Lady Lunchalot

On Sunday night I was lucky enough to be invited to a martini tasting at the Gin Palace. Zoeball’s boss, Vernon Chalker, (proprietor of some of my favourite bars in Melbourne including the Gin Palace and the rather fancy Madame Brussels) treated us to a showcase of martinis that made my tongue boggle and my balance wobble.

Vernon is one of those people that is soooo passionate about one subject it makes you realise how little you know about… well, anything! I can’t believe I ever thought a martini was just something you drank. Vernon explained the whole history of the martini, including how gin impacted the British economy, the origins of the vodka martini, and whether 007 was just being pedantic in his preference for shaken rather than stirred.

Thanks to Vernon I am stocked up with cocktail party trivia for years to come.

Altogether we tasted a whopping NINE martinis (I stress, “tasted”, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to manage my way out the door), from the classic In & Out martini (gin, vermouth and two green olives) to the more adventurous Warsaw (vodka, creme de cacao and a chocolate bullet).

It was incredible how a slightly different garnish could tweak the martini in a whole new direction. My favourite was the Bison: Zubrowka vodka stirred over ice, strained into a chilled martini glass and garnished with a marinated garlic clove.

Yes, you heard me, a garlic clove. Oh, stop screwing up your nose! I was actually terrified to take a sip of this one, but the sweet flavour of the garlic clove proved to be the perfect bite against the vodka.

Just don’t try that one on a first date ; )

Many thanks to Zoeball for inviting me, and to Vernon for hosting such an entertaining Sunday night!

Saturday night proved that The Union Club Hotel in Collingwood still serves one of the best pub meals in Melbourne.

It was Zoe’s birthday and she wanted to go salsa dancing at Copacabana on Smith St, Collingwood. I went to Copacabana once, many years ago, for a work Christmas party and was immediately struck by memories of swashbuckling waiters bearing long life-threatening sword-spears of meat. I had to duck every time they came to our table to avoid a swift decapitation.

Anyway, when Zoe asked me where we could go for dinner nearby, I immediately thought of The Union Club. Although, that’s not surprising. It’s easily my favourite place for a casual dinner in the inner north suburbs.

There were ten of us for dinner. The men were vastly outnumbered - O and another guy held their own up the back of the table, but there was no way they could compete with a gaggle of eight alcohol-fuelled women at a 30th birthday party.

I’d had a monumental achievement on the bathroom scales only hours before (I’ve lost 4 kilos in 6 weeks - woo hoo!) and I didn’t want to lose my momentum, so I went with the most calorofically Spartan item on the menu - Moroccan chicken salad.

This menu choice showed the unwavering Ghandi-esque determination I have to fitting into a size ten wedding dress. It killed me not to order the chicken parmigiana. I LOVE the chicken parma at The Union Club. But not only that, I was forced into ordering a dish that not only contained chickpeas, but even featured (I can barely bring myself to type the words)…. lentils!

Although I rarely eat dhal and am a dyed in the wool meat-eater, I actually have nothing against either chickpeas or lentils. It’s just that I tend to associate them with tofu-eating politically active women called Hannah who drink soy lattes and look like they are in dire need of a protein injection and a hair brush.

As it turned out, the salad was delicious. And it did have chicken in it, so my vegetarian fears were promptly allayed. The added unexpected bonus was that I felt very saintly tucking into my lentils and chickpeas while everyone else got stuck into steaks, parmas and chips. I kept my mind fixed on my rapidly evaporating waistline and the fact that I was wearing a pair of jeans that I hadn’t been able to button up since before I met O and the happy fat started to muffin-top over the waistband of my Levis.

As to be expected, O’s parma was up to The Union Club’s usual exceptional standard. He even gave me his last mouthful, which just proves that I am marrying Mr Right. One of the girls rolled her eyes at the massive porterhouse and mountain of mashed potato that was placed before her, declared that she’d never manage to get through it all, and then didn’t come up for air until she’d polished off every morsel. She looked mortified when she realized she’d eaten that much food. But I would never hold that against anybody. If anything, she moved up a few notches in my esteem. And The Union Club is that kind of place. If you can’t enjoy a good pub meal once in a while, what’s the point?

On Saturday night O and I found ourselves halfway between Melbourne and Horsham absolutely starving. We decided to stop for a counter meal at the next pub we saw, which happened to be the Wickliffe Hotel, affectionately known as “The Wickie”.

As we walked in, the four guys sitting around the bar stopped dead in their conversation and turned to stare at us as if we were standing there stark naked. But that seems to be pretty normal for a country pub when a stranger walks in. It made even more sense when we discovered that Wickliffe’s population reaches the staggering heights of 54 people. That would make pretty much everyone either a relative or a stranger.

A man wandered out of a back room with a proprietorial air, so O asked him for some dinner. He pointed to a sign which offered a parma, fish and chips, or lasagne. Now that I have ordered my wedding dress I’m trying to be a little more saintly with my appetite, but there weren’t really any Jenny Craig offerings in sight. In fact you could nickname these dishes See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.

I was even too scared to ask for a Diet Coke and I would have been laughed out of the pub if I ordered a mineral water, so I settled for a pot of Carlton that I didn’t really want and decided that a parma would be the most readily pardonable sin to my hips.

The parma filled the empty spot, and the guys around the bar had forgotten about us by then. Their conversation was getting progressive more… colourful. One of them wandered by when we were chatting to the owner. As he joined in the conversation he leaned over me and asked, “You finished with those, luv?” and before I could answer had helped himself to the leftover chips on my plate! Worse than that, he ate half of one chip, and then put the uneaten half back down on O’s plate!

Cue banjo music….

I know I’ve got a bit of a thing about parmas, but check out the size of this one! (Just spotted at The Vine Hotel, Wellington Rd, Collingwood).

Now this is good honest pub food at its best.

As if the great name and fantastic atmosphere weren’t enough, Cookie’s bar menu really melts my chocolate chips.

I’ve been popping in at Cookie for a few sneaky drinks for quite a while now. I’ve always loved their cocktails and the way the bartenders put so much care into even a simple drink, like vodka soda and lime.

But amazingly, it wasn’t until the other weekend that I’d ever tasted the food there, and now I am kicking myself for having wasted so many opportunities for a great meal.

The Thai-inspired menu is divided into three sections: small, medium and large dishes. It’s the perfect way to order when you’re out having a few drinks with friends.

With eight of us there on a Sunday afternoon (celebrating O’s and my engagement the day before!), we had the chance to try lots of different dishes. Chicken maryland, taro dumplings, massaman curry and tapioca dumplings. Mmm mmm.

Strangely enough, the best Thai food I had that week was at Cookie. Why was this strange? Considering I’d spent the week on holiday in Phuket, it was a little weird. I love Thai food, but a tourist hot-spot is not the best place to find authentic cuisine. Next time we’ll have to get a little further off the beaten track.

Little Collins St, Melbourne

I’ve heard about it for ages, but last Friday night was my first visit to Tony Starr’s Kitten Club. O and I met Kathryn and Tim for a few drinks before moving on to dinner at Grossi Florentino and then on to see Arj Barker’s Comedy Festival show.

Sounds civilised, doesn’t it?

Well, we never made it to Grossi Florentino. Dinner consisted of some UNBELIEVABLE chicken nibbly bits at the Kitten Club (it was after quite a few drinks, so I am not quite sure how amazing they actually tasted or whether my tastebuds were too inebriated to know the difference. Let’s face it - chicken usually tastes pretty good to me), before gorging ourselves on KFC while waiting in the Arj Barker queue outside on Swanston St.

From the lofty ideals of Grossi Florentino, to drunken Zinger burgers on the street. Yes, my range is astounding, I know.

I did, however, make an excellent discovery at the Kitten Club. It’s called a Bunny Girl, and it’s a very frou frou mixture of rose petal infused 42 Below vodka, lemon juice, manin rose syrup, Frangelico, lychee juice and pink grapefruit.

I was so pleased with this discovery that I rediscovered it again and again about three or four times in a row.

After a while I felt like I should have been wearing false eyelashes and a feather boa.

In fact, looking back on that blurry night, it’s possible that I was.

They claim that Young and Jackson is Australia’s most famous pub, but other than being home to a famous nudey painting, occupying one of Melbourne’s busiest street corners and having an excellent refurbishment, I’m not sure what it is so famous for.

It certainly shouldn’t be famous for its parma.

I went there today to meet Zarina for lunch as she had ducked back from Bangkok for a week. I’d never actually been to Young and Jackson’s before, despite having lived in Melbourne for 6 years. It’s been a miserable cold day, and Zarina and I had planned to meet at our usual lunchtime haunt, Brunetti, but I was in the mood for a warm cosy pub meal so we ended up at Young and Jackson.

By 12.30 I was ravenous. Given Young and Jackson’s reputation as one of THE pubs in Melbourne, I was hoping for a monster counter meal. You know, one of those lunches that make you wish you were wearing your fat pants. I was tossing up between the fish of the day in a naked ale beer batter, with chips, salad and kaffir lime mayonnaise. (Not exactly sure what a naked ale is, but it sounds a bit saucy). But I figured that as I felt like eating proper pub food for lunch, I should go with the parma.

(For any international readers out there, a parma is a chicken parmigiana - chicken schnitzel topped with ham, napoli sauce and melted cheese. It’s a staple in Aussie pubs, especially in Melbourne. Check out www.superparma.com if you don’t believe how big it is here).

After a reasonably lengthy wait, the meals arrived. Zarina had ordered a chicken curry, which looked a lot more ladylike than my plate. But I needn’t have been too embarrassed about having a monstrous plate of parma delivered to the table. It wasn’t that big at all, so there was no need to worry about my fat pants which were hanging at home in my wardrobe. In fact, I know many red-blooded parma lovers who would have wolfed that parma down in a split second.

And strangely enough, it had … a chicken bone sticking out of it. I kid you not - a bone! I don’t know whether they were trying to be particularly fancy-pants, or whether they were just reassuring their patrons that yes, their parmas are made from real chicken breast. But I’ve got to say - it threw me. And I am not particularly a traditionalist when it comes to food, but, as I discovered today, when I order a parma, I want comfort food with no suprises thank you.

Even I can forgive a scrimpy schnitzel and an unexpected bone, but unfortunately Young and Jackson committed the unpardonable parma sin.

They skimped on the cheese and napoli sauce. Big no no.

So I don’t think I’ll be going back to Young and Jackson’s for a parma any time soon. I think I’d have more luck with some of the other items on the menu.

Lucky for them the chips were great.