Lady Lunchalot

Last weekend O, Kathryn, Tim and I trod the well-beaten path to The Olde Horsham, which is now officially my favourite place to eat in the town. The four of us stopped in to make a reservation while driving by that morning and ended up chatting with the chef for a good twenty minutes before discovering an art gallery which was brimming with Pro Harts on the other side of the driveway.

Dinner was four great dishes with the same gusto and spirit that we enjoyed on our first visit. As per usual, Owen ordered the duckling, which was the stellar performance of the evening. I decided to satisfy my curiosity and tried the Steak Kilpatrick, which was a perfectly cooked fillet topped with bacon and oysters in a Worcestershire sauce, well… sauce. Kathryn had the lamb shanks while Tim chose the kangaroo (which Chef told us was shot by hunters in New South Wales… I am not sure whether to believe him!). They were four belly-filling good old fashioned country meals that left little room for dessert (somehow O and Kathryn managed a slice of sticky date pudding each!).

The following day we made a pilgrimage to the Mount Zero olive grove. Situated beneath the dramatic escarpment of Mt Zero, the olives grown here are transformed into some truly exceptional olive oils.

At the farmhouse gate, we nibbled on everything from wild olives, to manzanillas and the obligatory kalamatas. I fell in love with the dark sweetness of their beetroot and orange relish and couldn’t resist buying a jar. Beetroots are so good right now, I might even try and replicate it.

The café offered a simple vegetarian menu, of an amazing chunky lentil soup or falafels with salad and lentils. Mount Zero also offers a range of tiny puy lentils that are delicate enough to ensure they don’t intrude upon a dish in that vegetarian batik kaftan kind of way.

1. Bala’s
Unbelievably good curries, samosas and curry puffs. Also has a fridge full of lassis and iced green tea. Best to takeaway and eat on the beach with a friend so you can pinch some of theirs when you finish yours. I can’t go past the chicken curries.

2. Cicciolina
One of Melbourne’s best restaurants. Get there early and go to the back bar for a drink, because they don’t take bookings. If they’ve got the blue swimmer crab soufflé on the menu, order it. Trust me.

3. Claypots
You can’t book here, so make sure you arrive early. This is not the place for people who don’t eat seafood. Fortunately, I am not one of these people. Order one of the fantastic platters of fish (it’s supremely fresh) and a couple of claypots crammed with all kinds of goodies (I like the Moroccan ones). In summer, try and get a table in the courtyard out the back.

4. Edelweiss
Great deli with a display of salads in the window that make me press my face up against the glass and drool shamelessly every time I walk down Acland St. This place was one of my first food discoveries when I moved to Melbourne in the late 90s, so it will always have a special place in my heart.

5. Clamms Fast Fish
The window displays at Clamms used to be really cool, with eels doing battle with huge tunas and that kind of thing. However they tamed them back a couple of years ago, which is a bit of a shame. But the fish and chips are still good. Eat ‘em on the beach with your feet in the sand.

6. Scheherezade
You can’t go past Scheherezade for nanna-style nostalgia. This place even has that gold-printed velour wallpaper that my grandparents had in their “good room”. The schnitzels are so big they flop off the side of the plate, and the matzo ball soup is chock-full of home-cooked goodness.

7. Krua Thai
Great Thai takeaway, and they deliver in the local area. I lived around St Kilda for several years, and this was always my first choice for a quick home delivered meal.

8. Gruner’s
For traditional European meat and sausages, head to Gruner’s Butcher. Between the ham hocks hanging from the ceiling and the Polish wedding sausage (yes, you heard me right) it’s a little piece of the old country right here in Melbourne.

9. Greasy Joe’s
The ultimate hangover greasy breakfast joint. Can’t go past the standard fry-up. Bring your sunglasses and St Kilda attitude.

10. 7 Apples
Finish on a high note with a gelati from 7 Apples. This gelati is almost on par with the tiramisu gelati for which I changed hotels while in Manarola, Italy (my original hotel was just too far from the gelateria). 7 Apples makes all their icecream from seasonal ingredients. Go in summer though – they close for winter.

One of my favourite places in Melbourne is the Queen Victoria Markets. This place has everything you could ever need to indulge in any food fantasy imaginable.

I can clearly remember the first time I walked through the doors of the deli section when I first moved to Melbourne seven years ago. I was absolutely stunned. My mouth fell open in awe - I’d never seen, smelled or heard anything like it!

The scent of cheese, salamis, bread and marinated vegetables hit me in the face the second I walked through the doors. I felt like I was making a pilgrimage! This was heaven!

The vegetables and meat are exceptional. Yesterday I bought some artichokes, beetroot, fennel, and a bunch of other stuff I’ll cook tonight. V exciting…

Now to get the Blogathon cooking underway, I am starting with a lamb tagine in the slow cooker.

My first blogathon entry! I’ll be blogging every 30 minutes over the next 24 hours to raise money for World Vision.

If you’re shopping for Asian ingredients Footscray is definitely the place to go. Barkly Street is jam-packed with Asian grocery stores that are overflowing with bamboo steamers, granite mortar and pestles, aisle after aisle of pickled, dried, and frozen goodies as well as the obligatory cardboard boxes full of knobbly identifed vegetables by the front doors.

I went to Footscray today and stopped in at the Footscray markets. This is one of the best places to buy meat, seafood and veg in Melbourne. It’s unbelievably cheap and the quality of the produce is exceptional. Especially the huge range of seafood!

Today I bought a stockpot to boil my preserving jars from one of the Vietnamese supermarkets. It was just a cheap aluminium one for $20, but should do the trick. I also picked up some lemongrass, ginger and wombok cabbage, as well as a huge bag of cardamom seeds for the piddly sum of $3.50. So cheap!

I picked up one of my favourite Footscray treats from the Victoria Bakery on Leeds St. They have a warmer full of BBQ pork buns by the front door. I think they’re called Bao? Pao? I love those things. I get one every time I go to the markets. So soft and sweet. Mmmm…

Waaay better than raindrops on roses, or whiskers on kittens, today I treated myself to one of my favourite things.

Bratwurst from the Queen Victoria Market.

I spent a couple of hours at the Vic Market this afternoon shopping for ingredients for the Blogathon. I have two very strict rules when I go to the Vic Markets: I have to buy something I have never cooked before, and I have to eat a bratwurst.

The Bratwurst shop can be found in the deli section of the market. You can choose between spicy, mild or weisswurst sausages. In the seven years I have been performing this ritual, I still can’t decide which one I like best.

These piping hot tubes of 100% unadulterated Deutschland are nestled into fresh, soft bread rolls, with whatever combination of onion, mustard, sauerkraut, sauces and cheese you might like. I always go with seeded mustard, onions, and sauerkraut. And cheese if I manage to avoid thinking about my hips or my wedding dress.

The best thing about the Bratwurst sausages is the way the skin makes an audible crack when you bite into them. And the way they are kind of messy to eat, which makes them even more fun, because we all enjoy food more when it’s messy to eat, even if we don’t admit it. And how they always make me think of the Von Trapp family, busty Oktoberfest beer wenches, and pretzels as big as the Reichstag.

But then, sausages often have a strange effect on people.

If you’re into Italian food and plenty of it, you’re stepping through the gates of paradise the moment you enter Brunswick’s Mediterranean Wholesaler.

This place is a catalogue for the confirmed Italophile, and is a nostalgic step back into the smells of nonna’s kitchen. Any place that has an entire aisle dedicated to pasta is alright by me.

O and I made the pilgrimage to MW on the weekend to stock up on some supplies. I tend to go a little nuts when I visit this supermarket, so it was a good thing he was there to rein me in. We did the obligatory bulk purchase of all the staples in my kitchen: cartons of tinned tomatoes, olive oil, pasta, and we threw in a few goodies for fun. I found some mozzarella di buffala which promptly became a couple of calzones for dinner on Sunday night (with salami, anchovies, olives, garlic, various herbs) . I had a little trouble with the dough and it didn’t rise the way I wanted it to. I think the kitchen was a little too cold for the yeast (bloody Melbourne), so I took the dough into the living room to rise next to the heater for a while.

My pizza stone has been baptised now - one of my calzones had a Vesuvial eruption of cheese, leaving a burnt stain across the surface. O loves it. He gave me that pizza stone for Christmas, and he likes that it looks a little more worn (like most of the things in my kitchen).

As a Mediterranean Wholesaler virgin, O was quite gobsmacked at the range of items the supermarket carried. He was particularly impressed with the pasticceria, so we ordered a tray of biscuits that tasted so much like my dearly departed nanna’s that I wanted to hang her rosary beads back on my kitchen door. The biscuits didn’t last long. Once we had loaded all the food in the car there was a frenzy of glace cherries, almond paste and chocolate buds and it was all over before you could say “mangi!”.

I always look upon the world a little more softly when my pantry is full of pasta.