Livingroom for more

Image from the restaurant's website

"…A Hendricks and ice for me"

"Would you like that with cucumber?"

"Yes please!" My heart skipped a happy beat.

Dining in a suburban restaurant I did not expect to find Hendricks Gin available, but that short discourse told me that I had been placed in good hands.

 


In my experience the further you go from the Melbourne CBD, the better the Asian food. The converse applies to European food, especially in the South Eastern suburbs. 


Go beyond Attica in Ripponlea and the imaginative, conceptual cooking seems to disappear until you reach the countryside, where The Royall Mail and Loam are edging into creative modern territory. The same can be said for what I recently heard described as 'Honest Food' – good ingredients delivered simply, using traditional techniques and served up with a whole bunch of integrity.


While the expensive, modern and adventurous is something I looked forward to about twice a year, it is the honest stuff that would entice me to leave my own kitchen more often. My two favourite exponents of this kind of thing unfortunately are far from my home: George Biron's Sunnybrae in Birregurra and Steve Cumper's Red Velvet Lounge in Cygnet, Tasmania. The tyranny of distance means that I don't dine at either often enough. But now I think I've found another to add to the list, and it's amazingly in the burbs.


By the suburbs I don't mean way out in the heartland of McMansions where Asian cooking reaches amazing highs at low price points. No, this venue is in Malvern, where the leafy streets are filled with meticulously restored and extended period homes, well serviced by public transport and a mere stone's throw from our Jewish heartland. My new happy place venue is Livingrooom.


Hugging a corner in Claremont Street, Livingroom stretches its verandahs wide over the pavement. Close to Malvern station and away from the din of bustling Glenferrie Road it squats low on the landscape surrounded by genteel shops and a doll hospital.


This is a locale that keeps a respectable distance from the youthful outlook of St.Kilda, Windsor and the tourist aspect of the CBD; an interesting spot to do business. And somehow Livingroom manages to face the challenge of entertaining the professional families and Empty Nesters residing in Armadale through to Caulfield with integrity from breakfast through to dinner service.

They do it by making their guests feel like they're visiting neighbours for a dinner party, or by day that they've dropped in at a girlfriend's for a gossip and a cuppa. On Saturday afternoon it's a place where a man of a certain age can just be alone with the newspapers or a group of middle aged men can grab an espresso before catching a train to the football. 

Walking the tightrope between various functions, Livingroom manages to be smart, bright, spacious and kid friendly from breakfast through to dinner and at night is as intimate as the dining room of a picket fenced, restored five bedroom Federation house, with parent's retreat and outdoor living area.


Inside, an eclectic arrangement of old domestic dining tables and chairs are delineated into two spaces by chandeliers in the lower, more formal area and red shaded pendant lights in an upper room that feels more café in style. This second space is dominated by the coffee machine, wine fridges and a toy box. On entry the Kitchen is visible and in it you will spy Head Chef Darren Daley.

In 1999 Darren was recruited from London's Bibendum restaurant at the height of its popularity and prowess. He was one of a number of British Chefs lured to Melbourne to work at the Sofitel. At the time TV Masterchef judges, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris were also employed there.


Darren however, is a quiet achiever. You won't find young Restaurant Critics fawning over Darren. He has not sought out their favour nor courted the limelight. He is not one of The Australian Food Twitterati. He does not have a big PR machine behind him, though I do suspect the PR hawks will be circling, hoping to get a piece of the action soon.


I've watched Darren's progression over the years. He has worked confidently and quietly since leaving The Sofitel by working at reputable venues. From being the lynch pin in revered gastropubs such as The Kingston in Richmond, to a stint at Guy Grossi's Mirka at Tolarno and then over to head up Sud's two venues, he has consistently produced a quality product, built on a passion for what he does best.

I respect the honesty of his cooking. He takes an artisanal approach. I have watched him make his own sausages, his eyes mist over at the thought of slow cooked dishes and heard him talk with excitement of cha sui bao – Cantonese roast pork buns. In his kitchen, a passion for showcasing good produce is at the fore. And to add to that there is also an honesty in the service, where Darren's sister - a Sommelier in training – works alongside staff recruited from Maha and other reputable venues, who strike a chord between knowledgeable and unpretentious.


So from breakfast to dinner you will find polite subtlety, attention to detail and quality both in service and cooking. A brand new wine list is extensive, chosen by Alan Markham, the owner of Livingroom. This list, I would suggest is to some guests, a little intimidating. But in a thoughtful manner, tasting notes for the European and Australian selection prevents potential blushes.


To me, on a number of levels they have a difficult clientele to woo. If the menu were to sound too molecular or fanciful it would turn the conservative core off, but if it doesn't sound that little bit special, it won't entice those looking for the night out with a brag factor either. So faced with the tightrope of a dinner menu I honestly found it tough to make a decision what to eat. I was tempted by much, but initially thought perhaps it wasn't pushing my boundaries. I later realised that the written menu did not do the delicious creations justice. So I wondered if a certain amount of dumbing-down had been called for, so as not to scare the locals?


I would describe Darren's offering as Contemporary European, at times rustic. In fact on a recent trip to Paris, we found that Livingroom was in step with the regular hang-outs of city living Parisians, because here, it's all about flavor. The dishes are not excessively tricked up with gadgetry or gimicry, just strong traditional techniques. I feel Darren does his suppliers proud. From early evening, starting with diners of families and older folk, to couples having a night away from the kids, it is clear that the customers are well taken care of.

Amongst the entrees on the night we visited there were some excellent locally made charcuterie options from Siketa Meats, a wagyu bresoala dish and crowd pleasers such as fried zucchini flowers stuffed with lemon, ricotta and mint and a roasted pepper dressing. But this clientele also love the chicken livers with capers, parsley, witlof and Roquefort dressing.


While polenta crusted sardines stirred Mr Sticki, he is a goats cheese buff, so went for the cheese in fritters with lemon thyme that was a roll call of his favourite ingrdients. The creamy texture and salt factor in the cheese was pleasantly offset by a piquant julienne of apple, radicchio, candied walnuts and truffled honey.

A five spice quail was reminiscent of dish I grew up with. Satisfyingly crisp fried, fleshy and subtly flavoured it works well with pickled chilli, mint and coriander. While comforting to me, I wondered whether the local clientele considered this Asian inspired offering exotic? But then I noticed in each course there was at least one dish that might appear challenging to the regulars and a number of items that some had not heard of such as, guanciale and scamorza.

Scanning the mains, I toyed with the idea of Parsley and gorgonzola risotto with apple and rocket salad. I flirted with pan fried Mirror Dory with sautéed cavala nero, confit duck and red wine puy lentils. Mr Stickyfingers chose a Black Angus sirloin with soft buckwheat polenta and braised shallots - over the skirt steak with pommes frites, truffle salt and veal jus. Finally, after much deliberation I selected a rabbit wellington with spinach, mushroom, sage and gorgonzola farce. I'm a sucker for meat in pastry and I love rabbit.

My main was very generous. Had not the beloved been on hand, I suspect I would barely have managed half. But that's just me. The contents had sufficient moisture while not making the pastry soggy. The gorgonzola gave the meat a hint of truffle like flavor, adding an unexpected depth to the dish. We could find no fault in the beautifully aged steak either. The shallots braised in wine were a delicious compliment to the deeply flavoured meltingly good meat.

At this point I must apologise for the crappy food photography. The dining scenario after the 8pm peak is moody and candlelit. It is the dinner party scenario of viewing your companions in beautiful, soft, candlelight that is unforgiving on food bloggers wielding a discrete camera that avoids flash.


As the night trickled on into the hour that gen Y usually start their evening, greed kicked in and we opted to share a dessert. While Mr coveted the Munster, Roquefort papillon and the Blairlaith Cheddar, despite hoping to leave room for more, there was no way that our bellies would allow us to man an assault on a cheese course. 


Our waitress nominated the chocolate and peanut fondant with vanilla bean icecream and salted caramel sauce, which totally hit the spot in a gooey, crunchy, sweet-but-not-sweet way. It was perfect in all respects. Like a couple of shuffleboard players we found ourselves dueling to scrape the last remnants from the plate.

Later, rolling outside into the quiet night I knew that I would be back. Being in good hands found us sated on more than one level and happy to have found 'my kind of place' south of the Yarra …. and not so far from Chez Sticky. It's really no wonder that the locals love Livingroom.

Livingroom Restaurant and Cafe

12-18 Claremont Avenue,

Malvern Victoria, 3144 

(03) 9576 0356 | book via website | map & email

Related articles

• Cooking Classes 2010 (sunnybraerestaurantandcookingschool.blogspot.com)
• Epic, sensational lunch at Sunnybrae (melbournegastronome.com)

In the company of chocolate

Photo by Tom Nguyen

“She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core...That was very much her philosophy of life — to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places.”

MAYA SOETORO-NG (Half sister of Barack Obama) discusses their mother

The rain has oiled the streets of Melbourne. It's Friday, six o'clock and the city is writhing in the glory of Spring. There's an international football match scheduled at the hallowed Melbourne Cricket Ground and Spring Racing Carnival enthusiasts prowl in packs for a big night on the town.


Yesterday, Melbourne Central was heaving in school children. Today mothers and teenage offspring scour the shops for school formal attire. A man with Tourette's syndrome hisses, gurgles and swears in my wake. It rattles me in spite of my understanding that it is beyond his control and my pace gathers momentum.


I make a beeline for The Original Lolly Store - with its blackened Halloween window display - and plunge my hand into a box of English Fry's Chocolate Cream Bars; dark chocolate coated fondant sweets that console me with distant memories of my tender years in Surrey. A time of pure innocence to be reawakened just with a sniff of their spicy aroma.


Across the way I take in the progress of Patric Blanc's Green Wall. A vein of plants have not survived, though those closest to the lights still flourish. Pushing through the crowd to Swanston Street and the pavement under my feet is greasy, so under a cafe umbrella I slide out of my three inch magenta satin pumps into the safety of low altitude Mary Jane's.


Two horns, a drummer and guitarist belt out red hot funk into the humid air and large drops of rain catch the Australian flags wrapped around three football fanatics. Another, in a bright yellow suit, steps off a tram and strides into QV.


Nearby, Chocolateria San Churro is jammed solid with Asian students nursing oddly shaped mugs of spiced hot chocolate whilst flushing over big plates of deep fried churros. Upstairs, Max Brenner's shop is painting the same chocolate drenched picture without a seat to spare, the chocolate cauldron seething like a Rotarua mud bath while chocoholics sip molten confections through metal straws.


The tide of workers liberated for the weekend carries me past cheap Asian eateries until I reach the City Square. At Brunetti I pass the counter three times and from amidst the groaning cabinet of gaudy sugar fixes, I select a mini opera cake to go with my strong latte. I crave a cake from Noisette that will wash away the frustrations of the week, but while working in the CBD this will have to suffice.


The long, communal, floral mosaic table yields me a place to huddle away from the raindrops. In the glow of the neon lit display cabinets I dissect the small dark cake, taking in its layers. I perch on the edge of the metal chair, cajoled by the rumble of passing trams and nearby joyful revellers, their ambient cheer punctuated by the call of the barrista announcing coffees.


A pigeon with blue cotton and human hair wrapped around its foot lurches at my plate. Its green head swivelling nervously. A flick of my fork and it scurries away. Others take its place. We play cat and mouse until a plate elsewhere is abandoned to them. They swoop in, dragging chocolate icing from a cake that has not passed muster with a departing diner.


Once more I pull my fork down through the layers of cake onto the soft paper patty case. Fork passing through my lips, a soft chocolate ganache melts between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. My nose is filled with notes of alcohol from the cake as the layers of sponge disintegrate in my mouth.


A mouthful of coffee: bitter, stinging the edges of my tongue sharply. Pain. Burnt coffee and scalding milk coagulating on my tongue leaves me clearing my throat and wishing for water. Disappointment.


A strong cool breeze lifts my fringe and flaps newspapers clenched by fellow patrons. Men. Men with children, men with big bellies, middle aged tourists, an elderly woman, all sitting quietly as birds saunter nonchalantly around their ankles.


A heater warms one of my shoulders while the cold tiled table ices my elbows. A roar of laughter drifts across from Caboose, a nearby bar and the city lights begin to come on. Beyond the newly erected Christmas tree, the Victorian Boom Era town hall clock shows half past six.


I am alone with no desire to join the revellery gestating in the city bars and stadium. No hankering to join in with the throngs shopping for dresses and hats to wear to the races. And yet somehow I still feel connected. Recorded church bells ring out as a man in a Western shirt lights a cigarette beside me. It's time to move on.


As I propel myself out of my seat, my city is calling me to dance into its nooks and crannies, to mesh with its soul and drink in the enigmatic whimsy of the early evening. Quietly and alone, finding beauty in unexpected places, and to again reawaken my thirst for life and passion.

Salix. Willow Creek Winery

“The food here is so tasteless you could eat a meal of it and belch and it wouldn't remind you of anything.”

Redd Foxx
(American Comedian best known for his starring role on the television situation comedy Sanford and Son. 1922-1991)

What is it about dining in picturesque places? Why do the meals in rustic venues invariably not triumph over the surrounds? In the Melbourne pantheon of super-league chefs, why is it - with the exception of George Biron and Herman Schneider - that consistently good chefs and staff seemingly have no desire to work beyond the city confines? To me it is illogical.



I can't see that their skills might be under-subscribed out of town and successful regional chefs are often well feted. Take Steve Cumper's Vogue Entertaining & Travel award last year for 'Outstanding use of a Regional Product by a Chef' - an acknowledgement of his passion and skill, and for his outstanding efforts while at Peppermint Bay on the Huon Trail in Tasmania. And people flocked to Montalto Winery when Phillipe Mouchel was in residence, meanwhile the winery still trades off on this even though he now has his own venue at Crown.



It would seem that Galloping Gourmets seem willing to travel as far as Dunkeld for fine dining. Healesville is on the gourmet trail too, as is Rutherglen. And in addition to his celebrated Sunnybrae at Birregurra, George Biron's name pops up all over the place from Campaspe House in Mt Macedon, to Diggers Seeds cafe in the Mornington Peninsula and T'Gallant Winery in their sales pitches.



But all too often the majority of venues are a venture of style over substance, with fine buildings and vistas, but pretentious food that lacks flavour. It's like dining in Noosa, where the menus are festooned with laborious descriptions fit to enthuse the sophisticated punter, but which are undermined by the final, mediocre product that ends up on your plate. As I recall, a friend who had parents living there had remarked that one could also describe the locals with the same analogy.



Last November in the Barossa Valley, we had a surprisingly sublime meal at Appellation, on high ground at a Peppers resort, overlooking vine covered vistas. There was no publicity to be seen or heard of, yet at every winery we visited, I asked the same question - where's the best restaurant in the region? Every time the reply came back with a hushed reverence: "Appellation". So we went. They weren't wrong and the restaurant was full. It was definitely world class fine dining in a very fetching and productive part of the countryside. A rare gem indeed.



It was with this experience in mind that a friend who was with us on the Barossa trip took us to Salix at Willow Creek Winery on Mornington Peninsula. Salix is the botanical name for the willow tree, and the environs in autumn are truly beautiful. The buildings interesting in their form and even a gloomy day did not dampen the overall first impressions of the venue.



At Salix the dining room is raised to take advantage of the vista of rising slopes of vineyards and trees. A curved glass wall hugs the space and draws the attention away from the pass to the scenery. The room is awash with white linen and diners sit relaxed, in deep cane chairs. The wine list is limited to the Winery's drops but that's not unusual. The service, although a little halting, was well meaning. The staff coped well with a full service on the day we visited, surprising considering that we were part of a large party, there for a late lunchtime seating.


I had no expectations, I just hoped for something pleasant. I know the friend who organised the lunch must have thoroughly enjoyed it on at least one occasion prior to our visit as they were very enthusiastic. So there is definitely a market for the kind of food served. But our friend's palate is possibly less educated than some.


The menu was short, which I thought was prudent. The use of local produce was flagged - thumbs up. But it did not feature any classic dishes. Instead, like a local fashion house that had plagiarised a season of Gucci exotica 2 years after they originally hit the racks, the menu read like a bunch of dated old frocks. Not so old as to be retro, but notably fashionable in recent history. As I said, it has a market.


Mr Stickyfingers and I have the same taste in food. It's one of the many things that cements our partnership. So we always swap our plates half way through, in order to enjoy twice as much from the menu.


We chose as entrees:

Confit Berkshire pork belly, jerusalem artichoke puree, ginger, fennel and ruby grapefruit...

**take a breath**

...and Pan fried thyme & potato gnocchi, cavolo nero, blue cheese marscapone, sage.



The food was technically proficient, the presentation good, even quite pretty. The pork belly skin was crisp. Sadly the meat was not super tender and was bland - as though they had forgotten to rub the meat with a delicious spicy salt prior to cooking. Along with the tasteless puree which lacked the expected nuttiness, the fennel had been shaved so thin as to make it virtually undetectable to the palate and the grapefruit too was more decorative than purposeful.


The gnocchi was golden and sweet but I couldn't detect the flavours of the herbs for the dominating strips of red onion. The wilted cabbage was oily and the gorgonzola was although delightful, a mere smear, making us wonder if they had run out and just scraped the dregs out for the dish. I needed more, much more.



Main courses:
Seared Yarra Valley Venison fillet, spiced Corella pear, savoy cabbage.



Again technically the execution was fine. The venison was tender and rare, the berries a surprise addition. But the overall taste of the meat and two fruit, was of nothing. The jus was neutral and the core ingredients were not flavoursome. They lacked spice, seasoning or character. OK, I admit that I am spoilt, eating either Hartdale Park or North Eastern venison on a weekly basis, so I know how good venison can be. Dragging my fork around the plate, I felt as glum as a bored toddler and hoped that the other main would be better.



Twice cooked half Bella Farm duck, parsnip puree, chestnut jus.



No luck here. It suffered the same affliction as the other dishes and the meat was dry and stringy. It served to push me down into a gloominess that rolled in like the autumn mist outside.


Dessert:
Charred fig & hazelnut semifreddo, preserved Ellisfield cherry sauce.



Held captive in a spun sugar cage, the figs were yummy as was the sauce, but I wasn't taken by the semifreddo which was super hard, tasteless and left a cloying, fatty coating in the mouth that was not broken by the sauce. I may as well have rubbed Vaseline on my teeth and gums.



Soft centred Belgium chocolate pudding, honeycomb nougat icecream & date sauce.



It's the kind of dessert that you can't refuse when there's a chill in the air, it evokes comfort. But this pud was on the dry side and lacked the expected gushing molten larvae of gooey, rich chocolate from within. The honeycomb icecream tasted slightly burnt - and I had assumed that it was burnt toffee - until I looked at the menu again. The date sauce served to anchor the tuile and made no contribution to the character of the dish.



Yes, style over substance reigns here. For a moment I thought that my Super Bug had returned to rob me of my palate. But in the car on the way home, Mr Stickyfingers explained that he had exactly the same reaction to the dishes. He concurred that we were exceptionally fortunate people, who had enjoyed better food, many times over and even sometimes at home.



I feel that Salix could be so much better. I would love to see Bernard McCarthy offer some simple classic dishes, done well and to stop approximating a turn of the century St.Kilda restaurant. Then, perhaps he should enjoy a tasting trip into town to see what is exciting diners these days, in order to build upon it. That done, the kitchen brigade might attract more attention than the view.



But perhaps, just perhaps, the clientele are not there for the food. And possibly it's the circumstance and the perceived modernity of the venue in a rustic setting that draws them in....oh, and the ability to use their trusty Entertainment Card for a discount meal after a weekend drive out of town?



As I watched the scrubby paddocks of the peninsula whiz past the car window, I wondered whether Chef/Owner Bernard McCarthy had recently lost his palate to a super bug too?

Salix at Willow Creek Vinyard

166 Balnarring Road, Merricks North, Vic. Australia
Phone: +61 3 5989 7448

Food on Display. Waterfront

Not to be outdone by Rockpool in the same venue, The Zagames (Oops, thanks Gobbler for the correction, see comments below) Zampelis Group's Waterfront Restaurant is also displaying its meat. Set into a wall facing the public concourse within Crown Casino is this fridge and the following description.

Who would have imagined that the provenence of our food would become so important that venues are displaying their wares like panties on a refrigerated clothes line? Once the public would have recoiled from such displays, more common to Asian wet markets and European villages.

Also at the casino is the Salumi counter at Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons, where smoked meat hangs on display in an upmarket version of a Croatian's garage I once visited in Greensborough - where tempting home cured meats festooned the eaves.

Pearl and The Point record details of their suppliers in their menus. Asians have always preferred their seafood freshly killed, so select their meal from restaurant display tanks.

What next? Are we soon to go to restaurant kitchen gardens to forage for vegetables before the meal?

I ♥ croissant

All images reproduced from the fabulous Sourdough Companion

She was blonde, about 18 and dressed in an eighties style, retro red fleece tracksuit trimmed with cream cuffs. Desperate to flaunt her incongruously unnatural, deep mahogany solarium tan, she had hiked up the top, allowing one shoulder to fall ‘Flashdance’ style revealing a little singlet top, and she had rolled down the waistband of the tracksuit pants to the point where it grazed her Mons Pubis. It was clear that she was a fan of Brazilian waxing. But I had the creepy feeling that her pants could fall down at any moment.

Like an accident waiting to happen, I struggled to look away, as did most of the people sitting alongside me in the cafe seating of the bakery. I silently wondered whether she was a King Street 'Entertainer' and pondered what would lead a young woman to that path in life.

Sadly her pronounced hip bones betrayed the fact that any solids she ate probably moved her to 'drive the porcelain bus' and that perhaps most of what she ingested entered her body via the nasal cavities.

Her lank hair was dragged up into a messy ponytail. Multiple bangles circled her bony wrist and most of her face was shielded by an enormous pair of dark sunglasses, marked with emormous Gucci logos. I figured that she was probably trying to channel Nicole Ritchie or one of those prevalent rich, self-centred bimbo’s who populate the weekly trash mags.

She dragged her short verdigris coloured fingernails across the glass counter of the Patisserie selection. Looking at all the culinary wonders below, she could breathe in the beauty of the pastel coloured macaroons, the elegant French cakes that looked like exotically coloured and patterned couture gowns, fluffy custard filled beignets - aka bomboloni - with the sunlight glistening off their sugary coatings, large mousse & cake filled chocolate domes, substantial and lavishly filled baguettes and a parade of buttery pastries.

Behind the counter a dainty Mauritian girl, with skin as smooth as the bakery’s fine, hand made chocolates and as pretty as any of the offerings under glass, stood with her back to a wall of freshly baked artisanal loaves of bread. She glistened proudly in the reflection of the wonder around her, smiling broadly and expectantly.

Strung out, vacuous customer: "…ave you got croyst-zants?"

Pretty Mauritian: "Sorry?"

"CROY-ZANTS."

"Oh Croissant?" She replied with a perfect French lilt. "Yes. Would you like plain, chocolate or almond?"

The subject of my fascination chose a plain croissant, then scuffed her way out to a kerbside table. A cigarette was quickly lit and, after the first drag she buried her head in her hands. Her spiky haired blonde boyfriend in the skinny jeans and clunky multi-hued retro sneakers – who I suspect was modelling himself on an early version of Jon Bonjovi - enthusiastically ordered a pile of food for himself and bounded over to her at the table, looking contrastingly fresh and happy.

Meanwhile my own croissant arrived. To me the simple, buttery marvel of a croissant, is one of life’s simple pleasures. This particular specimen was golden, crisp on the outside, multi layered, subtly sweet yet savoury and slightly chewy inside. As I pulled it apart I swept up the flaky crumbs with one finger and inhaled them.

The first piece of pastry melted on my tongue. The second chunk was dunked into my bowl of French hot chocolate, made not with cocoa but shavings of dark couverture chocolate. The croissant did not disintegrate into the milk, an excellent sign of quality ingredients, but absorbed just enough flavour to make my head spin with rapture on tasting. I slowly stretched out my consumption so that I could enjoy it for the longest possible time.

I hoped the girl outside was enjoying hers as much as I was mine. Simple unadorned, buttery heaven in a pillowy soft crescent. A moment's solace perhaps in a life confused with unreal expectations of the feminine physique.

So welcome to Noisette, my local Boulangerie and Patisserie(Bakery & Pastry Shop), the place where I find inspiration and respite from my schedule. The Owner and Patissier at this particular venue is a fifth generation French Baker. I've been told he had moved to Australia a number of years before, to head up the sweet operations for another more volatile and entrepreneurial French Baker, who has a big local chain of French Patisseries.

Fortunately for me when David Menard tired of the restrictions and tantrums of his boss, he opened his own place around the corner from my little house by the sea. Compared to the chain he had previously worked for, his own place is modern and simply decorated, not a throw back to bygone Paris or Brittany, but an ode to the meeting of the old country and the new.

At the back of the shop a huge window opens on to the bakery and the industrious machinations of he and his white clad baking staff are on display to all those who can tear their eyes away from the people watching on the street outside.

The shelves are filled with organic sourdough, Pain de Mie, Miche and all manner of sumptuous breads. Then there are sweet little hampers, small cellophane bags of tempting morsels, a large jar of fresh Marshmallows and jars of Bonne Maman jam. Facing the door, a section of the counter is filled with handmade chocolates from another of my favourite venues, Cacao.

I love watching the crowd here. It changes and evolves at certain times of the day. In addition to the spoilt young adults and attention-seeking tots lying on the floor blocking the path of the staff, there are those who race in breathlessly and come out clutching artisanally crafted bread rolls and loaves of bread. There are men in Lycra road cycling ensembles replenishing spent energy and lovers sparkling in the rosy glow of their desire.

On busy days the regular posers hog the outdoor tables, while the beautiful thirty-to-forty something design oriented couples take time out indoors. The middle aged middle class sip genteelly - and annoyingly - on the one cup of coffee for hours, oblivious to those who miss out on a seat, while an endless stream of conversation pours out of them. It's certainly a convivial spot. Last time I was there a couple beside me were meeting with a Marriage Celebrant.

And then amongst the regulars there's me.

I like to steal down there on my own or to hold work meetings there. I will drag a small production crew or my favourite clients out of airless boardrooms and over to the patisserie for our discussions, filling the table with sugar spun miracles.



Time passes more quickly when surrounded by the smell of baking highlighted with aroma of perfectly roasted coffee. It unearths an instinctive joviality that lubricates communication with laughter and works a minor miracle on the soul. But mostly I'll steal in there at the end of the day when it's quiet, for a Palmier and a coffee before facing my last hours of work and then retreating to the kitchen to make our evening meal.

Noisette Boulangerie & Café
84 Bay Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria.
ph +613 9646 9555

Indo Bento

Coconut Rice is an authentic traditional dishes from Indonesia. As a tropical country, Indonesia is fortunate with a variety of herbs and plantation. Coconut is found everywhere and the juice is used as an ingredient for many dishes, including rice. With additional secret herbs and spices, the society create a recipe for a fragrant and distinct flavour of rice called Coconut Rice. The society enjoy the Coconut Rice any time of day, from breakfast until dinner. And it is usually accompanied by chicken or meat, egg, and fried shallots.

Now you can taste the true Indonesia Coconut Rice at Coco Rice. We made our rice using traditional recipe which has been passed on for generations. The rice is made fresh everyday to ensue the perfect taste just for you.

Menu - Coco Rice, Melbourne.

At first glance after reading the above I thought WTF? But as I sat with my lunch in front of me at Coco Rice, I realised the joys of the Internet - and the ability it has to provide instant translations services - which I believe is how the above piece of Advertising copy had come about.

Had it been written by a Copywriter under my supervision I would probably have sent them to work in despatch and provided some part time literacy training, until such a time as they had mastered the local patois.

I had happened upon Coco Rice at lunchtime, enroute to my favourite Melbourne CBD precinct, emanating from Flinders Lane into Manchester Lane, Degraves Street and Centre Place.

In this buzzing hub, I once had an office - where Journal Canteen now is - and some very dear friends live next door in Bible House. This intersection of laneways has been cultivating some very talented individuals and their businesses over the last ten years. It is a Mecca for the non-franchised, anti-establishment kind of commercial enterprise.

In these lanes are tiny little businesses. Like a pocket full of scuffed, brightly coloured old miniature toys they sit cheek by jowl, nestled in impossible spaces. Making use of the lanes and discarded furniture for seating, the miniscule eateries hug shops full of eclectic and eccentric attire, arty acquisitions, not to mention a frumpy shop stuffed to the gills with everything you could ever need for baking.

On the walls of one lane is spectacular Stencil Art and Grafitti. In another pocket is a regularly changing exhibition of backlit works of art. This is my world. This is how I refresh my mind in town. This is where Barry Humphreys launched his retrospective exhibition with a fleet of Dame Edna look-alikes waving Gladioli.

This slice of Melbourne’s underbelly is what characterises my hometown. For me, it is what sets our city apart from other state capitals. It reflects a strong force in the community who have the wherewithal to optimistically make something from nothing, and to make it in a creative and quirky way that stimulates the passing trade. However, if there wasn’t a slice of Melbourne society with an artistic bent, who seek to rail against the beigeness of ‘keeping up with the Jones’ in the antisocial and sprawling ‘Mc Mansion’ suburbia, it would never have survived to now be enjoyed by tourists, whether foreign, domestic or local.

This is also what once drew me to Acland Street, St.Kilda as a teenager. Sadly the personality that comes with this kind of enterprise has now been driven out by cashed up franchised businesses. The spirit of that precinct has been cannibalised by the kind of shops that service the masses, businesses that have deluded themselves that the cachet of the area will rub off on them on moving in. Heaven forbid that this should ever happen to my downtown paradise.

But back on the subject of food, this area is like striking a vein of gold in an old mine. Melbourne has great fine dining, casual dining and even grazing venues, but here you will find the quick and the cheap eats in abundance. There is great coffee, pastry, snacks and breakfast to be had, and there is the quick lunch.

Coco Rice is set up for the quick meal, in a small, narrow space in Manchester Lane. It is one of the new shops in a spot alongside a space that once housed an x-rated cinema, but now sits mercurially alongside a jazz club, jewellers and merchants of street wear.

I love a single-minded idea and the concept behind this business is simple. They combine Indonesian Curry and rice with the Japanese notion of the Bento Box selection of rice and small savoury dishes, served with a miniscule finisher of something sweet, often fruit. The food here is presented in a plastic bento container that can be topped with a lid for a takeaway or tucked into a purpose made wooden tray for in-house munching.

The space is modern, clean and efficient. The galley kitchen sits on an upper level at the back. I was their first customer of the day. A diminutive Asian girl was playing solitaire on the screen where orders are taken - at their open frontage.

The tables alongside her looked like old trolleys. Their spindly legs are supported by small castors, which run along a track inset in the blonde wood flooring. Their glass tops are underlaid with copies of the menu and a light box also show cases the offerings outside.

The menu consists of eight ‘packages’ and one daily special. The first three items are simple, non spicy - chicken, beef, fish – options, accompanied by a mound of Coconut Rice piled with shredded omelette, then in other sections of the container sit a little sambal, pickle or cucumber and their ‘homemade chips’ which appear to be spicy crisps.

The remaining five items offer a range of Asian dining favourites. They do not come with omelette and crisps, but are far more interesting on the whole. You have the option to have steamed rice or coconut. There is a Sino-Indo Fusion, a Jap-Indo Fusion, a Javanese combo and an Indo beef curry.

I went with the Beef Rendang, which was a perfect dry style curry common to Malaysia and Indonesia. My nostrils flared when greeted with the scent of coconut, galangal and lemongrass. Chilli can be dialled up or down to order, and as someone who loves spice, I found the medium version quite fiery enough to have me reaching for a Kleenex to mop my runny nose.

The Coconut Rice was piled high and unlike many others offered around town was not excessively gluey, but perfectly cooked and subtly flavoured. With it came some pickles, cucumber and fruit. Priced at $9.50, the menu may have read like Asian flier, but it wasn’t as cheap as sitting on a plastic stool by a Hawker’s cart somewhere in South East Asia. It was tasty and good value for Melbourne though. As I made my way across to Flinders lane I felt light with pleasure, my lips stinging from the chilli.

Coco Rice, 10 Manchester Lane, Melbourne, Victoria.
ph. 9654 0090. Mon - Sat: 11am - 8pm

hot stuff

A quick congratulations to my friends Jamie Wodetzki of The Breakfast Blog and Ed Charles of Tomato, who on tuesday were mentioned in the UK's Guardian Unlimited online travel section. Their blogs were amongst those cited as reference for those visiting Melbourne, and in case you don't fancy subscribing to the site here is the relevant prose...

Bringing back brekkie

Melbourne resident Jamie Wodetzki is a people's foodie who takes time to think about the little meals. Talking to Yahoo earlier this year, our Jamie lamented, "the pathetic coverage of breakfast by mainstream food critics. All they really care about are those other meals". The Breakfast Blog is his way of fighting back – a selfless pursuit of the city's pre-midday eateries. His new-found status as a breakfast don leads him all over the world, but his focus always returns to Melbourne. Follow this link for his top-rated Melbourne brekkies – all 19/20. Nobody has received full marks yet.

Clandestine tomato

So, we've got the morning-after covered, but what about the night before? Tomato is a prolific Melbourne blog with great tips in its 'bars and pubs' and 'beverage' sections. This post on the Emerald Hill Brewery (20 Ross Street) samples one of the city's clandestine drinking options: "Down the alley on the left is a small nondescript warehouse with a roller door. The only sign of life is a small, lit sign above a door. We arrive at 5.30pm and there are only a handful of people sampling the two award-winning beers on tap, a pale ale and a wheat beer. Soon the place fills up." There are other great tips scattered around the site; this one requires some hunting.

While the back slapping is going on I'd like to announce that I have managed to cobble the vanilla slice blog together over at Wordpress. The header needs a better photo, but that will come in good time. And while The Custard Crusaders probably won't be sampling every day, we will endeavour to plow our way through as many vanilla slices as possible.

There are currently two reviews posted, with the back to back Champion Tatura Hot Bread Kitchen slated before month's end and Glenelg's second placed, Orange Spot Bakery, earmarked for a visit enroute home from our spell in The Barossa Valley in the next week.

http://vanillaslice.wordpress.com/

Roundtable Wines

"Tangy and citrus peel on the nose: slightly musky too.
Excellent fruit weight in the mouth - pear skin and citrus peel again - a real mouthful in fact, with excellent fruit persistence. Really tasty and reasonably priced."
Tim White, The Age, Melbourne magazine, 25/1/07


After working everywhere from Brazil to Moldova, Vales homeboy
Nick Bickford made this crunchy biodynamic tracker from the
New South Wales Canowindra tablelands. What a relief.
Bone-dry, furry with appetising tannin, and loaded with Old World rusticism, it's clean, fine, focused and stunning. Respect.
Bickle just rewrote Oz chardonnay. Bouillabaise. 94/100
Philip White, The Advertiser 19/04/06

Nick Bickford’s first, 2005 vintage wines - a lean and minerally unwooded chardonnay and savoury, gluggable shiraz - were made from Rosnay-grown certified biodynamic grapes.
Max Allen, Red, White and Green.com.au

Ok this is my first blog-flog. I’m doing it to support my dear friend, the winemaker Nick Bickford and to put food on his family’s table. Nick is offering up the last 200 cases of his beautifully crafted Roundtable biodynamic organic white wine for sale direct…and what a drop it is. As you can see the critics have given him top marks.

Passion however can be an expensive thing. A great quality wine is no guarantee of sales either. Nick has admirably scraped together not only blood, sweat and tears to create this wine, but also every last cent he has, to make his dream of a quality organic, sustainable wine come true. And he not only still works for wineries, but he does other odd jobs to keep the wolf from the door too.

Born and raised in the magnificent McLaren Vale wine region of South Australia, Nick and his family are passionate about sustainability and his grapes are sourced from dedicated grape growing, organic accredited vineyards. The packaging is recyclable and the production of which has been achieved with minimal environmental impact. Amongst all this, his wine is a particularly fine contemporary unoaked chardonnay.

So this is what I want you to do: put your drinking elbow to use and put some of this great wine in your cellar, then tell your friends. If any of you or your friends would like to invest in this excellent product - that not only is sumptuous but also paves the way to a better world - Nick is also happy to discuss ongoing partnerships in the business.

C’mon get behind an Aussie battler who is trying to do his best for the planet and give everyone a little pleasure in the process.

Roundtable Wines ‘Bianco Verde’ 2005 Organic Unoaked Chardonnay
$60 per half dozen, $95 per dozen. Free delivery within Australia

ORDER HERE