Round the corner from us, less than a hundred paces away, is a florist, a little convenience store and what used to be a traditional fish and chip shop. The chippie closed down a while ago, and not surprisingly either: we were never able to find it open for business.In the same spot opened Ebi, a Japanese fish and chippery as it calls itself. Time and time again we meant to try it, and in the past few weeks we've managed to become almost regulars.In the bleak midwinter, Ebi is a little oasis of red light. At lunchtime or in ...
Archives for “footscray”
I have just come back from a weekend in Rhode Island, Baltimore, and NYC, in which I think I have eaten nothing but meat, cheese, and white flour. Vietnamese Buddhist vegetarian cuisine could not be a better counterpoint to my "street meat" weekend! Thank you so much to Deb from Bear Head Soup for coming to my rescue again while I am overseas and sending in another Footscray review for your enjoyment.I’ve walked past Bo De Trai several times and have often wondered about what a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant might be like. There isn’t always a lot of people in there ...
I cannot believe that I have blogged about Hung Vuong in Footscray. With so many choices along Hopkins Street, this has been our preference lately. Maybe because it has heating in winter and air-condition in summer unless many of the older establishments. And also maybe because it has nice white light and better for taking photos! I made my usual order of beef special combination. It is basically pho served with beef slices, beef sausage that is heavily laced with black pepper, tendons and thinly sliced tripes. The broth is quite heavily scented and flavoured with clove. MSG? Of course! But ...
I really dislike terms like "Asian grocer" and "Indian shop," although I do use them. My family think I am oversensitive, but I don't like referring to the supermarket as the supermarket, the fish shop as the fish shop, while the place we buy our fish sauce and noodles from, and the other place we buy our lentils and spices from have ethnic tags, like they are somehow separate to us. I also grate at lazy, catch-all terms like "Asian" and "Indian," but the fact is, I can't detect the difference between a Chinese grocer and a Vietnamese one like ...
T.Cavallaro & Sons Pasticceria 98 Hopkins Street Footscray VIC 3011 +61 3 9687 4638 http://www.tcavallaroandsons.com.au/ My good mate, Martin, who lives in the foodie wasteland known as Broadbeach Waters was lamenting the limited availability of REAL cannoli up on the Gold Coast. Real cannoli, he said, had a crispy shell and was filled with soft ricotta, not custard. To be honest, I wasn’t a cannoli person to begin with but all that talk of the famous Sicilian pastry dessert got me keen to find the best cannoli in Melbourne. I did a bit of research and according to Melbourne foodie royalty tummyrumbles, T.Cavallaro & Sons ...
For the last few weeks, my daughter and I have been hung up on this place, where we go and eat lamb on skewers and potato salad. Hmm, you are thinking, how very un-Footscray of you. What is this place - some kind of el-cheapo pub buffet? A fundraiser BBQ in a windswept parking lot somewhere? What if I told you it's a restaurant serving mainland Chinese cuisine?When we left Richmond, I was devastated to part with Xiao Ting Box on Victoria St. Their fabulously fat, juicy, Northern-style dumplings were enough to make me overlook the grotty floor and sticky ...
Café Lalibela seems to be the "starter restaurant" for Ethiopian cuisine. The conversation usually goes something like this:Person A: "Have you tried Awash/African Town/Harambe/Abesha/Dinknesh Lucy?"Person B: "No, but I've been to Lalibela." I'm not sure what it is. It's probably the most appealing to middle class sensibilities, I guess, with nice decor and less of a cafeteria feel than some of the other Ethiopian restaurants. But hey, who am I to judge - I popped my Ethio cherry there. My friends and I went a long time ago and did enjoy it, but we all migrated to African Town ...
I saw an ad in a parenting publication a while ago that still irritates me to this day. It was an ad for a prepackaged cake mix, cookie dough, or something of the sort. The image was of a mother beatifically gazing upon her child drawing a picture, and the tag line was something like "Saves you time so you can do more important things in life". When I saw it, mother-guilt - that old companion - flared up. Am I a bad mother, I thought, because I make my own stock, bake my own bread and (shock) make my ...
Maddern Square. High noon. The battle of the banh mi is about to take place. In the red corner, we have Nhu Lan, the people's favourite. Look at him, resplendent in an orange and white cape and leotard! The crowd goes wild as he flexes his sticky chicken thighs. His buns are so crispy! A hush descends over the crowd - the challenger has arrived. Ba Le is a fearsome opponent, his chest emblazoned with a silver Eiffel Tower. Will Nhu Lan be pounded into pâté? Will barrel-chested Ba Le be brought down by Nhu Lan's bi? Or will this ...
When we are back in the States, many people ask us to describe "Australian food". I never really know quite what to say. The fact is, my parents are self-imposed castaways from mainstream Australian food. They shrugged off the white sauce and Sunday roasts of their childhood, and raised us on a hodge-podge of interesting things they had gleaned from various cultures - pretty progressive in the 1980s.I remember in Home Economics at school, in the lesson on carbohydrates, my horrible, smug teacher neatly explaining, "You see, we all eat potatoes with our meal. Katsy [the lone Asian], well, she ...
Where do you go when you are starving and have only 15 minutes to eat and do a week's worth of shopping at the market? Answer: Truc Giang in Leeds St.If it weren't for the venetian blind in the top shot, you would see the veritable mountain of pickled vegies that is normally in the front window, ready for stuffing into your crunchy roll. I got a hot tip that these guys did a special pork roll with grilled pork, so that was my pick.I have eaten here before from the overflowing, colourful bain-marie, and it was good. Speaking of ...
We used to be luckily enough to have the greatest fish & chip shop around the corner. It was a melée on Friday night in particular, the bench seat where you waited strewn with yellowing local papers, the workers behind the counter plunging baskets of chips into hot oil and flipping burgers in a complex dance. Recently it shut down and reopened as Ebi Fine Food, "Japanese fusion fish & chips". We have been meaning to try it for ages and this was the night.The greasy vinyl curtains and humming fridge have been replaced with a neat, dark-wood counter overlooking ...
Yesterday, I got around to reading The Ern Malley Affair, a book which has been sitting on my shelf for about 13 years (the original docket was inside).Few people would know about Ern Malley, the great poet who not only died young, but who never actually existed, and who was foisted onto a gullible art magazine editor as a somewhat cruel hoax in 1944.This hoax more or less marked the beginning of the end for that magazine, The Angry Penguins, and demoralised its editor so much that he wrote little poetry again.Such is the arrogance of youth perhaps.Ern Malley's poems, ...
Dear reader, I like to imagine you reading this blog just as I write it, with a plate of something at your side. Is it a delicate cup of tea with a shortbread balanced across the rim, or perhaps a bowl of spaghetti, dressed with a zesty tomato sugo? If this is the case, please navigate away now, perhaps to one of the other wonderful food blogs to the right, and return when you are suitably food-less, otherwise you may be food-less in another way less pleasant. Vegetarians, you may want to sit this one out.Is your snack over? Plate ...
A creative studio complex in the heart of the Footscray CBD. Great natural light. 24 hour access. Secure entry. Studios measuring approximately 4m x 6m @ $75 per week all inclusive. L1/101 Nicholson Street, Footscray VIC 3011 FauxPho is a creative space located in the heart of Footscray and overlooks the Footscray Mall. The space is facilitated by the fauxHappiness committee, which comprises FauxPho studio artists and local arts workers. Our aim is to provide a diverse and flexible platform for contemporary art practice and dialogue. We endeavour to nurture a robust and interactive space for arts workers and the broader community through our exhibition ...
1+1 = 2, right? A restaurant that is called, in part, "Dumpling Noodles", sells dumplings and noodles? Nothing overly exciting there. But this particular equation is a little more titillating than you might at first think, because the dumplings and noodles in question are actually Northwestern Chinese!In this region of China, home to the Muslim Uighur people, lamb is widely eaten, wheat is the staple grain and potatoes are also enjoyed. 1+1 Dumpling Noodles will turn all your preconceptions of Chinese food on their head! We started with the Spicy Salad ($6) - spanking fresh cucumber, spring onion and coriander in ...
There are two generations of Vietnamese restaurants in Footscray, Melbourne. The first emulates the tile-and-mirror-walled, cheap metal table joints of the streets of Saigon. The architecture sends a message that hosing down the walls could be a priority, the hall of mirrors effect suggests that the appearance of being busy is as important as really being busy. The second generation is identical to upmarket phở chain, Phở 24 with dark timber panelling, dark timber seats, white plates, the appearance that they’re one frappucino short of a Starbucks. In Footscray, both tend to serve the same menu; interior design is not ...
If you are going to eat a packet of chips, make it Magic Masala! These are extra spicy and totally addictive. As the back of the packet says, they "make your heart go DHAK DHAK"!From India Impex, Irving St, Footscray (between Nicholson & Leeds)
Popped into town to pick up some Kitchen Samrat for a lazy lunch. $16 for two curries and four naans (two with garlic).They now do dosas! These wafer-thin, crispy pancakes are made of a fermented rice and lentil batter. They're stuffed with spiced potatoes, eggs or cheese and rolled into a huge cigar shape. Looking forward to eating in soon so I can try them. Today we had Chicken Tikka Masala and Malai Kofta. The Chicken T.M. was great - pieces of chargrilled, marinated chicken in a thick tomato gravy, with onions and red capsicum. This dish is a modern ...
It was a perfect night for a walk, so B and I strolled leisurely through the back streets to dinner at Madhumoti. The decor is basic but sweet - little bunches of plastic flowers on the tables, and Nanna-style plates with water lilies on them. We started with the haleem, which was almost Indian chilli con carne - a slow-cooked, soupy stew of rice, wheat and lentils with chunks of meat. The grains had melded into absolute lusciousness, which was followed up by a massive kick of heat from lots of green chilli. One of my ...
So I had the idea for Shelf Gleaning a while back - a new section in which I "demystify" ingredients I bought in Footscray (but that you too could buy from your local multicultural grocer) and show you what to do with them. Twice I cooked the same chana dal with fenugreek leaves, and twice I was thwarted in taking a pic of the finished dish by arsenic hour. Man - kids and elegant, food-bloggy photography just do not meld. So I present to you, the harried parent's guide to dinner, gleaned from the freezer of Yummie ...
Roast duck? What roast duck? Oh yes, the very forgettable roast duck at Golden Harvest. I didn't even finish it, and I am a clean-your-plate gal from way back.Golden Harvest, 15 Leeds St, Footscray
I have been doing some reading on Vietnamese pork rolls or Banh Mi. During the French colonial period, fancy delis in Vietnam offered "French sandwiches" to the colonials. Over time, they were popularised throughout all levels of society, from the aforementioned fancy delis to mobile sandwich shops (a box on a tricycle), the peddlers (pedallers?) of which stuffed their rolls with plenty of cheaper and more Vietnamese ingredients such as herbs, pickled vegetables, cucumber and chilli. My source claims that the rolls were a status symbol, reminiscent as they were of the French. I wonder if ...
I often wonder how the Subway in Footscray makes any money, surrounded as it is by Vietnamese bakeries. How could anybody choose those pallid slices of "ham" or "turkey", wizened lettuce and claggy bread over the crusty, light, fresh, flavour explosion of a Vietnamese pork roll? Similarly, why put up with soggy-bottomed, oily, mystery meat pizza when the world of Lebanese pizza or man'oush is out there for the exploring. From your local makhbaz or Arabic bakery, man'oush might come spread with tangy za'atar (local Mid-Eastern oregano/thyme) or lahmi (lamb/tomato paste, sprinkled with lemon & chilli), or ...
1/7-9 Leeds St, Footscray (map) Phone 03 9687 2680 Despite all the bad press of late, I still have a soft spot for Footscray. Mel and I would often take day trips out west to check out the markets for exotic and strange ingredients, then forage for a bargain at Forges. But what I love most about this inner west enclave are the myriad of cheap eateries where, for a pittance, one can enjoy delicious Chinese, Indian, African and of course, awesome Vietnamese food. On this particular day, I had a craving for authentic Vietnamese noodle soup, not the MSG-laden kind that you find in the city. ...
