Chowhound

I think it's only fair that at this stage in our relationship, dear reader, that I disclose certain editorial and research standards at Eat Our Way. Now, I know those who've been reading this blog for any length of time will find the suggestion that I have standards a little hard to fathom and may even dart off to re-read old posts looking for evidence of such. My general rule is that it takes a certain number of meals to justify an opinion, meaning a single adult journey to a venue generally requires a second validatory expedition before mere words are committed to type.

Because drinking at breakfast is cool yes it is shut up.

In this case, however, I'm going to break that rule, largely because it will be a while before we get a chance to go back, and, albeit based on scant evidence, we will be going back. So, dearest reader, understand the limitations of my opinion but recognize that I'm going to have one regardless of what you think.

I went with the smallest tribe member for a walk to the park (child exercise) followed by some a stroll up Ruckers Hill (adult exercise) to get some late Sunday breakfast. Chowhound is towards the top of the Hill on the western side, a short walk down from the town hall. It's bigger than many of its peers and is a pleasant, relaxed space that's not too high on the Wank Scale (where your lounge room gets a "zero" and sparkle laminex and mixed 1950's vinyl chairs gets an "8").

Beans, eggs, proscuitto

So I ordered the baked eggs with baked beans, proscuitto and toast with a Bloody Mary while Will had Macaroni Cheese from the menu for kidlets.

The beans were not the slow baked, rich, slightly sweetened and well cooked beans that I make at home, but were lighter, with firmer white beans in a fresh tomato sauce. Not what I was looking forward to, but not bad either - they were Kylie Minogue when I was expecting Wagner. The eggs were baked on top of these and were alright, but the yolks were a little harder than perfect and there was a splodge of uncooked white in the center. A quick stir into the beans fixed the white problem but the yolks were well beyond translucent and thus repair. The prosciutto was crisp, salty and thin. A not-at-all bad dish, although potentially improved by breaking the egg yolk into the middle of the dish where it will cook the least.

Macaroni cheese and boy

Will's macaroni cheese was generously cheesed, baconed and onioned. The onions in particular were golden and lusciously sweet, and the whole sticky ensemble was crunchily crumbed.

Everything else was tickety-boo; the staff were helpful, it was quiet and generally relaxing. So in summary, while I can't speak definitively about Chowhound, I can speak positively enough to say we'll go back and try breakfast again.

On the other hand, the name's a bit naff...

Voodoo Courtyard Cafe

Voodoo is an unassuming cafe towards the lower third of Ruckers Hill but just higher than Separation Street. With plenty of places vying for the "eclectic" label (damn their eyes!), Voodoo manages to be eclectic but comfortable, chaotic to look at and yet still relaxed. Others try hard but Voodoo just does its thing, and its thing is a vaguely Chinese look with lots of rich reds and gold framed mirrors and a comprehensive collection of what at Eat Our Way like to call "crap" - knick-knacks, curios, carvings and tchotchkes.

The Voodooistas are as charming as charming gets, well before charming gets weird.

Vegie breakfast

The "Grazer" vegetarian breakfast was couple of perfectly poached eggs on a disappointingly fluffy half-bun but the spinach and mushrooms were as good as you'd like them. The grilled tomato had an unexpected spicy sheen which caught me unawares - lovely by all means but far hotter than its modest look suggested. Will's chicken sandwich was pretty good too (as far as sandwiches go) - the chicken had just been grilled and the bread was better than my fluffy stuff. Full marks for the coffee!

Voodoo also has a tiny, narrow but very green courtyard out the back where we've enjoyed a lazy breakfast before. All in all a keeper.

What?

Pizza Meine Liebe

With wonderful English understatement, Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason once described the months before the band tore themselves apart in a whirlwind of mutual loathing with the sentence, "things got so bad, someone almost said something." And that's how we felt about Pizza Meine Liebe and why we won't be going back.

Pizza Meine Liebe is a few doors up from the brilliant Estelle, and has a plain but inviting front room surrounding its pizza oven. It looks like a suburban pizza shop from 1980 set in a shopfront from the 1960's, which is obviously very Northcote, what with nostalgia having only been invented in 1952.

Outside

We'd been told over the phone that they had two sittings and we booked for an earlier sitting, knowing we wouldn't be able to linger. That should have been ok.

Only once before on High Street had we been told we were booking in the earlier of two sittings and that was at Otsumami. Our experiences couldn't have been more different. At Otsumami we never felt rushed; we were served quickly but not once did we feel under any pressure to order or to eat faster. At Pizza Meine Liebe, however, we felt continually pressured to order, to eat and to leave. We were not even half way through our pizza when we were asked if we wanted dessert. We declined.

We ordered four pizzas, a truffle-paste-and-potato pizza that was resplendent with the heady scent of the great black stuff; another with potato, caramelised onion and Taleggio (which was beautiful); one with mozzarella, mushrooms and rocket; and something called a superMario which, although generous with anchovies, was not nearly as interesting as the ingredient list had suggested. The bases were lovely - just thin enough and chewy with puffy edges and the toppings erred on the side of excess.

The truffle and mushroom paste one

A pear, walnut and fetta salad was alright. Nothing more to say. The wine list was short but good and we had a bottle of breezy sangiovese.

The service wasn't rude, but it was perfunctory and focused on getting us out of the door. Pizza Meine Liebe was also, without question, the noisiest place we've been to on High Street and the volume was, frankly, unbearable.

The mushroom one

It's a shame, really. Pizza Meine Liebe makes good pizzas that compare well to its neighbours, although it's nowhere near the best in the area. Both I Saluti and Pizza Farro are on par, with Pizza Farro being better than Pizza Meine Liebe, but both have the bonus of welcoming service and not feeling like you're in cattle class. At Pizza Meine Liebe I felt like just another inconvenient customer gumming up the efficient operations of a restaurant.

Of course, if you don't mind going a little further to North Fitzroy, Supermaxi is in a different class altogether. Their pizzas are a little better but their other dishes are suburb and the service, even in a place so busy, was excellent.

Pizza meine liebe? Nein danke.

Denn

I've been watching Denn out of the corner of my eye for quite a few months now. It's exactly at that part of the tram journey in the evening between work and home when I look up from a novel (or from ^%$#ing emails) and think, "sigh.... almost home". I'm a committed snacker, so anywhere advertising tapas will always get a second look.

Denn is in* the Westgarth end of High Street between the organic vegie shop and the weird second-hand shop full of antique clothes and bric-brac-knick-knacks. I know that sounds like a Northcote inevitability (or parody), but I'm not kidding.

It's a sign

We had such high hopes for Denn that we were prepared to share the night with some wonderful friends who'd flown down from Canberra that morning, food untasted. I should explain we spent almost ten years in the national capital through no fault of our own, and I still get flashbacks whenever I see a roundabout, frost or rubbish 1980's architecture.

Julia was one of the first friends we made in Canberra and she did much to help us adjust quickly to the strange customs of the capital. She had already made the transition to Canberra from earlier years in Malaysia and London, so helping a couple of arts graduates from Melbourne acclimatise was a doddle for her. A decade later, after we left for Melbourne, she met Graham, her wonderful husband and obvious soul mate. Indeed, in proof that serendipity abounds, Julia was visiting us in Melbourne when Graham first called her to ask her out. We were recovering after a weekend at Earthcore (2003?) when the call came, and I still remember her smile.

Alex, Graham and his dignity Julia

Anyway, the point that they are good friends of ours is made. And like most of our High Street jaunts, although the restaurants have sometimes been great, it's the good friends that make the nights wonderful.

The food wasn't that bad...

Denn's menu looks simple but is bistro impressive with quite a few tapas dishes that look perky, interesting and modest, as well as a few simple pizzas and mains. The service was charming and prompt.

We ordered a platter of vegetarian tapas and some wedges of crisped pita. They were ok. Olives good; dolmades ok; haloumi great; pita pretty good too. Nothing great, but to quote Stephen Fry, not too mild neither. The mushrooms had a wonderful flavour, but about half of them were tough - halfway between crisp and chewy. This was not good.

Tough mushrooms and other stuff

In a fit of seafood enthusiasm, almost all the over 6's ordered paella, except Em, who with a wisdom beyond her tender years ordered the porcini risotto.

We were given a "it takes 20 minutes" warning, but it certainly didn't keep us waiting. Alas, it was not spectacular. The paella had been cooked vigorously in the pan and was quite dry. Although the flavour had the bold, caramel courage that paella needs around the edges, it was pretty uninspiring and didn't offer much of a variety of texture. And apart from the rice, there wasn't a whole lot else. The chorizo was thinly sliced and crisped (and bereft of juicy flavour); the fish was sparse; and the prawn was dry.

Poly-paella

Emily's porcini risotto was wonderful. Like a perfect system of government, it balanced the rights of the individual (grains of rice) with the rights of the collective (the starchy, conjoined wetness) into a perfect mass of texture and democracy. The porcinis offered the correct amount of passive resistance while still yielding to a higher authority.

Emily's risotto art (with poor spelling - it was meant to be "rhombus")

We ordered dessert. The caramelized fig ice cream was spectacular, and the chocolate ice cream that went with it was as appealing and bitter as an overpaid Hollywood starlet, but with a much more luscious fullness of figure.

Saint Felicity (and child)

In summary, Denn would be a lovely place to drink a bottle of wine and eat some small bits and pieces while talking rubbish with a group of pals. The food was ok, but not particularly inspiring (except for the wonderful caramelized fig ice cream); the wine list was good and the staff were friendly and elite and crack and wonderful (and they looked good in black). The room is gorgeous without being pretentious and we could talk without having to shout, which counts for a lot.

I'd love to go to Denn with a large group - the sort of evening where I was more focused on the company than the food. Although the setting and service are among the best on High Street, the food was lackluster. Go there; have fun, but don't expect to reinvent your taste buds.

*pronounced "denizen". Ha!

The Estelle

What's new, Pussycat? For us it was a trip back to High Street where there's always something there to remind me. Whenever I have to cancel a High Street jaunt I just don't know what to do with myself.

Not knowing what to do with myself

If it wasn't obvious already, last night we went through Hal and Bacharach, but I would still do it all again.

The Estelle (their definite article; not mine) was a recommendation (thanks Niels) which might have otherwise skipped our attention, except that it was reviewed kindly by friend Essjay. While its spatial location is clearly high on High Street, its temporal location skips between the late 1950's and early 60's and the present.

The first thing you notice are the windows and door and decor. (The) Estelle has beautiful windows with a lovely view of High Street and its glorious wandering haircuts and horizontally-framed glasses. Inside, it's tiled walls, almost-kitsch decor and steel-framed vinyl chairs with studs on the back. In a word; swellegant. There's also a meat theme, with what could be a knitted leg of lamb hanging from one wall and a "Madonna and Lamb Leg" icon on the other. Felicity described it as polyester erratic with a soundtrack by Burt Bacharach, for Burt did indeed meet our musical requirements for the evening and then some.

The evening started quietly (we booked for 6.30pm) but later it was not an empty place. It was also strangely dim and I really struggled to read the menu, seemingly printed on apricot paper under apricot lighting. We ordered a jug of "Eldorado Gold" to start with. Now, I have to admit I'm a big fan of the jugged punch (such as the ones from Madame Brussels) and this jug of golden rum, dry ginger, strips of ginger and orange peel and possibly star anise was gloriously scented and fresh.

We ordered some warm olives, "Thornbury smoked meat" and a duck parfait to share. The olives were a mix of enormous meaty green ones and some almost spherical (ok, oblate spheroid) black ones. The "Thornbury smoked meat" (ordered out of suburban patriotism) was a thinly sliced dry(ish) salami with slices of a fresh pickle of cucumber. The salami was nice enough, as was the pickle on its own, but together the pickle had way too much upfrontage and the salami was left peering around the curtains in the background, mugging like crazy but largely being ignored.

The duck parfait, however, was perfectly light and creamy with just the right balance of fat and cloud-like fluffiness. Promises, promises, but in this case, well fulfilled.

Felicity ordered ox tongue which was melting and creamy, and perfectly undercut by a beetroot confit and soothed by a delicate celeriac puree. I thought the texture was a little slack, but tongue's never really been my cup of tea.

Emily's duck was a caramelly rich roasted duck leg on a settee of red cabbage that was lush with lardon flotsam. Just like Emily, we were ready to sing of our longing* for the duck.

Al and I shared a standing rib roast of pork which combined the best of old-school pork (crisped-fat flavour) and new-school (juicy and without an excess of fat). It came on a bed of gently but warmly spiced carrot puree , some chickpeas and with a thinly shredded fennel salad. The carrots were lovely and just sweet enough to balance the pork while the fennel salad was soft and paper thin (and so not very aniseedy, which wouldn't have been a bad thing).

The main dishes came with some braised mushrooms were beautiful and would be a perfect winter vegetable dish, especially if Melbourne ever has another winter, and although the small roasted chats in duck fat were nice enough, if I am roasting potatoes in duck fat I whip the skins off first.

Lemon Posset?

We all ordered the Lemon Posset with Rhubarb as a dessert. Cheerfully good and just tart enough to wear a miniskirt in public without being vulgar.

The Estelle is an unexpected oasis of good modern food with a cheerful and self-effacing style where there is an awful lot of wank about. The food is damn good, the staff are cheerful and just attentive enough (one having a very fetching floral pocket on his apron) and the decor is both cheerful and interesting without being silly. The Estelle is a modern stand-out on High Street for us, and although it's not perfect, it has the courage to try something new. I'm prepared to say a little prayer and wish and hope that others on High Street will be as bold.

In short, Estelle is exactly what the world needs now, and Estelle? If it wasn't obvious already, this guy's in love with you.

But although the night was almost perfect, there was one question left unanswered; "Do you know the way to San Jose?"


*The irony of a link to Karen Carpenter in a restaurant review is not lost on the authors.

Downunder Curry

Friday night on High Street and it's time for further exploration. Tonight's fare is standard Indian food, augmented with a few Nepalese dishes from the convenient but regrettably named "Downunder Curry".

Smile! We've ordered!

Our guest for this evening was Ian (no relation). Ian (no relation) and I used to work together and share a surname, although not as far as we know, any genetics. Accordingly, we are (no relation).

Downunder Curry occupies a surprisingly large room which on a Friday night was moderately busy. Ordering took a bit longer than expected, but the manager's party trick of remembering seven or so dishes and a complicated round of drinks without notes was impressive (although it did result in us getting two paneer dishes instead of the one we'd ordered.)

"Do you have this roti?" I asked, pointing to a photograph of some beautiful, layered looking roti on the back of the menu.

"No, that's just a photo on the menu. It's not actually on the menu."

The same applied, less worryingly, to the apparently random photos of kangaroos, kookaburras and trams. Tram was not on the menu, although the manager did say if there was a call for kangaroo, he'd go and buy some. Finally, after the usual ration of us faffing about we got our act together and ordered.

To drink, Ian ordered a raspberry lassi which was made with ice cream syrup, and ordering a second said "surprise me." What came out was nothing if not surprising. With a layer of pink syrup on the bottom, a layer of custard-yellow lassi in the middle and topped with both froth and... wait for it... Milo! Ta-dah! Those glorious, malt-based crunchy granules that never fail to fail to dissolve in milk. The sight was not for the faint hearted, although Ian thought it "merely a trifle". And as the photo suggests, it could have easily passed for a 1970's trifle-parfait extravaganza. I was offered a taste but my teeth were aching just looking at it. Wow.

Entrees were ok but not spectacular by the standards of Melbourne suburban Indian food. The highlight was a perfectly tender lamb cutlet on the tandoor platter, but the sheek kebab was too dry (although gloriously coloured).

Mmmm... yeah, ok.

The rogan josh was ok but was a little sweet, which it could have done without. The Nepalese-style goat curry was strong with garlic and resplendent with depth and was far, far and away the most memorable dish of the night. The fish Madras was almost perfect- thickened with coconut with warm and lush spices, but lacking in any real heat.

Saag paneer was an excellent choice - the paneer was fresh and the spinach was rich. The (bonus) palak paneer, on the other hand, was sweet and bland. The naan was good but not particularly inspiring.

(No relation)

It wasn't until after we'd eaten we noticed that on the bottom of the menu was the offer of informing the staff how hot you'd like the dishes. And that's when I realised how mild everything had been. We hadn't been asked, and if we had would have asked for the dishes with a mix of heat - I'm a big fan of spicy fish curries in particular. Maybe a judgement had been made that we were anglos/had children/were religiously opposed to chili. I'm not a fan of other people making those judgements for me, especially when it's my dinner at stake.

Nepalese goat curry - one to order again

This blog is a week away from its first birthday and during the year we've shamelessly whipped out our camera and photographed food, the decor and each other, much to the consternation of the children. This was the first time, however, we'd ever been asked if we wanted a group photo. Although the service was a little slow to start, once they hit their stride they were efficient, charming and accommodating.

Taken by mein host - there's a first time for everything

We took desserts home as Will was on his last, grumbling legs, and they could have come from any Indian take away or local restaurant.

Downunder Curry is a good, standard-fare Indian restaurant that offers no surprises, and that's ok. It's pretty cheap, the service is good and the food was alright, although with some dishes erring on the sweet and shying away from heat (unless, perhaps, you ask). I might be wrong, but I believe most dishes have a natural level of heat that balances with the rest of the dish, and for me that was lacking. It was certainly better than its nearest rival, Curry Masala, but the subcontinental favourite for us on High Street is still Sigiri.

Peacock Inn Hotel & 303 High Street

According to their website, the Peacock Inn;

"was built in 1854 by Horace and Edwin Bastings. The following year they sold it to the 21-year-old George Plant. Plant was to become synonymous with the Peacock, holding the license until his death in 1895. His widow, Catherine then took over the hotel license until 1910."

Welcome to Northcote. Trains, trams and maybe a bus.

Cool. But Northcote has changed since then.

My mother tells the story of discussing Jane Austen in an English Literature tutorial at university. A young male student opined that Austen was clearly bourgeois rubbish, and believed he could smite a fatal blow against nineteenth century gentility with the profound and rhetorical question, "but where are the workers!?"

Fuck the workers; Lis declares victory over the lethargic

It was a fear of twenty-first century gentility that had made me reluctant to eat at the Peacock Inn Hotel. It's a lovely building with an almost Mexican, deco feel. As you walk past, however, through the window you can see the restaurant and its stark, modern furniture and hard surfaces. It bodes. Not of anything in particular; it just bodes. You expect the workers have well and truly been vanquished; gentrified away, somewhere well beyond the picket fences and sushi.

They had a groovy VicRoads/Metlink map of the northern suburbs. Cool, eh?

But no. Modernism aside, if you walk through the bleach-blond, overly thin, hatchet-faced restaurant, you get to the beer garden. A curvaceous, smiling and friendly beer garden with broad hips and.. oh, never mind. No "yummy mummies" here. No three-wheeled prams. A spacious beer garden full of... ummm... space... and... well... beer. People drinking beer, eating chips and smoking. Large people. Students. People talking philosophy, sports and shit.

*Smiles to self*

We also had great company - Lis, who has been with us on a previous journey to High Street, joined us for an evening high on the Hill.

Lis declares victory in general against, well, whoever

You don't go to a pub looking for authentic air-dried Japo-Scandanavian fish welts with a soupcon of green tea jus. No, you expect pub food; forty-seven varieties of schnitzel; the Ultimate Street Fighting Mixed Grill; chips with everything and maybe a token salad.

Lis ordered fish and chips, and by all reports these were pretty good. The fish was thick and moist and the chips were thick and crisp.

Al, F and I all ordered Veal Parmigiana (or in Al's case, chicken). Nothing says "pub meal" in Melbourne like Parmigiana. And this Parma (or Parmi?) was pretty good but not outstanding. Against it were a particularly sweet tomato sauce (although the tomato and onion were cheerfully and roughly cut), too much crumb; a slice of sandwich ham; and yearling masquerading as veal . In its favour, the beef was tender and the crumb was crisp.

I remember pub food in the 1980's as being utter, utter shit. These were the dark days of perverse liquor licensing laws in Victoria, and if you wanted to see a band, the pub was obliged to offer you food. Most of the time this meant getting a ticket when you paid the cover charge, which you could exchange for a plate of sandwich ham, potato salad and maybe some tinned three-bean salad. My expectations of pub food were set in this impressionable age, and they were set low. Since then, the food has only improved.

The Peacock Inn is not a gastropub (I still inwardly laugh, thinking "gastro-pub") but the food is decent pub food. The beer garden is spacious and there were a few free tables on Friday night, although plenty of people making plenty of atmosphere. Inside was similar, but with the now traditional large screen for sports. Charmingly, there are no poker machines.

We didn't stay for coffee or dessert. Knowing that there was an exhibition to support the opening of this year's Melbourne Ukulele Festival (MUF), we wandered down to 303 High Street for coffee. 303 has the ultimate location on High Street, being wedged between the Northcote Social Club and Lamb's (home of the second* best souvlaki on High Street).

We admired some hand-painted ukuleles.


My strong latte was good. F and Lis ordered some chemistry-set concoction called a "chai-latte-cino" (maybe). It was very milky and didn't have a lot of spice, strength or sweetness. Oh well. The band playing on the other side of the bearded door-bitch sounded fantastic, like a funky brass band on a billy-cart on their way to a hip-hop gig.

Lis has a collection of awesome tatts, but this is the best non-Escher one

It was a fun evening. In the absence of children I could have wandered into the back of 303 and enjoyed the band. But no, there were grumpy complaints, eye-rubbing and petulant foot-stampings. When the children had calmed me down, we agreed I needed to go home and have a nap.

*Ulysses is both the taxi driver's favourite and mine. One day I'll tell of our student days in the 1980's, eating double meat souvlakis and drinking chocolate milkshakes. On the basis of our then diet, I'm not sure how we lived this long... In the meantime, if your taxi driver smells of garlic at 4.00am, blame Ulysses.

Taxiboat

Westgarth used to be called Northcote South, which you'd think would just be reduced to "Cote". But it's not, so applying the logic of the existing name, I live in Northcote North; Clifton Hill is, in fact, South Northcote South; and my former little house in Collingwood is in East South Northcote West. If Westgarth insists on being called Westgarth, where the hell is Garth?

Nice sign

Taxiboat, ideally, should be visited in a taxi, which would be a Taxiboat Taxi. In the perfect world you would get the taxi from the Princess Pier, having got off a boat, which would be a Taxiboat Taxi Boat. Anyway, I could be recursive (recursive all day) all day, so I'll stop.

Taxiboat, as you may have guessed already, is in Westgarth, directly opposite the cinema in a groovy room with polished concrete and an enormous bar. As iSaluti does for its pizza oven, Taxiboat does for its bar, making it a major feature of a small room and giving it a remarkable amount of floor space. It's also a fairly loud space, even when seasonally adjusted for my hearing, and despite that there were only two tables and a scant dozen people.

We were joined by the Catman Malcolm, as well as Suzanne and John, having only recently discovered that not only did we work for the same organisation and share a love of BitTorrent for English panel shows, we also posted words about food. As Steven Wright says, it's a small world but I wouldn't want to paint it.

I'm not sure how Taxiboat describes itself, but I'd describe it as a mix of Chinese and south east Asian dishes, brought out to share (as God intended, or would have if he'd bothered to show up for work).

Suzanne, John and Malcolm

We were attended to quickly and the service was enthusiastic and good natured. We spent a bit of time futzing over the menu (which was always going to happen), ordered, and the food arrived fairly promptly.

Spring rolls, as has been noted, are an easy choice and pretty much set the tone for the night. They were crisp, light and... well... didn't have a lot of flavour. Compared to the spring rolls from Thy Thy 1, these were more cigars than cigarettes and weren't dense with filling in the same way the Victoria Street ones were.

OK, but suffered by comparison to these from two days earlier

San Choi Bow is not something I've ever been a big fan of, and by reports there was no reason to make an exception for this. F described it as unremarkable. And that was all she could muster up.

Making rice paper rolls is like using a parachute. It's a little bit tricky, and unless you get it *just* right, people will be left somewhat disappointed. By all accounts these were adequate. Do you see a theme emerging here?

Meh...

The one thing I had heard about Taxiboat was that their dumplings were good, and they certainly have pride of place right up at the pointy end of the menu. Once again, however, the demon Bland visited the table, spread his cable-knit cardigan wings and exuded an uninspiring beige mist. I expected the ginger and seafood dumplings to have at least two flavours (don't make me explain which ones...) but we ended up with seafood and... And???....

Sigh. I thought about performing the Rite of AshkEnte to banish the demon Bland but couldn't remember which version it was that didn't cause instant death. That turned out to be my loss.

Bland turned up again for the main courses. A dish of Singapore Noodles looked lovely, but both of the prawns in the dish were sitting on top and although the noodles were cooked beautifully and their texture was perfect, they lacked any sort of real flavour.

A dish described as Chicken Teriyaki was softly sweet and apparently braised. The wagyu beef in sesame was similarly uninspiring. It was cut into small cubes, and although there was nothing wrong with the texture, there was no suggestion of browning or of the wonderful caramels of quickly cooked meat. Malcolm described it as wooden, but I think he was referring to flavour rather than texture. The dread demon Bland had done his job and had done it well.

The salt and pepper squid was certainly salty and surprisingly soft and had been cooked beautifully, but lack pepperiness. A plate of stir-fried pak choy and (I think) bok choy was recommended to us, and it was pretty good too.

The conversation was more interesting than the food

The highlight of the night was the Thai Red Duck Curry. Now, I have to say I've made this myself a few times and I'm not bad at it. A chopped up Chinese roast duck and lychees goes into a Thai red curry with the usual herbal extravaganza, giving a dish that's sweet, rich and complicated with the flavour of the roast duck and balanced with herbs. And this was good - it was sweet and rich and the flavour was lovely with an emphasis on the aniseed of Thai basil (although F felt that it lacked the requisite unctuousness). But the duck was thin slices of duck breast cut off the bone.

I often do the mental trade-off about the value of keeping the bone in when I cook a lot of things. Bone so often means moist and more flavour, but sometimes I want to be lazy when I'm eating rather than cooking. I've had beautiful pan-fried duck breasts (and if you want duck rare, it's the only way I trust myself to cook it that way), but my favourite duck dishes have all been on the bone (like this one).

Taxiboat was a bit disappointing, to be honest. The food certainly wasn't bad, but despite this writing, it wasn't (*irony spoiler*) worth writing home about. I'm trying to avoid damning with faint praise but that's about all I can do. The restaurant itself has a smart modern look yet is low on the wank factor, yet the clatter was a bit much and there wasn't much elbow room. The waiting staff were good-natured, but sometimes needed a reminder or correction (which is better in my book than the other way around); and all the food had lovely textures but tasted, well, bland. And in spite of the wonderful quirkiness of having a bath and shower in the lavatory, any bonus points were immediately lost by having nothing with which to dry your hands.

W was so disappointed he tried to hide

We didn't stay for dessert, instead walking up the hill to Coco Loco, which we will post about at some other time.

Otsumami

Well, it's been a long time between drinks, not to mention High Street food, and in the last couple of months we've had the long distance runaround between Melbourne, Adelaide, Coober Pedy, Alice Springs, Darwin, Rockhampton, Fraser Island, Sydney etc... Now we're home again and the High Street odyssey is underway some more.

Tonight we start at Otsumami, an elegant minimalist Japanese restaurant on the leeward side (OK, the west side) of High Street, high on Ruckers Hill. Minimalist in decor, but this being Northcote on a Friday night there was an encouraging buzz without being too noisy. This is important to me - although I practice that quizzical smile that is attentive while still projecting, "I can't hear a word you're saying but I am interested" - I'm not very good at it yet.

I'd booked only 45 minutes before we sat down and ordered and we'd been squeezed in, but only on the proviso that were out by 8.30 and we'd eat at a sitting-on-the-floor-table. As we were dining with a four-year old, time was never going to be a problem.

We ordered swiftly and food was delivered quickly with low fuss and high efficiency.

The Moriawase, a platter of mixed sashimi and sushi, was beautifully presented. The sashimi was sliced perfectly (I'm not into the thick cuts of tuna), although the tuna/salmon/kingfish trio is getting a bit too familiar. The Unagi Nigiri (a personal favourite) was luscious without being cloying and even Mr Four Year Old wolfed down some salmon.

The Tori Niku Gyoza, made with chicken and allegedly five-spice, were the one disappointment. The filling was bland and the dumpling wrappers were slightly underdone and chewy. One disappointment, but the only one in an otherwise wonderful meal.


I can never go past Nasu Dengaku, grilled eggplant with miso, when I see it, and this was great. Soft, sweet and unctuous without being heavy. When it's as good as this, it's hard to remember that, to me at least, eggplant is a predominately Mediterranean vegetable.

The Tempura prawns and vegetables were good. Not outstanding, but still very good.

The stand-out dish of the night, however, were the soft-shelled crabs. Stunning, and not a scrap was left. They were served fried in an ethereal tempura batter and a simple mayo-based sauce. I've never had soft-shelled crabs before, and when they came out was a bit surprised they were cooked whole, appendages akimbo. That the shells were entirely edible was fantastic, at least for us. Less so for the crab, who had popped his clogs* probably regretting he hadn't been born a hard-shelled crab. But no regrets, eh? Well, not from the humans. The meat was soft and the gentle scraps of batter did nothing to interfere with the soft flavour. Spongebob can keep his crabby patties - I'm having these.

The sake was good, which I put down to Otsumami having a short but good list, and luck on my part. My approach to sake is the same as my approach to substituted phenethylamines: I don't know much about them, but I know what I like and I'm probably not very discriminating.


The dessert menu is short with no surprises. (Insert former Prime Minister joke *here*.) The green tea ice cream was pretty good, but Emmy's cheesecake was a textbook Philly cheesecake. It was OK, but nothing special. The black sesame ice cream, on the other hand, was the standout dessert, with a rich nuttiness highlighted by sweetness.

Otsumami has the beautiful, light touch I associate with great Japanese food. The menu (divided into Sushi & Sashimi, Small Food, Medium Food and Big Food) meant we took a punt on quantities, but we did well. The service is quick and attentive, and although we knew we had been squeezed in we never felt rushed.

Japanese food is hitting that part of the fashion curve in Melbourne where proliferation is well upon us. Within 250 metres of my office (in the CBD) I can get a nori roll from one of a dozen places. Some of them are even good, although the average quality (across the board) is falling. With that in mind, I think we're pretty lucky to have a Japanese restaurant of Otsumami's quality this close to hand. Otsumami offers a gentle touch, a zazen approach to food which sets it apart from proliferating nori rolls. Lucky us!



*F points out that the crabs hadn't in fact, popped their clogs. They were still wearing them when we ate them.