Great. Jak and I are out on a date. A nice slow meal in a hip new hawker food restaurant from Melbourne chef Teage Ezard, Gingerboy (27-29 Crossley Street Melbourne 3000 +61 3 9662 4200). Despite my vivid imagination painting a picture of various hawker stalls in a tropical courtyard, the sort of thing you find in Ho Chi Minh City, it’s a flashily decorated room down a cute Melbourne alleyway. Fairy lights wink from behind black bamboo cladding and […]
Restaurants
Restaurant and bar stories, news and reviews
Lau’s Family Kitchen: hot off the press
STOP PRESS: Lau’s does now take bookings due to popular demand and a few walk in seats are kept vacant. It is worth bookiung earlier than later. Saturdays, in particular, fill up fast. A new restaurant needs to be put in context. For Lau’s Family Kitchen (4 Acland St, St Kilda 3182 +61 8598 9880) it is that dad, Gilbert that is, ran what the New York Times regards as the world’s finest Chinese restaurant. He’s sold out of Melbourne’s […]
16 ways to spot a bad restaurant
1. There is a massive queueIn that case you are either in a motorway café or a reality TV show. 2. The room is emptyWhy is nobody here on a Thursday night? Just opened? Don’t kid me, I can see the look of desperation on the staff’s faces. 3. Spruikers try and drag you inObvious really. If they have to use the pressurised tactics of Benidorm timeshare spruikers… 4. Birds on tablesIf the birds (or rats for that matter) are […]
Basque slips
Do you ever get the sense that some restaurants are taking the piss? You know what happens, they begin serving quality cheap food, have friendly efficient service and a reasonaby priced wine list. Actually, coming to think of it the serviced has always been a bit hit and miss at Basque Tapas & Wine (159 Chapel St Windsor 3181 +61 3 9533 7044) but right now there’s a lot more missing that hitting. That’s a shame because I used to […]
Frozen scallops vs fresh
It’s a no brainer really. You want fresh, not frozen, fish, especially when eating shellfish. Possibly the ultimate is a boating holiday on west coast of Scotland where you dive with scuba tanks for scallops. I’m sure there are similar experiences to be had in the cold waters off the US. Cold water adds an edge to scallops, which is perhaps why the best ones in Australia come from Tasmania. Ditto oysters. But for some chefs that’s not enough. They […]
Not sure about the cheese
Can’t decide between the goat penis and the beef penis. Oh, and I’m not sure about the oyster and cheese. But the tank of live scorpions was pretty impressive.
Great wine advice for restaurants
Veteran food writer Rita Erlich talks good sense in The Age over absurdly long wine lists. Giant wine tomes are best avoided: “Even a speed-read list would help – say, a dozen whites and reds, chosen because they’re appropriate drinking and fairly priced. The longer the list, the higher the individual bottle prices, since stocking the cellar with thousands of bottles is expensive. Neither do I have much time for the wine list full of big company wines, available at […]
Food fight
Yes, there are two good fight stories out there. Cuccina Rebecca in Sydney was asked to stop taking pics of her food “because the owner does like it” as someone once tried to take a picture of the blackboard. Silly restaurant paranoi perhaps. Many chefs do take food photos for ideas but this was a bowl of pasta. But it’s not as paranoid as the restaurants that refuse the critic entry. That’s right in Melbourne they have barred the way […]
Eating on fried fish street
Stay in the old quarter in Hanoi. Learn to love the congestion, the buzz and honking of motor scooters. Ah, and the smells. Two stroke, food and incense. This is the place where the action is. Life is lived and transacted on the street or at least without leaving the motorcycle saddle. It is a place where street names have a meaning. Hang Gad is chicken, Hang Hahn is onion. Hang Ruoi is clam worms. And the stretch between Hang […]