Random Melbourne eats

To wrap up my recent trip, here are some bits and pieces from Melbourne.

Naked for Satan in Brunswick Street. I love their pintxos, and they're a steal at 80 cents each during lunchtime.



Drinks in the Ikea cafe: pink lemonade with rosella and sparkling pear juice. The lemonade was super nice, and we were disappointed that it wasn't for sale in the Ikea food shop.



But we did find the following in the shop: moose pasta and a packet mix of the Swedish meatball sauce, yum.



We went to see the Tutakahmen exhibition at the museum, and had lunch at the Tcheft Marquee restaurant there. The lamb burger and vege burger sounded good on the menu, but weren't terribly exciting.





Cheeky Rascal strawberry and apple cider - I was intrigued to try this after I received some comments about it on my Rekorderlig post, especially because it's not available in Hobart. It was pretty good.



Finally, some desserts from a self-serve Chinese bakery that I forgot to note the name of. A tasty pistachio layer cake:



And a really, really yummy mango sponge cake.



I love Melbourne!

Shanghai Village Dumpling, Melbourne

Shanghai Village Dumpling is in Little Bourke Street, very close to where I was staying on my recent Melbourne holiday. We walked past one evening and there was a line out the door - a good sign! We headed there for dinner the next night. It's a funny little place, with seating on several levels. It's noisy, a bit dirty and very chaotic, but I loved it! The food was fantastic, and dirt cheap. I wish we had places like this in Hobart.

Fried spring onion pancakes ($3.50). This was a great start to the meal, although I do think the pancakes at Written on Tea are better.



Crispy pumpkin pastry ($3.20). These were unusual, but I loved them! They were sweet and almost custardy with a nice pumpkin flavour.

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Steamed chicken and prawn dumplings ($7). Tasty with a nice wrapper. I saw bamboo steamers of dumplings being delivered to other tables that looked even better, but I couldn't figure out which dish they were on the menu.



Shanghai fried rice with diced chicken ($7.80). It looks like standard fried rice but was very tasty - a perfect filler dish.



Great food which fed the two of us for under $30 - bargain! I'll definitely head back next time I'm in Melbourne.

Chocolate Buddha, Melbourne

Chocolate Buddha has long been one of my favourite Melbourne restaurants. It's right in the middle of Federation Square and serves fantastic Japanese food that's always tasty and fresh, good value and great for sharing.

Sunomono salad: shredded seaweed, cabbage, cucumber, carrot and daikon with a sweet vinegar dressing. I love this salad and it's something I always order here. My favourite part is the seaweed - I wish I could get just dish of it on its own!



Yakitori skewers: teriyaki sauce glazed chicken pieces with a spinach and cucumber salad, pickles and rice. These were great - perfectly cooked and juicy.



Green gyoza: vegetarian dumplings that have been steamed then seared. Great with the accompanying dipping sauce.



Tempura pumpkin roll: an inside-out sushi roll filled with tempura pumpkin, beetroot, seaweed salad and avocado. Usually I get a soft-shelled crab sushi but decided to try something this time. It was great... I did regret not getting the crab when I saw it being served to someone else sitting nearby, though!



We enjoyed a couple of glasses of Te Whare Ra "Toru" GRP wine with dinner - I wish I could find this wine back in Hobart!

Website.

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio, Melbourne

Burch & Purchese is an amazing shop tucked away discreetly in Chapel Street, not far from the Toorak Road intersection. They sell cakes, individual dessert concoctions and a range of other products like chocolate, jams, and much more. They also have a pretty incredible wall full of jars of all sorts of ingredients that they use in their dishes, and an open kitchen where you can see creations in progress.

We shared three stunning desserts. First was the 'Rhubarb, apple, crumble, cheesecake'. The desserts are packed into boxes, and they thoughtfully include a piece of paper that lists the components of each dessert. This one has caramelised apple, custard cheesecake, malted walnut crumble, rhubarb compote jelly. I don't recall finding any apple, but it was a rather nice cheesecake.



Next up is 'Raspberry, white choc, honey, lychee', with components of white chocolate and raspberry mousse, raspberry and lychee jelly, muesli and honey nut sponge, raspberry and hibiscus jam, honey, lychee syrup, exaggerated raspberry cream, white chocolate velvet spray.



This one had heaps of components, and they all added up to a pretty tasty dish! Here's a shot of the innards. The mousse was rather lovely but I found myself wishing that there was a bit less mousse and a bit more of the rest. The best part were the lychee pieces - one of my favourite fruits.



Finally, we had the 'Passionfruit, chocolate, caramel'. Components are chocolate shortbread, passionfruit curd, passionfruit salted caramel, dark chocolate dome, dark chocolate jelly, toasted macadamia, passionfruit marshmallow, milk chocolate velvet spray.



And here's the innards shot. Damn, this was good - absolutely my favourite of the three. The caramel, curd and jelly within the dome were AMAZING.



Here's a glimpse at some of the other desserts on offer. It was really hard choosing just three!



I definitely want to go back to try more (and maybe get another of the passionfruit, chocolate, caramel!).



We got a few goodies to take home with us. I got the raspberry and pistachio chocolate fudge and a jar containing half chocolate hazelnut spread and half spicy pineapple jam.



Burch and Purchese website. They also have a blog!

Cumulus Inc., Melbourne

It's been a little while since my last post - oops! Life has been pretty busy, but I enjoyed a brief getaway to Melbourne recently. Lots of delicious food was eaten - posts to come - and I knocked another restaurant off my wishlist: Cumulus Inc.

We were seated at the bar which overlooks the kitchen - it was a great spot to watch all the action! We were very impressed with how calm and organised the kitchen is. The staff conversations were entertaining at times!

We enjoyed a bottle of white wine with dinner, with is unfortunately not listed on the restaurant's website... drat! All I recall is that it was from a Coal Valley vineyard.

We were served complimentary bread which was fantastic - it seemed like the crust had been lightly fried. Very moreish!

We started with the kitchen charcuterie selection ($26). It was brilliant, and very good value. Clockwise from top is a fennel-laced salami, wagyu bresaola topped with beetroot and horseradish, jamon, bread, duck terrine and a rabbit rillette in the center. EVERYTHING was tasty, but my favourite was definitely the rillette.



The mustard crumbed pig's tail, celeriac remoulade and caperberries ($28) turned up next. This is the first time I'd tried pigs tails, and they were pretty good! The meat was incredibly juicy and cooked to perfection. I wasn't so keen on the remoulade though - it was tangy and rich. It would have been nicer to have something light and fresh to offset the richness of the crumbed tails.

We also ordered the cracked wheat and freekeh salad with preserved lemon, barberries and almonds ($12). It doesn't look like a big bowl in this picture but it was a very generous serving, and tasted great - I did avoid the dollop of somewhat-tangy dressing though (because of the previous dish!).

We were hoping to order another dish on the menu that was out of stock that night, so instead we were offered a duck and leek special (I think it was $39). Duck is a favourite meat so getting it was a no-brainer! It was again cooked perfectly.



I'd hoped to have enough room to try the infamous lemon curd madeleines for dessert, but we were stuffed! Next time...

Website.

From a trip to Melbourne the weekend before last...

An unexpectedly huge serving of saganaki at Blue Train Cafe, Southbank:



The big breakfast at Kush Bar Restaurant, Chapel Street:



And the eggs royal from Kush:



Delicious giant strawberries from the Prahran Market:



Amazing pintxos from Naked for Satan, Brunswick Street:



Vietnamese sauce-topped Lord of the Fries:



I love Melbourne.