Maloa House Gourmet Delights, Woodend by Bureaucrat

Feeling a surge of wanderlust, we piled into the car and headed out to Hanging Rock to scrabble across the dolmenic-like volcanic rocks - just like them school girls from Appleyard College.

On our way back, we stopped off at Woodend to check out the foodie scene there.  I was enticed by the name of Maloa House Gourmet Delights, because, well, it's gourmet - it says so in its name.  However, what we had there was hardly gourmet and not that delightful.

The chocolate milkshake was so-so.  A rather humdrum concoction of chocolate syrup, bog-standard supermarket ice cream (we the brand of the ice cream) and a dusting of cocoa.

The soup of the day was French onion soup.  I love French onion soup - proper French onion soup is dark caramel in colour, has great depth of flavour from the hours of simmering, is practically more onion than soup, and served bubbling hot with slices of crusty, toasted bread smothered in melted cheese.  However, what I got was a watery, bland broth with some slivers of onion and a soggy piece of toasted bread and cheese on top ($11.50).  Very disappointing.  (For an idea of what the soup ought to be like, see my reviews of Bistro Guillaume and Le Relais Gascon in gay Paris.)

The beef and red wine pie w house relish and salad ($16.40) was hardly any better.  A moderate sized pie with lots of ingredients inside but pity the ingredients weren't that nice.  A few chunks of bland beef but mostly it was filled with this nondescript mash of potatoes, carrot and cabbage (i.e., a lot of 'filler').  We couldn't really taste the red wine, and the pastry was kinda soggy throughout.  However, the relish was nice, thick and savoury in flavour and gave the pie some flavour.


Hanging Rock

Verdict: we wouldn't return.

Overall

I think there are two things wrong with he name of Maloa House Gourmet Delights.  MHGD is part homewares store, part women's fashion store, part cafe, part providore.  I think it should stick just being a homewares and fashion store.  I definitely regretted coming here especially since there are other less pretentious cafes that looked like they served much nicer (and cheaper) food.