Discovery XXXIII

On Wednesday 27 March 2013, the day of the Easter full moon, Discovery resumed its 'taking it to the people' concept, with a trip to Blackburn South to visit two friends who had recently announced their engagement and moved into the area. It was also a homecoming of sorts for me, as I had spent my teenage years just up the road in a 1960s Jennings brick veneer in Holland Road.

The preferred method of travel to the eastern outpost of Sawasdee was by car. Although it is apparently not impossible to get to Canterbury Road by public transport, it involves buses, which are generally best avoided.

Sawasdee

Sawasdee proved to be an attractive place with a menu better than your usual local Thai takeaway joint (assuming your usual local Thai takeaway joint is in Camberwell). With a group of six we were able to choose a good variety of dishes, including deep fried tofu triangles, 'money bags' of pork and sweet corn, fish cakes, curry puffs, Singha and sauvignon blanc, and that was just for starters. We followed up with vegetarian green curry and pad thai, cashew chicken and beef pandang.

The restaurant seemed fairly quiet, although we were so busy chatting and catching up that we didn't really notice much beyond the pleasant food and company. The service was good and the Singha was replenished as required - always a good thing when you are dining out and the 'while you're up' rule doesn't apply.

After our meal Mr 28 and Mr 30 went back to their friends' new home, while the remaining two discoverers drove the short distance up Canterbury Road to the dark and sleepy city of Boroondara.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXXII

Little Africa was chosen as the venue for Discovery XXXII, mostly because of a mixup of dates and commitments. Only three discoverers were able to make the not-so-long journey to North Melbourne, arriving by bicycle from Docklands and trams from Flinders Street and South Yarra.

I arrived early and settled down happily with a nice St George beer in the late evening light filtering through the shopfront window on Victoria Street. Little Africa is quite a small space but very welcoming and comfortable. I learned from Urbanspoon that you can choose to settle into nearby Prudence bar instead, and have food from Little Africa delivered to your table. Sounds like the best of both worlds.

St George

Once the usual suspects (minus one) were assembled at Boris's table, we ordered the vegetarian combo plate for two and the derek tibs, a pan fried lamb dish as compensation for our unreconstructed carnivore.

Vegetarian combo

The vegetarian combo arrived on an enormous pink rimmed plate, wearing a fetching straw hat. As you can see, a chunk was already torn off the delicious injera bread before I had a chance to take a photo. It seemed like far too much for two, but the combination of lentils, cabbage, carrots, pumpkin and spicy, salty, lemony flavours, with a little refreshing greenery, was so delicious that we managed to get through nearly all of it.

Ths is the derek tibs: less spectacular, but equally well appreciated.

Derek tibs

When we could eat and drink no more, we saw Mr 30 off on his bike, and then walked through the Victoria Market on our way back to Melbourne Central. The market was buzzing with its regular Wednesday night hawkers market and we made a note to go back some time when we weren't already utterly sated and longing to get home to the peaceful city of Boroondara, way out east, to collapse on the couch.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXX

Consideration was given to holding Discovery XXX in the MCC Dining Room on the occasion of the Victoria vs Queensland one day cricket final; however rain, work obligations and the lack of a jacket and tie saw the four discoverers assembling at Curry Vault in Bank Place instead.

Curry Vault was not exactly a discovery as two of us had been there before for a business lunch, but it won out as a convenient and well regarded Indian restaurant handy to the city and Docklands office workers.

I was early and ordered a Kingfisher, whereupon I discovered that Haywards 5000 was also available! I made haste to finish the Kingfisher (not that there's anything wrong with it at all) so I could get back on track.

The other discoverers gradually trickled in. We ordered onion bhaji, just to see if it would come close to the late lamented Rawat's, which of course it didn't. Again, nothing wrong with it, but Rawat's onion bhaji was definitely the Haywards 5000 of onion bhaji. It's about time we re-visited the Taj Palace in Footscray to see if Rawat's famous dish lives on after his untimely passing.

But back to Curry Vault. Along with the bhaji we had aloo gobi, baingan masala, lamb saagwala and the usual rice and naan.

Onion bhaji and friends

Undoubtedly you can get more exciting and cheaper Indian food in the suburbs, but Curry Vault is a good option if you are in the city and want a pleasant meal and great beer in one of Melbourne's traditional laneways. The food, service and ambience at Curry Vault can't really be faulted. And before and/or after the meal you can have a beer at the Mitre Tavern, as long as it's not too overcrowded with the noisy and thirsty legal fraternity. And while you are there you can lament the loss of the charming Edward Lear tiles from the unfortunately renovated bathroom facilities.

One great thing about discovery in the city is the easy ride home on the train to the dark and quiet city of Boroondara. From Bank Place it is a short walk to either Southern Cross or Flagstaff. Thanks Metro trains for running the service to East Camberwell every 15 minutes in the evenings.

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXXI

Our thir[s]ty-first Discovery was The Quiet Man in Racecourse Road Flemington, on Wednesday 6 March 2013. Two discoverers rendezvoused at Southern Cross station, transferring to the Crazyburn line at Flagstaff for the short trip to Newmarket.

As it was a hot evening we started with a pint or two at one of the outdoor tables in Rankins Road. The pub's menu and website tell us its history - apparently 'opening its doors to the public' in 1998 with the shipment of the Irish prefab components from Dublin. I was so pleased when Flemington Heritage posted a picture to their Facebook page just a few days later, showing that the pub was formerly known as The Palace, and was built on the site shortly after it was purchased in 1879.

The Quiet Man

We moved inside for the culinary stage of the evening, into a cosy booth in the front bar which Mr 28 had been holding for us, pending the arrival of our fourth discoverer from a day trip to Ballarat. I chose 'Paddy's pancake' from the Out of the soil section of the menu, accurately described as 'Potato and spinach pancake in a cheese Mornay sauce, served with chunky chips and salad garnish'. Very tasty and hearty food.

As I am writing this some time after the event, I don't have an exact recollection of what the others ate, but I suspect that steak may have figured in at least one of the choices. You can check out the menu on the Quiet Man website and make your own choice - it's fun and there is a marvellous array of potato dishes from which to choose, if by any chance you are tired of chips.

Wednesday is acoustic night in the front bar so after dinner we were treated to some live music. We enjoyed the entertainment for a while before finding the discovery tour car and heading over the Bolte back to our south of the city refuge (driving over or under the river three times in the process). Meanwhile Mr 28 and Mr 30 stayed a while to enjoy the music before walking home to their new abode just a few quiet and leafy blocks away in the beautiful suburb of Flemington.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXIX

'Taking it to the people' saw three discoverers taking the 112 tram (popularly known as the one one twelve) to the Lord Newry hotel in North Fitzroy for Discovery XXIX. Meanwhile I drove the discovery taxi to the site and was happy to score a spot in the middle of Newry Street just over the road from the pub.

First a shout out to Max, the Newry's resident handyperson who has done a marvellous job of decoration with flower boxes and planters and even an octopus on the chimney. Yes really. Just look up next time you're passing, if you don't believe me.

Soon the tram travellers and the special local guest arrived and we perused the menu over our drinks (Coopers Pale, sparkling wine and water). Sadly the Newry's famous eggplant chips are no longer available. We made do with Scotch fillet, grilled haloumi, the Lord Newry burger, a rocket and pear salad and pizza.

Scotch fillet

 

Haloumi

The haloumi was probably the star dish of the evening. It was served with lovely crunchy rösti baskets and a rather weedy salad. One of the 'thin & crispy' pizzas was found to be too crunchy and blackened around the edges. The staff were very obliging about this and more than happy to remove the item from the bill.

Pizza with fenugreek

I already had plenty of salad with my haloumi so I didn't need to sample the separate pear and rocket salad. In my opinion this world was a better place before rocket became a ubiquitous salad ingredient, but some people seem to like it. It's OK as long as its bitter mustardy taste is ameliorated by other ingredients. Pear, balsamic vinegar and parmesan generally do the trick.

The ubiquitous rocket

The front bar of the Lord Newry is the new dining room, with the former dining room transmogrified into the pool area. I'm not too sure if this has been a successful move as there was no one playing pool on this warm Wednesday evening, nor were there very many people eating in the front bar. Most people like to sit outside at the footpath tables, and a very pleasant area it is too, with the lovely old green tiles and Max's plantings.

Green tiles

The return trip over the river to the to the quiet and leafy city of Boroondara was accomplished without incident as the dropoff was on the way home. Future dropoffs may be different. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Disovery 2013.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXVIII

I like taking public transport to discovery. But sometimes it is easier to drive home in the later hours when the public transport system starts settling into its off-peak snooze and timely connections are a figment of the imagination. And so Discovery XXVIII saw me driving into the city for the first pickup; to Docklands for the second; then across the Moonee Ponds Creek by way of North Melbourne. Our destination: Philhellene.

Philhellene

Philhellene is not a new restaurant to most of the party but one we were eager to try again. In particular I had fond memories of the cauliflower salad. The three car travellers were joined by two other discoverers (including an Ascot Vale local) who arrived by tram and bus respectively. We were soon enjoying our first Fix of Greek beer. Sadly Mythos was out of stock, but the Fix was a reasonable substitute.

The restaurant was pretty busy and we had to wait quite a while before being supplied with menus and placing our orders. We chose most of our dishes from the specials board, including the zucchini flowers stuffed with rice, the roast kid, the sardines and the loukoumades (Greek donuts with honey). The fava dip (a lovely creamy concoction of puréed yellow split peas topped with oil and chopped red onion, served with delicious chunky bread), the lamb souvlaki with couscous and roast potatoes and the cauliflower salad with pomegranate seeds were chosen from the printed menu. Apart from the donuts everything came together and was happily shared among the discoverers. The carnivores were especially enamoured with the goat, which came with an intriguingly dark and mysterious mass of broad beans and peas.

Philhellene - taking it to the people

Another long wait ensued before we ordered the donuts and coffee. Philhellene is a family run business and the service is charming and friendly as long as you are not very hungry or in a hurry. The food is delicious and I can't wait to try some of the other items on the menu; on the other hand it's hard to avoid choosing the same favourites (cauliflower salad and fava dip, anyone?) on return visits. It's the sort of place that you wish could be your local so that you could just eat your way through the menu.

In keeping with discovery tradition we took the scenic route home, passing through Brunswick, Carlton, Fitzroy and Richmond and stopping briefly to survey the possible reincarnation of the club near Victoria Gardens. A short rediscovery of North Richmond and a trip down a dark and narrow laneway took us to the drop off point. Finally we crossed the Yarra (not having even noticed our second crossing of the Moonee Ponds Creek) and were once more back in the tranquil city of Boroondara.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Discovery XXVII

Discovery 2013 will focus on 'taking it to the people' rather than investigating the narrow confines of our own local area (actually we rarely did that in 2012, but it was the original intention). Another change is the shift from Tuesdays, necessitated by the new timetable of the Monash University fine arts class which uses the Ancora Press as an artists' book studio.

This opened up an opportunity to try Köy restaurant at South Melbourne market (Köy is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays) and for a long-time Albert Park resident and friend to join the discoverers.

A hot Thursday evening saw me happily settled in a sunny corner of the George Hotel diagonally opposite the market with a $7.50 Heineken pint and The Age giant summer crossword. Little by little the others trickled in to the rendezvous point to fortify themselves for the trip across the road to Köy.

South Melbourne market

This is a picture of a South Melbourne market stall on Cecil Street, very close to Köy. The Cecil Street market frontage is now home to several restaurants which are open in the evenings when the market is closed. It was pretty quiet in Cecil Street this Thursday evening, probably because it was such a hot night. We were pleased to be seated indoors at Köy - in fact it was so cool we had to ask for the air conditioning to be turned off.

We shared a range of meze dishes including Imam bayildi (eggplant with onion, capsicum and tomato served with yogurt), baked mushrooms, pan-fried lamb liver, marinated chargrilled octopus and an excellent Kizartma (selection of fried vegetables). These all went very nicely with some Efes beer. The boys were served some special raki in little silver pots - and the Turkish delight also came in dear little silver pots with lids.

Turkish delight

We were very pleased to have have had the opportunity to try Köy.

As the evening was still balmy when we had finished our meal we walked over to the Railway Hotel for Vale Ale and Coopers nightcaps. The Railway has an excellent beer garden and a great range of beers and is a perfect spot on a warm evening - and probably any other time.

We drove home via the scenic route, encompassing the drop off at Albert Park, the slow drive past the tennis centre abuzz with the early finish of the men's semi-final, the 40k Swan Street zone and the detour to Bridge Road. Then it was over the river (again) and back to the quiet leafy city of Boroondara, still basking in the warm summer night.

 

Posted with Blogsy