Tag Archives: Footscray

Amin Cafe

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Little Khartoum Arcade/The Footscray Hub. Phone: 0401 008 957

The signs at either end – one on Nicholson St, the other on Albert St – still describe it as The Footscray Hub “Business Centre” – but in some quarters at least it is known as Little Khartoum Arcade.

Walking through it has become one of the “secret” treasures of living in the west.

There are money transfer places, shops selling T-shirts and cosmetic products, others with perfumes and spices – and even a few old-style barber establishments, one that recently gave me a fine haircut.

All of it speaks of Footscray’s African diaspora with a relaxed and “we belong” vibe.

The only disappointment for me has been the lack of an eatery from which to chow down and enjoy the great atmosphere.

I walked past the only place selling food many times, but was unimpressed by scant display of large samosas – sambusas in African parlance – so ambled on, bound ususally for Babylon or some other food place.

Than I heard  a whisper that more substantial fare was available from Amin Cafe for the asking.  I think I heard this very valuable information from Ms Baklover of Footscray Food Blog, but have been unable to find proof in either emails or blogs.

In any case, thanks!

For this information inspired me to inquire – with happy results.


After a brief discussion with the welcoming proprietor – yes, I am hungry, yes meat and rice will be fine – I am served with a meal that, no surprise, was familiar from our delicious forays to another Somalian refuge, Safari Restaurant in Ascot Vale.

My $12.50 lunch had some pan-fried lamb (halib) that looked a little gray and lacklustre, but was fine and tender. Also on board was a terrific chicken drumstick (doora), slightly coated with bread crumbs and seasoned. And there were some lettuce and tomato for colour and crunch.

But the star was the rice – as with so many of our experiences with north African and Middle Eastern food.

This was magic – but magic of a minimalist kind.

No sultanas, strands of fried onion, peas, almonds or other colour – just the odd bit of translucent onion and perfect rice, cooked in chicken stock with some lemon pepper and a seasoning mix called Zacin.

All my lunch was very mildly seasoned, but a small plastic tub of a fiery chilli condiment helped kick things along.

There are only three small tables at Amin Cafe, but they’re all taken as I enjoy my meal – all by what appear to be regulars.

As well, there was a steady trade from what I take to be similarly frequent customers for the sambusas – either lamb or fish – so I buy two for my next day’s work lunch. Even cold they’re good – lamb in one, canned tuna in the other, both with fine chewy pastry and filling given texture from cooked but still crunchy onion.

I’ll be back to Amin Cafe, for it gives me the same delectable satisfaction as eating at the communal table in the kitchen at Pelligrini’s in the CBD


Sekai Japanese Ramen

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Shop 194, 81 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 1088

Best to be upfront about it: If you hold to notions of purity when it comes to Japanese food, if you like real Japanese tucker – not Japanese-style – then Sekai will likely disappoint.

It is, by our reckoning at least, firmly of the latter persuasion – but our latest visit there tasted fine and seemed more, ahem, “Japanese” than the lacklustre “sushi rolls” hordes the have become so popular as lunchtime fare.

As such, Sekai is virtually identical to many ramen/udon joints found the length and breadth of Melbourne’s CBD.

Nor would I go as far as one punter at Urbanspoon, who opined there was “nothing Japanese about it”.

Our visit came about by way of Bennie’s determination to eat “on the other side of the street”, indicating the Footscray Market – and less restaurant-cluttered – side of Hopkins St.

On a much earlier visit, just after it had opened, I had the gyu tan don – ox tongue in red wine sauce  on rice ($10). It was wonderful.

This time, with son on hand, a mandatory order was always going to be a serve of their seaweed salad ($4).

Bennie loves it, and I do too, so I figured it was about time to find out what makes this dish tick – and if, as I suspected, it wasn’t half as healthy as it appears to be at first blush. Could something as slinky, sexy and delicious be all good?

Some subsequent research reveals that other than seaweed, the dressing commonly includes sugar, vinegar, a little chilli, sesame oil and seeds, soy sauce and even dashi.

Far from the evil I feared, then.

In any case, the Sekai version was sensational – more coarse and crunchy than we’re used to, but every mouthful was a slithery taste delight, with a lovely balance of sweet and sour flavours. It lasted – maybe – two minutes.

I really dig the way Bennie is fast developing a feel and intuition for what will work for him when scanning a menu.

A paternal guiding hand is still sometimes required, but this time he got it right – his katsu don ($8.50) was just what he needed and desired.

A generous serve of crunchily crumbed pork doused in tonkatsu sauce rested atop what amounts to an omelette laced with carrot, peas and red onion, which in turn sat on a solid bed of rice.

Bennie loved it.

My pork ramen ($9) was more murky when it comes to matters of Japanese heritage – another Urbanspoon poster had a point when he quipped: “Ramen?? More like 2 minute noodles…”

It’s true the broth seemed more Sino than Nippon, and had little or no miso/soy tang, while the noodles likewise seemed far from authentic.

But it tasted good, the roast pork being generous of serve, both tender and chewy – and profoundly unlike Chinese roast pork. Greenery came via some nice spinach.

It was a quick, cheap and satisfying lunch.

If you’re happy with Japanese-style food and are prepared to select carefully, Sekai remains worthy of consideration.

Sekai Japanese Ramen on Urbanspoon

Hyderabad Inn

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551 Barkly St, West Footscray. Phone: 9689 0998

We’re surprised how many folks assume that because we’ve embarked on a food blog that we’re eating out more than ever.

That’s simply not the case – we’re just doing what we’ve always done, which means we dine out three, maybe four times a week.

I’ll concede that’s more than most people do – even in the cheap as chips west – but it hardly seems excessive to us.

The highlight, though, is always Saturday lunch – work/school done with, chores/shopping performed, it’s time to get on the fang with relish. So to speak …

This Saturday we are delighted to have our buddy Kurt along for the ride.

He broke his ankle a few weeks back, and has been experiencing varying degrees of pain, discomfort and inconvenience ever since, so we’re chuffed to get him out and about for a few hours.

Even better, this is his first dosa experience – and we’re thrilled it turns out be an excellent one.


We’d been keeping an eye on this place, half a video store refurbished, for a couple of weeks, waiting for it to open – ever since Bennie noticed the new signage.

In fact, we’d turned up a few days previously only to find it was their first day and they wouldn’t be opening until 5pm.

Happily, another new place – Wok Noodle – was a more than adequate stand-in on that day.

But it’s all on at Hyderabad Inn for Saturday lunch!

This is a nice, big room, tastefully kitted out in a somewhat spartan fashion – which suits us fine.

Unlike so many other places that serve doas, idlys, vadas and the like, this is a full-service Indian restaurant.

The menu boasts a full range of curries, tandoori dishes, Indo-Chinese tucker and so on. Most curries are priced around the $11 mark.


But we’re here for the south Indian goodies. They suit our budget better, we like the flavours and textures, and a fully satisfying meal doesn’t leave us feeling full … as in over-full.

There’s a wide range of dosas, uttapams and the like from which to choose – including a variety of combos.

Kurt goes for the Dosa Deal – dosa of choice (chicken in this case), one apiece of idly and vada, sambar, the usual coconutty sides and a can of soft drink.

This is an outstanding deal for $9.95.

The crumbly minced chicken is delicious, the vada doughnut is unique of flavour and surprisingly soft on the tooth, and the whole deal, including the sambar and coconut chutneys, is a delight. The idly, served on a separate plate, is less to Kurt’s fancy at first … but it, too, disappears in due course.

Bennie and I order the Chef’s Dosa ($10.50) and a lamb biryani ($10.50).

The Chef’s Dosa is stuffed with the same chicken and also separate portions of equally crumbly lamb, spiced paneer with coriander and the usual spuds. It’s all great, with the potatoes more gooey than found in your average masala dosa – almost like a stew.

I’ve never seen Bennie enjoy a dosa more.


The biryani is fine, if not quite meeting the same top-shelf standards as the rest of our order. Embedded in the spicy rice are fried onion strands and three tender portions of lamb on the bone, while the dish is rounded out by a lovely hard-boiled egg, runny raita and a gravy that also seems to have a high coconut quotient.

Cheap Indian food can sometimes mean cheap service.

Such is emphatically not the case at Hyderabad Inn – and that alone seems to make its chances of prospering, in what is becoming an ultra-competitive neighbourhood, very good.

We’ll be back for sure!

Hyderaabad inn on Urbanspoon

Hyderabad Inn website here.


Lemat Injera Bakery

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157 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 006

There is much more to Ethiopian food – and the broader north African food culture that has become such integral part of western suburbs life – than injera.

But in many ways, injera is emblematic of colours, flavours and aromas that are so alluring.

So I am thrilled beyond words to be invited to witness injera being made at Lemat Bakery, in the heart of Footscray’s lovely African hub of Nicholson St.

The establishment is managed – and the injera made – by Sesen Assefa. Her genial and voluble husband prefers to stay in the background, but is happy to provide me all the information I need.

The couple met in the very early ’90s, in Sudan, and like so many endured many long years in exile and of menial jobs before opening their bakery in 2006 – just as the influx of north African diaspora into Melbourne’s west began in earnest.

In Ethiopia, injera is made with teff.

As it will soon be in Australia, restrictions on its importation apparently having been lifted or soon to be.

Given that teff is a grain of mightily ancient heritage, I reckon this can only be a good thing in a world in which the shrinking gene pool and diversity of seed stores is under threat.


In the meantime, like the Vietnamese community and others before them, the folks at Lemat have been doing just fine with what’s at hand, modifying recipes with locally available ingredients for the best, most authentic results.

That means the injera we have all been enjoying is made with a mixture of flours – maize, self-raising and wholemeal wheat, sorghum and barley.

The batter is fermented for 24 hours – no yeast or other agents are used – before being deftly poured on to hot, round platters.

In a minute or so, the injera – smooth side down, spongy side up – is ready to be equally skillfully slipped on to straw mats and placed on long tables with the rest of the day’s order.

As well the bakery produces “sweet”, unfermented injera for its Sudanese customers.

The Lemat output is split between restaurants, groceries and families.

The aroma is like that of any other bakery – but in many ways so very different. And quite intoxicating!


Out front, I delight in a half-hour conversation with Mr Lemat – a virtual crash course for me that ranges from injera and Ethiopian food in general through to Coptic Christianity, the dynamics of “facebook revolution” and the role they are playing in north Africa (including Algeria that very morning), the equally fascinating nuances and subtleties that accompany inter-actions between the various African communities in Footscray (and Melbourne in general), contemporary Ethiopia, the Sundanese separation referendum and much more.

As we are talking, the manager of Awash comes and goes with her daily order of injera, but it is no less likely that the staff of Khartoum – just a few doors up the street, and nominally a Sudanese restaurant – will drop in for injera to go with the Ethiopian dishes on their menu.

My humble thanks to the people of Lemat Injera Bakery for sharing with me their stories and their baking skills.


Babylon Restaurant

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152 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 3323. Open six days.

You can go the whole hog if you visit Babylon – or rather the whole sheep.

Roast whole lamb – pre-ordered and with all the trimmings of “rice, meat ball, boiled egg, nodule (sic), green beans, pistachios, carrots, fried onion” – will set you back $220.

You can also order a regular Aussie-style pizza or a Lebanese pizza – even though this nominally an Iraqi restaurant – and pasta or spring rolls.

There’s even a kind of chicken or lamb curry usually available from the servery out front.

There are heaps and heaps of the more expected kebabs, seafood, salads, dips and soups – and knowing just how good the soups around here, perhaps the Babylon variations should be a priority.

Whatever its ethnic heritage, Babylon fits in right swell with the swirling colours, tastes and general all-round good vibes of this part of Nicholson St, rubbing shoulders as it does with eateries and cafes of Turkish, African, Indian and Vietnamese persuasions.

But my favourite for some time has been the lamb shanks, which are also dispensed from the servery, the contents and quality of which seem to depend on the time of day. I suspect the later the hour, the more advisable it becomes to go a la carte, as sometimes the servery options look a tad jaded and dry.

On my previous visit I enjoyed an outstanding $10 meal of adana kebab with all the bits and pieces.

But for my latest lunch I’m in luck, with the platter of shanks sitting and glistening and waiting for someone to eat them. Can glistening be a verb?

One meaty shank with salad, dips and rice costs a really fine $12.

I’m happy to go with flow at Babylon so am unsurprised that this meal is different from the same order previously made.

The three dips – eggplant, carrot, yogurt/cucumber – are not quite as great and tasty as on previous visits, nor the salad.

And instead of the distinctive flat bread that manages to be both chewy and flaky, I receive a bowl of bread more in the Turkish vein. Though as its hot and fresh out of the oven, I’m happy.

The rice, as with that of so many businesses around here, is to die for – laced with sultanas, almonds, green peas and ma’akarona (vermicelli fried in butter). My thanks to Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog for the details of that last listed ingredient!

But it’s the shank that’s the standout – meat so very tender and easy to pry from the bone, smothered in a thick, gooey tomato-based gravy given added richness this time round by the addition of some soft white beans.

Despite the usual – and actually welcome – variations from visit to visit, Babylon sets a high standard and I intend to spend the next several years mining their menu to its depths.

It’s a big, roomy restaurant that can seem a bit gloomy when you’ve just wandered in from outside, but it’s fine for dining.

At night, there are often cheerful tables of Iraqi families. By day, a veritable rainbow of locals can be seen chowing down.

The coffee is very good, too, as are the sweets such as baklava.

There’s a five-item kids menu – all at $4.95 – that includes spag bol, chicken/lamb souvlaki and chicken fillets.

As I am paying for my lunch, I am bemused to notice a row of slim bottles of Crystal Hot Sauce – the very same brand that tarted up so many of my meals in New Orleans, but in this case the labels also printed with Arabic!

For coffee this time, though, I wander across to Cafe D’Afrique for a very excellent $2.50 latte.

I love this neighbourhood!

Babylon Restaurant on Urbanspoon

UPDATE: Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar

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Metro West Building, 27 Albert St, Footscray. Phone: 0401 328 334

THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED.

Since our earlier story about Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar, we’ve been back a couple of times, so this here is by way of a diary as we pleasurably go about eating our way through their menu.

We got a lot of good feedback about that first review, and things seem to be going well for this joint that in its own way is as singular as Yemeni Restaurant.

But the best thing we can do this time around is emphasise the telephone number – 0401 328 334.

You see, the other interior clients of the Metro West building – Centre Link and the like – are not open at night, so hungry potential customers are strongly advised to give the girls a call if access presents a problem. They’ll happily swing open the back door in Albert St for you.

Now ain’t that SO very Melbourne?

On a visit a few weeks back, Bennie had more of the mo mo (chicken and cheese, steamed), while our buddy Kurt opted for the chowmin.

I had the kukura ko masu ra bhat for $9.95 – a wonderful plate of mild chicken stew/curry with rice, a bowl of beaut black dal and trimmings.


For our most recent foray here, Bennie, too, opted for the chowmin ($9) – he gobbled up every shred of this cheerful stir-fried jumble of egg noodles, vegetables and chicken.

I had the chicken choilla with chura and aloo ka achar – “smoked chicken marinated with Nepalese spices and beaten rice”.

The chicken was served cold, the smokiness matched with the spicing to create a distinctive flavour, with chilli content about as high as I am comfortable with. The beaten rice? Sorry, I found this a little weird – crunchy and not unpleasant, but I didn’t feel it worked that well as a complement to the rest. The potato achar was terrific, however, being a sort of cold curried potato salad.

On both our recent visits our main meals have been preceded by a complementary bowl of clear chicken soup, in the way so familiar to us from the local Vietnamese eateries. We always love this! Our Friday night soups were heavy on the salt, but we slurped up every drop anyhow.

Hey – a few more visits and we’ll have more or less been through the menu!

In the meantime, we’re led to believe there are new additions being pondered and planned.

We’ll keep you posted.

Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo on Urbanspoon

Khartoum Centre Restaurant

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145 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 0452 639 329

Khartoum Centre is a popular place – groups of friends, young families and extended families come and go.

It seems the perfect place for Saturday lunch – especially after I had discovered a sensational new barber in “Little Khartoum Arcade”. So gentle, thorough, professional!

We’d been to Khartoum Centre once – for a nice falafel plate.

One young family near us is having fish with rice and salad, but most of the larger tables around us are tucking into big communal bowls of ful.

But we know that we’re going to be taking our pulses that night in the form of  homemade dal, so we head off in a different direction.

There’s certainly a lot from which to choose. There seem to be no written menus – the food range is displayed in photos and lists at the end of the room, where customers place their orders adjacent to the kitchen. Unfortunately, the many intriguing photos have no captions, so it’s hard to place a dish’s name with its pic.

There’s Sudanese dishes, of course, but also an Ethiopian section, dips, salads, soups – and even a kids menu. A lot of the dishes seem to be close kin to those served by the likes of the Iraqi joint across the road and other Middle Eastern places.

Since our initial visit, we’d walked in and walked out several times, finding no one much interested in explaining the menu to us or taking our order. There seems to be an expectation that customers already know what they desire.

Today we soldier on – with an order of meat soup and mixed grill.


As expected, the meat soup, thoughtfully served to us in two small bowls, is a sibling to those found at our Ascot Vale friends Yemeni Restaurant and Safari Restaurant – meat soups in which nary a strand dead sheep is to be found but which are explosively, deeply meatly flavoured. But where those efforts are clear, tangy and spicy, the meat soup at Khartoum Centre is cloudy – but the depth of flavour is no less impressive.

The mixed grill is a delight.

Bennie declares the boneless pieces of fish – fluffly, light, mellow of flavour and with a soft (eggy?) batter – the best he’s ever had.

They share the plate with a handful of garlicky, pan-fried lamb cubes, some equally garlicky and charred pieces of chicken thigh and three similarly charred and tasty lamb chops.

Attending the lot are a small serve of finely chopped salad of tomato, cucumber and more, rice of no great distinction and good dollops of humus and cucumber/yogurt dip

(BTW, the Khartoum mixed grill was adjudged one Ms Baklover’s top five dishes when she was covered, with us, by Leader newspapers.)

The Khartoum mixed grill is a fine dish to share. Unless you’re a shearer taking your lunch break!

Satisfied, we arise to pay our bill. And discover that instead of the $3 listed for the soup, we are being charged $5. And instead of $16 for the mixed grill, we are charged $18. We don’t make a big deal of it, as at $25 including two cans of soda it’s still a fine cheap eat.

There’s so much food to explore at Khartoum Centre, but we’d feel happier about repeated return visits if we didn’t feel like we are somehow out the eatery’s loop. Maybe the fault is ours – maybe we need to be a little more assertive in such circumstances.

On the way back to the car, we meet the most friendly and beautiful tabby kitten. Gorgeous!

Tan Huu Thanh

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100 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 1887

There are few – if any – restaurants we have visited more than Tan Huu Thanh during our decade in the west.

For a while there it seemed like a weekly, or at least fortnightly, event.

Recently, for various reasons – including the pleasurable yet mandatory restless wandering that goes with doing a food blog – visits have been scarce.

So it is with some glee that we enter for a celebratory dinner – hey, we made it through to hump day, OK? – on this Wednesday.

The kids are a bit older, one not yet born we started hitting this joint is a happy little chappie and the smiles of welcome are like old friends.

This is a non-pho place in the heart of Footscray’s Viet precinct.

There are intriguing nooks and crannies on the menu we have yet to explore, but we do have our favourites, after all.

We love the entree size wonton soup for $5. With a handful of plump dumplings reclining in a clear and peppery chicken broth, it usually comes with a few slices of roast pork as a bonus and is a pretty cool light meal all on its ownsome.

We adore the diced cube steak and rice (com bo luc lac) and its crispy chicken sibling for $9.50 – for us, state of the art for these dishes hereabouts.

But tonight, just for kicks and because it’s been so long since we dropped by, we are lashing out with an order for sizzling steak (bo nuong vi).

Available in $30 and $40 sizes, this is tasty, (mostly) healthy Vietnamese food – and also bags of hands-on fun.

Brought to our table, along with a gas-fired cooker, are plates …

Of cucumber sticks, shredded carrot and pineapple.

Of rice vermicelli.

Of herbs, bean sprouts and lettuce.

Of rice paper.

Then comes a platter – the glorious centrepoint of the whole performance – of finely sliced beef, pretty as a picture, sprinkled with lemongrass and obviously prepared by a deft hand using an extremely sharp knife on, I have been told, meat that is partially frozen.

Finally, there’s a bowl of a dipping concoction made of fish sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper and a little chilli; and another of a butter and oil mixed and laced with some more lemongrass.


Once the cooker is fired up, we slop on some of butter/oil combo and wait for the grill plate to get hot.

Then on the meat goes – and the intense entertainment really starts.

It’s a preposterous fun balancing the nack of getting the meat nicely charred but not overcooked while simultaneously soaking the rice paper in the hot water provided.

When the meat is placed on the now soft rice paper, we add some of the herbs, vegies, vermicelli and attempt to roll – using our inexpert hands – our custom-made masterpieces into neat and tidy taste parcels.

We fail! But we get by – and it all tastes fantastic.

Before we know it, the lot is gone – consumed, down the hatch, devoured with zeal.

At $30, it has to be said this is not a large meal in an eatery and neighbourhood where the same sum will usually buy more food than two people can eat.

But it suffices.

And it may be that it is traditionally meant as entree to be shared among a whole table of folk. I’ll ask about that next time.

And there’s an added, not insignificant and long lingering bonus – as with the non-cutlery eating of Ethiopian food with injera, bo nuong vi leaves the perfume of a great food experience on one’s hands for many hours after the eating is done.

Tan Huu Thanh offers a similar dish – lau bo nhun dam – on the part of its menu devoted to  large soups for sharing and steamboats, in which the beef is cooked in vinegar water.

But the one time we tried it, we found the vinegar flavour scarce and water method rendered the rolling of parcels – difficult enough with out clumsy digits – into an unsatisfactory and mushy experience.

As we leave, we resolve to check out some of the more intriguing dishes on the menu on future visits – or, at the very least, order the $40 bo nuong vi on a visit when we’re both ravenous and feeling well-heeled.

Tan Huu Thanh on Urbanspoon

Dinh Son Quan

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1/17 Nicholson St Footscray. Phone: 9689 3066

Knowing I’ll be flying solo on Christmas Day, with my partner cavorting with cousins in Queensland, I’ve loaded the fridge and shelves with all sorts of tasty stuff.

But by noon, a great urge to be out and about is upon me – despite being 150 pages into a 900-page tome by the remarkable Clive Barker and a bunch of freshly arrived packages containing cool sounds of the cajun, Tex-Mex, jug band and Yiddish pop flavours.

So out I head, although not with any great optimism about what I’ll find.

As I enter Footscray’s Vietnamese quarter, I realise how wrong I am.

There’s people everywhere, food everywhere.

With joy, I realise that not only am I going to be fed, but I also have a wide variety of choice – in fact, almost as many as on a regular weekend day.

So it is that I finally get around to tackling the bain marie goodies at Dinh Son Quan.

This is one of a handful of eateries that adjoin Little Saigon Market.

We’ve been in here heaps of times previously, but always for the non-pho soup noodles or a very excellent diced garlic beef with tomato rice. I’ve also had the banh xeo – a coconut/rice flour crêpe filled with prawns, pork and vegies – that went down well with Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog. I found it a bit dull and squishy.

No matter – I’m here today to sample the fascinating array of mostly braised dishes that fill the bain marie section.

There’s stuffed bitter melon, a couple of funky looking pork numbers and several fish dishes – that seems a grand way to go, with notorious fish-hater Bennie out of the state.

Doing Dinh Son Quan this way costs $8 for a choice of two dishes with steamed rice.

I pick a dusky cutlet of mackerel with a black pepper sauce and a simple stir fry of baby octopus, zucchini, celery, capsicum, tomato and coriander.

When my food is at table I am also presented with a bowl of clear chicken soup – always a good sign! In this case, though, the soup is too sweet for me.

The fish is nice enough, but fails to really excite and lacks much by way of pepper quotient. Likewise, the stirfry is lacking zing or, really, any kind of flavour punch at all.

I’ll try the Dinh Son Quan bain marie again – there’s plenty on which to experiment.

And I’m happy to accept my meal selections may be to blame for a disappointing lunch in this lovely place that always rolls out a warm welcome.

Besides, just being among the throng has put a skip in my step.

I even discover that Cavallaro’s, too, is open, so snag a single ricotta-jammed canoli for an afternoon coffee-time snack.

Dinh Son Quan on Urbanspoon

Huy Huy’s head-turning window display.

Cavallaro’s was open for Christmas, too, doing a roaring trade in canoli. I only bought one!

Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar

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Metro West Building, 27 Albert St, Footscray. Phone: 0401 328 334

THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED.

Words – more precisely, combinations of words – can have enormous power.

Poetry and song, of course, can awaken a profound sense of wonder at the world’s charms ranging from the majestic to the mundane, and often both at the same time.

But so, too, can a divinely inspired turn of phrase or even a menu description invoke a sense of awe at the infinite potentialities of the universe.

Check out, for instance, this from the menu of Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar:

“Tass: Boneless marinated pan fried diced goat meat served with rice bubbles, side seasonal veggies, tomato relish & salad $11.”

Goat? Rice bubbles?

I kid you not!

Fusion is tucked away in a corner of the ground floor of the Metro West building, rubbing shoulders with a bulk-billing medical centre, a hairdresser and travel agent of the Asian persuasion, Centrelink and – upstairs – a swag of employment services and the like.

The eatery’s premises used to be home to an African outfit of some description, but every time we dropped by the elderly gent who ran things never had the lunch dishes up and running, so we never got a taste.

When, earlier this year, it took on a Nepalese hue, we had a dish of dumplings – the momo of the name – and another dish that was sufficiently unmemorable to have escaped my memory.

Neither of us had returned until I dropped in for a mid-week lunch at 1pm, only to find the lunch options limited.

So I settled for a chicken burger with chips and salad, which was not only fine but a snip at $4.95.

As I munched, I enjoyed a long and engaging conversation with one of two Nepalese sisters who appear to be the proprietors.


I was informed that their aim was to serve genuine Nepalese food, and not the Indian-derived dishes familiarly provided by Melbourne restaurants labelling themselves as Nepalese.

I learnt that in occupying a premises with a lack of potential walk-by customers, they had nevertheless forged a handy trade in momo with many hungry Nepalese students, who start dropping by about 5pm.

And I learnt their aim and ambition was to serve the very best momo going around in Melbourne.

(Fusion is open until about 8pm on week days, and until about 2pm on Saturdays.)

I promised to return on the Saturday for lunch, hellbent on trying the rice bubbles/goat combo and with my son/colleague in tow.

I ordered the tass. Of course!

Knowing Bennie to be a dumpling freak, I didn’t even think about suggesting he order anything but the momo, which are available steamed or fried, and in pork, vegetable, chicken, and chicken and cheese flavours.

His 10 fried pork dumplings ($10) were sublime – each a little parcel of beautifully tanned and crunchy pastry housing a flavoursome pork mince filling. Bowls of not-too-spicy yet nicely tangy chilli sauce and soy sauce attended.

My tass was really, really good.

The goat meat was nicely flavoured with, I was informed, coriander, cumin, garlic and ginger. It was tender but also splendidly chewy. (I neither expected nor desired fall-apart tender meat – had it been so, I suspect it wouldn’t have been Nepalese …)

No appearance by the tomato relish, but the vegetables amounted to a delicious mound of what could be described as a mix of potato salad, spud curry and achar, without the vinegar. Indeed, I subsequently discovered the same mix is sold here as an extra under the same name as the Malaysian side dish.


I was a bit worried about the lack of any kind of sauce, but the vegetables and serviceable salad between them did the job.

The rice bubbles? They were actually puffed rice, and not the tanned item of breakfast cereal fame.

The mix of the meat, accompanying bits and pieces and puffed rice was a really fine combination of flavours and textures.

A winner!

Other items on the menu include chicken “chowmin” ($9), a handful of chicken dishes (one of which is accompanied by delightfully crunchy “beaten” rice) and a mixed grill of sausages,  chicken wings, chicken skewers, chicken kofta, roasted potatoes, rice, relish and salad ($13). Then there’s a chicken curry with rice and minted yogurt for $7.95, while puris can be had for three for $3.

Joining the hamburger on the Western side of the menu are a BLT for $3.95 and fish and chips ($7.95).

We reckon Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar is beaut, and may get even better.

We’re early dinner diners, so I suspect it’ll become a bit of a standby for us, and we look forward to ticking off the menu choices two by two.

In the meantime, now that I’ve had goat with rice bubbles, my life feels just that bit more complete, enriched and well-rounded.

Vanakkam India

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198 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 2233

We warmly recommend Vanakkam India.

However, we also recommend judicious parsing of the menu and consulting the staff.

Vanakkam India is a low-key Indian cafe, neat and tidy and smartly priced, along the same lines as Kitchen Samrat and Indi Hots.

The biryanis – including quite a often a goat number – are popular with the joint’s Indian customers.

But we find them a bit too spicy for us.

Likewise, some of the many curries we’ve tried – mostly just below or just over $10  – have been too highly spiced for us.

We’ve tried a couple of the Indo-Chinese dishes – chicken noodles and chicken fried rice – but found them dull. Maybe the Indo-Chinese appetisers – such as chilli gobi, ginger gobi or chilli baby corn – are where it’s at with that aspect of the menu.

What we do love is the onion baji ($4.95).

To describe this dish as deep-fried onion rings simply does it a grave disservice.

Onion rings are dipped in a besan flour batter, fried, lightly seasoned with finely ground pepper and served with a lemon wedge.

They are pure magic, light and surprisingly grease-free.

Next time, I suspect, when Bennie and I hit this place together, two serves of onion baji will avoid unseemly haste and arguments over the last fragments and crumbs.

This is food to inhale with gusto!

Having come a cropper on some other dishes at Vanakkam India, this place has become our preferred dosa destination.

Usually we opt for the masala dosa ($7.95), or sometimes the chicken tika masala dosa ($8.95), which is the same potato-stuffed pancake laced with chopped pieces of tandoori chook.

The dosas and the side dishes are as good as any in the area, and the service and ambience better than some who do the dosa boogie. So we love Vanakkam India for that alone.

For this Saturday lunch, though, and flying solo, I get a bit more adventurous.

I order the nimmak’aya pappu, which is described as “Spicy tangy lentil finished with lemon juice”.

Besides consisting of yellow split peas, it’s beaut and does have a lemony tang, but the serve seems a little on the modest side for the $8.95 price tag.

I also order the roti masala ($4.95) – “Roti stuffed with curry mashed potato”.

This is a disappointment – mainly because the bread itself is of the same variety as the ones we get from our local IGA, and is thus a bit lifeless and greasy. Maybe at these prices, it’s a bit, ahem, rich to expect everything to made in-house. And, indeed, I have no philosophical objection to the use of store-bought or pre-made products being served in the kinds of eateries we frequent.

But if I’d known, I’d have stuck with out dosa routine!

The potato stuffing is the same mix that does the honours in the dosas – turmeric, curry leaves, mustard seeds, perfect.

So, yes, Vanakkam India has been a bit hit-and-miss for us.

But the menu is long and there’s more to explore – such as the Indian pizzas, which include yara uthappam (“uthappam spread with cooked prawns and special spice mix”) and kaju uthappam (“uthappam topped with special spice mix an cashew nuts”), both $11.95. Or egg masala (“whole boiled eggs combined with rich onion”) for $7.95.

In the meantime the dosas – there are 28 varieties on the menu – are consistently the go.

And the onion baji is among our most very cherished western suburbs dishes.

Vanakkam on Urbanspoon

Awash

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Shop 2, 46-82 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 1955

We don’t mean to celebrate the frequently wicked ways of the world, but we feel blessed nonetheless to be able to enjoy the diversity and flavours varied African tribes have bestowed on Melbourne’s west.

Only problem is, some of the nicer and more appealing places these days have pricing that marks them – for us – as likely venues for a night out and/or special occasion.

Not that the prices are in any way exorbitant – especially in contrast to “proper” restaurants of the classier category.

Adulis, for instance, is calling to us – particularly after a full-blooded endorsement by Ms Baklover at Footscray Food Blog.

But the prices are such that we’re saving that experience for a windfall day or something similar.

And that’s why we headed right next door, to Awash, for a cheap and cheerful Saturday lunch.

I’d dropped in the previous week and had been mightily impressed with the mixed non-meat sampler ($12).

This time around, though, Bennie as adamant: “I want meat!”


So after discussing the non-meat option with the staff, we ordered the meaty pea stew ($10) and a side salad ($5).

A little while later we were presented with … the non-meat sampler.

Oops! Communication breakdown among the staff!

To their credit, they repeatedly offered to replace our meal with the food we had actually ordered.

However, I was equally adamant that we’d make do with what had arrived. After all, the food had already been placed on the injera, so presumably would go to waste if we sent it back. No way!

And so it went.

Bennie overcame his disappointment at his non-meaty repast, and joined me in devouring the lot with glee.

There were pulses three ways – brown lentils and yellow split peas rather plain, and another lentil brew a rich dark red with just the right kind of chilli kick; all good.

The vegetables consisted of the familiar cabbage/carrot mix and a serve of the likewise familiar silverbeet concoction; all also good.

A bonus of going the non-meat route in an Ethiopian eatery is that the food uses enough oil/butter to get the job done, but falls way short of the very high levels found in many of the meat dishes.


I’m also often impressed with just how good the salads are at a great number of Footscray’s African restaurants. Usually there’s nothing whiz-bang involved – just incredibly fresh vegetables beautifully presented and anointed with a lemony dressing.

The Awash salad was a good one that upheld that tradition.

There was nothing remotely spectacular about our food – it was plain, but also wholesome and tasty. And at $17 for two, truly sharp on the pricing – a bargain, in fact, that required no troubling mental maths or hesitation.

Moreover, such was the warmth of the service – and the upfront and happy manner in which the ordering contretemps was handled – that we are looking forward to returning for the likes of their doro wat or tibs.

I remember the first time I tried injera – and found the rubbery clamminess of it rather unappealing.

All ancient history these days – injera has become just as commonplace, delightful and essential as a bowl of pho!

As we ambled over the road to Footscray Market, Bennie opined: “That was a mistake – but it was a good mistake!”

Awash on Urbanspoon

Kitchen Samrat

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36 Leeds St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 9776

If you live anywhere near Footscray, you’ll be at the least subliminally aware of Kitchen Samrat, so enthusiastic are they about letterboxing their takeaway and delivery menus.

Must work for them, I guess.

Like a number of Indian eateries in the neighbourhood, it provides cheap and cheerful food, catering to the student set through thalis and snacks while also offering a substantial a la carte menu in a casual cafe-style ambience.

Prices for full curries are a little cheaper than some of the fancier joints hereabouts – chicken tika masala or lamb rogan josh at $9, for instance.

But as ever, I go looking for the unusual and the harder to find.

In that regard, Kitchen Samrat has a couple of aces up its sleeves.

First up is the jal zeera, a little glass of which is presented to each customer as a complementary non-alcoholic aperitif. It translates as “cumin water”; looks likes dirty drain water; is also made with tamarind, sugar, salt, pepper, mint, coriander, puffed chick peas and just a trace of chilli; and tastes bloody great!

The other highlight on the regular Kitchen Samrat menu are a couple of light meal/snack-type dishes that are purebred Indian and somewhat analogous of dosas, yet very different.

I have seen cholle bhatrua at other Melbourne Indian places, but not with any consistency.

On a thali plate, you get a nice serve of chick pea curry, some pickle and raw onion slivers and a couple of deep-fried naans that are like a heavier version of puris ($9).

The Amritsari kulcha ($0) is the same deal, except the breads are baked and stuffed with potato.

I order the latter and chat to the manager while waiting for my Sunday lunch. He tells me students make up a big part of his clientele, that there are always tradeoffs between service levels and prices in such operations and that his Indian customers order quite differently from those of the paleface persuasion. The latter usually order from a small and predictable list of dishes such as butter chicken, while the former like the Punjabi chicken, in which the meat is served on the bone. One for next time!

It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and my Amritsari kulcha is even better than I recall from previous visits.

The hot breads come with a knob of butter atop and already melting; the potato/spice/coriander filling is wonderful without being too heavy.

The chick peas, too, are superior, resting in a rich brown gravy just right for mopping up with the bread.

Between the pulses and the carbs, there’s enough of spice kick for me to leave the mango pickle untouched, although I mix in a few of the onion slices to add crunch as I devour the lot using a mixture of Indian-style hands-only and cutlery methods.

It’s a great lunch and a fine bargain.

Kitchen Samrat on Urbanspoon

Phu Vinh

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93 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 8719

The week’s work is done and it’s time for the serious stuff – Friday lunch is on the agenda.

Not only lunch, though – I also have plans of spending the afternoon making big pots of 1. chicken stock and 2. lentil soup supercharged with a tablespoon of freshly pan-roasted and ground cumin seeds.

So chicken bones, celery, onions and carrots are ALSO on the agenda.

So I head for the Footscray Market.

Look, I may regularly and merrily refer to it as The Market That Doesn’t Allow Cameras, but I’m not so much a goose that I’m going to go elsewhere when it suits me. Especially when the parking is $1.30 for the first hour – or $6 all day if you’re into that. Bargain!

Before the shopping I head straight for Phu Vinh, one of several Vietnamese eateries the adjoin the market on Hopkins St.

I’ve been a regular for many years, but this is my first visit since it’s been done over, freshened up and revamped with a new look and a new, and very much longer, menu.

I’ve always thought Pho Vinh something of just a face in the crowd of busy Hopkins St, and certainly I’ve never seen many folks of the paleface persuasion in there.

Turns out it does have its keen fans – you can read their thoughts (both pre- and post-upgrade) here and here.

Like me, several are a little apprehensive about what Phu Vinh’s new look will have wrought.


In my case, this has become a “single dish restaurant”, so I am only interested in ascertaining that their banh mi bo kho (stewed beef) is still on the menu – and that it’s as fine as ever.

A young staff member reassures me that, yes, it’s still a feature – as is every dish to be had at Phu Vinh Mark 1.

Banh mi bo kho is a little confusing for the name of my fave Phu Vinh dish. Banh mi is also the name given the name of those delicious, crusty rolls filled with various meats, salads and condiments. Googling tells me that bo kho also means beef stew. As far as I have been able to gather, Vietnamese beef stew is served mostly with those bread rolls – especially, it seems, in the US – hence the name used at Phu Vinh. Although, of course, my research is far from definitive.

The bread/stew combo is less familiar to me and my Melbourne haunts – in fact, Phu Vinh is the only place I’ve come across that has it as a feature.

What I find in ordering Vietnamese stewed beef is that it offers a paradoxically endless variety. It seems to depend on how long stewed each particular batch is. Get it relatively new and the carrot pieces, as vital to success as the beef, have still their sharps edges and a bit of bite. Get your stew a little further along in the process, and the carrots get a little blurry and become more of a texture thing.

I’m an equal opportunity stew man – I like it both ways, and all those in between.

Phu Vinh offers its stew four ways – with a bread roll, with egg noodles, with rice noodles, or with both kinds of noodles.

After ordering my lunch ($9), I sit back and have a good look around. I like it – Phu Vinh Mark 2 is a bright, cheerful space in which to spend some time and it’s doing pretty good business on this Friday.


My lunch arrives and all is well with the world!

The carrots are midway between crisp and mush, the beef is meltingly tender and simply falls from the bone, it’s spicy but just so for my tastes. And this banh mi bo kho is notably less fatty than those in other places that boast it, both in Footscray and Sunshine.

The bean sprouts join the raw onion slices topping the stew in providing crunch and the basil leaves provide colour and flavour. This time out, I’ve ordered my stew with rices noodles, and they mix it up in divine fashion with all the other ingredients.

The chilli salt and chilli slices go usused, while the lemon segment gives the dish a lift as I near its completion.

Phu Vinh’s banh mi bo kho just as good as it ever was? The verdict is in: Yes!

Phu Minh Mark 1 offered only a small range of dishes – my beloved stew, spring and rice paper rolls, a few rice dishes and a few more clear soup noodle efforts.

As the staff member cheerfully informed me, all those remain available, but have been joined by a great deal more. They include soup noodle, rice and stir fry options.

That’s not always a great thing, of course.

But I come away with the very strong sense that, in this particular case, a restaurant makeover and menu enlargement have been embarked on with a firm focus on not sacrificing those dishes and qualities that made the place so appealing in the first place.

So I’ll keep on returning to Phu Vinh, and will doubtless attempt to elevate it beyond “single dish restaurant” status.

Hey, I know the little photos that appear on menus at many of my favourite eateries can be misleading.

But the braised duck with egg noodles ($12) looks luscious and worth a try.

Guess I’ll soon find out eh?

Phu Vinh the noodle shop on Urbanspoon

The view from the Footscray Market car park (aka Kenny discovers a new trick of which he didn’t know his camera was capable).

 

 

 


Hien Vuong Pasteur

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pasteur2

144 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9687 9698

We love our next door neighbour Dulcie.

She’s got a bent sense of humour, is a seasoned traveller and a jazz fan.

But a few weeks ago we were aghast to discover her rich life was unpardonably devoid of one of life’s great experiences – pho!

What a spectacular honour, then, that it fell to Bennie and Kenny to initiate her.

There was never any question that we would go anywhere other than Hien Vuong Pasteur.

This place has gone from being our default pho joint to very much our preferred pho joint.

We started going there because Hung Vuong, just a few doors down the road, had become so wildly popular that tables were hard to come by and the service frequently got a bit mad and sloppy.

Since then Hien Vuong Pasteur has repaid our loyalty many times over.

I’m not about to suggest it’s the best pho in a phocentric neighbourhood.

But it IS right up there, the staff are lovely and it’s never so busy that getting seated becomes an issue.

With pho, surprises are generally not good and predictability a virtue.

Hien Vuong Pasteur’s pho is consistently excellent.

The broth is perfection, be it beef or chicken. The meat is always good and the bean sprouts and basil leaves always fresh.

The sliced beef is lean and tender, and there’s always a fair bit of it that comes to the table pink and still to be cooked in the broth.

What more could you want?

All the usual meat options are available, except pizzle, but we like ours plain.

Like all classy pho joints, Hien Vuong Pasteur has a handful of other dishes available – but why would you order crispy fried chicken with egg noodle soup, stewed beef or broken rice when you can have pho? I guess we DO vary our orders about once or twice a year.

For our Saturday lunch, Bennie and I ordered our regular small size slice beef and sliced chicken ($7.50). For many years, my standard order was medium size, please, but that seems too big for me these days. And who eats a large serve of pho? You don’t see one ordered that often.

Given she was a pho novice, I suggested Dulcie go for the sliced chicken, its broth being less funky and likely more familiar for her. She liked it a lot, although went without the sprouts and herb leaves.

Dulcie even ordered spring rolls to go to have for her dinner that night.

Bonus: On paying, Hien Vuong Pasteur has a lolly jar for the kids.

For a far more authoritative, enjoyable and insightful rundown on Footscray’s amazing Vietnamese eats scene, some serious reading time at the Footscray Food Blog of Ms Baklover is highly recommended. She knows her stuff!

Hien Vuong (Pasteur) on Urbanspoon

pasteur4

 

Olivessence

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Shop 2/277-285 Barkly St, Footscray, Phone: 9687 5202

Each of my visits to Olivessence at its previous incarnation in Victoria St, Seddon, had coincided with the recent purchase of olive oil elsewhere.

For my first to its new digs in the Barkly Theatre apartment building, olive oil is short at home and definitely on the agenda.

First, though, another of life’s essentials – coffee.

And very good it is, too.

Olivessence’s range of olive oil may not seem that grand – but the accent is very much on homegrown quality rather than quantity, with a tasting table set up beside the VOO racks.

The store also stocks a fairly handy range of goodies such as condiments, pastas and so on.


The big change from Victoria St is the addition of a coffee machine, something the in-built apartment-dwelling customers no doubt appreciate to the hilt. In a broader sense, and like Pound Cafe up the road a bit, Olivessence should benefit from a dearth of coffee options in the immediate surrounding neighbourhood.

Food-wise, Olivessence runs to breakfast of the toast and muffins variety.

Lunch comes via a modest list of platters that range from $6 to $20 for two that include a revolving range of olive oils, oilves, cheeses, Turkish bread, dukkah and so on.

The sweets highlight is the presence of  Cavallaro canoli.

And out I go, Glenora Grove VOO firmly clutched under arm and happy in the knowledge of another friendly drop-in coffee spot.

Visit the Olivessence website here.

Pound Cafe

3 Comments

Whitten Oval, 417 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9680 6300

We may be sports pigs, but AFL is not high on our radar, even if the Western Bulldogs are our nominal team of choice.

We’re more your Melbourne Storm/Melbourne Victory kinda guys.

But we pass the Bulldogs’ headquarters many times each week – sometimes while out on the food hunt, sometimes while hitting the Sims grocery just up the road and sometimes while simply tooling around.

So since a glowing review of Pound Cafe by Ms Baklover at her Footscray Food Blog, it was a matter of sooner rather than later that we’d be visiting the newly revamped HQ.

My, what an asset it is to the neighbourhood – especially in terms of diversity, as for our Monday lunch when the usual round of African/Viet/Indian and the like just simply didn’t appeal.

And with a brand new housing estate rapidly taking shape right next door, you’d think this place will do real well.

At first blush it appears to be a rather cold space wrested from the vestibule of the revamped stand.

But we felt relaxed and welcomed the more time we spent there.

As did a number of customers who came and went as we enjoyed our lunch, all of whom seemed already comfortable with using Pound Cafe as a drop-in, catch-up sort of place. The immediate neighbourhood is light-on for coffee places, so that’s another niche handily filled.

Copies of both Melbourne dailies were available at no cost and – glory be! – there were hand paper towels in the loos.

For our first taste of Pound tucker, we weighed in with two of the three available burgers, Bennie ordering the plain beef ($8) and Kenny the lamb ($9.50). Thankfully, we restricted ourselves to a side order of chips ($1.50) rather than a bowl ($4). There were heaps of them, so the bowl must be huge!

The burgers were pretty good, with Bennie’s beef having the edge thanks to its bacon and tangy sauce. My lamb job was tasty, too, though the advertised Moroccan element seemed elusive and the beetroot chutney lent it a mushy aspect.  In both cases, the bread and trimmings were fine, even if salady bits and pieces not actually in the burgers served only as redundant garnishes.

The chips were crispy and unoily, like we like ’em, but the seasoning – salt and paprika the manager informed me – had a sort of odd baconish flavour. Not bad, but – yes – a little odd.

There were lighter lunch options.

The specials board boasted a $6.50 potato, leek and bacon soup, while the bloke on the table behind us was enjoying what looked like a fine risotto of mushrooms, pesto, spinach and fetta ($11, $15).

Other menu items included a steak sandwich ($10.50) and flathead fillets with beer batter, chips, salad and tartare sauce ($12.50), as well as more snacky items and premade rolls.

A can of that Coca Cola stuff cost $2.70, which seemed pretty steep considering the general tenor of the pricing.

However, whatever our minor quibbles, Pound Cafe is a winner – and who knows? It might make more fervent Bulldogs supporters out of us yet!

Southern Spice

5 Comments

4/203 Ballarat Rd (cnr Gordon St), Footscray. Phone: 9317 3811

It was something of a surprise to discover this establishment had been open since 2003, given the hundreds of time we must have driven past it none the wiser.

Doing a blog, it seems, is somewhat akin to getting a new pair of spectacles – you see things differently, better, in more detail.

Anyway, my food-attuned senses went on high alert with the emphasis on “southern” – I had visions dancing in my head of chowing down on exotic specialties from the likes of Madras and Kerala.

Alas, the reality was more prosaic – “southern”, in this case means mostly the familiar lineup of dosa, upma, wada (vada) and idly.

But let us not become too ho-hum.

After all, it was only a few years ago that dosas and the like were a no-show on the western suburbs cheap eats radar. That we have become somewhat spoilt for choice is a cause for celebration rather complacency.


Despite its given address, Southern Spice actually sits on Gordon St, in a strip of shops buffeted by buses and cars. It’s a crisp and clean, with the obligatory Bollywood dance routines bursting forth from a telly up in one corner. The staff and service are friendly.

In order to get across as much of their food as quickly as possible, I fronted for the South Indian buffet ($12) that is featured every Saturday and Sunday for lunch.

It was a thing of advanced yumminess.

Laid out buffet style are dal, cauliflower curry, potato curry, sambar, upma, vada, idly and two kinds of rice. On an adjacent tables sits a big bowl of peanut chutney studded with evil-looking dark red dried chillies.

Dosas and – much to my giddy joy – puris are cooked to order. Oh, bliss!

I managed to resist the buffet tradition of letting my eyes get ahead of my appetite, modestly loading up a stainless steel plate as I waited for my four puris.

Peanut chutney.

It was all bloody delicious. The potato and cauliflower curries looked very similar, but tasted quite different, with the cauliflower having an extra tang. The dal was beaut, too, while the peanut chutney belied its fiery appearance by being a smooth, mildy-spiced, coconutty concoction – sort of like a runny South Indian peanut butter. The upma,  white and cakey and studded with curry leaves and mustard seeds, was a little bland, but fine dipped in the sambar.

The made-for-me puris were superb – and about a grease-free as puris can be.

Southern Spice also has a feature called Biryani Fridays, for $13 and from 6pm, with a lineup that includes chicken, mutton and egg biryanis, chcken fry, raita and so on.

The day before I roadtested the wonderful South Indian buffet, I had a simple thali of goat madras (on the bone), “bhendi” fry (a very dry jumble of peanuts, crispy onion and chewy okra), raita, rice and a single papadam. It was OK, but the spice levels were in Johnny Cash territory – not my thing these days.

A can of that Coca Cola stuff costs a very excellent $1.

Southern Spice is nestled amid a rather drab cluster of shops and eats places, only about half of which are currently operating as businesses of varying kinds. But the area is changing – there’s a Korean BBQ joint across the road that looks just about ready to roll, while a few doors up what was once a fish and chip shop is being gutted. Stay tuned...

Southern Spice is also something of a rarity – a western suburbs cheap eat that has its very own website, a simple but detailed job that can be found here.

Southern Spice on Urbanspoon



Saturday in the ‘hood

3 Comments

Outstanding channa and puris, $7; shame about the plastic cutlery and ozone-rotting container.

Asian dog? Oh man, I gotta try me one of those!

Little Saigon Market.

Cavallaro’s

Babylon Restaurant.

Coffee and baklava at Babylon, $4.

Footscray Best Kebab House

8 Comments

93 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 0777

Such a humble exterior, such a humdrum name … but behind both lies what is indisputably one of the landmark hot spots of the Melbourne eating firmament.

In fact, such unabashed fans are we of this establishment that we firmly believe it should be permanently lodged on the same list of Melbourne Sacred Sites that pays homage to the likes of the MCG, Hound Dog’s Bop Shop, Pelligrini’s, Brunetti’s, the Vic Market and so on.

No kidding!

The term kebab, of course, means different things to different people.

For many Australian, kebab is meat (usually lamb, and usually carved from a vertical spit), salad goodies and a garlciky yogurt sauce served in bread – pita or pide.

Indeed, some of the FBKH customers do just that.

(Kebab also means meat on skewers – which make satay sticks technically, if not nominally, kebabs.)

The FBKH has skewers, too – namely sublimely juicy and marinated shish kebabs of the lamb and chicken variety, and the minced, spiced lamb of the adana kebab.

Finally, it’s my understanding that kebab simply means meat – and that’s where the FBKH is at.

As already noted, some customers go for the pide sandwich with the fillings of their choice.

But the savvy, loyal and greatly numbered regulars – and we certainly count ourselves in that happy band – know better, and go for the preposterously fantastic plated meals.

Those regulars are a glorious and fair representation of rainbow Footscray.

There’s Mediterranean types, of course, but the FBKH is also a major hit with the local African community, while it’s fully part of the everyday routine here to see members of the various Asian demographics likewise chowing down.

The regulars place their orders at the front then grab one of the several and prized tables.

Prices have inched up over the years, and these days run from $10 for the small vegetarian to $22 for one-size-only mixed grill.

However, the large plates – except maybe for the ravenously hungered or plain old gluttonous – are fine for sharing, as many folks do. And that puts the FBKH firmly in the cheap eats bracket.

The meats are all superb.

The dips are good, too, but we have two outright favourites.

The beetroot is normally a lurid pink and comes with just the right blend of sweetness and earthiness.

The chilli dip, I find, is a little too spicy to slather on bread like the others – rather, used sparingly it is a crunchy, tangy taste sensation when used as a meat enhancer.

In terms of non-meat fare, the stuffed vine leaves are exceptional, with a firmly packed and tomatoey filling that is best inhaled cold. Combined with the falafels, dips and salads, we often go that route for the vegetarian plate.

The large meal of the day ($14, and featuring the quick and easy option of meat from the spit) was our review meal (4/9/10), with the beetroot dip on this day being an unusually restrained pink.

The lamb and chicken carved off the spit is of the layered variety – not the reconstituted, sausage-like meat also sometimes found in such places.

They’re both good, but the lamb is our favourite – crunchy, salty, crusty. Oh my!

Each plate comes with a cheerful, lemony salad jumble of red cabbage, carrot, lettuce, green onion, while we routinely also request the addition of a portion of the potato salad – oily, but divine!

Along with two dips of your choice is served a basket of  warm, fresh Turkish bread, while the large plates usually are also usually accompanied by a grilled green chilli, grilled large slice of tomato and marvellous rice with slivers of almond threaded through it..

Crockery and cutlery is real.

Service is friendly, but can be on the brisk side – this is only natural, as things can get a little insane in here during the lunch rush.

The FBKH is not open on Sundays, and not for dinner on the remaining days – which is probably just as well, given that the mall in which it is situated can be a mite scary after dark.

The Footscray Best Kebab House – it’s a treasure, and one of those rare places where genius is matched at every step by consistency.

Footscray Best Kebab House on Urbanspoon