Tyranny of Distance

May 17, 2024

   

We popped down to the Astor to see the new Bluebottle Kiss documentary and needed some dinner on the way. The Happy Cow guide showed that Tyranny of Distance was close by and all-vegan so we booked ourselves a table.

It turns out that Tyranny of Distance has been operating for over a decade (see blog links at the bottom of the post), although it's more like five years since it went vegan. The atmosphere and menu reminded me of past days at the Gasometer, with rambling rooms, uneven and richly coloured walls, mismatched wooden furniture and a mostly fried, mock meat-heavy menu. Tyranny has an extended semi-outdoors area so I imagine it's much brighter in summer.

   

We got started with sober mojitos ($12). 

   

For his main, Michael chose the Korean bao sliders ($21). The steamed buns were unexpectedly charcoal-coloured, then stuffed with a gochujang-marinated 'pork belly' that he liked a lot, plus shredded cabbage, peanuts and spicy mayo dripping everywhere. It was a smaller meal and thankfully he had the appetite to help me out with mine!

   

This is the enormous chicken ciabatta ($23). The bread is house-made and layered with a thick mock-chicken in a seasoned batter, lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, aioli, chipotle mayo and cheese. Both the bread and the chicken are very hearty specimens, a lot for me to take on all at once. The burger is also tall! I carefully used a serrated knife to halve it, and divide again to share with Michael. It was a mess, but a tasty one. The side of chips was great, albeit sauceless.

Across the menu there are more burgers, a couple of curries, nachos and roti rolls two ways (sweet soy duck and butter chicken!). Service was friendly and capable. While I might not cross town especially for Tyranny of Distance, I'd definitely book in a meal there any time I'm visiting the Astor.

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You can read old, positive reviews of Tyranny's pre-vegan menu on Eat & Be Merry and The Chommery. The more recent vegan menu has received praise from gastrology.

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Tyranny of Distance

147 Union St, Windsor

9525 1005

shared dishes, mains

https://tyrannyofdistance.com.au/

Accessibility: There are a couple steps up at the beer garden entry. Furniture is a mixture of high and low tables outside, and low tables inside with a corresponding mixture of backless benches, stools, backed chairs and booth seats. They're all arranged densely with meandering walkways and the odd step through the building. We ordered at our table and paid at a high counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Borsch, Vodka & Tears IV

November 11, 2023 

   

We had a burst of fun visits to Polish restaurant Borsch, Vodka and Tears back in 2006-2007, our first year living in Melbourne, and it hasn't appeared on the blog since! This month we returned for dinner with my mum and her sister Carol, since it was an easy walk to the Astor. (We were there to see the 40th anniversary remaster of Stop Making Sense.)

A little, but not a lot, has changed at BV&T and why would it when they've carved out such a charming niche? The setting is cosy and a little folksy - I love their colourful, mismatched crockery. The menu runs to a dozen pages of alcohol, mostly vodka, with four pages of food tucked at the back (dietary requirements well marked). I figured out how we could best taste small portions of many things and everyone relished the sprawling spread.

The vegetarian Springtime Zakuski ($36) was our foundation: this platter served small samples of many roasted, marinated and pickled vegetables, croquettes and vegan meatballs, teeny blinis, plus a basket of breads, bagel and beetroot butter on the side. From there we added in a plate of Placki Potato Blintzes ($16, with sour cream and sauerkraut) and a dish of porcini & sauerkraut pierogi ($27.50). It was a feast of flavours, and we didn't really mind that we were out of time and stomach room for choc tops at the cinema.

   

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You can read about our one, two, three visits to BVT back in 2006-2007. Between then and now, it's generated positive reviews on blogs PIGGING OUT AROUND THE WORLD, Ichigo Shortcake, The Dodgy End, Sweet & Sour Fork, Eat Play Love Travel, and DANG IT WE LOVE FOOD.

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Borsch, Vodka & Tears

173 Chapel St, Windsor

9530 2694

menu: one, two

https://www.borschvodkaandtears.com/

Accessibility: There is one step up on entry and a narrow corridor through the restaurant. Tables are low, chairs have backs, and they're densely packed throughout the restaurant. It tends to be dimly lit and noisy. We didn't visit the toilets.

October 29, 2010: My Restaurant

January 2016: My Restaurant has closed.

Cindy and I had a Friday evening free and decided we should chase down some dinner outside of our usual inner-northern enclave. Cindy remembered Sticky Fingers raving about My Restaurant, noting cheap and delicious food and more than 30 vego options, so we decided to brave the terrifying lands across the Yarra to check it out.

My Restaurant is a pretty unassuming looking place, tucked away in a fairly unassuming part of Windsor. The generic name, functional furniture and big bain marie didn't generate a lot of excitement but a quick glance at the menu and we were sold. My Restaurant do Indian and Malay food: rotis, dosai, murtabaks, mee and nasi goreng and a range of Indian curries. And it's cheap! We're talking $6-$8 for most meals - a maximum of $10 for combo plates.

I went for one of the combo plates - a roti meal, with three curries, 4 pieces of roti and some raita ($10). The curry choices for the roti meal come from the bain marie but there are plenty of options: I went with a chickpea masala, mixed vegie Madras and sambhar daal.

The first thing to note about this meal is the roti: cooked fresh and to perfection, these were some of the best rotis I've sampled. The curries were a mixed bunch - the chickpea masala was the clear stand-out, with a tomatoey sauce that was rich was chilli and spices; the daal was good company for the roti, but could have used some pickle or chutney to spark it up a bit and the mixed vegies were soft and saucy, but a bit lacking in flavour. Still, the roti was so wonderful that you only needed vaguely decent curries to make this an excellent dinner.

Cindy is a huge fan of dosai, and couldn't resist the masala dosai, stuffed with a mild potato curry and served with chutneys and sambar. The dosai was wonderfully crispy, and the accompaniments were all excellent - I particularly enjoyed the spicy chutney.

Despite its fearsome size, Cindy made her way through almost all of her dosai, a testament to its tastiness. She was careful to leave a little bit of room spare to sample something from the sweets menu. She wandered up to order a roti bom, but was convinced by the lady behind the counter that the tisu roti ($5.50) was the better choice.

The tisu roti is a crispy cone of roti bread slathered with condensed milk - it's like a delicious volcano. I'm sure it's terrible for you but it's very, very good - my 'taste' turned into a half-share just because I couldn't stop going back for more.

My Restaurant is a great little place - the staff are friendly and helpful, the meals amazing value for money and the menu interesting and veg-friendly. If we lived on the southside there's no doubt we'd be regulars - with Bismi and Nila nearby though I'm not sure that we'll make the trek across town to visit too often.

My Restaurant has received particularly positive reviews from bloggers looking for authentic Malaysian-style food in Melbourne - see Citrus and Candy, Jeroxie and Deep Dish Dreams. It also got a nice write-up from The Age, back when Matt Preston was still chasing down interesting and cheap places for Epicure.

Address: 186 High Street, Windsor
Ph: 9521 4100
Price: $3.50 - $10.00
Unlicensed

September 6, 2007: Hooked

My love of fish and chips was the greatest challenge to overcome in my shift to vegetarianism three years ago. My devotion to chips still abides, of course, and that battered-fish-shaped hole in my life is filled relatively well with other things: tartare sauce, tempura veges, crumbed tofu with lemon, and occasionally an actual dish of faux fish. So when Elegant Gourmand recently raved about fish'n'chipper Hooked, mentioning killer fries and tempura veges, I was, well... hooked. So I lined up a quick and casual dinner there prior to an opening night screening of Ratatouille.

Hooked is every bit the trendy takeaway: the stencil drawings, prices and menu options are consistent with its Chapel St address, but you'll receive counter service, paper wrapping and ineffectual plastic cutlery even if you're eating in. The full extent of the vegetarian options are already outlined in EG's post: light tempura veges with a soy dip ($8.50), a hooked salad ($8.50; featuring mixed leaves, tomato, cucumber, bbq corn, pickled ginger, bean sprouts, kumera crisps and a oil-free dressing) and chips ($4.50 for regular size). We ordered one of each...

First up we tried the tempura veges - while Michael enjoyed them, I was less impressed. My first piece was actually a haphazard ball of multiple veges bound together with batter that wasn't completely cooked through - not exactly light and crunchy. And there wasn't enough darn sauce! Still, I am pretty shameless in my consumption of deep-fried foods, and I found what enjoyment there was on offer in helping Michael polish these off.

Next I unwrapped our parcel of fries - thankfully these lived up to the expectations that EG inspired! Chunky and fleshy on the inside, with just enough golden crispness on the outside. Again, our 90c pot of tartare sauce wasn't enough to bathe all our potatoes, but there was complimentary ketchup and vinegar on the table to pick up the slack.

The salad, too, was far better than I'd expect from the average fast food joint. Generous mixed greens and a lovely bite from the pickled ginger, this is the perfect counterbalance to the greasier foods I can't resist. The crunchy kumera chips were delicious, of course, but not entirely necessary amongst the oil-fest that was the rest of my dinner.

And what of Ratatouille? I didn't find the script and characters as charming as some of Pixar's previous efforts, but the visuals are their most stunning yet. I think it's worth seeing on the big screen, just to gaze beyond the action at the cute restaurant kitchen and gorgeous scenes of Paris-in-a-parallel-universe. The climax of the film, in which critic Anton Ego tastes the dish of the title, is pitch-perfect in its depiction of the joy of eating.

To follow this tangent even further, the 20 years of Pixar exhibition at ACMI continues for only one more month! A must-see for lovers of animation - it's worth the price of admission just for the zoetrope, I swear.

Address: 172 Chapel St, Windsor
Ph: 95291075
BYO
Price: veg mains $8.50, regular chips $4.50

June 17, 2007: Borsch, Vodka and Tears

Many months had passed since we last made our way to Windsor for the Polish goodness of Borsch, Vodka and Tears. So, on some flimsy pretext or another, Cindy arranged a night out with Mike and Jo-Lyn to introduce them to the longest vodka menu in Melbourne. I settled for a Polish beer of some sort, but Cindy got into the spirit of things and ordered up a Pleasant Street Tea (turkish apple tea, pomegranate syrup and wild honey bee vodka, served piping hot; $8.50):

As well as a ridiculous number of vodka options, BV&T has a surprising (for a Polish place) number of vego options and Cindy and I did our best to avoid duplication with our last visit. We started out with some Polish borsch (which is apparently more watery than the Russian version) with a handful of porcini mushroom uszka (pan-fried Polish dumplings) floating (sunk to the bottom actually) in it ($13).

We followed up with kopytka ($13), pan-fried gnocchi served with a wild mushroom ragout and finished with truffle oil, which was a rich and hearty treat perfectly suited to the current burst of winter that seems to have engulfed Melbourne. I was only disappointed that I had to share it with Cindy.

For all our best intentions about trying new things, it would just be silly to go all the way to Windsor and then not indulge in pierogi. In fact, I don't think anyone would have been complaining if we'd just told the waitress to keep on bringing pierogi until we were all stuffed. On this occasion we limited ourselves to just one plate full of the potato and cheese variety ($13.50). All I'll say is that it was a good thing they served up an even number of them.

We'd remembered this time to leave enough space for dessert and Cindy and I shared some Russian crepes with strawberries and apples served with cream and raspberry coulis ($10). It was fine - quite good in fact, but I think next time I'll ignore the call of dessert and just order another plate of pierogi.

I can't remember what Jo and Mike had (I do know they didn't end up with the gypsy sausage soup, despite Mike's urging), but there's a ridiculous selection for meat-eaters so I'm sure it was tremendous. Needless to say, the sophisticated Polish vibe remains, as does the friendly and prompt service. So whether you're after an array of absinthe and vodka, a selection of hearty vego delights or an authentic Polish sausage, I'd highly recommend a trip to Borsch, Vodka & Tears.

Read about our previous visits here and here.

They also have a new website: www.borschvodkaandtears.com

November 18, 2006: Prahran Market and some more BVnT

After breakfast we browsed the Chapel St shops. Doof and Michael bought the only shirts they tried on: meanwhile I selected four different items, sending the shop assistant back for a second size of one of them, eventually rejected them all and bought a Devo figurine instead. However I could hardly be a picky customer once we hit the Prahran Market. We bought punnets of strawberries and raspberries within seconds of entering, and they proved to be the cheapest (99c), sweetest, juiciest strawberries so far this season. The charming French man at the Monsieur Truffe stand courteously laid out the origins of all his cocoa products, along with toothpicks and samples. Doof and I didn't need too much coaxing to choose a small packet each, and as we turned to go, Monsieur Truffe urged us to refrigerate our treasures since they're preservative free.

As we looked over the fresh produce and organic dairy Michael lamented that we didn't have a recipe to shop for, but it was a hot day and we wouldn't be home for hours. Instead he and Doof satisfied themselves with sampling all the cheese and olives on offer in the deli section. When Michael encountered an Indian chutney, mixed with yoghurt and smeared onto crackers, he needed a jar of his own. We coveted the fine and generally overpriced goods at the Essential Ingredient, and I bought a little bottle of elderflower softdrink. It was deliciously flowery and refreshing as we hit the hot dry air outside.

We continued to cover the shops until we hit Borsch, Vodka and Tears. None of us had room to eat, nor did they have room to feed us, so we sat at the bar and perused the lengthy drinks menu. Doof quickly picked out a cognac/vodka, served in a balloon glass and warmed over a tumbler of hot water. Michael ordered cherry vodka, and I had a hot lemon, honey and ginger drink. All were excellent, though the entire Polish experience didn't really fit with the hot and slightly dusty day outside... Michael and I were just too keen to share the highlights of Melbourne dining with our guest.

(Read about our previous visit to Borsch, Vodka and Tears.)

October 1, 2006: Borsch, Vodka and Tears

During our evening at Shakahari, Krusty and Jason raved about a hip Polish restaurant in Windsor and, just a few weeks later, they invited us to join them for a jaunt to Borsch, Vodka and Tears. In the heart of trendy Chapel Street, BVnT (as I will henceforth refer to it) is a stylish little place, moodily lit and filled with people who dress much better than I do.

The first challenge for the evening was a drinks order - BVnT have around 100 different types of vodka to choose from, along with a range of vodka-based martinis, mixed drinks, cocktails and even a section devoted to after-dinner-vodkas. After much deliberation, we settled on our choices. Jason and I were fairly unadventurous: chai for him and a vodka, lime and apple juice for me. The ladies were bolder: Krusty ordered a 'Honey on Toast':

We failed to note down exactly what went into this drink, but everybody tried it and agreed that it was quite delicious - spicy, sweet and boozy.

Cindy went for a 'Good Apple' tea:


Rooibos fruit tea with lemon and sugar, served with Kurpiowski honey wine and French apple liqueur. There was some debate as to the appropriate method of consumption - I suggested mixing all three components together, but Cindy kept them separate and sipped one at a time. It made quite an impression - she was particularly enthused about the apple liqueur.

Onto the food! After agonising over the menu for a while, we opted for a range of Przekązki, or Polish tapas to allow us to try as many of the vegetarian options as possible.


Oven roasted pide with three dips: Spinach and pinenut, beetroot and roast capsicum. The dips were so tasty that we accepted two offers of pide refills just to make sure we got through them all. The beetroot dip was simply amazing and was finished well before the other two.


Potato blintzes: panfried potato cakes served with sour cream and fresh herbs. I'm glad we shared these - they were pretty tasty, but would have been too heavy for one person to tackle in one sitting.


Crispy fetta and rice balls: crumbled fetta cheese, rice and herbs lightly fried and served with garlic mayonaise. These were demolished in seconds - crispy on the outside, luscious on the inside and covered in delicious mayo.


Last but not least - Pierogi: traditional polish dumplings. We started out with one large plate with the two vegetarian fillings available: porcini mushroom and sauerkraut with breadcrumb coating and cheese and potato with fried onion and sour cream. These were the stars of the show. Krusty had recommended them especially and they didn't disappoint. Once they were finished we sat there disappointed until Krusty was brave enough to suggest another plate. Everyone was thinking it.

By the time we'd finished off the second plate of pierogi and the last serve of pide, even Cindy didn't have room to suggest a glance at the dessert menu. So, if you throw in the hundreds of vodka based drinks and the well regarded breakfasts, there's every chance that we'll be back again.

Address: 173 Chapel Street, Windsor
Phone: 9530 2694
Price: Mains around $20, Tapas $9-$14
Website: http://www.borschvodkaandtears.com/

September 17, 2006: Grill’d

On Sunday we took a tram to posh Chapel St, Prahran to find some people even yuppier than us and take a peek at the markets. The people were indeed posher and yuppier than us, but lacked variety in their dress and manner. Their primary means of self-expression seems to be the pedigree of pampered pooch that they tether outside the cafes or cradle in their arms. It was at little disappointing but not so surprising that the market stalls were mostly closed at 1:00 on a Sunday afternoon, but the organic grocer and specialty mushroom shop encouraged us to come back again on a Saturday morning when it promises to be more lively.

For lunch I was craving some vegetarian-friendly pub food. More accurately, I wanted some chips. As we walked further south along Chapel St the shops decreased in sleekness and median price. The bright and perky Grill’d appeared at just the right time to feed me. It sells beef, lamb, chicken and vege burgers, but most importantly it sells chips. They fit the bill and more: golden and crunchy with flecks of rosemary adding a unique flavour. Not too greasy. The herbed mayo was OK, but I’m probably getting picky having recently enjoyed home-made . I was pleased to be offered a choice of three vegetarian burgers and a wholemeal bun; the burgers were huge and we probably should have shared one. My Garden Goodness burger was missing the promised avocado and the veggie patty was a bit bland, but otherwise it was well prepared. Michael enjoyed his Bombay Bliss. Fresh salad ingredients on both. I wouldn’t cross town for another burger, but I might for the chips.

Address: 157 Chapel St, Windsor
Ph: 9510 2377
Price: vege burgers $8.50, chips extra
Website: www.grilld.com.au

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