Lentil As Anything for a couple of years and even occasionally working at the Ethiopian joint next door.

Equally surprising seems the fact we haven’t crossed paths before now in the west.

Matty and I, like most of our then colleagues, played the newspaper game very hard in every kind of way, most of them extremely unhealthy.

Yet here he is, deeply embedded in Footscray and seemingly happy as all get out to be so profoundly connected to the community.

He talks with pride of the work Lentil As Anything does and we share a moment of wry reflection on how what seemed so very important then seems of so very little account in our new lives.

It’s been good to see you, brother!

Lentil as Anything on Urbanspoon

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Vanakkam again

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

Stepping into Vanakkam on my way home after an early evening social engagement, what I’m after is a feed while I read.

Certainly, the last thing on my mind is taking of photographs and blogging.

Especially as Bennie and I had done the business here a few weeks earlier and Vanakkam had featured in our yearly Top 10.

I do know what I am going to order – based on what we’d seen several customers eating on that previous visit, I am extremely desirous of biryani.

But as I soon as my meal arrives – goat biryani – out comes the camera.

For I have a hunch this’ll be the best biryani I’ve ever had.

It is.

All the usual components are present:

Vari-coloured rice of slightly less chilli kick than is generally the norm.

Plenty of meat pieces, on the bone but coming free easily enough; quite chewy, too, but that seems just right.

Raw onion slices and half a hard-boiled egg.

Typically runny raita and thin but tangy curry gravy I later discover is made especially to accompany the restaurant’s biryanis using tomatoes and cashews.

But wait – there’s more!

More fresh herbiage than usual, for starters, including coriander and even a little mint.

And – best of all – a generous garnish of delicious fried onions.

Eaten together, all these ingredients constitute a fabulous meal.

And one that is far closer to the complex, celebratory dish called biryani I imagine being served at weddings and the like but which I’ve long assumed beyond the budget constraints of any eatery.

This is plenty good enough for me and hands down the best biryani I’ve had in Melbourne.

As a Tuesday special, my dinner has cost me $10. Even at the regular price of $12, I’d consider it a bargain.

As I stroll back to my car, I realise the nagging lower back pain that has been a drag for several days – the sort of thing that inevitably presages much more severe and immobilising pain – has disappeared.

Whether this has anything to do with my biryani meal, I know not.

Albanian Community Festival

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Albanian Community Festival, Footscray Park.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But more of that later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Republic Of Albania was founded in 1991.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Vanakkam

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

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

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

Well, no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe they are.

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

Kaju uthappam ($12) is our standout dish.

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

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

So simple and so magnificent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vanakkam on Urbanspoon

Indi Chutneys

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rest of my thali ($10.95)?

Gosh, that’s really fine.

A good chicken curry of greenish hue and mild spiciness.

Some rich, glorious dal of magnificent saltiness.

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

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

And, of course, plenty of rice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indi Chutneys on Urbanspoon

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Biryani House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just for instance …

Khichdi – “traditional Hyderabad rice with lentils”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The potato element is awesome.

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

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

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

Check out the full menu at the Biryani House website.

Biryani House on Urbanspoon

Footscray Club

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Footscray Club, 43 Paisley St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 2059

The Footscray Club started life in 1894, dedicated to cycling, making it one of Footscray’s oldest institutions and quite possibly its oldest “business”.

The club’s first 10 years saw it based in Nicholson St, before moving to its current premises in Paisley St. 

A few years ago, the club sold the building … to the bloke who runs the bread shop on the ground floor.

As one member quipped to me: “He used to pay us rent, now we pay him rent!”

I am told the club’s future is assured for many years to come through a lease on favourable terms – and no doubt the Bread Shop Bloke is happy to have the space tenanted by some very nice folk.

I’d passed the Footcray Club many times, always found the street-level door closed, assumed the club was a private affair and moved on.

A few weeks back, however, I found the door unlocked, so up the stairs I went, eventually to be greeted by the week-day manager, Gary, a man whose moustache is even more preposterous than that of yours truly.

After getting the lowdown on how the club operates, and ascertaining positively that I’m very welcome, I vowed to return on another day.

Sadly, income requirements mean the lunches on Thursday and Fridays will have to wait.

On those days, the club serves a range of up to 10 different meals – $7, or $10 with a pot of beer.

Read about them here.

I am however, able to visit one of the Sunday Sipper sessions, run and catered for by the members themselves, with a more concise choice of fodder.

Finding the door locked, I press the intercom button, hear some muffled words and then a series of clicks as I continue to wiggle and waggle the door handle.

Eventually, I am let in by Lance, the club member who seems to be presiding over this particular Sunday Sipper outing.

Turns out, I should be pulling the door open …

I find a nice room done out in typical club style, with about a dozen members relaxing and enjoying, some of them, the flat-screen horse racing action or the flat-screen Bathurst action.

Meal of the day is roast beef with onion gravy and vegies – $5 for members, $7 for non-members but everyone pays the member price. Well, I did!

It’s a fine meal – and a ridiculous bargain for $5.

The spuds, carrots and gravy are tops, the beef is nicely chewy and flavoursome.

The club’s standard price for a pot is a remarkable-for-these-days $3 – $2.20 on Sundays!

The club also runs a Christmas in July bash for $15.

And a Christmas at Christmas bash – also for $15.

Club membership costs $22 a year – bargain!

As I depart a happy man, a bunch of recently arrived members are merrily setting up for that afternoon’s presentation function to wrap up another year of footy tipping.

You won’t get a bowl of pho or a cafe latte at the Footscray, but you will get a heaping serve of Footscray soul.

Check out the club’s website or Facebook page.

Filming Love To Share

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On the way to Raw Materials in Cowper St, Footscray, to be part of the audience for TV food show Love To Share, a thought strikes.

As someone who recently signed up for a talent agency with a view to broadening my income portfolio through work as an extra, it is this: Has not the television industry – and commercial television, in particular – perpetrated one of the great con jobs?

Instead of happily volunteering their time for the glimpses of glam it provides, shouldn’t audience members for television shows be paid for their time?

During the filming, I put this idea to an experienced TV industry type on the set.

She laughs – and immediately, if anonymously, concedes the point.

After all, myself and all my fellow audience members for this filming are required to sign a release form – just the same as any extra or actor.

Just kidding, really – after all, that horse has well and truly bolted.

Love To Share is a weekly program being screened by the Ten Network. The first episode went to air a few days before the episode of which CTS is to be part is put together.

The show is hosted by 2010 MasterChef competitor Aaron Harvie, who is joined by in-house show chef Darren Robertson, various other presenters and guests.

I’m no fan of so-called free-to-air TV or MasterChef – I reckon that particular show isn’t actually about food. Like so many of its ilk, what it’s about is TV.

So what am I doing here?

Well, it has foodiness elements, it’s being produced in Footscray, it’ll take up an otherwise free morning and I hope to generate a blog story out of the experience.

I’m a little wary, though. I’ve known people from the film and TV industry, and have been in recording studios when albums are being recorded, so I know full well tedium and down time can be and often are part of the deal.

So I’m interested in discovering if being present at the filming is better than enduring the tedium of endless promos and adverts that go with watching such shows at home.

I’m also curious and a little nervous about how the presence of a blogger/journalist brandishing a camera and with lots of pesky questions is going to go down.

Upon being seated at one of the dozen or so tables, audience members are asked to sign their release forms and sign up for the show’s website using the iPads provided.

There is nervous laughter from some of us as it dawns that we are not allowed to take the cool gizmos home.

My table companions are Amber and Jess.

We are also invited to partake of coffee, real champagne or both.

I settle for a nice cafe latte in a cardboard cup.

Before the filming process starts and as we are given ground rules by one of the producers, we are also delivered a bowl of dip, dipping vegetables and herbed and toasted pita bread.

Looking like a very pale apricot taramsalata, it is actually a very fine, tasty and lemon-y white bean dip.

It’s at this point, that I cave … and request a tall glass of bubbles.

The show sees Harvie hosting segments of the show interspersed with three more segments already recorded out and about by others – in the case of this episode, they cover Yarra Valley fish, hill country pork and beetroot.

The set is bright and cheerful “rustic foodiness”, with a cooking area to one side, sofas for interviewing purposes on the other.

I am impressed by Harvie’s ability to sound upbeat and spontaneous, even when has to re-start his opening preamble three times.

The rest of the crew are admirably professional, too.

Between producers of various types, cameramen, catering company staff and many others who may or may not have technical TV biz names, there are a lot of them.

Making a commercial TV show is obviously a very expensive proposition in a high-stakes game.

After the opening comments, the show’s first food comes courtesy of chef Darren, who quickly serves up  a simple meal of steak, some sort of butter sauce and chargrilled cos lettuce.

Sadly, only a single audience members gets to sample it.

Then it’s time for Harvie to interview the guests – today that means singers Mahalia Barnes and Prinnie Stevens.

I’m struggling to hear what’s being discussed, the frequent delays are finding my hands desirous of getting hold of the book in my bag and part of me wishes I was elsewhere. 

I prick up my ears, though, when Barnes tells stories about the cooking prowess of her famous father, who sounds every bit the dab hand in the kitchen that her Thai mother is.

The two singers and Harvie then move across to the kitchen area where, after more delays, they join chef Darren in cooking a soba noodle salad.

By this time, I’ve realised my fears about taking photos are unfounded – I’m far from the only audience member merrily snapping away.

In the end, I’m pretty much going wherever I please – except in front of the many cameras – and talking to whoever I wish, including joining a trio of producer types monitoring the filming on a TV off to the side. 

A crew member who has worked on other, similar shows tells me this is quite unusual – the absence of the usual hard-and-fast rules about phones and cameras and do’s and don’t’s apparently part of the show’s gameplan of being fully integrated in a social media sense and making audience members part of it all.

Makes sense, really, mobile devices, for better or worse, being part of every performance and every part of life these days.

As the soba dish is completed in front of the cameras – huzzah! – each audience member is presented with their own bowl of said salad.

It’s very good – fresh salmon, two kinds of mushroom, two kinds of greens, sesame oil and seeds, seaweed and more, including a hefty whack of ginger.

It’s a treat with my second glass of bubbles.

As we eat, the show’s stars and guests join audience members for a bit more banter.

It’s been an entertaining and enlightening experience.

If you’re interested in being part of the Love To Share audience, email audience@lovetoshare.com.au

The show featuring CTS is scheduled to go to air on Channel 10 on Saturday, October 6, from 4pm.

But as they say in the biz, check your guides.

Bonus: The filming took a tad over three hours and I didn’t incur a ticket for overstaying at my two-hour parking space in Cowper St!

The Plough

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The Plough, 333 Barkly Street, Footscray

There are big changes afoot at this prominently positioned Footscray landmark.

The new operators plan to continue running both the food side of the business and its motel aspect.

My informant was unable to provide me with much by way of details – likely to be pitched somewhere in modern Australian/gastro pub in terms of food; likely to be open for business early-ish 2013.

Extensive refurbishment of the premises appears to be at its starting stages.

Footscray foot institution to close its doors

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Anyone with one or more children knows how hard – and expensive – it is keeping them shod in good footwear.

Actually, that applies to anyone of any age in this era of cheap and nasty “runners” that require replacing about four times a year.

So it’ll be a sad day when Hicks Shoes in Barkly St closes its doors – it’s long been a provider of good-quality and affordable shoes of many kinds for all ages.

Sure, they stock budget-priced lines from various parts of Asia, but they also stock shoes, sandals, boots and more from Europe and elsewhere. 

Happily, the family store in Altona (72 Pier St, 9398 2939) will remain open.

The business was started 64 years ago by Eric Hicks, who is 94 these days, at 209 Barkly St and has been at the current premises, 203 Barkly St, for just under three decades.

The business is run by Eric’s son and daughter, Julie and Murray.

Julie tells me the closure has more to do family reasons than with escalating rents or the current economic climate.

Indeed, the family owns the building, plans to retain ownership and has already fielded several inquiries from potential tenants, including possible eating houses.

The closure is still several months away, as the decision to close was made only about eight weeks ago and after the summer stock had been ordered.

I dig my new Converse sneakers!

Konjo Cafe & Restaurant

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Konjo Cafe & Restaurant, 89 Irving St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 8185

It’s a passing mention of Konjo Cafe at Footscray Food Blog that has seemingly and subconsciously steered me to Irving St, despite having pleasantly meandered along many streets and alleyways since parking at the market a half an hour before.

I’m very happy to find it open for business at lunchtime on a Monday, despite the upheaval presented by the heavy-duty roadworks currently underway right outside.

I’d popped in once a few months previously, so am used to the idea a limited menu may be available – the handful of dishes jotted down on a small blackboard doesn’t phase me.

From that list I choose lamb kai wot, which is described as “spicy lamb stew simmered in berbere”.

I soon discover the blackboard choices are mere suggestions and that the full menu – see below – is available.

The menu seems to have all the usual Ethiopian bases covered, with all but one dish selling for $12 – at the end of 2012, that seems like really good value.

No matter, I’m happy with my choice – especially once my request for a little salad on the side is granted.

That turns out to be the zingy jumble of cos lettuce, tomato and green chilli slices I was hoping for.

The kai wot is only mildly spicy but the gravy is rich, quite oily/buttery and delicious; the lamb is in small pieces and plentiful.

A single piece of injera suffices, and I even leave a little of the kai wot – it’s a serve that should really be shared between two diners in tandem with a vegetable dish or salad proper.

My cool lunch matches the cool cafe vibe here – the furniture is dark wood, the tables long-legged to match the stools. There is seating of a more traditional-style in a rear room.

The service is warm and obliging. The volume of the sweet African music is just right, too.

I’m told the roadworks are as much a pain because of the dust and noise as they are for deterring customers.

Still, no doubt just like the other restaurants and businesses on this stretch of Irving St, they’ll be very happy when the work is completed.

Flat-screen TVs: No.

Konjo Cafe & Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Pandu’s

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Pandu’s, 351 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 0468 378 789

It seems there are very few Indian restaurants in Melbourne – or, at least, in the wider western realms in which we roam – that do not offer at least a few Indo-Chinese dishes on their menus these days.

Pandu’s, however, is one of a very few that offers nothing but.

Before venturing out to dine at the new Pandu’s in Footscray, I fossick around online trying to find out more about this intriguing food style – without much success.

So before Bennie and I order our meal, I ask Pandu himself.

Having presumed Indo-Chinese tucker is the spawn of metropolitan India and/or the worldwide Indian diaspora, I am somewhat surprised to hear him attribute it largely to states close to the border with China such as Assam.

He tells me there is no use in his kitchen of traditional Indian spices such as cumin or coriander. There is a heavy use of ginger and garlic, and sauces such as soy and Sichuan.

There’s a zingy aspect to it all that I have attributed to vinegar and/or lemon juice. These are used, I am told, but not so heavily as I have imagined.

(If anyone can offer more by way of the life and times of Indo-Chinese food, we’d love to hear from you!)

We’d enjoyed a couple of cool meals at the previous Pandu’s premises in Buckley St, so are very much looking forward to checking the new place out.

The fit-out of the rather large eatery is rather unusual.

On the one hand, the seats are plush in a way that cheap eats us are quite unaccustomed to.

As opposed to a recent comment on our Pandu’s preview post, we found them perfectly comfy and fine for dining.

The dark-stained tables, on the other hand, appear to be have been constructed out of glorified plywood.

The overall effect is one of ritzy cheap eats – and we like that a lot.

If that means this specialised restaurant delivers Indo-Chinese food cheaper than do your average Indian places who have some Indo-Chinese on their menus, then we’re all for it.

And it does. Indeed, the prices seem to have hardly risen at all in the transition.

Pandu knows perfectly well who we are and what we’re about, so we score a couple of complimentary offerings, though I have no doubt these or our actual menu choices are no different from what other customers receive.

Just saying …

A complementary salad is just some simple spinach leaves and shredded vegetables. A spiced eggplant sludge and yogurt combine to make a dressing for what is a nice appetiser.

The choice of vegetable-chicken sweet corn soup ($4.95) is down to Bennie, but I’m interested to see what the kitchen does with this Chinese staple.

The answer is … not a lot different.

It’s less viscous than we’d receive in a Chinese place, and there are a few more vegetable varieties, but nevertheless it’s a nice, plain starter given what we know is to come.

Chicken 65 ($8.95) is another Bennie choice on account of his fondness for the version at Hyderabad Inn up the road. He’s an expert!

This is OK but could be hotter and the chicken lacks flavour.

The seasoning and accompanying jumble of curry leaves, onion, capsicum and chilli is ace, however, and is the same flavour explosion we’d loved about vegetable 65 and mushoom 65 on previous visits.

Mixed noodles ($11.95)? They’re Bennie’s choice, too. Why isn’t he writing this instead of slothing it on the sofa watching Cartoon Network? One of life’s mysteries …

A big bowl of squiggly egg noodles is packed with finely chopped vegetables and pieces of chicken, omelette and prawn.

This is a mild but pleasing dish, with each of us seasoning to our specific requirements from the small bowls of tomato and soy sauces and chilli oil and chilli vinegar provided.

This seems like an Indo-Chinese version of the revered Nepalese chowmin.

Cauliflower Manchurian ($8.95) is the hit of the night – although I’d in no way suggest this is due to the fact it’s not a Bennie selection.

In contrast to the dryish chicken 65, the large and battered cauliflower chunks are coated with a dark, sticky and sweet sauce. The vegetable pieces are pleasantly firm and – best of all – the cauliflower flavour comes through despite the high level of seasoning.

Another flavour bomb!

We’ve stuck mostly to water during our meal, but have also enjoyed complementary long, tall glasses of housemade cashew milk, which the restaurant sells for $3.95.

This is divine – lusciously creamy, sweet and perfumed with cardamom.

It’s less drink and more like dessert – think pannacotta or creme brulee!

We’ve enjoyed our debut repast at the new Pandu’s – the mix of plain (sweet corn soup, noodles) with rampant seasoning (cauliflower, chicken) has been spot on.

Pandu’s Indian-style barbecue is scheduled for action the day after our visit, so awaits our next visit, at which time we’ll seek to explore some of the fish and prawn options.

Pandus on Urbanspoon

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

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.

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.

Ras Dashen on Urbanspoon

Amasya Kebab

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Amasya Kebab, 134 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 7032

So enamoured have we been with Footscray Best Kebab House that it has taken more than a decade for me to take its competition, Amasya Kebab, around the block for a spin.

It proves to be a good move on a day when I feel like a change from habitual patterns and routines.

Amasya may still stand in the shadow of its near-neighbour just up the road apiece, but it’s swell to know there’s a handy alternative nearby for when the crowds at FBKH are too intense.

Amasya is shiny, white and bright – but nevertheless welcoming and a nice place to stop for a while.

It has much in common with FBKH – a lunchtime crowd that encompasses the widely diverse hues and style habits of Rainbow Footscray, the happy buzz of being a family-run business and the Turkish travel posters among them.

As well, the menus are pretty much interchangeable, and there seems to be only minor differences in the pricing.

My small meal of the day ($12), lamb only, does indeed look on the modest side.

But it fills me up plenty and the quality is there.

There’s no rice, but that’s more than compensated for by the large serving of lamb.

This is not crispy, crunchy, salty as I dig it, seeming to have come from a part of the spit recently carved for another customer. It’s still fine, though, being tender and tasty.

The salad bits and leaves with a lemony dressing are good but without much distinction.

The yogurt/cucumber dip is stiffer than normal but does the job.

The chilli dip is the big hit – it’s every bit as good in terms of lip-smacking tang and crunchy delight as that found up the road.

Excellent!

The bread is fresh, warm and typically wonderful.

We have tried the Amasya pies before – and they’re recommended, seeming to have more filling and less bread than those found in other Turkish places.

Amasya Kebab on Urbanspoon

Indi Hots

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Indi Hots, 82 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 4626

Indi Hots has moved house – but only a few doors up Hopkins St to No.82.

The new place has more of a restaurant feel to it, as opposed to the utilitarian canteen vibe of the previous one.

All else seems to have remained the same – food, clientele, service and welcome.

In my first test drive of the new premises, I do what all my fellow patrons are doing and order a biryani.

My understanding is that biryani is a special occasion, celebratory rice dish that is extremely unlikely to be found in its full-blown glory in restaurants regardless of any price scale.

Maybe one day I’ll be invited to a Hyderabad wedding …

In the meantime, and within the confines of commercial realities, my Indi Hots biryani is as good as I can recall enjoying.

It may not have all the bells and whistles of the “real thing”, but it at least conveys the impression of being a close, if slightly impoverished, relative.

My Special Hyderabadi Goat Dhum Biryani costs $13.50 and comes with curry gravy, runny raita that I have come to love, half a hard-boiled egg and a can of soft drink.

The plentiful goat meat is not really tender but easily edible. Surprisingly, and happily, only about half of it is on the bone, the rest being just meat.

The spice level is sneaky.

What at first seems quite benign mounts steadily as I eat so my brow is sweating by the end.

It’s a fine thing because I am not only robust of appetite but also in one of those moods when some kick-arse spicy food is just the ticket.

The rice is oily in a nice way and interspersed with fresh coriander and lovely strands of fried brown onion.

With the egg, gravy, raita providing variety of flavours and textures, this is a beaut feast.

As ever when I order biryani, I find there’s simply too much rice for me to eat – but I’m surprised nonetheless how much of it I tuck away.

Indi Hots remains a cool and reliable place for a cheap, quick and tasty Indian feed.

Indi Hots on Urbanspoon

Footscray: Look up!

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Apart from the routine stories about food places of various kinds, some of the best fun we have doing Consider The Sauce is when a little lateral thinking or imagination kicks in.

Sometimes posts are generated by places or incidents we witness when out and about.

Sometimes they’re generated by conversations we’re having.

Sometimes, too, they bubble up and come to nothing or hunker down for some long-term hibernation.

Such has been the latter case with this idea until it was nudged from its slumber by a recent story by Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog.

My knowledge of the stories behind these intriguing glimpses of Footscray’s yesteryears is, in a very few cases, extremely sketchy.

For the rest, it’s non-existent!

New Footscray IGA – a quick tour

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Supa IGA, corner Albert and Paisley streets. Phone: 9396 1404

Our first ever visit to the new IGA – one part of the site that used to be Dimmeys/Forges – gets off to a sour start when I almost get into a somewhat heated argument with the Seventh Day Adventists manning a booth outside.

Luckily, I pull myself up with a stern admonition – “life is too short for this BS” – and head inside.

We are wielding a shopping list of very modest length, so check the whole place out – right around, and up and down every aisle – before we start throwing items in our basket.

The store is done out in urban-industrial, which would be a tad oppressive if it were not for the incredible prevalence of colourful products of Asian derivation.

Truth is, many of the Asian products seem to be of the highly packaged and processed snack food variety.

I’ve been told my sniffy disdain for such fare renders me thoroughly unfit for residence anywhere in Asia, particularly Japan.

So be it!

That said, in many ways this supermarket is a typical IGA – especially when it comes to non-food items.

This may be the only Australia’s only IGA sporting live seafood tanks, but I know there are supermarkets of other persuasions who do likewise.

The non-live unfrozen seafood range seems quite good.

On the other hand, the deli counter and bakery sections do little to impress.

The fresh produce selection seems pretty handy, but hardly offers staunch competition to nearby Little Saigon Market.

The fresh meat range seems particularly lame on this Saturday afternoon

All of which makes us think this may only be an occasional stop for us – when we’re in the area, ready to shop and figure and we can cover all our bases there.

We find bargains though.

There’s broccoli at $1.50 a kilogram, for instance, and Zafarelli pasta at $1 a 500g bag.

From the endless range of Asian sweets, savouries and frozen lines, Bennie chooses a Meiji Yan Yan Double Cream.

This turns out to contain biscuit sticks and strawberry and chocolate sauces to dip them into.

He loves it, of course, but tells me the ratio of sticks to goop is out of whack, and that he has to resort to scooping out the rest of it with his fingers.

Life’s so bloody hard sometimes!

VU Halal Kitchen

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"Baba-ghanouj" plate at VU Halal Kitchen.

"Baba-ghanouj" plate at VU Halal Kitchen.

VU Halal Kitchen, Building M, Level 0, Victoria University, Footscray. Phone: 9919 4300

Given the radiant brilliance of some of our Middle Eastern adventures lately – particularly at Coburg’s Abbout Falafel House and Al-Alamy – the surprise isn’t that the newish VU Halal Kitchen doesn’t quite match them but that it delivers a good and worthy shot at it with very similar prices.

I’d first stumbled across VU Halal Kitchen after trying out Cafe Noodle House, which is situated in a nearby campus building.

Subsequent attempts to try the campus Middle Eastern fare were thwarted by the festive season, catering commitments and the end of the academic year.

Now, in early March, Team Consider The Sauce is on the job and mighty hungry.

While we understand the business requirements that dictate the food cater to a broad base of students, you’ll be unsurprised to learn we ignore completely such fodder as the burgers, parmas, pastas and the like … although those seem to be the choices of the few other customers there are.

After being told several times the dips came with “Turkish bread” only, what turns up is a pleasant surprise.

"Hommus" plate at VU Halal Kitchen in Footscray.

"Hommus" plate at VU Halal Kitchen in Footscray.

The trimmings aren’t quite as substantial or sparkling as we get in Coburg, but they’re much appreciated anyway. Both kinds of pickles are commercial but lovely and crunchy.

The terrific bread is made on the premises.

I subsequently am told by VU Halal Kitchen proprietor George that it’s oil-free, which helps give it a nice chewiness when fresh and not unpalatable crunchiness when an ancient half-hour or so old.

The “baba-ghanouj” plate ($7) is the star of our lunch, the dip itself being redolent of smokiness, lemon and garlic in about equal measures. Very good!

The “hommus” plate, at the same price, is not as impressive, with the dip sporting a blandness  that makes it seem like a wallflower.

Spicy potato curry pie at VU Halal Kitchen.

Spicy potato curry pie at VU Halal Kitchen.

We order the spicy potato curry pie ($4) out of sheer curiosity and are a little disappointed. As you’d expect, it’s quite a lot like an elongated samosa – except that the curry potato stuffing is very much at the outer extremes of mildness. It’s OK.

Dressed zaatar pizza at VU Halal Kitchen.

Dressed zaatar pizza at VU Halal Kitchen.

The dressed zaatar pizza ($4.80), too, suffers by comparison with the superior equivalents available at our usual local haunts – but not by much.

After lamenting that our otherwise incredibly vibrant westie food situation lacks an Al-Alamy or an Abbout Falafel House, I am gratified to learn from George, who is of Egyptian background, that VU Halal Kitchen in fact boasts an Al-Alamy connection.

That operation’s Ahmed is overseeing the kitchen affairs here in a supervisory role, which hopefully augurs mightily well for the future.

Falafels are in the near future, as will be  – I fully expect – a degree of tweaking and improving.

A western suburbs place serving Middle Eastern food that goes beyond pizzas and kebabs needs to be encouraged.

George, by the way, highly recommends the awarma (minced meat cooked with scrambled eggs, $10) and shak-shooka (scrambled eggs mixed with tomato, onion and cheese, $10) – both served with aforementioned bread and pickles.

Two more points …

Given the possibility the bar set-up of which the kitchen is part may be otherwise needed for a function, we strongly suggest phoning an hour or so before your planned lunch … just to make sure.

And the drinks situation is far from ideal – extremely small bottles of soda pop and Mount Franklin water all clock in at $3. But then again, this is a bar – rather than a campus cafeteria.