Tyranny of Distance, 147 Union Street, Windsor

4/10 (and that is being generous)

Perhaps the worst thing you can do is leave booking a Valentines day dinner till the last minute. Weeks in advance all the best places are already booked out. Combine this with Valentines day falling on a Monday this year, which meant that many restaurants weren’t even open (although that is pretty stupid on their part, as Valentines day is a licence to print money for restaurants and florists). So Husband and I were left a little stumped as to where to go. Finally we settled on a casual and cheap option where we could actually book a table. That option was Tyranny of Distance, a interesting looking bar/restaurant just off Chapel Street in Windsor. Tyranny has an open front, which gives you the impression that you are actually sitting outside, but with a bit of protection from the elements. It is a nice feeling on a sunny 26 degree day, although I suspect in winter this place feels a little chilly, even with outdoor heaters. But when we visited it was a perfect warm evening, and I was looking forward to some al fresco eating.

Sadly, the interesting fit out was about all I liked about Tyranny. There is nothing wrong with Tyranny as a bar, where you might meet friends on a warm evening for a beer or two. But if you plan to venture past a pot of beer, go elsewhere. And for this I include both wine and food.

Let me explain. We arrive, and are greeted by a casual waitress who shows us to a table for two. We are given menus and then left, for a long time. They place is around half full, so a capable waitress should be easily able to cope with that many people, but all the other customers appear in the same boat as us, desperate to order at least a drink and craning their necks to see where the waitress has disappeared to. We managed to waive her down and order our drinks and food. After a good ten minute wait (again, I can’t see what the hold up is) our drinks arrive. Husband has a white rabbit white ale ($8) and I have a glass of the Spinifex pinot noir 08 ($8.50). The beer is fine, cold and delicious. But the wine is tart and I suspect has been opened the night before. Added to this is the fact that it is served in a water glass (no wine glasses here) and all up amounts to no more than a few sips. This is laughable for $8.50 a glass. In the name of romance, I smile and continue to drink the glass of wine I would normally send back. What was also laughable was the state of the toilets at Tyranny. One unisex cubicle which looked worse than a nightclub toilet at 5 am. I will spare you the graphic description, but its close proximity to the kitchen makes you wonder about the hygiene of the whole place.

The food, when it arrives after a considerable wait, doesn’t really improve matters. I have the “paella”, allegedly slow cooked saffron rice with mixed seafood, chorizo, chicken, capsicum, and peas, ($20), which really is just seafood risotto, and a badly done one at that. The rice is gluggy and the chicken dry. The chorizo has been overcooked and lost its lovely flavour (if it ever had any to begin with). However, the prawns are quite nice and pull the dish out of the terrible category. Husband is not so lucky. His rib eye steak ($27) looks atrocious on the plate – the steak had broken in two during what appeared to be some form of wrestling match in the kitchen, and it was topped with overcooked asparagus and some form of onion concoction that resembled vomit. Because it was Valentines day, and you can’t complain too much about a restaurant when you are trying to be romantic, we struggle through our meals attempting to be positive. But really, as we both admitted in the car on the way home, the food was pretty abysmal.

We weren’t the only ones that appeared to struggle at Tyranny that night. One couple who arrived not long after us were sitting at their table for a good twenty minutes before they even received menus. They looked awkward and uncomfortable, so I suspect it was a date early on in their relationship and neither of them had the balls to suggest that they just left. I bet you once they received their food (which they still hadn’t got by the time we left) they wished they had. So in summary, if you want to eat food that you could cook better at home, practice your skills in flagging down a waitress and pay for overpriced old wine, head to Tyranny. Otherwise, go elsewhere, or simply settle in at Tyranny for a beer and enjoy a warm summers evening, because that is what it does best.

Birdman Eating, for people with bird like appetites.

238 Gertrude St Fitzroy

6.5/10

Spending most of my time in the South Eastern and CBD area, I made a brave foray into the fabulous dining world that lies across the other side of the Yarra. These suburbs are unexplored and exciting for me food wise, and every time I visit Smith St or Gertrude St I promise myself I will visit more (but then the inefficient and unwieldy nature of the Melbourne public transport system prevents me from fulfilling my promise). So this little journey was to Birdman Eating for dinner. Birdman is a restaurant that is known more for its breakfasts and brunches than for dinner, and apparently it is difficult to snag a table on weekend mornings. However, on this humid Wednesday night we had no problems getting a table for six (outside no less!), and the place remained half empty all night (in comparison to Ladro, a few doors down, which was packed to the gills). Upon arriving and perusing the menu I had a bit of a sinking feeling. I didn’t realise that Birdman Eating only did “small share plates” for dinner. Or, in other words, “small plates of food to ensure that you spend more than if you only had a main meal”.

Let me preface the following rant by saying that I love eating out in Melbourne and think we do world class food, no matter the cuisine. But, as yet, I am not convinced that we can do tapas, or the “small serving” thing, well. In Spain you can eat your fill of small and delightful treats for a reasonable price. It is the done thing in many bars and restaurants, and therefore there is competition and a need to keep things reasonably priced. The Spanish have also had many years to figure out what works well as a small serving shared amongst friends, and what does not. Melbourne has not figured this out. So what should be a relatively inexpensive way to eat out has become the opposite in Melbourne, and when you see the words “small plates”, “share plates” or “tapas”, be prepared to leave with a light stomach and an even lighter wallet.

Birdman Eating is unfortunately no different. The food was good, I don’t deny that. Our group had, all up, about 10 different small share plates between us. Most were delicious, such as the sous vide octopus with green olives & compressed watermelon salad ($18.50) and the slow roasted lamb shoulder with celery heart leaves, fetta, lemon & bread ($18). I am also still dreaming about the fried haloumi with red rice, dried sour cherry’s & pistachio salad ($15). The zucchini & fetta fritters ($10.50) were a bit dry and tasteless, and the skordalia ($9) did not hold a candle to others I have tried (for the BEST skordalia head to Mamacas on Chapel St). But really, the food was all pretty damn nice and used flavour combinations that I had never thought of before. The service was ok, if a little slow at times, but relatively friendly and smooth. The wine/beer list was also reasonable, although I am not a convert to the Mauritian Beer Phoenix ($8).

BUT here is my issue. Most dishes I wanted more of, but instead I was left with a few mouthfuls of intense flavours, and than I had to move onto another mouthful of different flavours. It was sensory overload. I would have much preferred a entrée and main of two of the dishes, which would easily be able to be “super sized” by the kitchen. I stopped tasting the differences and didn’t really feel like I got to completely enjoy and appreciate each dish. The dishes, as they were, just didn’t work as small shared plates. And of course there was the bill. For a weeknight casual dinner where none of us actually ate that much (I suspect the men in our dining group went home hungry and made toast) it was $65 a head. In my book that is too much for what we had, despite it all being fresh food made from quality ingredients. I suspect that it is this small and pricey approach towards dinner at Birdman that sees it half empty on a week night whilst the neighbouring restaurants are bursting at the seams. Maybe the Birdman should just stick to breakfast.

DonToo, 340 Little Lonsdale St, Shop 6

7.5/10 on the quick tasty lunch scale

Perhaps my all time favourite episode of Seinfeld (yes, a good part of my teen years were in the 90s, and I still make references to this classic sitcom, and cannot eat a pretzel without uttering the famous line ‘these pretzels are making me thirsty’ …) is the Soup Nazi Episode. In this episode the characters discover a great takeaway soup place, however to get any soup they have to conform to the rigid rules of the Soup Nazi when ordering. Because the soup is so good the characters keep returning, putting up with anything, until the fateful day that George asks for a bread role and the whole thing blows up …

Where am I going with this, you wonder? Well, a visit to DonToo certainly has elements of the Soup Nazi episode. This little Japanese eatery (which does lunch and dinner for prices below $15) is tucked away on Little Lonsdale St in the City, and it does a roaring trade. It is not unusual for the queue to stretch back 20 people long and out the door at lunch time. And if you don’t know what you want to order once you get to the front of the queue, God help you.

Today, in 39 degree heat, I brave that kind of whipping North wind that only Melbourne seems to be able to conjure up, and head there for lunch. Alone and red faced, I reach the front of the queue, dazed and confused. In my over heated state, I panic. I can’t remember what the name of the dish I want. ‘Yes!?’ says the woman at the counter. I scramble for the menu – I’ve forgotten my glasses – I squint. I yell out the first thing I see. In my panic I don’t hear here ask/shout ‘Eat here or Takeaway!?!’. I pause, silent. Rookie mistake. The question gets shouted again. ‘Eat here’ I suddenly answer, back on the ball. If this was the Soup Nazi I would be kicked out. But DonToo, even with its brisk and quick service, won’t kick you out if you don’t follow the ordering rules. You’ll just cop a dirty look. I can deal with that, as long as the food is good. So, five seconds after placing my order, I pick my food up from the counter – yes, the service and food is that fast – and I squeeze into a seat to eat. Luckily I managed to order what I wanted, a Sashi Don ($9.50). This lunch set includes salmon and ocean trout sashimi, rice, tofu, lettuce, ginger, pickled purple unidentifiable bits of vegetable (my ignorance of Japanese vegetables prevents me from giving more information) and shredded egg thingos (again, not sure what they are, but they are tasty, I assure you). It is a big lunch and a bargain – for the same price I could probably buy the same amount of fish at Coles, minus any of the other ingredients. DonToo also has a variety of other lunch sets, as well as famous curries (see the tofu curry, $6.50, pictured), which I am yet to try but which look great. Judging by the trade that DonToo does – it is not often you see Melburnians happily queuing at lunch time - all the other items on the menu must be pretty good as well.

So I can recommend DonToo as a far more interesting Japanese alternative to the standard hand rolls at Shuji Sushi (and incidentally, also far less likely lunch to give you food poisoning than ShujiSushi). Just make sure you know what you want to order before you get to the front of the queue, and for all our sakes please don’t ask for a bread roll.