Lady Lunchalot

Horsham is really growing on me. I’ve already noticed some peculiarities about this town – the way everyone from the taxi driver to the local real estate agent tells you their life story (this is one quality that I find quite endearing) and how all the restaurants in town are so keen to feature seafood on their menus. I still haven’t figured out where all this fresh seafood is coming from. It’s enough to make you think Horsham is a quaint seaside fishing village with a crab pot and a prawn trawler around every corner, when it’s actually many hundreds of drought-stricken kilometres inland in the heart of Victoria’s sheep district.

So when O and I took ourselves to The Olde Horsham for dinner on Friday night, you can understand why I was expecting to find a menu full of hearty country dishes like lamb casseroles, mutton pie, and maybe something exotic like, oh I don’t know, corned beef?

Instead I found a weird medley of surf ‘n turf. There was steak cooked to your liking topped with a crown of king prawns, seafood marinara, and my personal favourite, steak kilpatrick (!) That name is so good it deserves a drum roll.

Ever mindful of my generously-proportioned hips and impending nuptials, I went with a piece of grilled barramundi (it’s a freshwater fish, so forget about the fact that Horsham’s waterways have all but vanished in the drought and I could almost pretend that fish came from local waters) and steamed vegetables with strict instructions to hold any form of butter sauce.

O ordered the obligatory lamb shanks. The lovely man said they were the second best lamb shanks he’s ever had – he last had shanks when I cooked them for his birthday dinner last year. He’s always loved my legs ; )

My fish arrived and it was beautifully moist and tender, and the veggies were great even though they arrived dripping in deliciously hip-thickening cream sauce. The waitress was so lovely I didn’t have the heart to send it back. We heard all about her aunty, how she always scoffed down the bread when she went to restaurants (the waitress, not the aunty), and how much she loved McDonalds sundaes.

So all in all I loved The Olde Horsham. It was a warm, generous place to have dinner even if they did mess up my veggies and offer us strawberries for dessert despite the fact that they hadn’t stocked fresh strawberries for ages. It’s really nice to go to an honest restaurant with a soul. And I am sure they must have an aquarium out the back for all that seafood!

One of my favourite menus in Melbourne can be found at at the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder, the place that I insist on calling “Stephanie’s”.

On Saturday morning Stu suggested that O and I meet him there for brekkie, as he had a hankering for Stephanie’s cheese on toast. You just haven’t tasted cheese on toast until you’ve been to Stephanie’s. (Ok, the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder.) Stu insists on a piece of tomato underneath the cheese, and he always orders an extra slice because he knows I cannot be trusted around his. The truth is, I never order it even though I love it, because I’ll always end up having some of Stu’s and that way I get to taste two different dishes!

Even though the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder attracts gaggles of Mercedes-driving pashmina-clad women with names like Prue and Pamela, it is also chock-a-block full of delicious goodies. I’ll never forget the time I tripped over one of these bejewelled ladies when I caught sight of the most unbelievably decadent cake sitting on the coffee counter. It was almost pornographic in its indecency, and when I saw it I must have looked like Kevin Spacey in that cheerleader scene from American Beauty.

On Saturday morning I restrained myself to a hot chocolate (you could really taste the cocoa) and scrambled eggs with parsley and a serve of perfectly cooked bacon. O and Stu, of course, had the cheese on toast. And they both ordered an extra slice for me. It’s nice to be loved. : )

And the Cheese Room is really something else. I could spend hours in there just soaking up the cheesy perfume. The staff are so helpful - not only is there nothing they don’t know about cheese, but they are completely evangelistic about it. I remember going in there once and receiving an impassioned lecture from the cheese lady about how we needed to petition our parliamentarians to allow the importation of Roquefort from France. (Which incidentally, has been allowed in Oz since 2005. Go cheese activists - yeah!)

O was a Cheese Room virgin. He was sufficiently impressed with the cheesiness, though he was a little cheesed out after his cheesy toast. He selected a beautiful piece of Pasti from Veneto, Italy for Signor Valvasori’s birthday present. I went with a soft squishy Clarine from the French Alps. That cheese was so ripe and runny you could suck it through a straw - but that would be a bit gross and spreading it on a nice slice of pumpernickel is a tad more socially acceptable.

I’m a big fan of communal eating. That’s why I love it when I go out to eat with a bunch of people who like to share their food, so everyone gets a taste of everything else.

Last night O and I went out to celebrate Signor Valvasori’s birthday at Manchester Lane. It was my first time there but it had all the necessary criteria for a great night out in one place: an imaginative cocktail menu, a dinner menu that makes your brow furrow with indecision, a non-smoking venue and great jazz music.

I suspected I was in for a treat when it took me about 20 minutes to decide what I was going to order.

For entrée we all ordered a few serves of dukkah floured calamari with rocket leaves, lime aioli and fresh lime to share. The calamari was nice and fresh, and it was a simple, clean dish, but it wasn’t particularly amazing.

The main courses were a different story. I ordered Asian style roast pork belly served on a salad made of crackling, lup chong sausage, apple and vietnamese mint and a beetroot roesti with a star anise jus. I know. How could I possibly go past that one on the menu?

O had duck confit (of course – I’ve never seen him ignore duck on a menu), served on braised cabbage and Kaiser fleisch bacon parcel with a marsala jus. It was very dark, very heavy and very wintery.

We also tasted an incredible gnocchi with blue cheese sauce, nashi pear and rocket salad (courtesy of the birthday boy) and brioche crumbed veal and sautéed du puy lentils. They were all superb.

But the main course was quickly forgotten when dessert arrived and I was served one of the most creative desserts I’ve seen in ages. Honey and walnut baklava with a tuft of very grown up fairy floss and Turkish delight ice cream. It was an exceptionally sweet dessert, but I have a healthy sweet tooth so I loved it. I’m also a sucker for baklava.

So many thanks to Signor Valvasori and his lovely lady Signorina Clarkebrese for introducing me to one of my new favourite places for a great night out.

O and I have found Yarraville’s best breakfast cafe. Strangely enough, it’s at the place I have been avoiding since moving here - The Cut Paw Paw Cafe in Anderson St. It always looked so empty and forlorn every time I walked by it that I never felt compelled to step inside (I’m always a little suspicious of places that look like they struggle to attract a clientele), but O and I decided to give it a go on Saturday morning and we were pleasantly surprised.

The menu is big on hollandaise sauce, which is never a favourite of mine. To me, hollandaise is one of the most sinful foods you can eat. And not in that deliciously wicked chocolate mud cake kind of a way. It just makes me think of heart attacks, which is not exactly what you want to be contemplating over your Eggs Benedict.

I had the poached eggs with Bubble and Squeak (sans Hollandaise), and O ordered the bacon and eggs. I have got to tell you, this chef REALLY knows how to poach an egg.

A decent example of a poached egg is one of the hardest foods to find. It seems that Melbourne has a dire shortage of chefs who can poach an egg properly. Most poached eggs I come across are either little rubbery balls that would bounce back onto your plate if you dropped them on the floor, or soggy vinegary splodges that soak the toast beneath them, generally ruining a perfectly good slice of sourdough.

So on the whole, I never fail to be disappointed by poached eggs. Until my eggs arrived at the Cut Paw Paw Cafe.

This was the most masterful display of egg poaching I have come across since the last time O cooked me breakfast. (O took to perfecting the art of egg poaching with an almost religious zeal when we first met). The eggs at the Cut Paw Paw were two perfect eggy globes sitting atop a block of Bubble and Squeak which, unfortunately, was nowhere near as good as the eggs.

They had been cooked for the perfect length of time - long enough that if you wiggle the plate they still wobble like a woman’s breast (without implants) - and had been drained to ensure that no sogginess from the cooking liquid seeped onto the other items on the plate. I knicked the top of the egg with my knife and a small frown of runny yolk oozed out, as though my egg was poking its tongue at me. The best part was that there was not a trace of vinegar souring the egg white, which many chefs use to prevent the white from straying too far from the yolk.

And as if my perfectly poached eggs weren’t enough, O’s bacon was sublime. Not too crispy, not too soggy - just bacon cooked to salty heart-stopping perfection. I think I’ve found my new brekkie haunt.

Thought I’d jot down a few of my favourite Melbourne restaurants, in no
particular order:

Best Wine/Food Match in Melbourne
Mrs Jones
312 Drummond Street, Carlton
Even though I’m never one to turn down a glass of wine, I’m not that much of an afficionado, so this one is a toughy. I think the best example of wine and food matching I have come across was at Mrs Jones in Carlton, a restaurant that sticks by the principles of cooking with seasonal food – the menu is small and changes weekly. This is one Melbourne restaurant you can’t miss. I ordered a flawless chocolate tart that was as bitter as it was sweet. When I ordered a port to go with it, the waitress suggested a Pedro Ximenez. It was dark, sweet and tinged with sin. Perfect against the chocolate intensity of the tart. A spectacular end to an outstanding meal.

Best Breakfast in Melbourne
Pearl
Church St, Richmond
I’d almost forgotten about this place as I haven’t been there in ages. Pearl in Richmond serves a heart stopping coddled eggs with caviar. Imagine a big cube of bread hollowed out and filled with eggy buttery breakfasty goodness. Mmmm…

Best Pasta in Melbourne
Cicciolina
Acland St, St Kilda
After much thought, I’ll have to go with Cicciolina in St Kilda. Last time I was there it was cold and wet outside and I had a hearty ragout with orichiette. Cicciolina never misses. Best pasta of all melbourne restaurants. That’s quite a claim.

Best Winter Stodge in Melbourne
Tolarno
Fitzroy St, St Kilda
This one has to go to the king of hearty cooking, Ian Hewitson. His restaurant, Tolarno, has always been my first pick for dinner out on a cold winters night. Think lamb shanks, bangers and mash, and a host of rib-sticking classics. Sadly Tolarno is closing down in 27 May after 15 years. This is one Melbourne restaurant I will be very sorry to see go. Thanks for some great meals Huey!

Best Tapas in Melbourne
Movida
Hosier Lane, Melbourne
I can’t go past the scallops (heaven on a half shell) and the stuffed capsicum. I just love tapas. It’s perfect for someone like me, who is never satisfied with just one dish! Movida’s secret weapon is the churros at the end of the meal – long batons of Spanish doughnut dunked in velvetty chocolate. *Drool*