Tapas and cocktails @ Ba'get, Argus Building Melbourne

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to a special sitting at Ba'get in the Argus Building (my future home once I can scrape the pennies together) for a preview of their new tapas and cocktail menu.

So I had been to Ba'get once before, and enjoyed a reasonable Bahn Mi and a delicious pastry for lunch. I was unaware that they had been planning an expansion into evening tapas and cocktails, however I was pleasantly surprised to be invited to attend a preview dinner to eat through their new menu. And you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed the unique tapas and cocktails Ba'get have on offer.

The menu contained the following:
- Battered and fried white bait with herb aoli;
- Build-your-own rice paper rolls with char siew pork that had been sous vided before being grilled;
- Deep fried chicken wings with coleslaw and chilli-vinegar dipping sauce;
- Fried calamari with siracha mayo;
- Pork and taro spring rolls with herbs and lettuce for wrapping;
- Chicken and pork salad with prawn cracker 'bowls';
- Fried prawn trumpets with herbs and siracha mayo;
- Five spiced sweet potato fries; and
- Grilled meat balls with salad.

Accompanying the tapas were two kinds of cocktails a Vietnamese take on a Mojito with rum, Vietnamese mint and coriander, and an absolutely delicious gin, ginger and chilli concoction that was sweet, fizzy and fiery all at once. I thoroughly enjoyed these and think that for the price ($10) you would almost make a detour past Ba'get just for these even if you didn't feel like a snack to go with them.

Working my way through the menu was exciting and tasty.

The white bait were crisp and nicely spiced and didn't have too much of that overpowering 'fishy' flavour that I generally associate with white bait. However they certainly weren't my favourite of the dishes.

The build-your-own rice paper rolls were a fun experience. A cool little gadget was brought to our table that allowed you to wet the rice paper roll and then get it onto your plate prior to assembly. I think Baget would do a roaring trade if they started selling those for $15 a pop. The pork was really nice, lean and chary as anything. Our host explained that it had been sous-vided prior to being grilled, and although I cant verify whether this had any appreciable effect on it versus non sous-vided pork, it sure was delicious.

The deep fried chicken wings that came next were apparently made to the old family recipe of our host's mother and were one of my favourites for the evening. The batter was light and crisp and the flavour was intense. I am a big buffalo wings guy and these were right up there with some of the best hot wings I've had, with the key advantage of not being soaked in a thick chili sauce.

The fried calamari was as advertised, fried calamari. It was nice and clearly quite fresh, however it wasn't particularly 'Vietnamese'. It would make a good bar snack with a beer or cocktail though.

The pork and taro spring rolls were an interesting choice. Taro is a sweet-potato like substance that makes it way into a lot of Asian dishes, and it went very nicely with the pork. I am not sure how many of those I could eat in a row however, They were quite rich and there wasn't enough chili in them to cut through that richness. Perhaps they would work well for a big group where everyone had just one.

The chicken and pork salad was a nice touch, it was light and refreshing and the idea of making it easy to share out between friends gy giving you extra large prawn crackers to use as edible 'bowls' was a pretty cool twist. It had a great herby/citrusy/chili twist too it which I enjoyed as well.

The prawn trumpets which came next were ok. They had lots of nice prawn in them, however I think by that point I was a little over fried spring roll type dishes. Had at the start of a meal, I think you would be very satisfied with them.

Finally came the grilled meat balls. These were probably my favourite dish of the night. They were caramalised on the outside with a sweet sauce that gave a crisp toffee-apple-esque hard shell on the outside that shattered as you bit through to reach the wonderfully spiced and fresh pork on the inside. Along with some salad and herbs to be wrapped up in lettuce leaves and a hoysin and chili dipping sauce these were fantastic. I would highly recommend getting a plate to yourself if you go as they will fly off the plate if you are sharing with friends.

To the public each of the tapas and the cocktails will be $10 and are great value at the price.

Dinner @ Rice Paper Scissors

So if I got a free meal each time someone described the restaurant as 'the next Chin Chin', I would have had at least 5 free meals, and one of them would have been at Rice, Paper, Scissors.

Now, to be honest, I think the only feature of Chin Chin worth imitating is its cash flow. It is the epitome of the 'popular because its popular' circular logic of the Melbourne dining scene. So I am not going to compare RPS to it. What I am going to do is describe to you a nice, well priced, meal.

I went to RPS on a Tuesday night at 8pm and only just managed to snag two spots on a shared table. RPS serves tapas style dishes that draw their inspiration from all over Asia, but primarily from Thailand and Vietnam. Prices per dish vary, but cap out at about $18 for a large 'meal for one' salad. However, for $55 you can get a spread of any 5 of their tapas dishes.

The old school chum I was dining with thought that was the way to go, and I tended to agree. We ordered the Lamb Ribs in Mekong Whisky, Thai Fried Chicken with Siracha Mayo, Grilled Pork Neck, Masaman Beef Wrap and the 'Flying Tiger' Beef. We were both a bit worried about portion sizes prior to the meal arriving, but were very pleasantly surprised.

The lamb ribs (pictured above) were super soft and rendered to sticky perfection in a rich, sweet, whisky sauce. I would say they approach being the RPS signature dish and should feature on your table when ordering.

The Thai Fried Chicken was also great. The batter was as crispy as it was spicy and made for a crunchy fiery hit. The siracha mayo also hit he spot and I used it to add some extra kick to the next dish, the masaman beef wrap.

The wrap was the only real disappointment out of the 5. It wasn't bad, it was just quite blad. Ground beef, flat bread and salad, nothing much more to say - I wouldn't get it again.

Next up was the grilled pork neck. It was basically char siew pork with a Vietnamese twist. However, it was super chary on the outside, really moist in the center and spiced to perfection. The salad that it came with was also a nice twist.

The final arrival was the 'Flying Tiger' beef. It was steak that had been soaked in a spice and alcohol mixture and then grilled till it had a chard crust (but was still medium rare on the inside). It was served with a super hot dipping sauce and what were described as 'betel leaves' to wrap the meat in for dipping. They didn't look like betel leaves to me, neither did they taste like them, reminding me more of the bitter greens at Attica. However, the dish without the leaves was an excellent way to finish off.

I didn't make it to their extensive dessert menu, however I'm definitely going to head back for another round. Good work RPS, you lived up to the hype, and were better than Chin Chin to boot.

Chinese New Year dinner @ Bistro Nguyen's, Canberra

My friend W and I had been talking about going to Bistro Nguyen's for a little while since we'd noticed it pop up in a conspicuous space in the middle of Civic. I randomly selected a night, invited a few people and hey presto. Turned out I had inadvertently selected the night of Chinese New Year so it became a little celebration of sorts.

BN has been receiving some mixed reviews on Urbanspoon so while there was some niggling reluctance, I was still keen to try it. Being the pho fiend that I am, I went for a bowl of rare beef pho and I shared a grilled beef banh mi with our friend L. The pho was good, the broth is aromatic and rich and it came in a nice big bowl. I would have liked the soup to be hotter, however. By far the worst part of the pho though was the beef. While it soft and thinly sliced it definitely tasted very funky, as in not very fresh at all. The problematic beef was even more problematic in the banh mi, which I can safely say was the worst banh mi I'd ever had. I didn't even finish my half of it; I had never before not finished a banh mi before. Firstly the bread was not very good, not very crispy like a good banh mi roll should be; there also weren't enough vegetables and herbs and the spring onion was non existent. However, again by far the worst element and the bit that just spoiled the thing completely was the beef. While there was lots of it, it was lots of very bad tasting beef. Again the beef tasted vaguely off; quite smelly and just not very fresh at all. It was also very very wet like it had been boiled rather than the good charry meat you expect in a grilled meat banh mi.

I was also a bit troubled by the service; the waitresses were rather abrupt throughout the evening and seemed very disorganised as demonstrated by their fumbling and mixups when a couple of people at the table asked about the house white. On top of that, they refused to give us the bill at the table. Fair enough they wanted us to pay at the counter and we were happy to do that, but at least give us a receipt to take to the table of 7 so we can work out how much people need to pay. We had to gestimate based on the menu but we ended up being short when we took the money up to the counter, after which time they just gave me the receipt to take back to the table. How hard is it to do that in the first instance so we can save everyone some time and hassle? Lastly, they have a $2 credit card surcharge; probably the biggest I've ever seen in a restaurant and kinda ridiculous when we were paying by Visa not Amex.

Overall don't be fooled by the cool looking decor and graphic walls, there are definitely Vietnamese restaurants with much better food and service in Canberra.

Photo of the week: Chicken Chop Rice @ Pho 888, Box Hill

I really miss working in Box Hill. It was a great office where I made some great friends and I was pretty much always happy and carefree. Part of the enjoyment of working in Box Hill was the location and being in very close proximity to the town centre and the numerous and very good Asian restaurants nearby. Pho 888 is definitely one of those and I'm not really sure why I didn't go there more often, probably because there was so much choice around the area. My colleagues and I would try to make the time to go out together for lunch once a fortnight and on one of these occasions we ended up at Pho 888.

While some my colleagues went for a big bowl of pho or some rice paper rolls, I chose the Chicken Chop on Rice. This turned out to be an amazing—the chicken chop was a huge piece of chicken thigh butterflied out and marinated with plenty of lemongrass and other flavoursome goodness. This rendered the meat SO well flavoured and juicy while being super super charry. The charry lemongrass goodness also permeated the rice which sits below. I even enjoyed the token vegetables on the side, which included pickled carrot. In order words, everything on the plate was delicious and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

#throwbackthursday roundup of a dozen quick photoless reviews (part IV)

Izakaya Chuji
This used to be M's and his parent's go to for Japanese before he met me. He took me here a couple of times for dates and I was never particularly impressed. But of it is the dankness of the place; it is very dimly lit but this combined with the rundowness of the decor (e.g. ripped seats) makes for a rather depressing ambiance. The food is in a similar vein to Izakaya Hachibeh (see below) but Hachibeh does it  better. The menu is very extensive and the prices are OK but there are certainly cheaper and better Japanese places in town. The sashimi here has always been pretty fresh but again there is definitely better elsewhere; the udon is again OK but the tempura dipped in the soup made it a bit unpleasant for me personally and the broth definitely needed a stronger dashi flavour. This place isn't bad, it's just been left a bit behind but better and newer places.



Mr Burger
We used to absolutely love Mr Burger. The burgers were fantastic, a thick lovely nicely cooked, charry and flavoursome patty with plenty of onions, American cheese and BBQ sauce. The chips were also amazing, super crispy on the outside, soft and pluffy on the inside and plenty of chicken salt. Prices were also good and the staff very friendly. Celebs came here, but that odd looking red headed guy from It's a Date. Not sure if the celebs still come here but we've certainly stopped. Ever since the chain expanded, quality has significantly deteriorated. We've tried a few of the outlets and they're all pretty subpar now. The patties are now thin and with a rubbery texture, no chariness more like braised and soggy. The chips were still nice but the now very very mediocre burgers kinda kill the enjoyment.



Ba'get
This chain is kinda a safe, whitey place to get a banh mi. They do a decent banh mi, certainly not as authentic or tasty as some of those you get from Vietnamese bakeries but it'll do in a pinch in the CBD. Prices are fairly reasonable, but again not as good as in the aforementioned bakeries. I do like the complimentary pandan tea they have on offer inside the shop. However, the best reason to go to Ba'get are the litle cassava cakes they sell. These are DELICIOUS—chewy, coconutty and not too sweet—and well worth going into a Ba'get for.



Little Lamb
There are a few of these scattered around Melbourne but I've only been to the one in the CBD. Came here with a friend on a cold night, perfect for hot pot. Waited a short while before being shown to our table, though; this place is very popular with international students and is thus generally very busy. Little Lamb serves all you can eat hotpot for around $25-30 per person. The ingredients they use are perfectly good for hotpot and has enough of mostly everything you'd want to throw in without having a huge variety. It's a buffet so you help yourself to ingredients. The buffet area is very cramped though so it doesn't exactly make it the best experience but people keep coming back nonetheless. All in all not a bad choice for hotpot.



Izakaya Hachibeh
This is usually our choice when we want a Japanese izakaya style place. The menu here is huge so you might have trouble selecting but everything we've ever had here has been fresh and tasty. The sashimi is fresh and good here, as are the gigantic katsu curry dons (a favourite of ours). As you should expect from an izakaya (with the notable exception of the overpriced Izakaya Den), the prices are very very reasonable. The service is also very friendly and they are happy to accommodate your requests. The decor isn't amazing (again, this is an izakaya not a super upmarket establishment) but certainly better than Chuji's,



David's
Came here for yum cha after the recommendation from a good friend of ours. David's is sorta tucked away in a small street off Chapel St. It's not too difficult to find, though, as there are signs on the main street pointing you the way. When you arrive, you immediately realise that David's is quite different to your average Chinese restaurant. The decor is quite Westernised and well presented. The place is also staffed by young quite attractive Asian females who offer friendly but fast service. David's yum cha is I guess what you could describe as an all you can east. For something like $35-40 you can have as much dumplings etc as you want, both sweet and savoury. Unfortunately the food itself wasn't very good so I wasn't inclined to ask for very much. There were a lot of dumplings but they were just OK and some of the stuff I actually found surprisingly greasy. There weren't any of my favourite yum cha offerings like lo mai gai or Malay cake. It kind of felt like mediocre dumpling after mediocre dumpling, followed by sweet (e.g. chocolate) dumplings for dessert.



Donwoori
This Korean BBQ place is situated near the QV Markets on Victoria St, very close to Wooga which I believe is owned by the same people. Unlike at Wooga, Donwoori doesn't have an advertised phone number so you can't book but even though it's a pretty small restaurant, it's generally not too difficult to get a table on most nights. They are also very accommodating with pushing tables together if you have a bigger party. The service is friendly as is the manager who likes to talk and shake the hands of the customers. The banchan here is unlimited and DELICIOUS. If I could have some of that kimchi everyday I would be more than content. The menu is very very similar to that of Wooga's with very good vaue BBQ set menus and some other dishes. The food is delicious; the meat is of a good quality and I love the stews/soups and the drinks are very reasonably priced.



Movida
Movida due to its reputation around town and the tininess of the restaurant, is a place you generally have to book well in advance for. If you don't manage to secure a table, you can always try your luck walking in and often they can seat you at the bar. The food here is very good, I remember it being for some reason marginally better than Aqui's and usually has a slightly different menu. The bread they serve here, which I've heard before is housemade, is excellent. You have to pay something like $1 pp for it but it all goes to charity. The beef tartare here is a must try; super flavoursome and moreish while being a very generous portion for the price. Unfortunately when we came here my friend T and I got some pretty bad service, mostly just being ignored throughout the evening by wait staff while they fawned over other tables



Movida Aqui
While Movida Aqui in some ways is quite a contrast to the original Movida. For starters, Aqui is a lot bigger and brightly lit than Movida. The expanded size means that bookings here are much easier to acquire. That said, especially for a weekend, you still generally have to book a couple of days in advance. The menu is pretty similar but as previously mentioned there are some differences. I don't think I've ever seen the tartare on the menu at Aqui but from what I recall the menus are a similar length. Get the pulpo (octopus) if you ever see it here, sometimes on the proper menu and sometimes as a special, as it's delicious and well, octopus is just one of the best (and most underrated) seafoods isn't it? The Jamon Iberico is great (I think they only do paletilla, the 'inferior' but still ridiculously delicious front leg, here though) and it is one of the few places in Australia where they hand slice it; many other places (incorrectly) use a machine. To reiterate what I said above, the food here is perhaps a slight notch below that of Movida original but it is still very very good. The service, however, is much better and this combined with the ease of booking is why I much more often go to Aqui than the original.



Chez Olivier
Since PM24, much to our devastation, closed down not too long ago we've never found a French restaurant which really comes close to what PM24 offered up. Chez Olivier isn't terrible, definitely something more in the classic French bistro style than the upmarket feel of PM24. However, Chez Olivier charge about the same prices. The portions also aren't as generous as those at PM and the food generally is not as good. On the occasion that I came I go a mid-cuit de thon (seared tuna) and a steak. The tuna was pretty tasty and well cooked while the steak I got was very overcooked. I asked for à point (medium rare) but got well done; I didn't send it back though because in all honestly I felt bad for the waiters who were lovely and I just generally couldn't be arsed. T much better luck with his main of a cassoulet though, which was rich and had a great depth of flavour, just how a cassoulet should be.



Maedaya
Maedaya is definitely one of the most popular restaurants in Melbourne, with something like thousands of ratings on Urbanspoon. We came here early to avoid the crowds as they don't take bookings. However, we couldn't really see what the fuss was about. The menu is very extensive—you order on ipads and they use the same ordering interface as Sushi Hotaru—and the prices are pretty decent, but the quality of the food left us a little wanting. The sashimi salad we had was quite frankly pretty terrible with a lacklustre and overly acidic dressing over some not very fresh sashimi and a mountain of mesclun mix. Their famous yakitori is definitely tasty and if I had to come again, I'd definitely get more of that. The other dishes we had, some cold dishes including squid, miso beans and an udon soup however, were very unremarkable.



Little Ramen Bar
LRB is located in a very busy little part of Lt Bourke St right near +39 and Shanghai Street dumplings. The space here is very small and even with the tiny tables, there is a very limited seating inside. This partly contributes to the lines you often see outside but this place is also just generally very popular. In our opinion, though, there are definitely better ramen places in Canberra. We'd recommend you hop a couple of streets over to nearby DonToo if you want better and cheaper ramen. Firstly I know it's 'traditional' but I personally really dislike the thin slices of rolled charsiu they use here. I find it renders it a very fatty, jellied cut piece of meat to bite into and chew and while many actually prefer this, I'm not one of them. It's also quite an expensive bowl of ramen once you add all the things to make it a actually tasty bowl of noodles. You have to pay extra for butter, corn, and even garlic which means that you are easily paying $15 for what is a pretty average bowl of ramen.



Hell of the North
We were very excited to come here after hearing great things and immediately walking in the door we bumped into an old colleague of M's and his girlfriend, who reiterated that the food at this place to die for. However, while we really liked our starters, we found the mains disappointing. The starters of beef tartare the chicken liver parfait really were delicious and I would consider coming back just to have these again. The parfait was smooth and very nicely flavoured with none of that that irony strong flavour you sometimes get with liver parfaits/patés. The tartare was also very tasty but needed more spice; fortunately there were bottles of tabasco and other hot sauce at the table which we happily shook over the raw beef. I had a Milawa chicken dish and M the pork which were very mediocre to the point where we don't exactly recall the specifics. However, what we do remember is that the mains were a big let down and nowhere near as nice as the entrees.

#throwbackthursday roundup of a dozen quick photoless reviews (part III)

Melbourne

Shanghai Village Dumpling
SVD is one of those mainstays in Melbourne, somewhere almost everyone has heard of and almost as many have eaten at. Situated in the heart of Chinatown, this place definitely gets some very foot traffic, perhaps not as heavy as it used, but a lot of people nonetheless.  The popularity is quite understandable, given that they do decently nice dumplings and other Chinese food for a good price. I would rate the quality better than Camy but not nearly as good as somewhere like Shanghai Street Dumpling. The service is pretty bad, they are very abrupt and a high turnover of tables is the business model here. I wasn't expecting amazing service so wasn't so much bothered by that element but what did annoy me somewhat was the fact that the bill came to us non-itemised with just a number written on it for the total cost. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly certain that's illegal.



Wonderbao
Finally came here not too long ago after wanting to try for a very long time but never actually bothering to go. Wonderbao is a clever little concept, Chinese-style bao in a clean and trendy setting with a nice mix of both traditional and not-so-traditional fillings. The prices are also really quite reasonable. I had gone there wanting to try their Kimchi bao but at the time they had discontinued them. I think they're back on the menu now, however. Instead we picked up a couple of pork belly gua baos with were pretty tasty—the pork belly was sticky and not too fatty and a good flavour throughout. We also picked up a couple of sweet taro baos, which were OK but definitely not earth moving. The dough in the buns was very soft and supple and had a good mouthfeel.



Shark Fin Inn
I've been here a couple of times before when Dad has been in town. This is definitely one of the better places in Chinatown. They apparently do a nice yum cha but I've only ever been here for dinner. As with any good Cantonese-style Chinese restaurant, they have plenty of live seafood swimming in takes. Let me tell you, there are, in my opinion, few things worse than the texture, flavour and mouthfeel of a lobster that wasn't swimming right before it was cooked. They have a pretty good selection of seafood here, including the aforementioned lobster, abalone, snow crab (!!) and of course, fish. The most recent time I came here we had a seafood hot pot. This hot pot didn't feature the stuff you might normally associate with a hotpot (e.g. fish balls) but we had it with lovely, straight out of the tank seafood. One of the revelations was the sliced green lip abalone, which actually tasted amazing in a hotpot. I'm not normally a huge fan of the green lip variety of abalone as I fine it quite bland and tasteless compared to the smaller black lip version but in the hotpot it tasted great. We also had a huge fish which was sliced up for us and for some reason the fish was sold by the unit not by the found as you'd normally get which actually made it very good value.



Indochine
The first time I'd been here was for a team lunch when I used to work in Box Hill. I've since been back a couple of times and had a good experience on each occasion. If you go, I absolutely must recommend getting the traditional hanoi spring rolls (nem ran/cha gio), made with rice paper and filled with pork and crab. It was here that I was first introduced to this dish and I've since had it many times, both at restaurants and making my own at home (which btw, is pretty easy). Indochine's is still the nicest I've had at a restaurant. What makes theirs great is that they're really evenly fried and super crispy and they use an abundance of pepper which personally I love. They also use these spring rolls in their grilled meat and spring roll buns, which I also highly recommend.



Schnitz, Queen St CBD
I don't know much about the history of the Schnitz franchise but this was definitely the first I'd ever seen in Melbourne. I used to work in the building right near where this little outlet is situated and I first got exposed to their food when a colleague bought a bag of their chips and served them with me. Of course we all know that Schnitz make some of the best tasting chips you could ever hope to try. The chips are as good as always here but the overall quality of food is better than the other Schnitzes, as is the value. If you get a schnitzel chips and salad here you'll get two schnitzels, whereas in the franchises you'll get just the one. Their salads are also quite tasty and substantial; try the caesar. While it might not look as outwardly cool as other Schnitz locations, the food and value here are definitely better.



Hanaichi
Before Rice Workshop, came along this and Don Don were about the only places in the CBD you could find sub $8 Japanese meals. As you can imagine, this place is very popular with students  but not exclusively. We've been here once and didn't have the greatest experience. We had a Katsu Curry don which wasn't at all great. The Katsu cutlet left a bit to be desired; it was very thin and dry. We also didn't like that the curry sauce came separate to the rice and cutlet. Part of the appeal for me of a bowl of Katsu curry is getting to mix everything together. I do however like their own brand of bottled drinks which you can get for something like $2 extra on top of meal. However, as long as something like Rice Workshop exists, Hanaichi will always be left in the dust.



DOC
DOC definitely do some of the best and most authentic pizzas in Melbourne. Situated in a street not far off Lygon, the quality here is much better than your standard Lygon St Italian place. The little restaurant is quite charming and is staffed by very friendly Italian waiters. They also have a very interesting selection of soft drinks, which is a pretty nice change. The prices are also reasonable for the quality of the food and ingredients used. There is plenty of San Daniele prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella on the menu which you'd think all places that charge $20-$30 for a pizza would do that but it's definitely not as common as one would like. Lots of people have cottoned on to the quality of the place lately so come here early if you don't want to wait a while for a table.



Canberra

PappaRich
It's a pretty sad reflection of a city's food when Pappa Rich does some of the best Asian food in town.  Alas, such is the case for our national capital. That is not to say that the food at Pappa Rich is bad—it's of course usually pretty tasty—but I would never go to a Papa Rich in somewhere like Melbourne because there are just many better and cheaper options there. However, for Canberra, this is excellent. I'd recommend the egg gravy fried noodles (not sure what they call it on the menu), the chicken with mee and curry sauce, the rotis and the excellent satay sticks. The prices are of course Canberra inflated (average of about $15 per dish) but that's not far off what they charge in the real cities anyway. Understandable given its relative quality and central location, this place gets very busy and doesn't take bookings so come early or be prepared to wait for a table.

 

Tak Kee Roast Inn
If you feel like Asian food in Dickson that isn't Vietnamese, I'd definitely recommend Tak Kee Roast Inn. This place is sort of in the style of class Cantonese BBQ restaurants which are pretty common in other Australian cities, but aren't terribly ubiquitous in Canberra. On this occasion I had a bowl of beef brisket noodle soup, which was very tasty. The beef brisket was very nicely cooked and unctuous like it should be. It was also well flavoured and went very well with the rice noodles that came with it. The service was also very pleasant and efficient and the prices reasonable by Canberra standards. Definitely a better choice than the nearby Dickson Asian Noodle House.

 

Penny University 
Came here with work for a farewell lunch not long ago. Ordered the cheeseburger which came with a generous serving of chips. It was also pretty decently priced from what I remember. Other colleagues meals looked less generously portioned, however. The burger I had was pretty adequate, definitely not amazing and could have done with more flavour. I would have also liked something other than ketchup to dip my chips in. Something like aoli would've been perfect, but that's a personal preference; I know plenty of people like ketchup with their chips.             

       

Autolyse
 I came here on M's recommendation after he discovered it wandering around the area when he was up here for a job interview. On that occasion he enjoyed the coffee and lime pie he had picked up from here after his interview. From the outside, Autolyse certainly doesn't look the part of a hip cafe/brunch venue. The facade is decidedly gauche, complete with an awkward, borderline fluoro sign. Inside, it's a bit better with decent interiors and a large section where you can watch the bakers at work. It's after seeing this and the descriptions on the menu where you realise that this place is definitely vying for the hipness factor. However, the 'Sous vide lamb shoulder sandwich with quinoa and pickled onion' was decidedly uncool. As if the eyeroll-inducing description, didn't make me want to throwup a little in my mouth enough, the sandwich that arrived turned out to be a bit of a disaster. It was very very bland and dry. A part of that there was too low a filling-to-bread ratio, but even when eating the fillings on their own they were decidedly bland. The dominant flavour was an unpleasant one: acid. The quinoa tabouleh was very acidic and the pickled onion on top of that just compared the unpleasant sourness. The lamb certainly wasn't very fatty or rich so it's not like it needed to be that acidic for a purpose.



Molly
I'd like to think this is named for the drug but in all likelihood it probably isn't. However, the bar does aim to be as transportive as a Molly trip. This starts with the location, it's 'hidden' underground behind a wooden door somewhere in Hobart Place. Their website only gives you coordinates to help you find your way. In reality though, most people in Canberra knows where it is. When you enter the place it's certainly obvious what they're going for: a dimly lit, small space in the style of Jazz Age speakeasys. The place certainly has its charms and while I didn't get to try any of the food, their menu certainly did look enticing, as did the various small goods hanging above the food station. Drinks are fairly pricey; the Virgin Mary I had was $10 (fairly expensive for a non-alcoholic drink) but I don't think anybody comes here for cheap drinks.

Dinner @ Co Do, Victoria St Richmond, Melbourne

After having a few not so successful ventures to Footscray eateries, we're now firmly committed to sticking with Victoria Street in Richmond for our Vietnamese fix. This commitment took us to the highly regarded Co Do. I met my friend B here, while M also tagged along for the conversation after already having dinner earlier.

I had heard good things about their pho, so was very keen to try it. I got a small bowl ($9.50?) since we were also sharing a banh xeo. The pho was pretty nice; I loved that it came with plenty of onions, coriander and pepper. The broth was probably more aromatic than usual but still not as much as I like. Additionally, the beef was probably also not as thin and tender than the ideal. However, it was still a very tasty bowl of pho and due to my hunger at the late dinner, I wolfed it down.

B got the spicy lemongrass beef stirfry with rice, which he said was very tasty and had some nice heat. He ended up taking half of it home, though, because we wanted to save our stomach for the centrepiece of the meal.

It's always a bit of a spectacle when a good banh xeo arrives at the table, partially due its enormous size, the bright yellow colour (due to turmeric) and the aroma imparted by the coconut milk in the batter. I had actually never finished a banh xeo before this, even when sharing, but on this occasion we polished it off in about five minutes flat. Again, part of it was the hunger for me but it was also a very nice banh xeo. There was a very strong and aromatic coconut flavour in the batter of the pancake and it was cooked to a very nice degree crispiness. The mountain of a variety of herbs we got with the dish was also a big plus.