Tag Archives: western suburbs

Cake Art Yarraville

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Please note this premises now house a business known as Boutique Cake Art

Here is the message I received yesterday:

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Hi there,

Christina here from Boutique Cake Art formerly Cake Art Yarraville. Just touching base as within the year I have currently taken over Cake Art and there have been a lot of changes in terms of services we now provide. Was just wondering whether you could update the piece you have done on this business or take the old profile down. Let me know what information I need to provide if an update is possible.

Thanks in advance

Regards, Christina Blaby Cake Art Yarraville 9314 6776

Monday – closed Tuesday – 10am-6pm Wednesday – 10am-6pm Thursday – 10am -6pm Friday – 10am- 6pm Saturday – 9am- 3pm Sunday – Cake Courses (9am-5pm- By Appointment)

http://www.madbatter.com.au – for cake course information and bookings

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I will do a story in due course!

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79 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9314 6776

Kristen Alston has been baking cakes professionally for 20 years and running her cake shop, Baked, in Carlisle St, Balaclava, for six years.

Living locally, though, she is making sure some of her work life lives here, too.

What she calls her “cake studio” has been open on Anderson St for about three weeks.

While there are some of your more prosaic take-home-and-eat cakes on hand, it’s clear the spectacular display cakes that are arrayed around the Anderson St showroom are what will capture the attention and inspire the delight of children and also adults of all ages.

Is it food or is it art? Is it both? Does it matter?

Kristen tells me that her customers by and large do eat their cakes, but some do attempt to let them hang around for as long as possible.

That is about six or seven months.

The outer, colourful shells will last a lot longer, even if they do become inedible, but the bases – mudcake – eventually start shrinking and collapsing.

Despite the advent of TV programs such as Ace Of Cakes, Kristen remains happily unaware of and unconcerned about awards or other competitive or glamourous aspects of her art that may be out there.

“I live in  a bit of a bubble,” she says.

Your typical substantial three-dimensional cake clocks in at about $300 and will feed 30 people.

The weirdest order she’s ever taken was from, ahem, members of a fetish club and involved intertwined penises.

I reckon it’s very hard to go past the Spongebob number.

This is the cake discussed in comments below:

Casa Italica

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88 Ferguson St, Williamstown. Phone:  9397 5777

We stumbled upon Casa Italica while looking for a post-lunch coffee after a visit to Wild Rice, also in Ferguson St.

I’d returned once seeking soup, only to find none available.

This morning, while going about my business, I have been developing a lust for minestrone.

I’m in luck – there’s two soups on, and one of them is the one that has been on my mind.

The vegetables are chopped much more finely than I am familiar with in this soup, either made at home or out and about. But they’re all present and accounted for, cooked through but far from mushy.

My soup bowl requires a little at-table seasoning and I use all the little bowl of grated parmesan provided as my meal progresses. But together with two excellent slices of crusty buttered bread, it gets better with every mouthful until all is gone.

It’s deceptively filling and worth every cent of the $10.95 I pay for it.

Casa Italica is a temple to all things Italian situated in a lovely old building. Stacked and shelved in every nook and cranny are condiments of all sorts, tomatoes every which way and a pasta selection that appears to rival that of Mediterranean Wholesalers in Sydney Rd.

At first blush I take many of the meals listed on the blackboard menu to be little more than lightweight cafe fare.

But the plates I see around me – which include arancini and fab-looking pies – appear very fine indeed, the salad quotient looking hearty and handsome, and containing greenery and beans at the very least.

No soup for me next time.

I linger over a good coffee ($3) and a deliciously moist piece of pistachio biscotti ($2.50).

As I am taking photographs of the exterior, one of the establishment’s coffee customers, on noticing my Grateful Dead hoodie, ventures out for a bit of chat about the local music and food scenes.

Larry tells me Casa Italica is one of his regular caffeine haunts, but he seems to share our bewilderment about the food scene hereabouts.

Ferguson St, Nelson Parade, Douglas Parade – so many cafes and eateries, so few highlights.

“Nelson Parade is like the Gold Coast,” Larry quips. “We mostly go to Footscray to eat.”

The Australian Coffee Festival & Cafe Biz 2011

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 Melbourne Show Grounds, May  21 & 22

This here coffee bash seems to present the same unknowns as the recent National Vegetable Expo.

Will it offer enough to entertain and enlighten?

I love my java, but get by with bargain-priced vacuum-packed product at home and generally have two cafe lattes while out and about during the day – quite different from the six-plus cups of a decade ago.

Certainly I’m not a paid-up member of the coffee cult and have little interest in the likes of single-estate beans and so on.

Pondering these unknowns, I realise that one of the links I have for the exhibition lists Sunday as being “trade only”. A quick phone call to one of the organisers fixes that up – yes, I am quite welcome.

I figure it’s a good thing, too, that I am destined for a night shift starting at 4pm. Caffeinated is the way to go!

As with the vegetable show, many of the exhibitors are concerned with packaging and other paraphernalia.

The lovely crew from hookTURN are having a swell time talking up their gorgeous silicon and reusable coffee containers:

Several stallholders are spruiking far out custom-made coffee tampers:

Greg Pullman from Pullman Espresso Accessories tells me tampers are crucial, with the feel and weight of the tampers in the hand, and their fit, all important.

My first coffee is made for me by Danny Zamprogno of Boema coffee machines and accessories. He tells me the event is definitely good for business.

I also indulge in a Turkish coffee – very different from my usual intake – with a piece of Turkish delight on the side.

There are, of course, plenty of other sweet treats to be had:

The lads from Big Harvest are pitching their ready-made salads and other goodies, which they tell me are ideal for the ubiquitous hole-in-the-wall joints that lack the facilities for largescale food preparation.

The crew from Bonsoy admit, somewhat ruefully, that talking up their products in the midst of so many caffeine crazies is an uphill task … but they’re having a fine time giving it a crack.

Some exhibitors take a strictly scientific, molecular approach to coffee:

There’s even a stall for a job agency specifically focussed on the coffee industry:

As if folks aren’t wired up enough, the sound system is pumping out the likes of Eye Of The Tiger, Street Fighting Man and Whip It.

The coffee lover and sports fan in me combine as I become engrossed in a barista showdown between teams from South Australia and Western Australia.

It’s very intense.

Teams must produce 30 brews of widely varying kinds in 20 minutes.

The judges base their assessments on temperature, taste and latte art, using poker chips to denote their ratings.


My thanks to Victorian team captain Erin Sampson, who works for Veneziano Coffee, for explaining the competition to me. She is Australia’s most awarded female barista.

Thanks, too, for the ace “Vic State Of Origin Barista” T-shirt. I’ll wear it with pride.

End result after two hours? Some fine coffee and encounters with some very interesting and passionate people.

On departing, it seems weird and not a little wonderful to be strolling back to my car amid deserted territory that I am so used to traipsing amid show hordes.

Green Tea

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320 Racecourse Rd, Flemington. Phone: 9372 6369

What do you do on Judgment Day?

We go to Racecourse Rd for lunch.

We first check one of our fave Turkish kebab meats ‘n’ dips places, but hastily retreat when we realise the plate-size lunches have escalated in price to $15 and more.

Plan B is definitely Green Tea.

While a whole bunch of folks are having a fine old time comparing the relative merits of the next-door-neighbours Laksa King and Chef Lagenda, around the corner in Pin Oak Crescent, something appeals to us about checking out the premises vacated by Laksa King in the process of moving to its swish abode.

So it is that we amble up the arcade known to generations of Melbourne cheap eaters.

The space that was formerly Laksa King has undergone a transformation from those dog-eared and dingy days. It looks swell and swish, with much dark wood.

On the signage outside, Green Tea announces itself as purveying “Vietnamese & Chinese Cuisine”, but there are also Thai and Malaysian-derived dishes on the menu.

There’s pho, laksas, nasi goreng, green curry, pork belly hot pot and chicken teriyaki.

Will this be capable multi-tradition, perhaps even sensational? Or just a clumsy melange?

First up is a complementary plate of prawn crackers.

Then dad learns a lesson about letting Bennie have the run of the drinks cabinet unsupervised – to the tune of $3.80 and a bottle of Cascade sarsaparilla.

Bennie, meanwhile, learns that sarsaparilla tastes like not particularly nice medicine and smells like footy changerooms.

Two plain dimmies are stodgy, hot and delicious, but pretty steep at $4.90.

Having already pronounced a hankering for fried noodles of some sort, Bennie orders the mee goreng ($10.80).

It’s a good one without reaching any great heights. Some more seasoning zing may’ve been a good idea. This dish is routinely served with a lemon wedge on the side. We ask for one and it is provided.

That the lad fails to finish his food, though, says more about its quantity than quality.


I order the beef laksa.

I get the vegetable laksa ($8.80).

I’m not one for sending perfectly good food back to the kitchen – not today anyway – and proceed to enjoy what is an impressive array of non-meat goodies.

In my bowl are bok choy and other leafy vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, onion, carrot, green beans, tofu, baby corn, two kinds of mushroom and quite possibly some items that escaped notice.

The noodles are egg only; no rice noodles here. Nor is the usual pile of bean sprouts resting under all.

The soup is thin, uncreamy and not particularly flavoursome. As well, I’m pretty sure I detect a whiff of tom yum about it all.

The whole experience is a bit odd.

Paying for our $31.10 meal with a $50 note, I receive a handful of shrapnel in return.

Dang! I really wanted to be knocked out by this place.

Green Tea on Urbanspoon

Burger Edge

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21 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9689 3099

THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED DOWN.

Heading for a Geelong night subediting shift without packing a meal of some sort is something of a disaster.

This is especially so on Sunday nights, when the handful of Asian eateries that turn out acceptable and acceptably affordable meals the rest of the week, lunch and dinner, are closed. Shut. Tumbleweeds down the main drag.

Thus it was that recently, without home-packed food of my own, I resorted to the easy, lazy option of hitting the McDonald’s outlet right across the road from the offices of the Geelong Advertiser.

Eating McDonalds is something I do maybe every couple of years or so – just long enough, it seems, to have forgotten how awful it was the last time.

I had one of their much-advertised Angus burgers.

Little bit fancy? Ha! How about a real big load of … unfood stuffed in an unbun.

Horrible chips, barely lukewarm. I’m tempted to say they were tasteless, but in fact they did have a taste – a bad one.

Blah soft drink.

Just terrible!

Why do folks put up with such crap? Or, more to the point, why do so many of them positively revere it?

One of life’s mysteries.

We dig our burgers and know there’s ways of going about it with much better results than delivered by the McDonalds option.

Or Hungry Jacks, which I find preferrable, though we’re talking very small degrees there.

We love Grill’d, as experienced during Bennie’s 10th birthday shebang.

For a contrast in taste and style, we also like our local old-school burger place.

As well, we’ve been somewhat regular visitors to one of the breed of burger places that has been resident in Anderson St, Yarraville, for a few years now.

According to the Burger Edge website, there are a dozen or so outlets in Melbourne, three others elsewhere in the country and four more in the planning stages.

This sounds pretty good to me – if franchising must be part of our food culture, the smaller the better I reckon.

So it is that I rock up on a chilly mid-week night to see how our Burger Edge scrubs up these days.

There’s nothing flash about the place – utilitarian but perfectly fine.

Best of all, though, the Anderson St shop has a tidy upstairs dining space – cosy on a cold night!

I order a the BBQ Bacon Burger, going combo-style with chips and a can of Pepsi for $4 and 70 cents more for a small tub of “aioli” for a meal-total of $14.60.

The chips are better than good but short of great. There’s plenty of them as part of my combo deal and they’re good and crunchy, but they could be a tad hotter.

The peach-coloured tub of dressing is fine for chip-dipping but calling it “aioli” is a stretch.

The burger, likewise, is better than good but short of great. The bacon adds flavour, but I discern little or no BBQ sauce tang. The salad bits – lettuce, red onion, tomato – are fine, but the beef patty simply isn’t, well, as “beefy” as those found at Grill’d.

In fact, where Grill’d scores 8 or even 9 with us when we visit, Burger Edge is more your 6 0r 7.

Not a fail by any means – I enjoyed my meal – but just lacking, well, an edge that would make a difference.

Burger Edge has a loyalty program that is different.

Instead of having to purchase X number of burgers to qualify for a freebie, they present customers with a plastic card that once ratified on the company website delivers a 10 per cent discount on every meal.

The Burger Edge website is here.

Burger Edge on Urbanspoon

Aldi

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Central West Shopping Plaza, West Footscray.

Recollections of my only visit to an Aldi outlet – soon after the company set up shop in Australia – are all negative.

They are of a cheapness far beyond the admirably low prices, produce on palates, produce strewn on the floor and rock-hard dried fruit in the muesli.

Haven’t been back since.

But so many friends continue to frequent their local Aldi that I figure it’s time for another look.

Perhaps my memory is playing a few tricks on me, for the Central West Aldi is spick, span and ultra neat.

What I find a little disturbing, though, is the utter quietness, so conditioned am I to hearing piped music in supermarkets and shopping malls.

This place is bright, silent and a little creepy.

I feel like an extra in The Stepford Wives.

My shopping needs are modest, so much so that I don’t even wield a list as I set off with my $2 shopping trolley.

I am disappointed to find no simple rolled oats, but grab a 99-cent bag of the crushed variety.

Grandessa raspberry jam is beaut at $1.39. The label says “made in Australia” and carries Aldi details, so I guess it’s the house brand.

I figure just about the entire the stock range is likewise.

The Carloni diced, tinned tomatoes, for instance, at 69 cents – the labels says they’re from Argentina! I buy two just to check ’em out.

Also with Aldi markings on the packaging is the made-in-Italy Remano pasta at 79 cents a 500 gram bag.

Ocean Rise 185-gram tuna in “springwater” is another Aldi product, this time listed as being from Thailand. I buy two for $1.99 each. Thai springwater?

A 125-gram bar of German Mosser Roth chocolate costs $2.49, a litre bottle of Unamat dishwashing detergent 99 cents and a 250-gram bag of Fair Trade coffee $4.99.

As on my long-ago previous visit, the fresh produce situation is skimpy. No herbs to be seen at all, but they do have bananas for just under the $10 mark – cheaper than anywhere else I’ve seen recently. I grab a kilo bag of mandarins for $2.25.

The Deli Originals kilo bottle of giardinera mix looks good for $2.99 – bizarrely, this is a product of India!

My dijon mustard (190 grams for $1.39) and The Olive Tree EVOO (500ml for $5.49) are both marked as being Australian products.


I go up and down each aisle at least twice looking for rice. And fail.

Some of the prices, for various nuts for example, seem little or no cheaper than in the competition.

And $12.99 for poor-quality cushions seems pretty steep.

Look, if our domestic situation involved more people, and if our household budget was subject to greater demands, Aldi would no doubt be a viable proposition for us.

But a big mark against it for us is the lack of a deli counter. There’s no way, in other words, of ordering a half-dozen slices of green olive mortadella or a piece of fetta just the right size for that night’s salad or a handful of olives.

Aldi remains for us not only cheap in price but just plain cheap.

Even something as potentially humdrum as household shopping deserves a richer experience than Aldi delivers.

It’s the pokies pub of supermarkets.

I believe it’s a simple matter to shop as cheaply as can be done at Aldi AND enjoy an enriching experience in doing so. 

Mileage of others obviously varies.

On the way home, I stop by Sims in Barkly St for the items I failed to find in Aldi – and share a chuckle with a young mum who only moments before had been one of my fellow shoppers at Aldi.

For the record, our regular shopping haunts are – depending on our needs, time of day, day of the week and so on – the aforementioned Sims, IGA in Yarraville, various shops at The Circle in Altona. Less frequently we make it to Sunshine Plaza and its Big Fields Fresh Market and even Mediterranean Wholesalers in Sydney Rd.

More specialised, focussed adventures are regularly had at Footscray Market, Saigon Market and Vic Market.

Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum

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189-193 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9078 8778

Bennie’s mate, Rakha, is spending a large chunk of Sunday with us – and a fine thing this is.

We dig his company a bunch, of course, but his arrival also opens up unexpected vistas in terms of luncheon possibilities.

Bennie has been bugging his dad for months for a return visit to Yummie, but dad has concluded that yum cha is unviable unless we have at least one buddy along for the ride.

Even better, Rakha was an enthusiastic participant in our most recent yum cha outing, several months previously in the CBD.

So off we go!

I’ve never seen lads so eagerly relinquish a PlayStation.

Yummie has a strictly functional ambiance and is unheated. It occupies premises that once housed a cheap, good and short-lived Indian place and, before that, a Polish deli.

As is our general experience with yum cha, there is a certain amount of low-key anarchy and chaos.

Sometimes there are longish waits for food – any food.

Other times it’s a case of too much on offer.

Our previous visits had been of the mid-week evening variety, when we ordered from the list.

Personally, I prefer this to the mobile cart tradition – you get exactly what you want, or at least ordered, and with a higher probability of fresh-out-of-the-steamer.

For this Sunday lunch, though, there are trolleys, so we’re a bit confused. Some of the occupied tables also seem to be ordering  a la carte.

We enjoy a pretty good lunch doing a bit of both.

We start with trolley-derived deep-fried won tons ($4.80).

These are barely OK – and barely luke warm.

Also from the trolley service come prawn dumplings ($5.80) and chive dumplings ($5.80).

This is more like it!

They’re all hot and fresh, with lovely casings of typical stickiness and with prawn fillings of sublime semi-crunch texture.

Next up is our order of chicken feet ($3.80).

They have close to zero of the black bean and chilli zing we’re expecting, but they’re so hot and tender that they are greeted with all-round acclaim.

Also a la carte is a rice roll with deep-fried flour ($6.80), ordered on the basis of my inquiry to a neigbouring table: “What is that?”

This, frankly, is a little weird.

The soft rice covering surrounds fried dough of some sort and also spinach or some similar leafy vegetable. It all disappears, though, and is tasty dipped in the accompanying bowl of oyster sauce.

Perhaps the prawn, beef or BBQ pork versions might be the go next time.

For our last hurrah, we tackle two more trolley items – BBQ pork pastry ($3.80) and deep-fried prawn roll ($4.80).


The pork items are for the boys – just as well, as there’s only two of them.

They like them, but both concede they prefer the steamed bun variety.

The prawn roll is, with the chicken feet, a highlight.

For each us of there’s a flat and crispy fried tofu casing wrapped around fine prawn filling. They’re very good.

There are more highly regarded yum cha places in our extended westie neighbourhood, but choice is limited close to home.

As well, it’s not that much of priority for us.

In that context, Yummie does just fine when the mood strikes us.

It’s reassuring, too, to note that for Sunday lunch – peak traffic time for yum cha the world over – Yummie is busy without being frantic.

Ms Baklover’s review of Yummie at Footscray Food Blog is here.

Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum on Urbanspoon



Hao Phong

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136 Hopkins St, Footscray. Phone: 9689 8373

We’ve already been wet and cold and bedraggled at the morning rugby match, so venturing out for our Saturday lunch seems folly, especially as we are aimless in terms of our destination.

I have visions of someplace warm – of course! – and stews and soups of some sort.

Bennie brings focus to proceedings by announcing: “I’d like Vietnamese – not pho …”

Seated and perusing the Hao Phong menu, he narrows it down even more: “I’d like pork!”

Pork it is!

He gets the crispy fried egg noodles with roast pork.

As far as I can recall, this is the first time Bennie has had this style of noodles – crispy, browned from heat at the edges, going delectably soggy as they mix with the gravy/sauce.

He really likes his lunch. There’s a heap of big slices of nicely chewy pork. He inhales the bok choy, snow peas, baby corn and carrot. Turns his nose up, though at the zucchini and tiny Chinese mushies. Same as with eggplant – I’m working on it.

Hao Phong has been perpetually busy since it opened. Initially, I suspected that had something to do with the fact that its furnishings and vibe had just that little bit more of a swish feel than many of its neighbours.

These days, it’s starting to look like many other lived-in Vietnamese eateries hereabouts. It’s still busy, though, so we’re glad to have snagged a table so quickly on such a chiller of a day. Glad, too, that it’s warm and cosy inside.

I have a dish we’ve had here before, one that I’ve not seen elsewhere – Hainan chicken rice in a claypot.

There’s no soup/broth. And sadly, my lunch is lacking the crunchy brown and tasty bottom of rice that requires scraping from the claypot, which that has been a highlight of previous visits.

But gladly the stock-cooked rice is very good anyhow, especially with addition of the accompanying chilli and ginger sauces. And, thanks to the claypot, the whole dish stays hot-tending-towards-warm until finished – that’s pretty cool on a cold day and concerning a dish that is often warm or even cold to begin with.

The OK chicken is on the bone, but separates reasonably easily, though I am careful to munch with more delicacy than normal. In my experience, stray chicken bones = dental bills.

Instead of the snow peas of previous visits, my dish is completed with a handful of broccoli florets, which have nice element of bite about them.

This may sound and look like a modest meal. But for fans of Hainan chicken rice, it’s a very handy alternative – especially given it’s quite hard to find a killer version in our neck of the woods.

We stroll down to Cavallaro’s, grab some ricotta canoli and crostoni, and then head for home.

Passing the V-shaped Ha Long on the way to the car kicks off a discussion about places that were once regular haunts for us yet no longer are, so we stop at another – Touk’s on Charles St – for a coffee on the way home.

We’re in for the night – Playstation, a zillion games of various football codes on the telly, reading, blogging, lollies

Hao Phong on Urbanspoon


Addis Abeba

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220 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 9041 2994

Our normal early-in-the-week routine is all business – work, school homework, commuting and homecooked meals.

This week we break out for a Tuesday night foray.

It’s the bitingly cold start of a nasty cold snap, so the whole exercise could be deemed silly, but happily our first port of call is open.

Addis Abeba is a relatively new kid on the block in Footrscray’s collection of Ethiopian eateries, situated on a stretch of Nicholson St known for the presence of a venerable old stager of an Indian restaurant, the Taj.

The restaurant is done out nicely in a tranquil sort of green, the walls adorned with art work, photos and posters.

We’re the only customers and naturally gravitate to the table nearest to the glowing heater.

Dad’s happy to go vego, but the boy wants meat.

It seems the days of us ordering only a salad and tibs at Ethiopian places are gone – the staff advise us that, no, that won’t be enough. I shouldn’t be surprised – Bennie’s a 10-year-old rugby player whose appetite is expanding.

We order salad ($6), beef tibs ($12) and lamb key wet (wot, also $12).

At first blush, the tibs look a little pale and pallid – there’s little by way of seasoning or gravy. But Bennie loves  ’em, especially the onion strands.

The key wot is the hit of the night – nice lamb pieces swimming in an incredibly rich and oily/buttery dark red-brown gravy with that distinctive flavour of berbere spice mix prominent. The chilli hit seems to become greater as the meal goes on, but presents no problems for us

The salad is the usual jumble of leaves, capsicum, onion, green chilli and tomato. It’s very wet with a lemony dressing, but we like it a lot.

We eat almost all that is before us, including the injera on the serving platter and the extras on the side.

On an earlier visit on my ownsome, I’d had kikil – described as “lamb stew with special sauce sauted with onion and garlic”, it was actually a typically flavoursome broth, in which was submerged a meaty lamb bone. It was delicious, though $12 seemed a little pricey for a bowl of soup. It was beaut, however, to use injera with soup – the sponge-like texture, unsurprisingly, was just right for the job.

Based on our experiences to this point, Addis Abeba presents a fairly typical Ethiopian fare very capably, if without really knocking us out. Yet.

I’m keen to return to try the non-meat combo of pulses two ways and various vegetable dishes. It’s priced at $12, $15 with salad, $26 for two and $40 for three, which seems fair and sensible.

For breakfast there are the likes of foul ($8) and scrambled eggs ($7).

All other things being equal, Addis Abeba is likely to find long-term favour with us for being slightly removed from Footscray’s African hub, hopefully easing the car-park situation.

Addis Abeba on Urbanspoon

National Vegetable Expo

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Dairy Rd, off 639 Sneydes Rd, Werribee

Approaching the venue for the 2011 National Vegetable Expo, a number of questions are bouncing around my brain.

Will it be a case of food, food everywhere but not a bite to eat?

Will I even be welcome?

After all, the Vegetables Victoria website announces: “The National Vegetable Expo Organizing Committee extend a warm invitation all Vegetable Growers, Nursery Operators and Industry Suppliers, to gather for this years event.”

No mention there, eh, of “members of the public”, “shoppers” or “consumers”? Let alone “nosy bloggers” …

And even if I am made welcome, will the event offer enough to hold my interest? Or will it be a dry thing of tedious technical stuff and agribusiness? Will there be personality and character, be it vegetable, human or otherwise?

Pulling off Sneydes Rd, a sign eases at least one of those concerns:

After paying my $10 entry fee and parking my car, I enter the expo proper and immediately secure a magnificent cafe latte, noticing as I do that next to the coffee stand is a hot spud outlet and, next to that, a tent in which lovely ladies are busily putting together burgers and steak sangas and the like:

When lunchtime rolls around, I will be fed.

From there, I venture around the many exhibitors.

Circled around the central marquee and food outlets are, indeed, many exhibitors of the vegetable business variety – tractors and other machinery, many different kinds of packaging, picking, irrigating and so on. There are, too, exhibits by WorkHealth and Worksafe Victoria, as well as seed and nursery outfits. There are even a few businesses spruiking an organic approach.


The main seed producer action, though, circles an adjacent paddock that holds a glorious display of row after row of magnificent vegetables.

According to the expo program, the rainy weather has resulted in a very different look to this year’s live vegie display, as opposed to the drought-affected previous event in 2009.

Just looking at the field makes my mouth water. I want to make like a rabbit.

I’m not looking too hard, but see fennel and cabbages and much, much more.

The cauliflowers are particularly alluring:

But dominating the entire spread are lettuces and other leafy vegetables – in a stupendous array of colours, shapes and sizes:

As I wander past the surrounding tent exhibits, I score a complementary serve of parmesan and broccoli soup at the Seminis stand, as provided by Ricky Holt Catering. The same folk provide me with a you-beaut black apron with a bright green photo of a broccoli floret right in the middle.

The fine soup seems only to sharpen my appetite. Maybe I’m hungry because I’ve been hanging out with about an acre and a half of salad-and-soup on the hoof, so to speak.

It’s rush hour at the burger stand by the time I get there. My burger with the lot and a can of that Coca Cola stuff set me back $10.50. The burger is typical fairground stuff – packed in a paper bag, egg, bacon, grilled onions and so on. It looks average and tastes great.

Back in the vegie patch, I strike up a conversation with Shawn Hicks, who is the SA, WA and NT manager of Fairbanks Seeds, which – according to the company’s website – was  established in 1926 and “is the most experienced commercial vegetable seed company in Australia”.

While I admire his coriander, parsley and lettuce varieties, Shawn tells me the expo is an affordable and effective tool for his company.

He started preparations and planting for the expo as long ago as Christmas, yet that very afternoon – as the expo winds down – all the plants will be either harvested to be taken home or discarded.

He gets to speak with a broad range of farmers and producers in a single location in just a couple of days – sure beats individual farm visits.

From them he gets feedback about Fairbanks’ products, including the test strains. The crops with names, he explains, are already in the catalogue, while the numbered plants are on trial.

He enjoys, too, the social side of the event, including the expo dinner he’d attended the previous night.

“It’s good to get off the farm,” he says. “A lot of farmers don’t.”

He also likes the idea of more folks such as myself attending the expo.

“After all, you’re the consumer,” he says.

With a sub-editing night shift starting about an hour, it’s time to go.

I leave wishing I’d allowed more time to hang with these friendly people and find out more about how they do what they do.

May be next time – which will be in 2013.

The Vegetables Victoria website is here.


St Albans Catering & Classic Cakes

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 216a Main Road East, St Albans. Phone: 9366 6566

Why are there no Maltese restaurants in Melbourne?

Even the most cursory online sleuthing reveals a super cuisine tradition, one that is of the Mediterranean yet quite different from that of its many neighbours – colourful, rich, varied and no doubt delicious.

I once put that question to a Maltese staff member at Stephz Gourmet Deli.

Her reply went something along the lines of the Maltese community is not prone to getting behind and supporting such enterprises, unlike many other expatriate communities.

Charles Sciberras reckons there may be something in that.

With his brother Ron, Charles runs the family business in St Albans.

It was started, at premises in Sunshine, in 1964 by their parents Emanuel and Maryanne.

The brothers became full-time staffers in 1974, and in 1979 the business moved to its present premises in St Albans.

From the mid-’80s to about 1990, a restaurant next door was indeed part of the business.

East End Bistro morphed into East End Reception, and Charles is happy to concede that catering is where the heart of the enterprise continues to lie.

“I can do 400 set menus almost in my sleep,” he quips. “Doing 100 al la carte meals …”

Left profoundly unsaid are the extra stress levels.


Charles was born in Australia, but tells he is more fluent in Maltese than most members of his generation of Maltese descendants because of his ongoing relationship with so many Maltese customers.

While there are only minor Maltese components on the catering menus the company creates for its customers, Charles is nevertheless proud of its product, saying the paramount thing is that the food be “flavoursome”.

“There is nothing bland about our food,” he says.

These days the business is about 80 per cent catering and 20 per cent cakes and pastries.

While the Maltese influence may not be in-your-face in their homely shop, a little snooping around reveals gems that Charles is happy to explain.

They sell quite a wide range of frozen pastizzi, which are sourced elsewhere.

They likewise sell ravioli and qssatat, which look like large versions of crimp-topped yum cha dumplings, are prepared in the oven and contain ricotta, or peas and onions, or – at Lent – anchovies, peas and onions.

Honey ring (top) and mqaret (bottom).

Very yummy are the honey rings, which cost $4.50 and contain a crumbly spiced mixed that involves dates, almonds, citrus peels and spices, all encased in a thin pastry tube.

Even more yummy are the mqaret (date slices), which cost $4.50 for a bag of six. The filling is just about all date and the pastry is very similar to the pimpled, flaky, crunchy variety found in canoli. Yep, they’re deep-fried!

They’re like the date-filled biscuits familiar to many Australians, ‘cept a whole lot better. Charles tells me it’s common for them to be served warm after a spell in the oven. I reckon they’d be great with good vanilla ice cream or yogurt!

Small galletti.

Also very Maltese are the galletti, which come in two sizes. They’re very dry, crunchy cracker-like affairs that Charles tells me are commonly eaten with Maltese cheese and wine.

The St Albans Catering & Classic Cakes website is here.

Wok Noodle revisted

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Shop 1/92 Charles St, Seddon. Phone: 9689 9475

Wok Noodle, the newish Malaysian arrival in our very own neighbourhood, appears to be prosperping.

Certainly, it’s fed a lot of people since our first visit there.

Our second visit confirms our view that this is an asset for the area.

If you’re after funky, adventurous Malaysian fare, you’ll likely be disappointed. There’s little by way of rough edges or edginess to be found here.

Our two second-time-round meals do have a bit of a middle-of-the-road feel about them, but that’s just right sometimes, too.

My standard curry laksa ($10.50) has all the essential bits and pieces, including three medium prawn tails, sliced chicken and a couple of slices of eggplant. Along with the rest, they swim happily in a rich, somewhat syrupy gravy of only mild spiciness.

Bennie loves his Hainan chicken rice ($11.50).

The chook is boned, the rice OK and there are three accompanying condiments – a sticky soy sauce, a very mild chilli sauce and another of the sambal variety. He’s a growing 10-year-old whose appetite is also growing and who has played his first ever game of rugby union that very morning – so he scarfs the lot, no problem.

We are used to having a bowl of clear broth served as part of his dish. One is provided when we make inquiries – it’s very good – and we are not charged for it. Whether others can swing such treatment we know not, as that fare appears on the menu as an entree.

Check out Deb’s review of Wok Noodle, and comments, at Bear Head Soup.

Bennie’s team – the mighty Footscray under-10s – won; he perpetrated some fearsome tackles and was instrumental in one of his team’s tries.

Given his parental national heritage, if he fails to make the All Blacks he can always play for the Wallabies.

All India Curry Company

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9/73 Point Cook Rd, Point Cook. Phone: 8360 9229

Pulling into a parking spot of the small and rather nondescript shopping precinct, I take my bearings.

It’s a mixed bag.

Bottle shop, convenience store, Indian grocery and so on.

A fish and chip shop that sells kebabs.

A kebab shop that does pizzas.

I’m headed, though, for All India Curry Company, a sister place to the one in Maribyrnong Rd, Ascot Vale.

It’s a very sleepy Friday lunch hours and I’m the only customer.

The place comes across as your basic, tidy suburban eatery.

I resist the temptations offered by a sign in the window advertising chole bhature for $7, going instead for onion bhaji (spelt bhujia here) and a vego thali.

The onions are smaller, less crunchy and more chewy than I’ve been enjoying lately, but I really like them anyway. They go down beaut with the tangy tamarind water and creamy raita that accompany, and are a cool bargain at $3.50.

There’s more than enough raita left over to double as a support act for my thali ($11).


This appears, at first blush, to be a rather dull affair, but happily it tastes better than it looks.

The loser, for me, is the pumpkin masala. Formative years spent gagging on pumpkin various ways is a significant hurdle to enjoying any dish made with that vegetable, even if the sweetish mash served here is not unpleasant.

The aloo palak is a handy mix of spud in a creamy spinach gravy; it has a nice smoky flavour.

The dal is a little dry for my tastes, but goes down a treat anyway.

The single chapati is fresh and pliable and likewise disappears with relish.

The regular dish prices at All India appear to be very reasonable – vegetable mains at about $8, meat mains a tick under $10, half a tandoori chook for $8.50.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, from 5pm, the star is a $12.50 all-you-can-eat buffet, that comprises six mains, rice, naan or roti, pickle and raita.

Seems like a pretty good deal!

If this place was closer to home, we’d be regulars.

The All India Curry Company website is here.

All India Curry Company on Urbanspoon

Cafe Advieh

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71B Gamon St, Seddon. Phone: 0432 241 276

A LATER REVIEW APPEARS HERE.

What seems like a long time ago, Gamon St coffees, brekkies and even lunches were a central ingredient for us.

Lifetsyle changes mean we hardly ever do the brekkie thing these days, though coffee – hot chocolate for him – is still a big deal.

Truth is, cafes of the order found in Gamon St simply aren’t part of our routine – we find our coffee well enough at food places that more match our current yearnings for spice and aroma and exotica of various kinds.

Gamon St, mind you, gets travelled by us so frequently – at least once a day – that it is as familiar as any other aspect of our westie habits.

So much so that we hardly notice it.

It is only thanks to a visit to the street’s barber shop that we learn of a Significant Event in our very own neighbourhood.

As my locks are shorn and Bennie and I are discussing our Saturday lunch options, the barber says: “Why don’t you try the Moroccan place that’s opened next door?”

As my head shave winds up, Bennie returns from a scouting mission: “It looks good – they’ve got Lebanese pies!”

Moroccan? Lebanese pies?

Turns out Advieh is more your all-purpose purveyor of a wide range of Mediterranean-style goodies, with a strong Middle eastern element.


The restaurant inhabits a building that for most locals will be known as the former premises of the pet shop that these days lives further down the road, next to the wedding place.

The staff tell us the building had barely been touched for about 100 years when they took over, so a major update was required.

It looks grand – polished wooden floors, funky old chairs and tables of the wooden variety, colourful tiles.

When we visit, Advieh – I’m told it’s a Persian word for “spice” or “spice mix” – has been open for four days.

I reckon it’s already a smash hit.

There’s a breakfast menu that has some non-Mediterranean staples, along with the likes of scrambled eggs with Turkish bread, roasted tomatoes, halloumi, olives and cucumber.

Despite the fact the non-breakfast menu is split into sections such as antipasto, wraps, pastry, focaccia, salads and “meals”, it seems many of these are variations deftly put together from the contents of the great-looking display cabinet.

We order the mixed grill plate ($17), having been assured by the staff that it’s just about right for two moderately hungry chaps.

They are right – the photo doesn’t really convey the depth and quality of our wonderful repast, which is a riot of colours and tastes.

On our plate are …

Salads: A fine tabouli; a fantastic Mediterranean mix of spinach and beautifully cut capsicum, green onion, cucumber, tomato; a couscous studded with chick peas.

Meats: A single skewer of tasty grilled chicken and two superb rissoles that burst with cumin-infused flavour.

Dips: Tzataziki, crunchy with finely diced cucumber cubes and perfumed with dill; a funky, earthy beetroot dip requested as an extra by us and served as a side dish.

The flat bread accompanying is quite different from routine, commercial pita bread – it’s quite a bit thicker without being the least bit doughy. Not that it matters – for, like everything else about our lunch, it’s tremendous.

The only surprise, given the nature and heritage of the food, is that there isn’t a more pronounced zing from lemon and garlic. But given the quality and refined flavours before us, that is not a complaint.

Conservatively ordering a single dish to share allows wriggle room in our lunch budget to indulge in a sweetie treat.

Along with good latte and hot chocolate ($3.20 each) comes a slice of baklava ($3.50).

It’s rustic, moist, heavily spiced and easy on the fork.

Halfway through our respective halves, I lean across the table and whisper to Bennie: “Mate, this the best baklava I’ve ever had!”

Our lunch clocks in at a few cents over $27, which we consider to be a super dooper bargain.

Cafe Advieh on Urbanspoon

Jolly Rogers redux

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 306-308 Melbourne Rd, Newport. Phone: 9399 5499

UPDATE 26/1/12: This restaurant has closed down. Becoming, according to a post on Urbanspoon, a Subway! Booo!

It doesn’t take much venturing into the world of Australian food blogging to discover passions, threads, posts, discussions, debates and controversies.

Some of the topics such hot air revolves around include blog adverts, paid posts (in which a blogger writes a post about a product or service for payment) and freebie meals.

For the time being at least, we like the clean, uncluttered look of our site so it will remain advert-free.

As well, we are somewhat horrified at the sense of entitlement some bloggers display.

As hopelessly naive as it may seem, we continue to consider ourselves customers, food fans and amateur sleuths who have more in common with anoraks of the train-spotting variety than with any sort of professional restaurant reviewers.

Yet when an American friend asked, “Are you a restaurant reviewer?”, well I had to concede that, yes, we write restaurant reviews, so …

Still, we try to do our thing as discreetly as possible when enjoying our outings.

Truth is, many places simply ignore – or couldn’t care less about – the surreptitious note-taking and photography going on.

Plenty more, though, pick up on it straight away, which can sometimes lead to comical standoffs over our determination to pay for our meals.

It’s a fine line we’re trying to tread, but some situations seem to require a degree of graciousness, ones in which continual refusal could be considered plain rudeness.

This is especially so when we’ve returned to an establishment after posting a piece full of enthusiastic praise.

So, yes, we have accepted complementary coffees along the way – not to mention a single, superb gulab jamun and other sample treats. We hope like hell we have not become hopelessly compromised in the process!

Such a situation arose on a dark and stormy Thursday night on which I was very happy to take Bennie to Jolly Rogers as a follow-up to my own recent solo foray there.

On that visit, co-owner Anthony Scarlata had raved about his char-grilled calamari.

Sure enough, after we had placed our order for a burger ‘n’ chips meal, out came a sample plate of said calamari courtesy of the chef.

What were we meant to do? Send it back to the kitchen?

In any case, Anthony is right to be proud of this dish.

My calamari-loving son thought it was merely good; his dad thought it was sensational.

Resting on a bed of lovely brown rice, were about a dozen strands of ultra-tender and tasty calamari that had been grilled for about five minutes and then dressed with olive oil infused with lemon zest.

The char-grilled calamari comes in $9.95 and $13.95 sizes.


That “little bit extra” and our hearty appetites meant we over-ordered somewhat:

Bennie dug the onion rings ($4.95), which were done in the American style. Dad, being so enamoured these days with the lighter style of Indian onion bhaji, was not so impressed.

Large chips ($4.95) were, as on the previous visit, OK.


Our burgers – Jolly’s ($7.50) for dad, Lot ($8.95) for Bennie – were perplexing.

Burgers are routinely described as being a variety of sandwich – but these really WERE sandwiches.

Instead of being served in buns, our burgers were encased in some sort of flat bread that had been toasted and, seemingly, flattened in the process.

Look, we like to think of ourselves as adventurous and open-minded foodies.

But in this case, the product so defied a lifetime of conditioning about what burgers should look and taste like that we were left bemused.

The fillings seemed fine, though the flat-bread approach left dad coping with bits slipping and sliding beyond his two-fisted grasp.

Bennie did better with his one with the lot, which held together well and was so packed with goodies that he was stonkered about two-third of the way through.

Whatever – we like Jolly Rogers a lot and will be returning.

Certainly for more of the char-grilled calamari, maybe for the fish and chips enjoyed first time round.

Bennie opined as we left that next time he’d like to try one of the kebabs.

The Jolly Rogers website is here.

Jolly Rogers with a twist on Urbanspoon

Bikanos Sweet And Curry Cafe

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 Shop 3/70 Watton St, Werribee. Phone: 8742 6450

Well within my lifetime Werribee will be folded quietly into metropolitan Melbourne.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, though, it has the feel of a bustling country town.

Except for the traffic congestion – that’s of big-smoke class already.

And the eateries – there’s far more cheap eats destinations than you’ll find in a similar-sized burg up-country, up-state.

It’s apparent Werribee hosts  significant Indian population. There’s groceries and eat shops, and a few restaurants that seem to be of the flash variety.

Happily, I snag a park right opposite my destination – Bikanos.

This is my first visit, but I’ve already set my mind on ordering a vegetarian thali, should there be one.

There is.

It costs $15,

What? I’ve seen thali prices of that order and more before, but only in the swankiest of operations. The $15 is about $4-5 more than I’m currently paying in and around Footscray.

A quick Plan B is required. Having noticed a number of photo display non-menu dishes in the front window, I inquire about the pricing of the chole bhature.

It’s $7.50, I am informed.

That’s more like it.

For variety’s sake, I also order a serve of onion bhaji ($5).

These aren’t quite as good as those we inhale at Vanakkam India, but get real close.

It’s a big serve; the batter is mostly ungreasy; and the onions are cooked through but maintain a nice degree of crunch beneath the batter. A gooey tamarind syrup accompanies.

Whatever wariness I harbour about the price of the thali is banished by the brilliance of my chick peas and fried bread.

This is the best, most awesome example I’ve had in these parts of this tremendous snack/breakfast dish.

It makes me very, very happy.

The creamy yogurt is spiced with flavours that I can’t identify but that are nevertheless tantalisingly familiar.

Bikanos boss man Ashok Bal subsequently tells me it’s a mix of garam masala, black salt and roast cumin. Yum!

My two bhatoora – a slightly heavier version of puris – are so fresh they are filled with air and look like tanned bladders. They are light and delicious.

The chick peas, too, are perfect – nicely al dente and residing in a gravy that is slightly salty and with a mild chilli kick.

Ashok tells me the seasoning is a matter of cinnamon, cloves, black cardamom, cumin, bay leaf, garlic ginger.

So fine is the magic of these three components that I completely ignore the raw onions shards and pickle. Maybe next time.

As I’ve enjoyed my late lunch, a succession of Indian locals have come and gone – this a popular haunt.

The shop has a display of fine and fancy looking Indian sweets. Appealing, but I inevitably find them too rich for mine.

I do wish I’d grabbed, before departing for Geelong, a small bag of the spiced cashews arrayed with other savoury snacks.

Maybe next time.

Bikanos on Urbanspoon

Baraka Restaurant

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121 Nicholson St, Footscray. Phone: 0432 492 299

UPDATE 10/11/11: This restaurant appears to have closed its doors.

Menus? Who needs them!

That’s one of several profound lesson I have learnt since starting Consider The Sauce.

Where once I was timid and always veering towards fuss-free and non-confrontational dining out, I have become bolder, more curious and more adventurous.

In fact, the absence of a menu – let alone one handily pinned in an establishment’s window – is becoming a positive spur to perseverance.

Of course, a lack of menus at eating places doesn’t guarantee you’ll get great food just by asking.

But, as I have found to grand enrichment, sometimes you will.

Even better, the required inquisitiveness leads to face-to-face engagement with the people behind the restaurants that goes way beyond mere stabbing a digit at a menu, ordering and eating.

There’s nothing like inquiring along the lines of “Are you open for lunch, what have you got, how much is it, I’m hungry?” for raising smiles all round.

At Baraka, for instance, I get to meet young Mahamud Farah and enjoy the glowing pride he is taking in running the family business and his excitement about serving the tucker of his Somalian ancestry.

He promises that the next time I visit he’ll run the place’s lamb soup/broth by me, and based on luscious experiences at Safari, Yemeni Restaurant and Khartoum Centre, that’s something to be anticipated with relish.

In the meantime, I am well pleased with my mid-week lunch.

It’s no surprise that in talking with Mahamud I discover my options fall broadly into the meat-and-rice or pasta categories.

A young family is tucking into a communal bowl of spaghetti nearby, but the African/pasta connection is one I have yet to get my head around. Perhaps it’s because we eat so much pasta at home. It’s something to work on, though, as so many African eateries do pasta and ignoring the colonial Italian influence on north African food is a form of denial.

In the meantime, meat-and-rice it is.

Despite the lack of a menu, I have – by now – a good idea of what is coming my way.

The rice is bare bones but wonderful. No vegetable quotient, not even onion; just perfect rice cooked in stock and seasoned with a little pepper. The lamb stew that sits atop the rice is mild almost to the point of blandness, but is fixed right smartly with liberal usage of the little pot of chilli sauce that accompanies.

Another plate has pan-fried lamb that is much more tasty, with fat that is easily trimmed. Alongside is a salad of lettuce, spring onions, onion and capsicum that is just right.

My $13 lunch come with a glass of an OK mango/lemon drink, while a bottle of chilled water is placed on my table well before the food arrives.

This is simple, plain food with a kick. I am coming to think of this sort of north African fare as the Footscray equivalent of American soul food. I love it lots.

Thanks to the big telly right opposite my table, I am privileged to share my lunch with that noted ethnic tucker zealot Bill O’Reilly.

The sound is turned down as that rascal does his thing on his Fox News TV show, but I just know he’s raving about cheap eats rather than banging on about what an evil comminist the prez is. On ya, Bill!

Baraka has been open a month.

The premises it inhabits formerly housed a relatively formal Indian place that was short-lived. I never got to try it out as it was never open when I passed by. Before that it was a cheapo Indian place of no great distinguishment.

The place’s Indian history is still plain to see via the art work that continues to adorn the walls.

As time goes by, I hope Mahamud makes the place his own and finds himself with a winner on his hands.

Pandu’s

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UPDATE (July 29, 2012): Review of new Pandu’s is HERE.

172 Buckley St, Footscray. Phone: 8307 0789

Having driven to and from Geelong during the day, and knowing I will be doing so many times in the coming week, I know I should be hunkering down on the sofa with books and music.

But a wanderlust is upon me, so a cruising I go.

It’s a bleak Wednesday night and I know not where I am headed.

As Ann Peebles sings like a viperish angel about tearing some unlucky soul’s playhouse down, I throw a left from Victoria St on to Buckley.

This is a dreary stretch of road that for anyone except those who live there means “the bit that heads to either Williamstown Rd or Sunshine Rd”.

For as long as I’ve lived in the west, situated halfway along has been a former neighbourhood shop that has never been anything but unused or moribund.

Or so I presume – wrongly.

As I pass I see lights, an old-style neon “Open” sign and people – well, two of them anyway.

Joy bubbles up at the realisation that where there was once a vacuum there is now life.

In I go.

I am gobsmacked to discover that Pandu’s has been open for a year and a half. Pay attention, Kenny!

The decor and ambiance are straight-up inner-city low-rent ethnic tucker, which fact makes me feel right at home right away.

This is a place purveying Indo-Chinese food, about which I am a rank beginner. I wish I had Ms Baklover of Footscray Food Blog with me, as she’s a fan of this food genre and doubtless much more hip than me on how and what to order.

I suspect my meal is far from the heart of Indo-Chinese food. What can I say? I adore soups and noodles.

I quiz the staff whether their hot and sour soup resembles either Thai or Chinese concoctions, and receive little clarification, order it anyway.

My soup ($4.95) certainly looks like the Chinese dish of the same, but slurping it reveals profound differences. This is much less viscous than most Sino versions I have tried. It’s laden in a swell way with ginger. There’s also egg, carrot, peas and other stuff I am unable to identify. It’s delicious and of what I would describe as mild-to-hot spiciness.

My hakka noodles ($7.95) resemble the Nepalese chow min served by Fusion Cafe & Mo:Mo Bar, only this is less seasoned and drier. You can order these with egg or chicken. I go for the egg, which rubs shoulders with fine slices of onion, green chilli, carrot, capsicum.

Extra seasoning is done at table thanks to three little bowls – one apiece of chilli-infused vinegar, soy sauce and tomato sauce. It’s bags of fun mixing varying amounts of each for different flavours.

It’s a big serve, but I scarf the lot.

By the time I am done, there are four other tables taken by what seem to be regulars and a nice vibe has evolved into being

I am excited about returning with Bennie and exploring the menu (see below), which even has a section of haloumi cheese. There’s also sections on salads, spring rolls, rice, noodles, cauilflower and mushrooms (which seem to be staples of Indo-Chinese food), chicken, fish, prawns. I am already hankering to try the American chopsey and a rice dish called  7 jewels of Pandu’s.

Even better, Pandu’s is open seven days a week.

La Manna Direct

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10 English St, Essendon Fields. Phone: 9026 9209

Essendon Fields is a bit like a cross between a shopping centre and an industrial estate – with an airport attached.

Having pre-planned my journey to avoid tolls – up Mt Alexander Rd and Keilor Rd, along Matthews Ave, turn right on to English St – I enjoy the drive, rubber-necking at many shopping strips. This can be a bit of trap, of course! Eyes on the road, Kenny!

I’d been hipped to La Manna by Consider The Sauce visitor Marine when she commented on one of our early posts – Fresh On Young in Moonee Ponds.

Having done some online sleuthing, I’m aware that I’ll be able to enjoy a lunch and a shopping foray at La Manna. I am bearing a fairly long, for us, shopping list. Our cupboards are bare!

My first stop is the La Manna cafe.

Considering the pronounced Italian and/or Mediterranean flavour of the whole enterprise, and the slogan “For the love of food” emblazoned outside, I expect more of the cafe. Maybe some soup and good bread, or some pasta.

Instead, I find an eating place with a few salads, some good-looking stuffed baguettes, pies and the like.

I’m hungry and not too fussy. I settle on a Bocastle Cornish pastie ($4) and a slab of frittata ($5).

The pastie filling consists of little more than potato strands and a very meaty-flavoured mince. It’s peppery and good.

The frittata is better. So packed with vegetables – leek, mushroom, carrot, tomato, capscum and even red beans – that it’s not even very eggy, it’s a satisfying and affordable lunch.

Then it’s out in the cavernous space of La Manna proper, one hand pushing a shopping trolley, the other grasping camera, shopping list nearby.

I start at the end that hosts the cheeses, cold cuts, antipasto items, meat and seafood, adjacent the cafe.

The glaring lights make taking photos a challenge.

Unsurprisingly, the range of products is amazing.

But I’ve already discovered my enthusiasm is dented by the amount of plastic used on all the meats, cold cuts and seafood. I’m no purist – we accept plastic shopping bags and re-use them at home – but this seems excessive.

And all that packaging means there’s no deli counter – and not much else by way of face-to-face inter-action with the staff.

This makes me realise that our food outings are about much more than a mere exchange of a credit card for goods. I miss the banter and questions and answers and humanity that are part of every transaction at our favourite shops, markets and stores.

As well, knowing I’ll be making a Greek salad for dinner, with no deli counter I am unable to buy a piece of fetta just right for the job, forced to settle for more than I want at a steeper price than I’d envisaged. Nor can I buy a handful of fresh kalamata olives. Worse, the packaged fetta, when I make my salad, manages to be both rubbery and tough.

There is, though, a lovely lady cooking up Hahns ‘Merican-style hot dogs and offering samples to customers.

And, yes, there are staff members everywhere, all of whom would no doubt be happy to help me.

But the stock seems presented in such a done-and-dusted way as to discourage individuality.

Moving on, I scoop up 500g bags of dried apricots ($5), roasted almonds ($8) and sultanas ($4) for muesli – not super dooper bargains, but not bad either. Likewise three sacks of Lowan rolled oats at $3.36 each.

The fruit and vegetables seem priced pretty much at Coles/Woolworths levels. And our local Sims in West Footscray is selling Fuji apples for under $5, a whole bunch less than La Manna.


Moving along once more, I start to find real fine buys:

It’s time to make a new batch of pasta sauce, so I grab up an armful of La Gina chopped tomatoes tins at 80 cents each.

A couple of packs of Reggia spaghettini cost $1 each.

Lavvaza Crema e Gusto coffee sets me back $4.

Best of all, I snap up a 500ml bottle of Olive Valley EVOO for $4. This product comes from Nar Nar Goon in Victoria and the price is amazing.

Serious shopping just about done, I toss in a parcel of mixed almond biscotti ($6.95). I have three of them at work that night. They are brilliant – moist, fresh and even better than I’ve had from the likes of Brunetti’s or Cavallaro’s.

Apart from the daily delivered “specialty breads”, it seems all the cakes, biscotti and so on are made on the premises.

If I find the La Manna experience a tad sterile, it says more about my preferences than anything else.

If I had a larger family to feed and La Manna was closer to home, it’d become a regular stop for sure.

I receive a nice surprise at the checkout counter – I’m eligible for that week’s 10% discount on my bill total, taking $71.08 down to $64.77.

Timing visits to coincide with such offers would seem to make a lot of sense.

In any case, I’ve applied for a customer loyalty card at the La Manna website, which can be found here.

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Meals On Wheels!

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How cool is this?

Every few months a knock on our door heralds not, thankfully, someone trying to convince us to buy something, give something or switch our electricity or phone/internet providers.

Nope.

This lovely old bloke is selling food … in the form of fresh vegetables from his own garden.

Mostly it’s a matter of potatos, pumpkins and chillies of the large, long and green variety.

He tells me hails, originally, from Macedonia, and lives and works these days in Daylesford.

He also tells me he does his door-knocking in Yarraville and Footscray for the very sound reason that it is here that he has “many customers”.

Come again soon, my friend!