A friend living in New York recently dined at an Australian themed restaurant  called the 8 Mile Creek restaurant and sent me the above picture.  According to their website, they’ve been in business for over 10 years sourcing out the best of Australian wine and food for NY.  Lamb and barramundi sound great but had to laugh at the “Lygon Street” spaghetti.

Outback Steakhouse, a multinational chain of Australian themed restaurants that has locations in Australia (Australians looking for Australian themed food?), takes the cake with their Kookaburra wings and Chocolate Thunder from Down Under. Maybe they should make their Melbourne steak a huge steak with influences of Asian and Greek spices.

Olives anyone?
Olives remind me of Tuscany, sun and wine; a relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon with friends and family. This year’s Annual Olive Festival will have it all, weather permitting.

The 8th Annual Olive Festival will NOT be held at the usual Mt Atkinson Olive & Nut Grove Farm but at the Witchmount Estate, which is accessible from Melton Highway. A short ride from home, Witchmount is next to the Windmill restaurant, another place which you can’t miss from the road, it boasts a windmill!

There will, of course, be the olives and olive-derived products, namely locally produced olive oil. I mean why purchase overseas products made months or years ago when you can buy locally produced, fresh olive oil?

So, make it a day trip, and a family one, there will be cooking demonstrations, live music, as well as children’s activities.

Entrance is free, parking is free, tasting samples will of course, be free. Event starts at 10 am and finishes at 5 pm.

Do not forget that, Witchmount Estate is also famous for their Shiraz, winner of the Best Shiraz 2008 of the Syrah Du Monde of France.

We hear many things from the western suburbs. The high crime rate, the latest included the racists attacks on Indian students in Footscray, notoriously mobile-phone recorded and uploaded to U-tube (which incidentally, has been removed). The Mcmansions, large houses in places such as Caroline Springs, and then there’s the crowded trains for the daily communte to and fro the city. But out of all these, something special, has been achieved by a small little vineyard in the western suburbs, sufficient enough to win the highest accolades in the wine industry.

If you don’t already own a bottle of the 2004 Witchmount Shiraz, well, its too late now. It has recently won the Syrah du Monde wine competition held annually in France. If you do have a bottle, you might want to keep it for another 6 years til maturity. At $26 a bottle, its really quite a bargain.

So, if you are ever in the area, Witchmount is along the Melton Highway. It is surrounded by an English pub called the Gamekeepers Inn and a Windmill restaurant (of course, featuring a huge windmill!).

Links
Syrah du Monde Press release
The Age “…world’s best shiraz“

After 12 years in Melbourne, the Hard Rock Cafe has closed. I reviewed the restaurant / bar last year and found the food mediocre yet the music memorabilia pretty cool. The reason for the closure is due to the expansion and renovation of the Hotel Windsor next door. Speculation is that it will reopen in St. Kilda or the Crown Casino. Although the restaurant was often full its location lacked a good amount of young walk-in traffic. Hopefully, it won’t suffer the same fate as Planet Hollywood did in the Crown.

So now where am I supposed to go for my all you can eat ribs served by such lovely waitresses?

Previously: Hard Rock Cafe
Hospitality Magazine: Hard Rock to shut

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Hard Rock Cafe

Burgers are great. I’ve had the big but now I want to try this fancy burger. Food critic / flogger Ed Charles deems this the best burger in Melbourne and looking at the picture he may be right. This burger is made of Wagyu meat which is described by Wikipedia as a “unique breed of cattle known for its intense marbling and producing a high percentage of oleaginous unsaturated fat.” In other words its an expensive piece of meat with tasty fat naturally mixed in.

You can get this at the bar of the Rockpool Bar & Grill and it will only set you back $15. That is cheap compared to some dishes on their restaurant menu which run up to $130.

Some more burger goodness:

Rockpool [via Tomatom]
Crown Complex, Southbank

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Burger, Rockpool

A cold Melbourne night, and my partner and I were deciding what to have for dinner. Having just had minor corrective jaw surgery, my partner opted for congee. Afterall, apart from soup, that’s the only food she’s allowed to consume. Solid food ain’t cut it for her still healing jaw.

One of the best places for congee – don’t quote me on that – is Supper Inn in Chinatown. I’ve heard good things about the place so we decided to check it out.

We arrived to find a crowded Supper Inn. I exchanged pleasantries with the waiter and decided to wait for a table for two. Ten minutes later, a couple left. The waiter began clearing the dishes. And then a peculiar thing happened.
(more…)

So, it was 12.20am and I was hungry. Discounting the CBD itself (where there’s Stalactites, China Bar, Chillipadi, a couple of breakfast/all-night places on Swanston St, and things in Lygon St. tend to open till late), where do you go to get food? L’Incontro on Swanston St. generally doesn’t count – their food options are limited, to non-existent.

24-hr Pancake Parlour in Doncaster? Chapelli’s on Chapel St? (maybe you actually want to find parking, avoid the drunkenness and the definite booze+drug bust on the trip home.)

Well, I found the Pancake Parlour at Glen Waverly still open (lucky me, its a Friday night/Saturday morning, so they open till 3am), so I was saved from having to chow down fast food at a Maccas drive-thru.

Where do you eat when hunger strikes after midnight?
(maybe next time we’ll investigate restaurants that close at 2am… there are a lot more of these, I assure you)

I’ve eaten many burgers in my time and have proudly placed highly in eating competitions. For years, I have heard rumors of the Bogan Burger at The Napier but it wasn’t until Supersizedmeals.com made a post about it, that I knew I had to take the dive.

What is the Bogan Burger?

• steak (rump)
• chicken schnitzel
• potato cake
• bacon
• egg
• cheese
• onion
• pineapple
• beetroot

sandwiched between a Turkish bread roll and served with wedges and salad.

It will set you back $15.50 and 17,000 7,000 (sorry) kilojoules. Even with a couple of beers, I felt pretty good after eating it, although I didn’t manage to eat anything until the next day.

The Napier Hotel
210 Napier Street, Fitzroy

Picture via Supersizedmeals.com

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Fitzroy, Napier Hotel, Napier, Bogan Burger

I eat out, a lot. It sickens me to note that some of the places I eat at, are seriously sick. And I don’t mean that in a cool, street-lingo way.

• Nam Loong Restaurant, Russell St. – repeat offender, live and dead cockroach/rodent droppings. 2004 was their previous lucky year, when someone found a cockroach ina  meal. Remind me again never to eat there, ever.
• Jenny Pan’s Beijing Hot Pot and Dumpling Cafe, Russell St. – I like dumplings, but I don’t recall ever eating here. Have you?

Wouldn’t have seen this online, if I didn’t read todays dead tree edition of the newspaper.

If you have other dirty restaurant stories that could be of public interest, don’t hesitate to comment here. Photos, videos, etc. are also accepted. I for one would welcome a list of previously marked dirty restaurants, so that people think twice before visiting them…

Technorati Tags: chinatown, russell st, nam loong, jenny pan’s beijing hot pot and dumpling cafe, hygiene, poor hygiene

While not the first time at The Grand Tofu, I should probably state that as an eatery, its a pretty nice place to go to. Located smack in the middle of Glen Waverly (nearby the train station), Shop 5, 53 Kingsway, is generally brimming with a crowd.

Why, you ask? Wide variety, of cheap food. Their famous “young tofu” (sic.) comes with either curry, soup or laksa, and includes six ingredients you pick up from the bain marie. These include stuffed chillies, tofu, stuffed peppers, fish balls, dumplings, and so much more. Whats more is they throw in noodles – all for a meagre $8.50.

How’s the place like? Decor is simple, its always bustling, there are some paintings of Malaysia to stare at, but beyond that you go get your own cutlery, water, bowls, and condiments. A bit like a canteen in that sense, food is delivered to your table, and they all come out at pretty much the same time.

If yong tau foo isn’t what you’re after, they have a wide, and varied menu offering lots of other food items – nasi lemak, kueh teow, and so forth. Pay the Grand Tofu a visit, for a good, cheap, healthy, and delicious meal!

The Grand Tofu is located at Shop 5, 53 Kingsway, Glen Waverly. It is open daily, from 10am – 10pm. Reservations are not necessary. They do take-out, as well. They can be reached at 9574 7676.