Clearing out the old blogpost backlog, I came across the prhotos I took when I went to La Canella about 6 months ago. To be fair, all I can remember is the pizza being pretty decent – from the looks of it, the combinations are all pretty classic, in that thin crust, simple toppings style – and the fact that we were all a little ill, and trying not to cough all over each others’ slices. So I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking for me, for once.

Disclaimer: I ate and drank for FREE at the Commoner on the night in question.

‘Twas the night before the anniversary of that guy being nailed to a cross. Some call it Maundy Thursday, but in my ten years of Catholic education, I never learned the meaning of Maundy – it always sounded rather drab laundry, like dull greyish white socks which hadn’t been washed with enough bleach – so it was a pleasant twist when I received an invitation to the Commoner’s launchy Thursday for their April themed event. They’re running different events throughout the year, all with delightfully dorky punny names based on movies. ‘Claws’ = Jaws, but instead of sharks, they’re serving crustacea.

I was allowed to bring a +1 to the launch, but with it being the night before an extra long weekend, many of my friends already had plans to be away. Thankfully, the hard-working @thatjessho was stuck in town and on good behaviour, as she was working on (not-so) Good Friday. So she happily came along, and it was a good chance for the two of us to catch up over free flowing Red Claw pinot gris and invertebrate canapes.

First up were lobster custard cigars. Oh, and by the way, if you want pretty pictures, there were a host of other bloggers at the event, including @msihua @ironchefshellie and @myfoodtrail, so I’m sure you can find much better lit (Jess and I resorted to lighting the food with our phone screens for one another) and framed photos. Anyway, these cigars were a nice way to start the evening – a cold savoury custard with little chunks of lobster meat piped into crisp and slightly crumbly cigars. The custard was a little too salty for my liking, but I’m quibbling; they were pretty good.

The next item was a crayfish, lobster and scallop terrine, wrapped in smoked salmon, on melba toast. I liked the texture of this; the terrine wasn’t an amorphous mass, and had nice big chunks of shellfish in it.

By this stage, I was craving something warm, and right on cue, these soft-shelled crab sliders arrived. They were quite good, but there were tweaks that Jess and I both agreed we would have made. First of all, the little round buns were cute, but the height of them meant there was too much bread when compared to filling. The other thing was that the remoulade (I can’t remember if it was celeriac or fennel) was a classic accompaniment, but the saltiness of the crab still required something with more acid or cream to temper it. We concluded it needed mayo.

Prawn cocktail with a Bloody Mary sauce. Well, prawns with a Bloody Mary, really. The prawns were wonderfully fresh, and cooked perfectly, but the standout was actually the Bloody Mary. It was mixed expertly, in the thicker style befitting its use as a sauce, yet still balanced well with spice and lemon, so it didn’t have the heavy feel some Bloody Marys have; instead, it was bright and fresh.

Then came the highlight of the night, in my humble opinion. Beer-battered scampi with french fries. The scampi were amazing. Fried until they’re just done, so the flesh was still bouncy and succulent, and hadn’t lost any of the fresh sweetness that often disappears when you overcook seafood. The accompanying fries were miniature and cute; they reminded me of the packet Smith’s french fries I used to eat as a kid. I don’t mean that in a bad way. They were a good vehicle for the aioli (or was it tartare? I can’t recall exactly). The wedge of lemon was pretty unnecessary, really, as the scampi was best eaten as it was presented.

There was also a chilli crab chowder, with crispy pig’s ear flakes on top. This was quite good too, though I’m not sure how it would translate to a full bowl-sized serving. I had arrived late, so I missed the kataifi-wrapped prawn, but Jess told me it was awesome.

This was all finished off with a brown ale pudding with a salted caramel sauce. Which I could have eaten kilos of; it was that good.

All in all, this was a pretty impressive tasting menu – it’s being served all month as a 5 course degustation – I’m not sure which dishes will make the cut – for $80/$120 with matched wines.

Well, without further ado, here is the curated guide to my favourite places in Footscray. Make of it what you will; just don’t get in my way when I need pho to cure my hangover on a Sunday morning…

View Footscray food crawl in a larger map

My sister was overseas this last Christmas, and my parents have always been a bit blase about the holiday, so I took it upon myself to save Christmas for the family. Of course, that meant roasting a turkey! Let’s not half-arse here, we’re talking about the birth of some guy about two thousand years ago here. It’s a big deal, right?

So let’s start with the stuffing. Mine was a riff off a Jamie Oliver one from his Cook cook book. But I used dried cranberries and a few other things that Maggie Beer had in her stuffing recipe for goose. So yeah, bacon, onion, sage, celery…

… remove from heat and add breadcrumbs, dried cranberries …

… let it coolto rom temperature, then add sausage meat (I de-cased some pork and fennel sausages from my local butcher) and an egg …

… mix thoroughly …

… get to second base with your bird. You’re going to be putting it in your mouth later anyway, so no need to be shy …

… and spread that stuffing all up against its breasts.

Tie it up so you’ve got complete control of the roasting position… (and yes, that’s a bacon band aid for where the bird’s skin had split on the thigh).

Wrap in foil and roast in a low oven for four hours. At Jess‘ suggestion, I brined my turkey overnight, in an apple juice and salt brine, but I probably should only have brined it for about 8 hours instead of 16, as the meat ended up a little too salty.

But I was feeding seven people, and never one to under-cater – I am Chinese, after all – there had to be other dishes. I had chatted with Bryan about Christmas preparations, and he remarked that he was keep to try the port-braised beef ribs which I had made for a Game of Thrones themed dinner party earlier in the year. It was a pretty easy set-and-forget dish, so I thought it might be worth reprising for my family this Christmas, too.

I browned the ribs, and then left them on the stove simmering for about 4 hours in a braising liquid made up of port, beef stock, and various herbs and spices. I can’t remember exactly what went into it, but bay leaves, ground coriander, thyme and pepper are definitely in the mix.

Then I thought I should have a starter, and given the time (and stove) constraints, I thought gazpacho would be a great option. One perk of a summer Christmas is that you can have those summery dishes too, then crank the air con and bring out the turkey!

That’s still not enough food! Let’s gin-poach some salmon! (That’s lemon rind, dill and pepper, along with vegetable stock and Tanqueray in there.)

And make a loose interpretation of salad Nicoise. With sweet potato of course, because of Dad’s Type II diabetes.

Dressed with a home-made dill mayonnaise. Mayonnaise/hollandaise is so easy with a stab blender – thanks to Tammi for showing me the light.

So here’s what was on the table, in the end:

The salmon Nicoise salad.

Port-braised beef ribs with carrots which were braised with the turkey.

The main event: the bird!

… deconstructed.

Oh yeah, there was a nectarine, rocket and quinoa salad, too, but that came into being late in the piece, when I had shifted into anxious host mode, and forgotten to take photos.

I think this may have been one of the most fun and rewarding Christmases I’ve ever had. It’s true what they say about the spirit of giving – or in this case, the spirit of feeding – being what Christmas is truly about. We all had a great lunch, Mum got a little tipsy, which is not very common, and I introduced them to Christmas crackers. Check out their matching paper crowns.

Then after it was all over, and the folks went home, my housemate and I sat down and relaxed with a nice glass of bubbles.

OK, it was more than one. There may have been drinking games involved. We may have gotten stupidly shit-faced. But that’s what Christmas is all about for Australians, isn’t it?

Yeah, you’ve all heard about it. Well, you should have. Blah blah burger blah blah brioche blah blah wagyu.

This is the Denise (the hot one).

Just go eat it.

I don’t want to dwell on the Melbourne/Sydney thing too much. Because apparently only Melbourne people do that, due to a chip on our collective shoulder about being the second largest, and probably not even the second most recognisable, city in Australia. It’s often said that Sydney has better Thai food, and better Japanese food, while Melbourne arguably has better Vietnamese food. I’m not sure whether that’s true, especially since food is such a subjective thing anyway, but if patterns of migration and migrant community populations are anything to go by, these assertions might be justified.

Which is why it seems a little strange that a Vietnamese restaurant from Sydney would open up a Melbourne outlet. Miss Chu opened early last year to some excitement, but probably just as much skepticism. Vietnamese food purveyors from Sydney? That’s almost like Hanoians setting up shop in Sai Gon. Which, for the record, has been quite successful in a number of cases. But I was definitely one of the skeptics when I first heard about it.

My preconceptions of the place weren’t helped by the buzz around Miss Chu serving wagyu pho. Seriously? That’s almost as nonsensical as Spice Temple’s wagyu brisket. Braised brisket is about slow cooking, releasing flavours from tough cuts of meat, and breaking down the flesh until it melts apart. To me, it seems like both a waste and a ruination of wagyu. Similarly, the beef in pho tai (rare beef pho) should have a certain springiness to it, something which is utterly lacking in (ironically) good wagyu. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Miss Chu touts herself as the ‘Queen of rice paper rolls’. And in this, I’m quite happy to agree. Well, she’s a high Lady in that arena, in any case. I have had better, but I lived in Viet Nam for a year, so you would expect that to be the case. Nonetheless, the rice paper rolls at Miss Chu were pretty special. I ordered the tiger prawn and green mango ones, which while pricey, were well worth the extra cost. The sauce bottle was cute, but not really that functional; a little dipping plate would have been useful. The sauce was a little overly sweet, too.

Onto the main event: the wagyu pho. A few things distressed me about this whole situation. First of all, the fresh basil and bean shoots were already applied for you by the kitchen. Which is a minor travesty, because it takes something integral away about the ritual of eating pho; the tearing of the basil leaves from the stalks, the topping of your owl with a mound of beanshoots, and the dunking and stirring of all the fresh ingredients through the steaming hot soup. These are all a part of the experience which I love about having pho, and this was denied to me at Miss Chu. So things weren’t off to a good start.

Another part of my ritual is to try the broth before adding anything (lemon, chilli) to it. Again, Miss Chu’s pho fell flat. The broth was on the bland side, with neither the ‘beefiness’ nor the warm spices which typify good pho broth coming through. I was a little hasty in pre-judging the use of wagyu, as the soup was served at a cool enough temperature that the beef didn’t fully cook. Which might leave some people screaming salmonella, but is fine by me. Wagyu – and any good cut of meat, really – should be eaten rare, in my book. In this case, it helped the beef retain a bit of chewiness, which pho needs, texturally.Unfortunately, things don’t get any better when it comes to the actual pho noodles. I’m not sure about this, but it seems like Miss Chu is using re-hydrated dried ride noodles instead of fresh pho noodles. The noodles were thin, totally slippery, and worst of all, broken and short. I ended up having to eat most of them with my spoon, rather than slurping them off my chopsticks. That’s another point deduction, experientially. Oh, who are we kidding, points? This dish was a monster fail. Of course, me being me, I still ate it all. And proceeded to order dessert. A custard bun. Which was yet another let-down. The custard inside was on the dry and crumbly side, and the dough was a bit heavy. I know I’m pretty spoilt when it comes to Vietnamese food; I live in Footscray, after all. For the most part, Miss Chu just wasn’t up to scratch for me. But perhaps that was to do with my selection. There are many good Vietnamese restaurants that serve pho – mediocre or bad pho – but that excel in other dishes. I think Miss Chu might be one of these. The rice vermicelli salads looked pretty good, and the rice paper rolls were excellent, too. I could probably be convinced to go back – the atmosphere is fun and bustling, and the service is brisk, but friendly -  I’d just avoid that woeful pho.

I first heard about this place not long after I moved to Footscray. One of the neighbours mentioned it at my housewarming. Then I heard about it again from Lauren not long after that, and also Deb wrote about it around the same time. All of the reviews were positive.

Yet it took me well over a year to finally get down here. And it’s only a short walk from my house, too. For shame. Anyway, I finally did make it, with my housemate and a big bottle of French cider in tow. It was a Sunday night, and the place was super busy. It’s a pretty small restaurant, and every seat was full when we walked in. Thankfully a couple was about to leave, so we put our dibs on it, and wandered down to the nearby bottleshop. That’s where the cider came in.

The waitress (owner?) informed us that there may be a bit of a long wait, as we’d been seated just after two large tables. We didn’t mind, as we had cider and gossip to keep ourselves amused. We pretty much finished the cider before the food arrived, but thankfully, African Taste has a selection of African beers. Which we naturally hoed into. Which will explain why I don’t really remember what this first dish was.

I remember it being pretty good, and it was my housemate’s first encounter with injera. It’s always a bit tricky to describe injera; lots of people call it a flatbread, but to me, it seems more like a crepe made with fermented flour (hence the slight tangy taste). I remember liking this dish, in any case. Anything you get to eat with your hands is A-OK with me!

Then came the Genfo African Fufu. When ordering it, I pronounced it “foo-foo”. When the waitress read it back, she pronounced it “fyeu-fyeu”. Then we spent the next minute or so trying to imitate her pronunciation and giggling like idiots. Anyway, Africa Taste’s fufu is like gnocchi, except it’s made with bulghur flour. And then pan-fried, and coated with a tasty sauce and a healthy dollop of yoghurt. We had it with fish. It’s amazing, and I’d totally go back for more of this.

We also ordered a Moroccan chicken salad – I think it was Moroccan? – with a bed of couscous, which was nice, but decidedly less interesting than the other two dishes.

With so many African restaurants in the area, it’s hard to know which ones to visit. Interestingly, I never hear reports of bad experiences about any of them from friends. Is it because we’re all too inexperienced to know what to expect, or is the standard just generally high in the area? I’m not sure. But I’m going to keep trying more places to figure it out!

You can tell a lot about a person from the places they choose to take you on a date. When I’m in charge of choosing the place, you can tell that I’m indecisive and often disorganised. I’ll most likely suggest to meet somewhere in the vicinity of a few good options, then make us traipse around seemingly aimlessly, dismissing options out of hand because they’re too busy, not busy enough, or because I’ve heard something bad about it from friends. But I’d like to think that more often than not, I come up with the goods. That’s one good thing about being a food blogger, having other food bloggers as friends; you have a pretty good idea of where the good places to eat are.

Anyway, when I went out on a second date with Mr D – the first was just drinks at a bar – and we were in his ‘hood, naturally I decided to let him choose. The first alarm bell rang when he declared that he didn’t really like Asian food. I really should have said, “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.” then and there. But I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, and so we ended up at Max’s.

Upon walking in, we were summarily ignored by the three waitstaff who were managing three other tables between them. The place looked like a reputable establishment, so we approached one of the waitresses and asked to be seated. We were told to “just sit anywhere”, so we did, and waited for about five minutes before another waiter came over to us to ask if we needed anything. Yeah, menus might be useful. Well, they would have been, had they not been filled with the most banal of cafe/pub dishes. I can’t even remember what was on there – it’s that forgettable – but I’m fairly sure there was probably something like a tandoori chicken salad, some sort of steak, and two or three bland-sounding pasta dishes. So when in doubt, benchmark the place. We both ordered the chicken parma, with chips and vegetables.

Now I know my photography isn’t great – something I’m ironically proud of, actually – but the food was actually that insipid looking. To be fair, the chips were OK. The parma itself was pretty big, but the chicken was dry and bland; I have a suspicion it was one of those terracotta chicken tiles you can buy at the supermarket deli. But the most distressing thing about the whole affair were the ‘roast vegetables’. Yes, they had been roasted, but probably not that day. And that certainly wasn’t the last cooking process which had been applied to them. Ah, the uneven heat distribution that can only be produced by a microwave. Some pieces were still cold, while others almost burned my tongue. Interestingly, conversation over the course of the meal also ran hot and cold. We had a few things in common, but I found myself having to think hard for the next conversation topic, which is never a good sign. But I digress.

The fact that I am an insatiable glutton is well known to you regular readers. It’s a rare occasion that I don’t finish a parma, because I very rarely order one unless I’m actually hungry. As a result, the act of leaving chicken on a plate is a form of silent protest for me. I protested at Max’s. Sadly, I doubt any of the staff noticed.

I’m not going back. Nor were there any subsequent dates with Mr D.

Let me say first off that I’m glad I wasn’t wearing my red gingham shirt to this place. Because there’s so much of it in the window and on the tables as to almost give me a kitsch aneurysm.

I like this place. It has a sense of humour. Take their menu, for instance. Everybody loves a good pun. Although, at what point does Calibri become the new Arial or Times New Roman, inspiring disdain for the lack of imagination and effort in font selection? It hasn’t quite reached the tipping point yet, but I predict that day is nigh.

It also serves a ‘Monsterschnitzel’.

Although I wasn’t up for a monsterschnitzel that night, so I opted for the goulash, which comes with noki, a knubbly spaetzle/gnocchi type of noodle. I’d asked for it hot, which basically led to the waitress bringing out a jar of ‘pista‘ (a Hungarian type of paprika/chilli sauce) which is just as well, because the goulash itself had very little chilli heat to it. It was a pretty big serve, though, and came with a little side dish of red cabbage slaw.

Mr D had mushroom and potato crepes, with a little garden salad. He was quite happy with them, and I took a bit of one; the crepe was nice and light, and the mushroom filling was pretty tasty.

The service was charming, if a little harried; most of the tables were full, and it appeared there was one person in the kitchen, and one lady working the front of house. She did apologise for the delay profusely, even though given the circumstances, there wasn’t really that much of a delay.

I’d go back again, because it was fun, and interesting to try something slightly unusual as far as restaurants in Melbourne go. Oh, and they have this special on some night – I think it’s Tuesdays? – where you get a percentage discount based on your age. I’m taking my parents.

I don’t remember much about this place, apart from the fact there was absolutely no chilli in my omelette, despite it being a listed ingredient in the menu. Hence this is basically a post where the photos do the talking. I remember the place was busy – it was a Sunday afternoon – and the fitout is a little kitschy-cute. Firemen from the nearby station frequent the place, if that sways you at all. I’m looking at you, Bryan.