Tag Archives: Yarraville

Cup & Bean – coffee nirvana in Yarraville

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Cup & Bean’s Tim is a serious coffee dude.

20 Wembley Ave, Yarraville. Phone: 0459 075 207

Cup & Bean proprietor Tim doesn’t see himself as coffee zealot or crusader, but there’s no doubt he’s passionate about his coffee and his new venture in Wembley Ave, Yarraville.

Right next door to very good Indian establishment Mishra’s Kitchen, Cup & Bean pays homage to the premise’s previous incarnation as a greengrocer by stocking a limited but useful range of fresh produce.

For the time being, the food offerings are being kept simple – sandwiches, pastries and the like – with Tim keeping an open mind about it and welcoming customer feedback.

The in-house bean brews have a much more singular focus, though, with Tim ushering me behind the counter to show how he uses a “double group handle” – often used to make two coffees – to create superb efforts at $3.60 a pop.

Tim has a coffee pedigree that includes stints with the Jasper brand and what he refers to as “multiple site management”, which is why he’s having such a grand time being hands-on in his own enterprise.

He is sourcing his beans from Geelong outfit Cartel Coffee Roasters while his compostable takeaway cups and lids come from PLAnet Cup.

I have two coffees as we visit and talk – one an ordered and paid-for cafe latte and the other a gratis “demonstration” model of the same genre.

They are both excellent – just the right temperature, creamy and intense without being bitter or too strong.

Excellent? Actually, they’re perfect.

Cup & Bean is a lovely space.

At the front are comfy old armchairs, including a rocking nursing chair, and a growing collection toys.

In the centre of the room, a large communal wooden table is surrounded by similarly personality-laden chairs of a more upright variety.

The walls are adorned with lovely paintings.

Cup & Bean is open 7.30am-4.30pm Monday to Friday and Saturdays from 8am-1pm.

Cup & Bean on Urbanspoon

Closing Yarraville’s Ballarat St – what say you?

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I was interested to read in The Age about the plan to close Yarraville’s Ballarat St between Murray and Canterbury streets for up to three months from January.

I’m not sure about this at all! What about parking? What about Anderson St? Does it just get left to get even crazier?

Or will closing Ballarat St effectively close Anderson St to vehicular traffic as well?

The closure is on the block directly outside the Sun, but being intimately familiar with the area and its intense traffic flows, I reckon the following quote is debatable: ”The area to the north (of Anderson Street) outside the Sun Theatre is not a central traffic route.”

The closure of such a small portion of the street with unknown but potentially severe ramifications for the surrounding area seems iffy.

This just doesn’t seem very imaginative – or good value for money.

I’d be happier to consider the complete closure of Ballarat AND Anderson streets – big upsides all round and not much greater downside.

Without doing a head count, I’m pretty sure there are more Anderson St traders than there are on Ballarat St – so why choose the latter over the former?

And I can certainly understand the concerns of the non-Ballarat St trader: “I sympathise with those cafes not getting $50,000 spent on beautification on their doorstep.”

I once exchanged rather angry words with a tour bus driver who was attempting to take his Very Large Vehicle across the train tracks and along Anderson St.

“It’s none of your bloody business,” he shouted at me.

Uh, buddy, I live here – it most certainly IS my business! 🙂

Mishra’s Kitchen

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A more recent review can be found here.

Mishra’s Kitchen, 18 Wembley Ave, Yarraville. Phone: 9314 3336

As we approach the Wembley St shopping trip that has previously left us untroubled in an way, we have contingency plans.

After all, the basis for our dinner – to be shared by Kenny, Bennie and neighbour Rob – is based solely upon my spotting a week earlier what purports to be an Indian restaurant in what is a plain old sandwich shop by day.

Our hopes are not particularly high.

Our downbeat wariness is given a swift kick in the bottom as soon as we enter the door.

Transformation!

This is indeed an Indian restaurant – albeit a humble one that doesn’t try to hide its daytime non-Cinders gig.

More importantly, the welcome from the eager staff is wonderful.

So much so that as we are nutting out the menu and ordering, and it becomes clear that Rob has less experience with tandoori oven rituals than us, I ask if our mate can witness up close and personal the making of our naan order.

The chef – Mr Mishra himself – obliges by not only explaining the whole process to Rob and Bennie but also by giving Rob crack at making his own naan.

Marvellous!

To keep the costs down, we go without starters or snacks and soft drinks, staying with the water. In doing so, we have what I suspect is much more like your average Indian family meal than an outing replete with samosas and the like.

We do good, ordering bhoona chicken (“in medium spices and pot-roasted with ginger and tomatoes”, $11), jhinga Madras (“South Indian spicy prawns curry with mustard seeds and coconut milk”, $14) and mixed vegetables ($9), joined by plain rice ($3), plain naan ($2) and tandoori roti ($2).

Mixed vegetables and bhoona chicken.

Jhinga Madras.

What a wonderful feast we have, with a marvellous combo of varying colours, textures and spice levels.

The difference between our most recent and rather unhappy experience in taking our Indian food habit slightly upmarket and this lovely dinner in a restaurant a mere three weeks old is stark.

The vegetables come in a mild, creamy sauce (cashews, maybe?) and include mushrooms, peas, cauliflower, green beans, fried onion strands and potato.

For Rob and I, this is our pick of the night, with the individual vegetables cooked through but holding their shapes and flavours. Lots of mushies!

About four medium-size prawns for each of us come in a sharper sauce that has the advertised mustard seeds and a tantalising whiff of a spice more exotic than usual that defies my analysis – despite asking the chef the dish’s particulars. That’s how it goes in Indian eateries sometimes!

Bennie loves the chicken, but to me it is merely a good chicken curry.

Taken as whole, and with two fine breads as accessories, our meal is an outright winner.

So is the cost – a mere $41, which is both outstanding and ridiculous.

What a find this place is.

How happy the immediate neighbours – not blessed with an excess of eating out or even takeaweay options – must be.

And how emblematic of the west, in an excellent way, it is that Mishra’s Kitchen joins the likes of Cafe Centro and At 43 in making do and doing great with what is at hand, even if that means making a premises undertake different duties by day and by night.

AND we got a parking spot right outside.

I reckon that’s quite enough, thank you very much, of newspaper stories lauding the livability of Melbourne’s west and other such like preposterous notions.

Hrrrumpf!

Mishra's Kitchen on Urbanspoon

bowlz @ the deck revisited

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Yarraville-Footscray Bowling Club, 339A Francis St, Yarraville. Phone: 9314 4530 ‎

The previous dad-only visit to the Yarraville-Footscray Bowling Club for a mid-week lunch in more or less deserted premises had been an enjoyable affair.

But despite comments to the contrary, truth is it would be hard-pressed to win return visits.

That’s all changed with the coincidence that the club shares a carpark with the McIvor Reserve venue for Bennie’s cricket practice, also just off Francis St.

After a hard day of commuting, school ‘n’ work AND cricket practice, what could be better for a couple of blokes than a simple, leisurely amble from sports field to bowls clubhouse?

Not much, as it turns out.

Tonight the club seems a little more lived-in, with tables occupied here and there and more customers arriving as we wait for our meals then eat them.

Much of the bistro food seems pitched, priced and presented somewhere between our local pub and its near-neighbour, Cafe Fidama.

In the case of our two main meals, that is to prove an ideal combination of wallet damage that’s bearable and food that is a notch above your average budget pub fodder.

But a keen appetite is upon us so we splurge on a bowl of almost-instant-gratification chips ($6).

They’re good, fresh, hot, unsoggy, well-salted and completely unnecessary – but what the hey!

Bennie’s steak sandwich is a sight to behold – a meal for a man, or a growing 10-year-old who loves a challenge.

Stuffed into a long ciabatta-style row are steak, egg, tomato, bacon, caramelised onions and some greenery.

He loves it, leaving just there merest stub of bread.

He tells me to describe it as “AWSM”.

The accompanying spud wedges may be par for the coarse (sic), but they’re ridiculous and horribly seasoned with some dodgy spice mix. Wedges should be banned, their use-by date being some time last century.

Maybe it’s possible to request the fine chips instead of wedges on the dishes that include them.

Happily, the sandwich is so big it’s all that’s required and keenly priced ($17.90), too.

My roast chicken with vegetables and gravy ($16.90) hits the mark just fine as well.

The half-chook is tasty, although personal preference would’ve lent it a slightly more browned appearance and texture. It’s tender, too, with the inevitable dryness in the breast meat more than taken care of by the rich, dark gravy.

The roast spuds are good, the carrots and parsnips a little tough at the core, and the pumpkin gag material – for me anyway!

Our meal is beaut, the convenience of the club’s post-cricket practice location matched by casual pub-style tucker a nicely judged step up in refinement from bar menu fare and well worth the asking price.

At 43

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43 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 1198

What was once Cafe Urbano – an establishment of no great distinction – is now At 34, cafe by day and Thai restaurant by night.

It’s been open for a while, and we’ve often wondered how it’s going. On week nights it’s seemed a little forlorn, unloved and sparsely populated.

At 6.30pm on this Saturday night, there seems no such problems. Two tables are already busy as we arrive, two more are quickly occupied soon after and by the time we split a table of seven has also taken up residence.

This outing is Bennie’s call and it’s an inspired one. Considering his dad has been plowing through the debilitating effects of glandular fever all week, a casual five-minute stroll around the corner is much preferable to a wild drive to the wilds of Deer Park and the unknown quantities of an Indian eatery on an industrial estate. Maybe next time!

We have a swell time.

We wonder why we took so long to drop by.

The service is delightful and the arrival of our tucker prompt.

If our meal is good rather than really dandy, we happily blame a couple of dud menu choices.

Incredibly, for all the countless times Bennie have been out on the fang, this is the first Thai meal we’ve shared.

We start with one of the specials – gai hoi bai toey (marinated chicken cooked in pandan leaf, $6.90).

This is just OK for us. The chicken pieces are smallish, making the price seem a little on the steep side. They’re juicy enough, but there’s little or no taste of the publicised marinade flavour.

The pork salad (naem sod, $11.50) is a different matter entirely.

This is just as zingy with lime/lemon, ginger, coriander and chilli as we could wish, all of it a super foil for the chewy pork mince. Although it is at the upper chilli limit at which Bennie can enjoy eating!

The pad kee mao (fried thick rice noodle with chilli, sweet basil, vegetables and tofu, $11.90) is very mild by comparison.

In reality, the noodles are restrained in number, making this more of a straight-up wok-fried mixed vegetable dish. It’s good and does the job of adding variety and colour to our meal.

Our last hurrah fills us up right good – siszzling beef ($16).

This, too, is nice enough – plenty of beef pieces, almost as many cashew nuts, pleasant gravy. The problem seems to us that it’s more of a Chinese-style dish than a Thai one!

So … a good meal that may have been made better had we not tried so hard to steer clear of the usual Thai suspects.

We regret, for instance, not ordering the red duck curry ($18) on the specials board.

At 43 on Urbanspoon

What We Eat At Home: Part 1

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Bum Hummers pickled onions – spicy (but not too much), piquant and sour. I wonder why they’re called that?

Before it became an eventuality, it was initially presumed Consider The Sauce would be a compendium of eatery reviews and other stuff we get up to when out and about … AND stuff we get up to in our kitchen.

That has most certainly not turned out to be the case.

One reason for that is that we are daunted from doing so because of the number of high-quality blogs and websites around who do cover cooking at home.

Another reason is we reckon there is likely very little interest “out there” for any sort of ongoing rundown regarding our limited, rotating selection of meals, be they stews, soups, dals, salads or whatever.

We love what we do and eat at home, but certainly don’t expect anyone else to find it interesting.

A final reason is that there’s no reason why a food blog has to do it all, so we don’t.

Nevertheless, just for fun, very much for our own entertainment and as a matter of record, here we start a look at our kitchen regulars that may – or may not – turn into a series.

Yes, there are hipper and more righteous yogurts around, but we go through heaps, so this is an affordable, dependable option for us. For breakfast, for dessert with strawberries or mango, for raita, for tzatsiki.

Kiwi Gold – one shared each morning for breakfast. Life’s too short for the bitterness of regulation kiwifruit!

Look, anyone can go out and buy salt-free and/or organic corn chips. Whether they’d want to actually eat them is another matter entirely. We find these have just enough salt for flavour purposes. We love em! The newly available Mission chips are a viable substitute, but – damn! – they’re hard on the jaw muscles!

Weetbix for him …

… muesli – rolled oats, crushed oats, white sultanas, roasted almonds – soaked in milk overnight for me.

Something new for us – Istra snags from The Village Store. There are cheaper options available, of course, but gosh these are good!

Also a relatively new thing for us – cookies and biscotti and nougat from Pace Biscuits.

Coffee – just about any reasonable quality vacuum-packed product will do me, especially if it’s on special.

We’re happy to pay for and experiment with really good, boutique virgin olive oils … but so often we find we have run out when the only viable option available is the reliable Cobram range from our local supermarket.

Bickford’s cordials … Bennie prefers lime juice, Kenny prefers bitter lemon – if he can find it!

Jam – we don’t use a lot, and find a good-quality local product does the job just as good as imports, either fancy and high-priced or of the budget variety.

The Village Store – Yarraville

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6 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 8375

Like its predecessor in these premises, it may still have the FoodWorks name and logo emblazoned on the exterior, but proprietor Marc Heine is adamant his new venture will be known as The Village Store.

The T-shirts worn by the staff agree with him.

Marc and his crew have only been open a week or so.

This is our first official visit, Bennie and I in this case joined once more by Rakha, who first joined us on blog duty for a visit to Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum.

We are sporting a modest mid-week shopping list and are interested to see how we fare.

The Village Shop in some ways initially seems to be captive to space restrictions, making it on some levels pretty much your typical small suburban supermarket – quite a broad range but not a lot of depth.

The fruit/vegetable and meat sections are both smaller the those of the neighbouring IGA, though the quality is high.

Marc is interested to learn that we did our fresh produce business, as per usual, down the road apiece at Dominic’s because we were specifically after Kiwi Gold kiwifruit and the smaller size of Fuiji apples, among other things.

If, as one poster at the Village Shop Facebook page pointed out, the new place has yet to command a “point of difference”, we are nevertheless appreciative of some of the speciality lines Marc stocks and even more pleased to somewhat unexpectedly find a couple of our utilitarian regulars on the shelves.

My suggestion is that if you have a beef or a suggestion, for sure take it up with the boss – he’s all ears, so to speak.

Just inside the front doors, on the left, is the Hausfrau Coffee Counter, signalling a collaborative effort between the Village Shop and the stalwart coffee joint/bakery around corner. It’s open from 7.30am to 12.30pm, but only for takeaways.

Then follow the bread, fruit/vegetable and meat sections – and even an ATM! We’re unaware as yet whether it’s a $2 or a $2.50 contraption.

The mainstream biscuit/cookie range leaves us underwhelmed so it’s a pleasure to lay eyes on the range of Italian and more speciality styles further back towards to deli counter.

That deli counter is modest in size but seems to cover most of the expected bases.

Best of all, is finding that the Village Shop stocks three essentials of our household – our favourite brand of corn chips and Black & Gold rolled oats and crushed oats.

We don’t tick off every item on our list, but manage to do so for more than I expect.

The wine section will have to wait until next time.

Bennie and Rakha thoroughly fail the mission I had set them – to each find the most crazy, whacky item they could.

We finish our shopping at Dominic’s before adjourning to Barkley Johnson for a well-earned coffee, hot chocolates and light-as-a-feather Greek-style yoyo’s.

The Cornershop

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11 Ballarat St, Yarraville. Phone: 9689 0052

Perhaps our enjoyment of the right-in-our-backyard Yarraville village precinct would be enhanced if we didn’t pigheadedly adhere to the belief that, as we’ve (very) local, it somehow “belongs” to us all of every day of every week.

For, in truth, the busy, food-heavy streets of Anderson and Ballarat have much in common with other well-known Melbourne zones, wherein the locals are basically disenfranchised at the pointy end of the week and weekends.

I’m thinking of the likes of Brunswick St, Fitzroy, and Fitzroy St and Acland St, St Kilda.

For us Yarravillers, things get messy on Friday night, worse on Saturday and worse again on Sunday.

The only options, really, are stay at home, hit-and-run missions for homecooking or adventures further away in, say, St Albans or Flemington.

These mad crush dynamics apply in particular to popular places such as The Cornershop.

Yet twice this week I have enjoyed lovely day-off lunches during which there was ample elbow room and superb food served by unharried, efficient and obliging staff.

Early in the piece it was the Lebanese salad with shanklish cheese and sumac ($14.50). It was tangy and crunchy and studded with pita pieces that retained some semblance of crunch right to the last delicious mouthful.

 

 

Because of the crowd factor, The Cornershop has evolved into mainly a coffee spot for us. Yet despite the crowds, its popularity is not universal – a peculiar ambivalence on the part of significant minority is in evidence in comments about the place at both Urbanspoon and Footscray Food Blog.

Our own experiences have likewise been a little uneven, an early lowlight being told 15 minutes after ordering one of the pide sandwiches that those particular ingredients were no longer in-house; nor were those required for our second choice. Our third choice was lunch elsewhere.

That’s all easy to forget, though, when I chow down – later in the week but still with plenty of space and service – on the spiced, braised meatballs with grilled Turkish bread and parmesan ($15).

This a little ritzy and pricey by my usual lunch standards – almost on a level of fine dining! – but it’s so darn good. And worth every cent.

The half-dozen cheese-dusted meatballs are firm at the outset, tender under forkish ministrations but only very midly spiced.

The superbly fresh rocket leaves work both as salad and as a nicely soggy foil for the tangy tomato sauce.

But the real star is lengthy slice of Turkish bread, which is alive with a mindblowingly tasty aroma and flavour from being grilled. It’s softer than it looks and work just right for wiping out the last remnants of the sauce.

Yarraville? Maybe it’s all in the timing.

 

The Cornershop on Urbanspoon

Barkley Johnson

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11 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 6663

Perhaps it’s a sign that we’re putting down significant roots – that we have vivid recall of previous incarnations of premises inhabited by flash new businesses.

Certainly, both Bennie and I spent a goodly amount of time having our heads shorn – and, in my case, face shaved – in the old-school barber shop that previously filled 11 Anderson St.

After a long innings, he closed up shop quite a while ago.

He was part of what is a disappearing breed, often of Mediterranean or European extraction and usually cheap as chips. Well, compared to, ahem, hairdressers anyway.

We love them. We “collect” them. We may even start a blog on them in due course.

Anyway, being the nosy locals we are, we followed with interest the subsequent renovation. We had some idea what to expect, with Keith from Heather Dell telling us early in the piece that a wine bar of some sort was on the way.

And so it is. There’s wine, but not a whole lot of it. There’s deli produce and high-quality pastas, anchovies and other grocery items, but not a whole lot of them, either. There’s wholemeal baguettes for lunch at about the $7-8 mark, but virtually nothing else ‘cept antipasto options. There’s only toast for breakfast, very good coffee and less than a handful of sweeties such as baklava.

So what exactly is Barkley Johnson, and where does it figure to fit in the busy neighbourhood of Anderson and Ballarat streets?

The lovely staff tell me they’ve got to do the best and most they can with the space available.

I ask why I would make an extra stop for their deli items when I could cover them while at IGA across the road – or the new place being fitted out as we converse.

They reply in terms of quality, price and personal service.

I reckon they have a point, especially on the service angle.

As we sit at stools at the front window, with the early spring sunshine streaming in, Bennie and I feel like we’ve found a new favourite place in Yarraville to hang for a while and watch the world go by.

Despite space limitations, Barkley Johnson has nice vibe. There’s a smallish courtyard out back, a few more stools just inside the door to it and the handful of stools we’re hogging up front.

Bennie’s been a bit crook, so can’t even be tempted to have a hot chocolate, making do with a light, fluffy yoyo of, we are informed, Greek derivation – hard choccy top, sponge-like halves and creamy centre. It’s yummo and he digs it.

I have a similarly sized-and excellent coconut macaron with almond slivers.

Both sweeties and thoroughly superb coffee set back $8.

The previous week I’d had one of the filled baguette portions – ham, cheese, pickles. It was good, but the lovely wholemeal bread was of such robust flavour that the other ingredients struggled to make themselves known.

Nevertheless, on the basis of two very fine coffees, some sweeties an a couple of visits, we feel at home here.

Becoming regulars seems to likely to be both pleasurable and profitable.

Barkley Johnson on Urbanspoon

New Yarraville supermarket …

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UPDATE 29/9: It’s open – read about our first visit here.

Goodbye sad-sack predecessor; hello swish new joint!

Fit-out now righteously underway, with the new boss taking a profoundly hands-on role – that’s him in the forefront!

He tells me they’ll be opening in about two weeks.

Ooohh, so exciting!

I may have even inveigled my way to an invite to the launch party.

Blarney Stone Irish Pub

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35 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 2034

We’ve had a heap of meals at our local pub over the years.

None of them have been great, some of them have been good, some of them have been just OK, some of them we’ve said rude things about.

But where we were once rather dismissive of the pub fare on offer, we are now converts – of a sort.

The catalyst for this is a chilly mid-week night.

We feel like a break from the arduous work/school/eat/sleep routine.

We don’t feel like cooking. We do feel like a quick, cheap feed.

But nor do we feel like hopping in the car for a jaunt to Footscray.

So off we go to peruse our back-yard options.

After examining the bar menu at the pub, and going “Nah, not this time”, we stroll around the corner to Ballarat St.

We check out no less than five menus, and are dismayed to find them all beyond our mood or means.

We’ve become accustomed to the super-cheapness of Lebanese pizzas, so paying $16 or more for an Italian version doesn’t appeal.

Nor do we feel up to paying $24 for pasta.

And so on … and that’s just half the Ballarat St options, but I doubt the rest offer much variation.

Truth is, while Yarraville has myriad good food possibilities, it is sorely lacking the sort of choices that allow us to grab a quick and healthy bite for under $10 each – so easily had in Footscray.

Even at Nando’s or Burger Edge, the bill can exceed budgets, especially when a full-on meal is sought.

And the fish and chip shop lacks seating facilities.

So back to the pub we go.

It still has a metal sign that reads Railway Hotel under the Blarney Stone painted signage.

And therein lies its charm.

While it got swept up in the bloody silly Irish-themed pub syndrome that swept across Melbourne several years ago, nothing has changed.

Sure there’s a bit of Irish artwork around the place, and maybe a few more backpackers and travellers come and go, but basically it remains a well-worn home of a steady and loyal and mostly blue-collar crowd.

No pokies, but much beer and punting

As a holdout amid the solid yuppieness that surrounds it, the Blarney Stone/Railway Hotel is to be treasured.

And as such, applying any of our usual foodie standards – be they concerned with flavour, healthiness or pricing – seems both superfluous and ridiculous.

Even here, though, the bistro is a but rich for us, so the bar menu it is.

Bennie goes for the $12 burger – not for the first time.

This time around, it’s a tidy package that holds together well. It’s more in the style of an Aussie burger than its American counterpart, but he makes quick work of the lot, so to speak. All the chips follow likewise.

I order the chicken parma with chips and salad at a cost of $13.

This is less successful.

Disappointingly, the salad bits are little more the inconsequential embellishment.

The chicken is moist, but more like your typical chicken breast than a flattened piece of chook, parma-style. The very thin slice of ham add a surprising level of flavour and goes well with the cheese and bol sauce.

It’s an unusual option for me to pursue, so obviously I’m no expert. But I suspect it’d fall short of raising robust enthusiasm from hardened parma fans.

Still, it suffices. And the chips are fine.

Presumably, this could be ordered for $10 on a Thursday, which is Parma Night.

Tuesdays are anointed Locals Night and Wednesdays Pasta Night.

Our “local” will never be cherished among our favourites, but sometimes it’s just right.

And for dad at least, it is a handy stopover for a post-work or pre-footy beer.

Take it as it is or not at all.

Blarney Stone Irish Pub on Urbanspoon

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:

****

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

****

I will do a story in due course!

****

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:

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

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

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!

bowlz @ the deck

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Yarraville-Footscray Bowling Club, 339A Francis St, Yarraville. Phone: 9314 4530 ‎

We love the way doing Consider The Sauce has changed our world – with the trying of more and different food just the start of it.

Happily, we are also finding ourselves meeting and conversing with a dazzling range of western suburbs folk whom we might never have otherwise met.

Equally happily, CTS is helping us look at our surroundings with a whole new set of eyes – not to mention tastebuds.

For this lunch on an overcast Thursday, though, I am merely hoping my lunch tastes better than it looks.

It does.

Heading out for my standard routine of Lebanese pie and shopping at the Circle in Altona, I surprise myself by turning right, suddenly inspired by the idea of checking out the Yarraville-Footscray Bowling Club.

After all, this is prime-time western suburbs – a venerable institution on Francis St past which we’ve driven a gazillion times without ever stopping to have a look. Or a feed.

I shudder at the mere glimpse of poker machines but march on and in – eventually discovering that not all “pokie venues” are the same.

The club’s bistro is called bowlz @ the deck, and it’s in that direction I head, sidestepping the lure of a snacky bar menu on which just about everything is under $10.

Most of the proper menu is beyond my lunch budget, but I zero in on the “seniors” section of the main list, every item on which goes for $11.90 at lunchtime Tuesdays through Thursdays.

On it are such things as rissoles and mash, whiting fillets and roast of the day.


The club also nominates Mondays as steak night, on which rump goes for $13.90, scotch for $5.90 and 600g T-bone for $21.90.

It’s no surprise my shepherd’s pie is quite unlike that what was made by mum – and maybe still is. She’ll no doubt let me know when she reads this. (Hi Mum!)

Her way is the traditional way and involves leftover roast lamb, hand-minced.

The bowlz variation, by contrast, is your basic beef stew topped with mashed spuds. Having said that, it tastes real good – the meat is tender and there’s plenty of it in a rich brown gravy.

The broccoli is overcooked, but the corn, carrots and cauliflower are good.

It’s simple, homely fare and I dig it a lot.

Maybe when I return with Bennie we’ll go for the $6 bar menu roast roll with gravy.

After eating, I wander around taking photos and talking to the staff. It’s a bowls club, yes, but has a warm and lived-in feel. The pokies are somewhat tucked away and obviously not the main game here. Hooray for that, too!

There are only a couple of the bistro tables taken, and it is from one of them that an elderly gent eventually peels away to check out what the weird guy with camera is up to.

This turns out to be Kevin Brown, a former secretary and long-time servant of the club.

After assuring him of my honourable intentions, he spends the wonderful next half hour or so regaling me with stories about the club and the struggles involved in keeping such an enterprise going in the face of threats from various quarters and no government funding at all.

We examine some of the photos that adorn the bistro walls, one of which is a 1950 shot of Anderson St – and still recognisably the same thoroughfare we use today.


I find him inspiring.

We even have a chuckle about the fact that among the club sponsors is a funeral service.

“Just about all bowls clubs have funeral directors on board,” says Kevin. “I’m 80.”

Seems obvious, eh? And somehow both brutally real AND comforting, reassuring.

I leave with a spring in my step, vowing to return sooner rather than later.

The Yarraville-Footscray Bowling Club website is here.


Yarraville Festival

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Yummo: Bennie hooks into a super iced chocolate ($6.50) at Co’klat; his mother wishes she was doing likewise.

Yarraville Central, February 11, 2011

The number of Yarraville Festivals we’ve hung out at is a bit of a blur, memory wise.

It’s always fun and cool in that it’s manageable in terms of size – just a few blocks and maybe 3-4000 people, tops. The St Kilda Festival it is not.

In terms of food, as with all festivals – it seems to me – the idea is better than the execution. All too often it seems we all get excited about paying for food that is not as fine and funky as we’d normally get, pay more for it and consume it in less than ideal circumstances from plastic containers.

This year I made do with a platter of rogan josh, rice, onion bhaji and samosa from the Tandoori Times stall – with a can of that Coca Cola stuff, the damage was a tad under $10.

I also had a cheapo sausage on a roll with heaps of mustard from one of several stands selling such like and gyros. I gobbled it up while talking to Keith from Heather Dell.

I got the day’s caffeine hit from Co’klat, a small, new place specialising in all things chocolate that had escaped our attention until our next door neighbour, Dulcie, spoke of its excellence.

I had two good coffees there, the second with Bennie and his mum. The boy loved his iced chocolate.

Co’klat was reasonably busy, but also like a little calm oasis in the middle of the festival noise and bustle.

As always with festivals, especially one as neighbourhood-oriented as this, was running into friends – crash, bang, wallop!

As I was wearing the official Consider The Sauce Spongebob T-shirt, a regular reader, Kristine, spotted me in the crowd and introduced herself. She’s also a fan of Footscray Food Blog, Bear Head Soup and the Africa Taste salad.


I saw the Ross Hannford Trio playing Tequila.

We marvelled at the mindblowing diversity of dogs in attendance – everything from microwave oven size to outhouse size, from drop dead gorgeous to the most ordinary of mutts.

We noted the high number ageing hippies, of both genders, in the crowd.

We walked round and round.

We went home.

Doing research into Winston Churchill’s third nipple.


She’s Thai

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208 Somerville Rd, Kingsville. Phone: 9314 5556

How mindlessly presumptuous – and how profoundly wrong.

In all the years we’ve lived in Yarraville or thereabouts, we’ve driven past She’s Thai countless times, but never deigned to enter.

In my mind, I’d painted a picture of this eatery as a low-rent Thai place unworthy of our attention.

This was based on the unfounded inkling that it was just another cheap eat Thai place that mostly likely purveyed food that wasn’t anything special or worse – and at prices a good dollar or two higher than charged for similar and better at our many local Viet and Indian favourites.

But finally, mid-week, curiosity wins out and through the doors of She’s Thai I amble.

From the moment I cross the threshold it’s clear my presumptions are without any basis.

This is a lovely neighbourhood restaurant.


The open kitchen bustles, with adjacent casual area for customers awaiting takeaway orders and the neighbouring more formal dining room adorned with Thai woodwork and decorations. Thai music tinkles in the background and there’s even a table laid out with recent newspapers for those waiting or dining solo.

To cap it all, cackles of glee escape the kitchen as I start taking photos – always a good sign!

I question the gent of Western persuasion – as the nearby sign reads, “She’s Thai But I’m Not!” – about the Thai provenance of the chive dumplings ($5). The gist of his reply seems to be they are to be found in some areas of Thailand while having obviously having a transnational heritage.

I order them anyway. A mistake – but the only one of my visit. These Thai chive dumpling may be paragons, but for me they are too plain and lacking flavour. The two flat dumplings remind me of nothing so much as the spring onion pancakes you find in some Chinese establishments.

My gang massaman (brown beef curry) is much, much better.

I’ve had this dish many times elsewhere, usually enjoying the mild but deep mix of peanut and coconut vibes with chunky meat and – always! – the potato pieces that sing with flavour, so tender they almost become part of the gravy.


The She’s Thai massaman curry ($12.50) is quite different – in fact, more like a goulash, so sticky and gooey is the gravy. The beef is chunky and tender. The coconut flavour is more restrained than I am expecting, though the peanut quotient is high thanks to the pleasing crunch of the many skinless half nuts on offer. They join the expected spuds, crinkle-cut carrots, heaps of pineapple and basil leaves in completing a rich and delicious dish.

A few nights later, I phone in a takeaway order for chicken pad thai ($11.50), which provides a lovely at-home meal of egg noodles, egg, bean sprouts and juicy chicken pieces.

She’s Thai doesn’t do home deliveries, but no matter for us – the place is so close that barely five minutes need pass between leaving and arriving home with the goodies.

And we’ll surely be returning to take in more of the menu on a dine-in basis – for sure something with a bit more colour and zing and spice from the stir fry and salad listings.

I’ll be excited to do so, as She’s Thai is a gem of a place.

Meanwhile, I’ve also had an insider’s thumbs up on At 43, the new Thai place in Yarraville that is Cafe Urbano by day!

She's Thai on Urbanspoon

Heather Dell

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Heather Dell, 7 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9687 1721

Heather Dell makes one realise how over-used and mis-used the phrase “old school” has become.

Instead of being used to bring credibility to lame pop culture manifestations, it really should be restricted for use when describing joints such as this fabulous Yarraville pie and cake shop.

Heather Dell is the very essence of old-school.

It starts with the signage, frontage and funky old-time wooden screen door.

It continues with the interior – racks of, yes, “old-school” cakes, slices and pies – and the welcome.

It goes on with the vintage mixers and other equipment – none of your new-fangled metrics here!

The vibe continues with a product line that includes neenish tarts, mince pies and much more.

“Old school”, too, are the production methods – Heather Dell’s goodies are made by hand and with a whole lot of love.

*****

Oh, sweetie! Clockwise from top left: Apple turnover, hedgehog, boozy Christmas mince pie, neenish tart, coconut tart, sprinkle biscuit, swiss blueberry tart, swiss lemon tart,  regular mince pie. Centre: Jam slice.

TASTE TEST

Apple turnover: OK, but could’ve done with some more spices.

Hedgehog: Pretty good, but only a little classier than your average hog.

Boozy Christmas mince pie: Fantastically yummy!

Neenish tart: Stuffed with butter cream, this was too rich for Kenny, but Bennie loved it.

Coconut tart: Head of the class! Moist, coconutty and not too sweet. Kenny’s fave.

Sprinkle biscuit: Despite an aversion to hundreds & thousands and the like, Kenny liked this. Two crunchy wafers, plain but good.

Swiss blueberry and lemon tarts: See neenish tart (above).

Regular mince pie: OK, but not a patch on the boozy pie (above).

Jame slice: OK, but a little anonymous in such company.

*****

Then there are the prices – you pay for quality, but the most expensive sweet item at Heather Dell is the vanilla slice ($2.60). Prices for the likes of swiss pineapple and swiss blueberry tarts (both $2.20) and jam slices ($1.90) are significantly below those demanded at more trendy and high-falutin’ bakehouses.

When I bowl up to witness the daily pie-making session, the first thing proprietor Keith says to me is: “We’re old school!”

Indeed.

Heather Dell has been in Keith’s family ever since his maternal grandparents and grand-aunt bought an existing business in 1951.

He says they inherited many of the recipes, which have been somewhat modified over the years. The biggest change is in the use of vegetable shortening. In 1951 and thereabouts it was animal dripping all the way!

Heather Dell produces about 100 of their meaty, hearty pies ($3.80) a day, along with a handful of family pies ($8.90). Mind you, Bennie and I can scarf a family pie in about five minutes flat, so we presume they’re working on a rather narrow definition of “family”.

The meat is brought in from Keith’s butcher and cooked fresh each day. He sniffs dismissively when mentioning those who use “pre-mix meat” in their pies.

Many thanks to Keith, Carol, Millie and Ines for letting me watch them at work. It was a hoot!

Below: Heather Dell’s Pie-Filling Fella Performs His Daily Ritual

Hello Gelo

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15 Anderson St, Yarraville. Phone: 9078 5696

Does ice cream lose the taste factor after a single scoop?

Do tastebuds become so frozen that subsequent scoops become gratuitous?

Is scarfing multiple scoops an exercise in gluttony?

Why aren’t great minds working feverishly on the answers to these important questions?

Actually, while we love our ice cream and gelati, we almost always restrict ourselves to what are generally referred to as baby cones.

Taste issues aside, with gelati we reckon there can be too much of a good thing. I see cones and cups stacked with three or four scoops, and I’m puzzled how people can inhale so much of the sublime stuff.

Our single scoop habit fits specially well with Hello Gelo, as their kids cones tend to be a bit more generous than elsewhere – although it is a variable situation. And their kids cones cost a mere $2.50.

In several years of living in Seddon and Yarraville, we revelled in the wonderland of cheap, funky eating out options on our doorstep.

But it also bugged the hell out of us that a gelati fix required a drive to Williamstown, Sydney Rd or Lygon St. OK, sometimes the drive was fun, but still …

And then came Hello Gelo, now entering its second summer and the owner of which obviously contemplated the same unsatisfactory situation and decided to do something about it.

Hello Gelo does several of the things expected of a gelati joints – hot dogs, sundaes, those little Dutch pancake thingies, coffee, sweeties of various kinds – but when we’re there, we’re strictly on a gelati mission.

We like checking out the new flavours, of which there always seem to be two or three, even on our very regular visits.

Bennie holds dad’s apple pie and his own honeycomb crunch, while our very cool jazz chick neighbour Dulcie works on her blood orange.

The chilli chocolate is a fixture, as are fruity ices such as lemon, lime and blood orange.

We’ve had a few disappointments. The almond, for instance, tasted like plain old vanilla to me.

By contrast, another flavour that could have been too subtle to nail – apple pie – did indeed taste just like apple pie.

Another big plus: Hello Gelo operates a frequent flyer card scheme – buy seven and get one free.

And, yes, the card deal also applies to kids cones.

Excellent!

Hello Gelo on Urbanspoon