Fandango, North Melbourne by Big Fil

North Melbourne seems to be raising a pretty high bar for breakfast and brunch. In the last couple of weeks I've been quite impressed by the set up for Grigons & Orr (almost too cute to live) and Auction Rooms (impressive use of an existing space). Based on our visit though, the food at Fandango is in a different class.

Working in the city we decided to dance on down to Fandango for a Wednesday lunch. I'd been past here before and it looked comparatively small, so the moment noon came we were off for the tram to make sure we could get a table.



On entering the set up is a little disconcerting. There are only a few small tables at the front, but a long narrow corridor through the kitchen leads to an open courtyard with another four or five tables. Provided the sun is out this is the place to sit, all red bricks, flowers and chairs that remind me of my primary school days. Comment was made that it didn't feel like we were sitting next to a North Melbourne back alleyway, more a café in Healesville or somewhere else out in the country (although the dulcet tones of the wheelie bin being dragged across the cobblestones behind the gate couldn't really compete with calling magpies or laughing kookaburras).


I was told to specially mention the cute tea cosy (insert with woollen liquorice allsorts) and loose leaf tea. But for me it was all about the food.


Snooze went for the poached eggs with beetroot, spinach and feta relish on toasted sour dough. The eggs were nicely poached, little white balls still runny on the inside. I often find that too much spinach is used in these sorts of dishes and it overpowers the flavour of the eggs, but the beetroot, spinach and feta were all properly balanced to nicely complement the dish.


Suzie Q went for the tuna sandwich (tuna, Spanish onion, dill, spinach, cheese, tomato and homemade mayonnaise). A really simple dish similar to that offered in lunch bars all over town, but a great example of how much food can be improved by a bit of care and high quality basic ingredients. I particularly liked the way the strong meaty flavour of the tuna came through. We also were trying to work out where they source their bread, as it was very good and nicely toasted, browned and crunchy on the outside but not at all dried out by the toasting.


My choice was the French toast, with bacon, baked apple, maple butter and maple syrup. While it could have been a bit more generous with the bacon I loved the French toast, which was a beautiful golden colour and nicely 'eggy'.


We also watched out of the corner of our eyes the dishes which came out to fellow dinners and all looked equally as good as our choices. I am particularly tempted by a return visit to try the fabulous looking pancakes.

Susie Q still had space left for more so ordered some carrot cake to go with her latte. The cake was slightly dry but nicely flavoured. While neither Snooze or myself are real coffee drinkers, we were informed that the coffee was very good.


Overall
Friendly service, a nice place to sit in the sun and devour excellent food with good coffee. Not perfect, but up amongst the best cafes I have tried in Melbourne and I'd happily recommend it to others.

Verdict
Food - 8.5
Service - 7.5
Ambience - 7.5 (out the back)
Price - 6.5

Address
97 Errol Street
North Melbourne, VIC, 3051
Tel: (03) 9329 0693

Grossi Florentino-The Grill, Melbourne CBD by Ruby Grapefruit

This restaurant is definitely a class (or two) above the usual ‘cheap and cheerful’ places we go to for our work lunches. The customers included businessmen and ladies doing lunch (think immaculate hairdos, wearing sunglasses indoors, and possibly some nip/tuck work), and our group decked out in casual Friday gear.



We booked at The Grill because Big Fil had heard about the $35 lunch special so we thought we would try it out. The lunch special included 2 courses (from a limited selection of dishes), a glass of wine and coffee. On arrival we were served complimentary olives, bread, grissini and olive oil – a nice start to our lunch!



I was impressed by my entrée which was spaghetti with squid. It was a generous serve and the squid was very tender.



Snooze also enjoyed her farro and bean soup which was a hearty dish with a decent amount of well cooked beans (not at all soggy).



For our main course Snooze and I both chose the chicken cacciatore – tender pieces of chicken served with a rich sauce and polenta. Snooze was particularly impressed by the polenta which was smooth and buttery and perfect for sopping up the lovely rich sauce.



Big Fil rated his grilled fish with Russian salad as good rather than great. The fish was delicately flavoured, well cooked with tender but firm white flesh. It was nicely complemented by the mayonnaise in the slightly creamy Russian salad.



Both Kit Kat and Chewy were very happy with their main course - Sirloin minute steak (perfectly cooked) and scalloped potatoes.



For dessert Big Fil and Chewy had the pannacotta which they both thought was okay but not really a standout. In fact, Chewy had recently had a better one at William Angliss restaurant – a case of the apprentices outdoing the professionals.



Kit Kat’s sticky date pudding was perfectly balanced by the honeycomb or butterscotch ice cream it was served with. She loved the dish so much that she was tempted to lick her plate clean!



Overall
The service was excellent and the food was generally very good. It was great value and an opportunity to try a restaurant not normally within our lunchtime budget. I’m not sure how much longer the lunch special will be offered so I suggest you get there soon to take advantage of it.

Verdict
Food - 7.5
Ambience – 7
Service – 8
Price – 7

Address
Ground floor, 80 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: 03 9662 1811

Jade Kingdom, Banyule by Big Fil

Jade Kingdom will always be a personal favourite as it is where friends first introduced me to Malaysian cooking (other than just Laksa and satays). It's hardly fine dining, more home style food in a café setting, but its tasty, filling and cheap.



First dish ordered was the laksa with yong tau fu. This was much better than I remembered it. The yong tau fu (vegetables and tofu stuffed with fish paste) was generous, and the soup much better than the fairly watery and tasteless example I remember from last time. In fact, I'd say this was one of the best laksas I've had in Melbourne.

I'd never had vegetarian hor fun before. While still good, overall I didn't like this as much as the seafood version. One of the things I like in the hor fun or kway teoh is some of the noodles being a little crispy from the wok to give a contrast in the texture. I found this dish a little too soggy and suspect it is because of the higher moisture content in the vegetables compared to the seafood. The vegetables themselves were well cooked though still being nicely crispy.


The char kway teoh was good, if a little overloaded with bean sprouts and underloaded with (admittedly quite large) prawns. Slightly greasy, with lots of Chinese sausage, the flavour is packed in to what is my second favourite kway teoh in Melbourne. Photo 406 I am a sucker for sweet pork dishes, so always have to order the cherry pork ribs. Sweet, sticky, not too fatty, nicely balanced by the slightly bitter broccoli it is served with. So much better than the sweet and sour pork dishes many places still serve.


I am a sucker for sweet pork dishes, so always have to order the cherry pork ribs. Sweet, sticky, not too fatty, nicely balanced by the slightly bitter broccoli it is served with. So much better than the sweet and sour pork dishes many places still serve.


By this time we were ready for desert. The Ais Kachang Specials (which come with ice cream on top) were colourful and huge. Ais Kachang is a weird sounding desert (ice shavings, sweat corn and peanuts anyway?) but just work really well, particularly when the day is really hot.



Baby Hui Ern trying to eat an Ais Kachang bigger than her head!



I went for the Sago Pudding for desert. Served slightly warmed, the version at Jade Kingdom comes with a large amount of dark brown palm sugar (Gula Melaka) syrup at the bottom, almost like treacle, giving it a comparatively strong flavour. This is the dessert I order every time I visit Jade Kingdom.



Overall
I think one of the best indicators of whether a Malaysian restaurant is any good is the number of locally living Malaysians who are regulars. Jade Kingdom always seems busy. They don't come here for the magnificent setting or fine service, but for a reasonably authentic taste from home with large serves at a good price. Regarding the service, there are times when they could obviously use more staff and the owners can get a bit snappy with any customers they see as being overly pushy, but on my numerous visits here I have found them quick and efficient almost every time.

Verdict
Food - 7.5
Ambience - 6
Service - 6.5
Price - 8

Address
233 Waiora Road
Banyule VIC 3084
Tel: (03) 9458 3188

Pacific Seafood BBQ House, South Yarra by Big Fil

Pacific Seafood BBQ House provides Hong Kong style Chinese food in what until a few years ago was a wasteland for reasonably priced eating, Toorak Road near Chapel Street. Its somewhere I was keen to try as I had heard such conflicting things about it from friends, some of whom raved about it and others who swore they would never return.



On entering first impressions were mixed. The place is busy and lively but also looking a little thread worn, certainly more so than its Lonsdale Street cousin. The complementary bowl of vegetable soup was appreciated on a cold and wet night while waiting for the ordered food to arrive.



The seafood san choi bao was generous in size but disappointingly bland, not tasting of anything much in particular. The moisture content of the filling was also a bit high, giving the whole thing a slightly sloppy texture.



Much better were the mains. The crispy skin pork (siu yuk) was generous in size with the skin crisp not chewy, the meat sweet and not overly fatty. While not quite melt in the mouth tender, it was one of the better examples of this dish I've had around town. Not the healthiest option to order, but very tasty.



Next was the beef brisket in claypot. The beef was nicely tender and moist, and full of gelatinous beef tendons. To me the tendons were the best part of the dish, picking up the flavour of the sauce and providing a contrasting texture to both the pieces of beef and the bok choy at the bottom of the pot.



The last dish ordered was the whole fried flounder in spicy salt. While dealing with the bones can be a little annoying, I love whole fried fish and the one at Pacific Seafood BBQ was quite good. To be picky the skin could have been a little crisper and the flesh a little more moist, but for a fairly cheap restaurant the quality was more than acceptable.



Overall
Pacific Seafood BBQ is all about good quality food, delivered fast and at a reasonable price. It does a good job filling the gap between the cheap, student oriented eateries and mid-range restaurants.

I wouldn't come here to chat or linger, particularly at peak meal times. Its not that sort of place and if it was something else would probably need to give (most likely the prices). Friends who don't like the place don't talk about the food or prices but that they felt that they were being pushed out the door the moment they finished. But if you want something fast which is much better than fast food, the service is very efficient and its easy to order, eat and pay in well under an hour.

Verdict
Food - 8
Service - 7
Ambience - 6
Price - 7

Address
Shop 1, 210 Toorak Road
South Yarra VIC 3141
Tel: (03) 9826 3838

Auction Rooms, North Melbourne by Snooze

I love a place that does breakfast all (or almost all) day so the Auction Rooms was always going to be a winner with me. So when you add great location (North Melbourne), fabulous décor (located in the old WB Ellis auction room and retaining much of the original character) and good food … a restaurant is definitely on the right track.



Lunching with a vegetarian can be a drag because so many places don’t offer vegetarian suitable meals … or even vegetables for that matter! That’s not the case at the Auction Room. The menu had a few options to choose between, especially the brunch menu, and our vegetarian chose the coriander falafel with poached eggs and minty yoghurt dressing on flat bread. A mouthful of a name and a very tasty mouthful on the plate. I was unlucky to get only a mouthful, and I would have liked more. Maybe next time.



My favourite of the day was the French Toast stuffed with coconut … chosen unsurprisingly by Big Fil who has a knack for picking the best thing on the menu. It came with a dressing of herbed mascarpone (or maybe it was ricotta) and a lime wedge. It was light, sweet, delicately flavoured and because of the coconut surprisingly filling. (Next time I’m letting Big Fil choose for me … he always seems to choose better than me what I should get!)



I chose the braised lamb shoulder pie. For some reason I expected more vegetables, but having said that the lamb was tender inside a thin, flaky pastry, and served on a rocket salad dressed with balsamic vinegar. I didn’t realise when I ordered it how much meat there would be and I really need to ask next time before I order because I like my quantities of meat to vegetable reversed (ie 95% vegetable/5% meat). (Big Fil, however, liked the pie … he thought the filling cooked to perfection and the pie was the sort of winter filler he likes).



Overall
I love that Auction Rooms kept the external sign and advertising on the walls from when the building was used as an auction house, and the renovations inside keep much of its character. Overall, there’s plenty of space between the tables, and the rough brick walls and bare boards don’t result in a space so noisy you can’t hear yourself think (and the restaurant was almost full during a Wednesday lunch time). The menu is also diverse without being overwhelming (ten choices or less per course seems to be plenty), and very close to the tram. The only thing that wasn’t quite up to par was our meals being a little slow to arrive, and asking twice for the bill. Not horrendously slow but it would have been handy if these things had been a little faster as we travelled from the city by public transport and time was important to us. Sometimes it’s just the luck of the day and it’s definitely worth a revisit to see whether we were unlucky.

Verdict
Food - 7
Service - 6.5
Ambience - 8
Price - 7

Address
103-107 Errol Street
North Melbourne VIC 3051
Tel (03) 9326 7749

Little Lamb Hot Pot, Melbourne CBD by Big Fil

Little Lamb Hot Pot is a small restaurant on Russell Street offering all you can eat Mongolian style hotpot (steam boat) for $23 per person. Comparatively quiet most lunchtimes, the completely fogged up windows some cold winter nights make it look a bit like the inside of a sauna.

On taking our seats for lunch a large sheet of paper was provided listing the various ingredients which can be ordered. For most of these multiple servings can be ordered for sharing. We ordered what appeared to be an enormous amount of food but what was probably about right for three hungry guys.


The majority of ingredients are for cooking in the pot, which comes divided like a ying yang symbol, with an ordinary stock on one side and spicy on the other. You add the ingredients you have ordered into the pot which cook in the boiling stock, adding more as everyone dives in for choice morsels of meat, vegetable or noodle. Its quite a social way to eat, kind of like yum cha in that a wide variety of dishes are chosen that everyone shares. Once everyone has finished and the stock has been infused with all the flavours from the cooking it can be spooned into bowls and drunk.





Overall
Little Lamb is a basic little restaurant offering a different variety from other steam boats I have tried, being lamb based rather than seafood and pork. I probably prefer the more seafood oriented steamboats but it was good to try something different and I'd be happy to return if someone wanted a hot and hearty meal to ward of the winter cold.

Verdict
Food - 6.5
Service - 6.5
Ambience - 5.5
Price - 7.5

Address
264 Russell Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9663 3993

Golden Dragon Palace, Lower Templestowe by Big Fil

It's a while since I had been for yum cha and I rarely indulge outside of the city, so I decided to organise a group of fellow foodies to go out to visit Golden Dragon Palace at Doncaster. From the outside Golden Dragon Palace isn't much to look at, a big barn of a place. The inside is much more sumptuous, all big comfortable chairs, large vases and ornate wooden carvings.


Prawns and chives dumpling

The carts came around with the usual selection of dumplings, of which we tried the prawn, prawn and chives, vegetarian and shanghai (pork). The prawn and the chives were my two favourites, with a thin almost translucent skin and flavoursome filling. The Shanghai and vegetarian were fine but not quite the same high standard, not having the same delicate skin or flavours.


Shanghai dumpling


Prawn dumpling


Vegetarian dumpling

Also on the menu for the day were a series of rolls, prawn and duck wrapped in bean curd, prawn cheong fun and rice paper prawn rolls. I hadn't noticed it when we were ordering but there is a pattern here, I guess we are all big fans of prawns!


The pick of these was the rice paper prawn rolls. Slightly crispy on the outside, served with mayonnaise, very tasty. 

While normally a big fan of duck I am not so much a fan of the duck rolls, finding the sauce and vegetables/noodles included in the roll take away from the flavour of the duck and rendering it slightly messy to eat.


Prawn in bean curd roll


Prawn cheong fun


A few more unusual selections were also made. I'd never had jelly fish before, and nobody at the table has seen it served in combination with beef. Served cold, the jelly fish had little flavour but the focus seemed to be more on its soft and slightly slithery texture.


The fried white bait was good but not the best I have had as it could have been crisper.


The fried calamari was a little disappointing, not crisp as I like it and a little leathery.


Ruby Grapefruit thought the eel was a little fatty but I liked the taste. It does have a number of small very sharp bones that you need to be careful of.


Finally and my favourite, the spicy mussels were delicious, with a generous serve and the mussels tender and not over cooked.


By this time we were ready for dessert. The mango pudding was served with condensed milk, which is good, and was less sweet with a stronger mango flavour than many I have tried which was also good.


The sago pudding was also tasty, almost savoury rather than sweet. It has been baked to give it a slight crust and included something to thicken it up (we suspected taro). Very different to the Malaysian sago puddings I have tried but a nice change.



Overall
Good, upmarket option for yum cha in the eastern suburbs. While not all the dim sum were spot on the mark, they were all good and I'd happily order them all again except the duck rolls, which I generally don't particularly like generally. The décor is nice if a little old fashioned. The one quibble I would have is that we had booked for the earlier sitting and the staff did seem very keen for us to finish so that they could prepare for the next sitting, even when this wasn't due for another 40 minutes. While pushing people through is par for the course in a cheap Chinese restaurant that relies on a high turnover, its not something I really expected here. It is also a bit pricier than most yum cha options in the city, compensated for somewhat by the higher standards in food and setting.

Verdict
Food - 7.5
Service - 6.5
Ambience - 8
Price - 7

Address
363 Manningham Road
Lower Templestowe VIC 3108
Tel: (03) 9852 4086