Tag Archives: Steak

Steak of the art

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Bar Romanee, 25 Anderson Street, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 8451

In which we upscale one of our favourite lockdown treats into a real-deal dine-in experience.

Along with park picnics of takeaway food in slightly more far-flung environs of the west, we survived the most recent Melbourne lockdown thanks to several partakings of Bar Romanee’s Monday steak night.

Up to that point, we’d tried Bar Romanee for nothing more than a Cup Day steak sanger, also consumed in a nearby park – it was very good, too.

More in-depth exploration of the swish, clubbish joint being delayed, of course, by circumstances.

But our takeaway Monday steaks?

Hoo boy, they were utterly excellent – we both happily concluded they were the best we’d had from anywhere at any price at any time.

Being eaten on cardboard perhaps even heightening that sense of deluxe, our steaks were joined by good chips and wonderful slaw.

My suspicion that steak – and chips – were not suitable takeaway material was ameliorated by teamwork and the closeness of Bar Romanee to our home.

Park outside, grab the beefy goodies and then swiftly home – in each case, we were dining in style in well under five minutes.

But now things are a bit looser, we’re actually in the house on a Monday night.

What a lovely place this is!

There’s a Yarraville buzz on and there’s a nice crowd in, yet the buzz is not rowdy, noisy or oppressive in any way.

We’re told by our wait person that some Monday punters go with picks from the broader menu, but just about everyone we see around us is steaking it.

So we do, too.

It’s all brilliant – medium rare genius, a rich sauce, chips that are hotter than we’d managed to rush into our living room and superb slaw, studded with cuke and radish slices and scented with dill.

Look, we know there are other steak specials around – we’ve even tried some of them.

And some of them are significantly cheaper than the $30 Romanee price.

But in terms of deliciousness and value for money, Romanee is unbeatable.

Steak in a motel

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Blazed Bar & Grill, Sunshine Motor Inn, 608 Ballarat Road, Aredeer. Phone: 9363 1717

We’re not real big on steaks.

Maybe because so much of the new-world food we love chops beasties up into bits more akin to bite-size.

But maybe, also, because we’ve had some very average steaks in the west, ones that have sat lumpen and leaden in our tummies.

But we can be persuaded.

During the most recent lockdown, for example, a couple of times we indulged in the Monday night $30 special from Romanee in Yarraville – perfectly cooked steak, fries, slaw, whipped home and being consumed within a couple of minutes.

I believe the same deal – eat in or eat out – continues to be offered.

Then there is Blazed Bar & Grill.

This has become a scratch that demands to be itched and I eventually co-opt Justin into a visit.

Part of it is the online reviews – though I know well enough not to lend them too much credence.

Part of it, too, is the constant CTS desire to eat and blog in the less congested eating spaces of the west.

But mostly, I confess, I am simply tickled about the idea of chowing down in a motel – especially one located on an otherwise mostly inedible, “nowhere” part of Ballarat Road, just south the ring Road.

My slightly dodgy hunch and enthusiasm end up being fully vindicated – and Justin, too, is won over, despite initial bemusement-verging-on-wariness.

We are impressed right from the start thanks to the friendly staff and, soon thereafter, the presence of chef Varun Mathur.

Varun explains the sourcing and grading of the house specialty – steaks – and dispenses advice with genuine warmth that sets us at ease.

We are seated in the huge dining room, which is deserted on an early week night. There’s a few customers in the adjacent bar who presumably belong to the numerous trucks parked all over.

Then – steaks for two it is.

Justin is very happy with his sirloin ($36), remarking that it is very, um, unusual to be presented with his steak cooked precisely rare as ordered and in this kind of setting.

The chips are good and the salad much more varied, crisp and colourful than predicted.

We’d cynically expected a typically sloppy balsamic-based dressing, but instead he gets a good mix of coriander, lime, mint, chilli and vinegar.

My ribeye ($38) delights in every way – cooked medium rare, juicy, delicious.

I would’ve preferred the chips/salad combo to accompany, but choose the veg option simply for variety’s sake.

And I am stoked about that.

The saffron mash and chargrilled mushroons and asparagus are excellent.

Blazed has been a wonderful – and somewhat unexpected – experience.

But there are aspects here worthy of a return visit or three.

The dessert list’s vanilla slice for one.

And the $20 burger-and-chips combos available in the bar.

In the meantime, we depart with a simple conclusion – Blazed does meat biz every bit as well and in every way as at least three inner-west pub-type venues of high repute we can think of.

Hot stuff!

Double banger

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Angie’s Kitchen, Shop 75, 21-31 Hall Street, Moonee Ponds. Phone: 9939 5821
Macelleria, Shop 74 Moonee Ponds Central, 21-31 Hall Street, Moonee Ponds. Phone: 9372 8441

Periodically, we find ourselves in Moonee Ponds and, more specifically, on Puckle Street.

And it’s then that we wonder: “What the hell are we doing here?”

It’s all a perfectly OK retail/eating precinct – and we love scoping out some of the gorgeous real estate between Puckle Street and, say, Highpoint on our way home.

But by and large, when it comes to the kinds of food that sets our pulses racing, the neighbourhood is, well, just average.

But there are hot spots.

We continue to love shopping, when we’re in the area, at Fresh On Young – the subject of the second ever CTS story.

More recently, on Hall Street – on the other side of Puckle Street from Young – there is a food flourishing going on, one we make the most of with twin winning lunches at adjoining newcomers.

Both Angie’s Kitchen and Macelleria front Hall Street, but are part of the wider Moonee Ponds Central retail/food/services set-up.

 

 

The colour scheme, fittings and all-round general vibe in Angie’s Kitchen make it feel like the kind of place you’d be very comfortable taking your gran.

But there is some real serious, delicious and keenly priced Chinese food going on here – and it’s all produced and created in house from the ground up.

As we takes our seats, we are entertaining thoughts of trying up to a handful of the many dumplings featured on the menu (see below) – and chicken feet.

We lose out on the chicken feet.

“They wouldn’t work in Moonee Ponds,” we’re later told.

Meanwhile, we mention to the staff member serving us that we’re used to ordering (and eating) Chinese roasts in combos of two or three meats, accompanied by rice and bok choy – as we’d enjoyed the previous week.

Yet this option is not open to us at Angie’s Kitchen.

No problem, we’re helpfully informed – just order the mixed roast platter ($30), a small serve of greens with oyster sauce and a bowl of rice.

So – big change of plans – that’s what we do.

The photo of the mixed roast platter at the top of this story does not adequately convey the generous size of the portions – nor their outright deliciousness.

Oh boy, oh boy – this is fabulous stuff!

And this is quite a different setting from that in which we more normally enjoy this kind of food, but we revel in it.

The portions of duck and barbecued pork are chunkier than the norm, but nevertheless excellent – and, for the most, juicy and tender.

The roast pork pieces, including their crackling, are quite delicate.

 

 

Our small serve of mixed greens ($9.80) is purpose made for accompanying the roast meats and does the job admirably.

 

 

The roast/greens mix makes for quite a substantial lunch, but we cannot resist the temptation of trying the steamed BBQ pork buns ($6.20).

 

 

These, too, are superb, with wonderfully sticky and sweet fillings.

We’ve eaten like royalty so have no qualms whatsoever about the $49 price tag – it seems like a bargain.

 

 

When I first heard about Macelleria and its slogan – “The Butcher That Cooks For You” – I was skeptical.

It sounded a bit gimmicky to me.

We discover that, to some extent at least, that feeling is warranted.

 

 

Customers can and do buy meat from Macelleria to take home – but mostly this a steak/grill joint (one of four in Melbourne) with a display cabinet.

But what arouses our curiosity, impels us through the door and – eventually – finds us taking a lunch-time table is the menu item that is the half rack of beef ribs (menu below).

Based on our previous experiences with the bigness of beef ribs, a half rack with a side salad and mash for $24.90 sounds like a fine deal.

 

 

The dining room is a lovely, airy place in which to lunch and watch the passing parade on Hall Street.

 

 

Bennie is the lucky punter who gets to order and enjoy the beef ribs.

It proves to be excellent.

The ribs aren’t as big as many we’ve enjoyed, but plenty big enough for lunch.

The meat and its rosemary and garlic marinade are terrific.

The side salad is beaut and the creamy mash also fine – though so voluminous is the latter that Bennie falls quite a way short of finishing it.

 

 

My own bangers and mash is a much more modest outing, both in ambition and price ($17.90).

The finely ground beef snags are very flavoursome and the mash the same as that which adorned Bennie’s ribs.

But the high point of my meal is the rich, perfect onion gravy.

 

 

I bolster my meal with a serve of coleslaw ($7.90).

This proves to be a mistake.

For starters, Bennie’s side salad would’ve sufficed for both of us.

And this slaw is just OK – in fact, it’s a bit drab.

 

Meal of the week No.47: DaLat Hill Sunshine

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Perusing Sunshine Plaza on a casual walk-through, one might conclude it’s doing it tough.

There are a lot of premises without tenants.

The supermarket has become a Dimmeys.

The fresh produce/market Big Fields has become the otherwise identical Vicfields

And the deli next door has closed.

But …

There still exists here a community vibe of the sort that struggles to gain a foothold at the bigger shopping centre across the road and others of its kind.

The tables and chairs outside the aforementioned deli, for instance, seem to remain a friendly gathering place.

And Sunshine Plaza management continue to fight the good fight with regular FB updates on centre affairs.

Another crew that’s injecting life at the plaza is the one behind DaLat Hill Sunshine, which occupies one of the premises fronting Hampshire Road.

 

 

Despite its Vietnamese name, there’s no rice paper rolls or pho here.

Instead, they are going their own sweet way, developing a niche based around steak, along with regular cafe fare (see menu below).

Here you can get T-bone, ribeye, scotch fillet and the like at fair prices.

But the place’s big drawcard, one designed to get new customers through the door yet also remain an always available “special”, is the Special Rump Steak for $10.

We are a little surprised to be asked how we want our meat cooked, as we figure the $10 steak will be of the ultra-thin variety sometimes served as part of Vietnamese steak-and-eggs and for which precise cooking instructions are pretty much irrelevant.

So … medium rare for us both.

How good can a $10 steak be?

The answer, at DaLat Hill Sunshine, is … just fine.

Sure, you’ll not be chowing down here on prime, big-bucks beef, but our steaks are enjoyable nonetheless.

And they’re nicely sized for our Saturday lunch, steak not normally being something we would otherwise ever consider ordering for anything other than an evening meal.

And then, only very rarely.

Haha!

But what makes our meals more than just adequately satisfying – and propels them into realms of bargain pleasure – is the care taken with the accompaniments and the presentation.

The mashed potato is very, very good.

The asparagus spears are both cooked through and crisp.

The thin gravy is fine for meat dipping.

And even the rosemary garnish does its part by imbuing all with a just the right amount of perfume.

The service is fine and smiling – as are the Vietnamese iced coffees with which we depart.

 

Get on board

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Station Hotel, 59 Napier Street, Footscray. Phone: 9810 0085

These days, there are a handful of inner-west pubs that appear to aspire to offering very good pub tucker or fare beyond that.

But in some ways, the Station Hotel is the grand old dame of that scene.

It’s been around a goodly while, has had at least one management change of which I’m aware and – more recently – experienced a fire that closed the joint down for a few months.

We enjoy a lovely Tuesday night there, with good service and a happy atmosphere in the mostly full dining room and more raucous goings on in the bar.

We like it very much that the Station aims high but stays a pub.

It’s a birthday night at CTS HQ, so there’s a sense recklessness in the air – this is one of the very, very rare times in which “cheap eats” does not join “melbourne” and “western suburbs” as an automatic tag for a story.

Wheee!

 

 

Good bread and room-temperature butter are complementary; this is mostly for Bennie’s sake – given the weight of food we plan on enjoying, I leave it alone.

 

 

We love cauliflower so have no hesitation in ordering the cauliflower croquettes with romesco sauce ($14).

And are disappointed.

They are expertly cooked, ungreasy and chockers with gooey rich goodness.

But they are largely tasteless and certainly bereft of cauliflower flavour, according to both of us.

 

 

Much more impressive – and tasty – is the tuna tataki with “miso mayonnaise” and pickled cucumber ($19).

Every mouthful is a zingy, ever-lovin’ jumble of top-notch contrasts.

The mayo is confusing, though, as we taste not miso but do detect a nice wasabi tang.

Not that it matters!

 

 

One of us was always going to order steak – and that turns to be, well, me.

That order being in the form of this knock-out “rib eye, 500g Great Southern, (Vic) British breeds” ($55), cooked medium rare.

Now look, as is no doubt obvious from the now many years of CTS, we are not really steak men.

So this proclamation by both of us may not be based on much.

But …

BEST.

STEAK.

EVER.

The meat is quite heavily seasoned and is quite salty, but that’s fine by both me and he, who also gets quite a good go at it.

The spuds and salad are fine, but are largely superfluous to the carnivore carnival – as are the pepper and bearnaise sauces on hand.

 

 

By comparison, Bennie’s pan-fried pork fillet with apple and apricot stuffing on pearl barley and peas with cider jus ($35) is rather demure.

He enjoys it plenty, however, and the meat is superbly moist and tender.

He’s less impressed with the barley base, which seems like a touch of brilliant to his father.

 

 

“Tastes of chocolate and caramel” ($14) is perhaps a tad too fiddly for the likes us apple pie guys, but we enjoy it anyway.

Underneath that dome of “chocolate mirror glaze” is a globe of caramel parfait – not quite ice-cream, not quite cake, all wonderful.

 

 

More appropriate for us is the luscious vanilla panna cotta with a berry and meringue topping and a fresh berry and cream shortbread off to the side.

This being a once-a-year kind of splash-up meal for CTS, we order cafe lattes to be enjoyed with our desserts even though it’s a mid-week evening.

The barista’s first go is deemed unworthy, with the second attempt missing our long-completed desserts by quite some margin.

They’re good, though, and we are not charged for them.

It’s been a fine night, a special night for the CTS lads.

Check out the Station Hotel website – including menu – here.