Chuckle Deli, Melbourne CBD by Big Fil

Chuckle Deli recently opened in the Hub Arcade, just around the corner from Chuckle Park Bar and Café, surprisingly replacing a small Vietnamese eatery that had always looked fairly popular. 
 

Walking past Chuckle Deli looked very attractive, with the small menu interesting.  It’s always fun to be amongst the first to try out new places so Snooze and I headed out one cold and wet day (pick a day, any day in the last two weeks) to see what it was all about.
 

Arriving around 12 I thought would guarantee us one of the three tables inside.  Wrong, and so we were relegated to one of the two outside tables.  Not a real problem though, as unlike some of the arcades and laneways around town Hub Arcade never seems to suffer from the wind tunnel effect and we were able to sit and enjoy our meals in comfort.
 

The menu is based on offering four salads and four rolls which are on rotation.  On this day we chose two of the rolls, and a salad to share.  All the salads sounded tempting but we (or rather I) settled on the lentil salad, served with smoked trout and pink grapefruit from memory.  The lentils gave the salad quite a strong flavour, the grapefruit a sour punch which when combined with the lentils I thought overpowered the fish a bit, although Snooze liked it a lot.  Different strokes for different folks I guess.
 

I thought the sandwiches were better, even if Snooze did beat me to my first choice of the Rueben.  Combine good bread, nice corned beef, a bit of sauerkraut and a real punch from the mustard and you have a quality, well flavoured sandwich. 
 

My Katsu roll on the other hand combined a well-cooked piece of crumbed, fried chicken meat with creaminess added by the accompanying mayonnaise.  If you’ve never had a katsu roll before just imagine a really good chicken schnitzel roll and you’ll get the idea.

Overall

Small but very cute, Chuckle Deli strikes me as both a good place to meet a (small) group of friends for lunch, or to grab a quick bite to take back to the office.  Service is friendly (although you’ll have to wait if you order the katsu roll – it’s cooked fresh) and they definitely seem keen about what they are doing.  The sort of place that there wasn’t much to criticise, all very good without anything really blowing our socks off.

Verdict

Food – 8

Ambience – 8

Service – 8

Price – 7

Address

Shop 5

318-322 Little Collins Street

Melbourne VIC 3000

Tel: (03) 9650 4494