The Hardware Societe, a little piece of lunch time heaven

120 Hardware St, CBD Melbourne

9/10 on the lunch scale. There is no better lunch option (that I have tried) in Melbourne.

I almost don’t want to write a review of Hardware Societe, because I don’t want to make it anymore difficult to get a table there at lunchtime! But, sigh, in the name of Fill My Belly I will add to the avalanche of positive reviews out there on Hardware Societe. Because the place is a truly great find. Stuck up the quiet end of Hardware Lane (where it actually becomes Hardware Street), away from the awkward restaurants touts trying to convince you to come inside their restaurant, sits Hardware Societe (Note: if a restaurant has to encourage you to come inside by placing some poor bastard out the front to pounce on people passing by, it is not worth going to. I don’t like generalisations, but I can assure you, their food will be shit). Hardware Societe has the opposite problem of a lot of places on Hardware lane, in that it has too many people wanting a table. So if you want to eat there and not wait half an hour for a table, arrive at 12 pm. They don't take booking and the place is very small. When we arrived at 12 pm we snagged the last table.

Hardware Societe sadly only does breakfast and lunch. If it branched out for dinner it would do a roaring trade also. Because the food is lovely. It is hands down the best value meal I have had in Melbourne in a long time. Sure, $17 for lunch isn’t cheap, but for the quality of the food, the cute and quirky surrounding and the exceptional service, it is a bargain. The food compares to what you would get in a top end restaurant, but instead of paying $45 a meal, you are paying around $17. It certainly puts into perspective the mark ups that top up restaurants must add to their dishes. I am gushing I know, but this place shows us how lunch could be everyday of the week if other places took a leaf out of Hardware’s book. And what a wonderful world that would be.

The menu changes seasonally, and they also don’t have a website, so it is hard to tell you exactly what my friends and I ate (however, I am still having graphic food flash backs so it shouldn’t be too hard). To try to put their cuisine into words, think lots of cuisines and ingredients combined into a delicate balance of flavours. The menu contains about 10 options for lunch, and they all sounded so delicious that I had a minor panic attack when trying to pick what to order. I ate a pork escalope placed on a generous dollop of garlicy labna, with broad beans, peas and snow pea tendrils ($17). It was a generous serve and the pork was perfectly cooked and went beautifully with the labna. The peas and broad beans had been poached ever so slightly so that they kept their fresh flavour. I ate every last little bit of food on my plate. My friends had the pork belly special, which came with cous cous that had been “sexed” up with date molasses and rose water and tossed with roasted nectarines ($17). The pork belly had the requisite crunchy top and sweet, moist bottom. Other menu items included scallops, roasted lamb and vegetarian options.

The food was so good that you could ignore the various groups of people angling for a table and attempting to poach freshly vacated tables from those who had arrived before them. Because of the flood of people wanting a table, Hardware Societe becomes a bit of a jungle at lunchtime in this respect, but the staff cope well and I actually heard a waitress politely telling two people who had snagged a table that there were others who had been waiting longer.

Hardware also has a range of delicious looking sweet food, like macaroons (which a trusted source tells me are some of the best in Melbourne) and cakes. But sadly, I was down to the last 5 cents in my purse and couldn’t indulge. Oh well, this simply gives me an excuse to return. Although I think I will have to arrive at 11.55am next time ...

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.

Borsch Vodka and Tears, 173 Chapel St Windsor

Generally I am not a fan of breakfast out, as I am usually ravenous upon waking and by the time I have been served my breakfast at a restaurant I am eating out of the sugar bowl and entering a hypoglycaemic coma. So I go for the midway option – brunch. It allows for a small breakfast at home, and then the whole hog out, minus the abovementioned coma.

So Sunday brunch this week was at Borsch Vodka and Tears, a restaurant/bar serving contemporary polish food. It is located on the often far too cool-for-school Chapel St, and I am sorry to say that you will have to dodge a few rayban adorned gentlemen squeezed into a black skinny jean/checked shirt combo to get in the door. Despite my aversion to hipster fools and inappropriately dressed women (it’s a Sunday morning ladies, no need to put the good china on display), I must admit that Borsch has long been on my list of haunts, but for the sake of the review, will attempt to review it with fresh eyes.

The restaurant is predominantly an evening restaurant/bar and it’s décor if along those lines – half melted candles running along the bar, more vodka bottles than a Russian wedding and heavy velvet curtains. So, really, the place is at its best on a dark cold night where you feel like nursing a cocktail and eating the kind of food your polish grandmother would make you … if you had one (sadly, I do not).

I order the potato blintzes with smoked salmon and sour cream ($13) and a English breakfast tea. The tea come served in a cute little set, complete with its own tray. The tea tastes fantastic but it is probably because I love the tea set so much that I am biased. The blintzes are a little rubbery and I suspect they were made some time ago and then reheated, which is unfortunate as they are usually incredible here. But the smoked salmon is good quality and fashioned into a rose – a nice touch (clearly I am not hard to please!). Husband shuns caffeine in favour of a Bloody Mary to counter the effects of a particularly lethal punch at the preceding evenings festivities. It looks tasty, and apparently is. It comes with a large celery stalk, two olives and a large slither of cucumber. Husbands mood begins to noticeably improve with each sip. He also orders the big breakfast, which comes with everything you would expect in a traditional big breakfast, with a little polish flair by way of pickles and a potato blintz. Husband says it is delicious, and at the rate he clears the massive plate of food I believe him, although I don’t get a chance to taste any of it (unless I was willing to loose a finger).

My biggest criticisms is really that the place feels a little stark in the day time. Add to this a strange soundtrack – mostly the greatest hits of Queen – played at such a loud volume that you need to shout a little to hear your companion, and it doesn’t have the nicest lazy Sunday vibe. I think I much prefer dinner here – the pierogi and the polish gnocchi are fabulous and make me a little weepy (in a good way).

So full, merry and slightly deaf from Bohemian Rhapsody, we head back out onto Chapel St to once again dodge the increasing traffic flow of previously mentioned hipster fools and enjoy the rest of our Sunday.

EARL Canteen, 500 Bourke, Lt Bourke St courtyard, Melbourne

Still suffering vivid flash backs from my Tuesday lunch at Laksa Me (I may perhaps be unable to ever eat pork again) I tentatively stepped out of the office for Wednesday lunch, desperate for my spirits to be lifted.

I am happy to report that my spirits have been lifted, to soaring heights. And this is because of four little words - twelve hour roasted lamb. The place where this little miracle is available is Earl Canteen, tucked away in the new courtyard complex at the back of 500 Bourke St. The place itself, which is only open for breakfast and lunch, is a sleek looking café with white walls and floors that spills out onto the courtyard giving it a very open and light feeling. It is obviously meant to be ‘upmarket takeaway and café’ following the example set by Café Vue. Except it’s better than Café Vue. The owner has done his time at places like Circa and Vue de Monde, and it shows, as the service is efficient and professional and the little touches (brown sugar to go with the excellent coffee, small vases of flowers on tables, crisp brown aprons on waiters) make this place feel classy and soothing at the same time. I really can’t fault the service – today the place was pumping but the few staff handled it like pros, and everything came quickly and was served with a smile. Personally, I think the food is better than Café Vue (sorry Shannon but you have spread yourself a little too thin these days) and Earl is, along with the service, a whole lot less pretentious. Café Vue always made me feel like I was lucky to be eating there, and that I needed them more than they needed me. But HA! I don’t need you anymore Café Vue, I have a new boyfriend and his name is Earl.

But I digress – back to the lamb. It comes atop a crusty baguette filled with honeyed baby carrots and gremolata. It is soft and falls apart at the touch. It has the colour of milk chocolate, but tastes like a piece of meaty heaven. God damn, it is so so tasty. It is also $15, which many would be horrified at. ‘A sandwich for $15!!! They must be bloody joking’, I can hear my father scream. But when it is this good, its worth it. My fellow lady who lunches goes for the crispy skin free range Otway pork belly, apple, cabbage & fennel coleslaw and wilted silverbeet baguette ($13.5). She assures me it is delicious, and by the way she guarded the crackling that came with her baguette (she could see in my eyes that I was just waiting for a chance to snag a piece), she was obviously telling the truth. When I recover from my Laksa Me experience and can eat pork again I will go back and try it myself.

I finished off with a coffee, again delivered in a few minutes and perfectly made. No chocolate sprinkles on top – the Italians would be proud – and it is just the right temperature.

Oh Earl, tonight I will go to bed dreaming of your baguette. My husband will not be happy.

Xx
Ms Melbourne

Laska Me, an unfortunate experience

Where: Shop 1 16 Liverpool St, Melbourne

3/10 (mostly for the friendly and efficient service)

I used to frequent Laksa Me several years ago as a solid pre-night on the town option. It was (and still is) BYO at $10 a bottle and the food went from either standard quality to exceptional. The pandan chicken used to be succulent and flavoursome, the laksa (obviously a big part of their menu considering the name) a creamy bowl of goodness, and the meat included in most dishes of a good enough quality to keep the regulars returning.

So for Tuesday lunch I thought, why not try an old favourite?

Sadly, age has not treated Laksa Me well. Perhaps there is a new chef, or perhaps the place has changed hands, but Laksa Me, I no longer recognise you. The décor is the same, the service still reasonably quick and polite and the menu still has many of the same items. But that is it.

Let me explain. First, I went for my old favourite, the pandan chicken. This entrée ($6) used to come wrapped completely in a pandan leaf and deep fried, leaving the inside piece of chicken moist and perfectly cooked. They were like mouthfuls of heaven. Today, the pandan leaf was instead used like a decorative garnish, with a thin band wrapped around a dubious hunk of chicken. Obviously the chicken had been cooked in a pan or, possibly considering the taste, microwaved. The chicken itself was impossible to bite through and I had to resort to hands to pull it apart. Inside it was a dubious mix of pink and fat. Still, I pressed on, thinking, ‘it must taste the same’. Sigh. No. It tasted how it looked. Horrible. One mouthful and I was done, leaving 70% of the dish on the plate.

Next I went for the Laska. Laksa – not hard to do. Has been done to death by many a cheap eatery in Melbourne, and most of them seem to pull it off relatively successfully. Not here, anymore. I went with the My Mum’s Laksa ($10), a mix of noodles, spicy coconut sauce, pork, chicken and prawns. It didn’t mention them on the menu, but I just assumed that some form of vegetable would be in the laksa. Something, even a single piece of spring onion. But no, not a single vegetable. Instead it was a gelatinous hunk of over cooked noodles, think gluggy soupy sauce and large hunks of fatty meat. The only redeeming feature were the prawns, of which there were three, and I desperately searched around for more (I was hungry post entrée disaster) to no avail. Again, sigh. Another issue I had was that the meat in the dish was served in super large hunks, so large that you either had to pull it up with your chopsticks and rip it apart with an awkward hacking motion with your fork, or give up. Considering the taste of the dish, which I’d liken to muddy watery curry, I gave up. My companions were equally unimpressed and gave me the ‘I’m not going to openly say it, but you recommended this place so it’s your fault’ look. I left hungry and will never again return.

Laksa Me, you’ve changed. Today you made me sad. My mental state of bad meal induced depression was only saved by buying a 50% off pair of shoes on the way back to the office.