Archives for August 2014

391 Lentil as Anything – I’m sure the cow wouldn’t mind

August 30, 2014 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

Vegan! Not a word I normally have much truck with, but tonight we are off to Lentil As Anything, which I am quickly advised, even before my bum has hit the seat, is not just vegetarian, but vegan. On the upside though, the place does seem to be very popular. It’s full to the brim with mostly twentyish women and a few young men who have obviously agreed to come here, ignoring their natural red-blooded inclination to go up the hill to the Amazon Steakhouse, in the hopes of charming the socks off the women folk. The dress code suggests that the clientele are from the more hippy end of the hipster spectrum, and the strong possibility that there are a few students present.

Seated in the middle of the restaurant at a junk-shop-find table, our group of four is an island of cynical boomerism awash in an optimistic sea of idealism. And despite myself, I am finding that being splashed in the face with some salty hope and enthusiasm is quite refreshing.

Lentil As Anything in Newtown is part of a Melbourne-based chain of do-goodnik eateries, famous because guests (not customers) are invited to contribute (not pay) what they feel is appropriate. There is no bill, just a contribution box near the door on the way out, “So we don’t know what you put in it,” our charming waitress explains helpfully when we finally start to pull up stumps. The staff are mostly volunteers and the organisation is a not-for-profit which is involved in education and community development. According to the the website they believe in the power of humanity to create stupendous change, and I for one, admire anyone who uses the word stupendous on the front page of their website.

Tonight Strop and I are joined by Mindy and Pete, old mates who we have been trying to spend time with for a while so there is a lot of catch-up natter when we meet at the Social Club next door. The conversation pitter-patters through a bit of job whinging, health issue exploration, bereavement commiseration, parental enquiry, reports of children’s antics, and highlights of holidays past and holidays imminent, before our glasses are empty and we have to decide whether we need food or more alcohol more urgently. Food wins.

Next door we are directed to a table and offered water and chai. Chai! I am not a chai person, but what the hell, I decide to pretend I am in a foreign country, and adapt to the local customs. It is quite nice really. In context. The table is decorated with a bowl of fresh looking oranges. I might have one of those later, I think to myself.

Our waitress explains the offerings tonight. There are three, a noodle dish, a curry dish and a bean dish. There is no tradition of gluten-based-meat-analogues here, though there are probably a few Buddhists in the crowd. The simple choices are a refreshing change from menus that are so long that you are never going to be able to read the whole thing. Our choices are worryingly symmetrical – curry for the blokes, noodles for the womens. The food is really good. Fresh simple flavours, well-cooked and generous. I think the curry is the winner because there are four curries with the rice and salad: beetroot, eggplant, dahl and potato. It is excellent. The noodles are good too but the curry gets bonus points for variety. The vibe of the place is a bit like a very crowded 1970s group house, but with better food and more colourful hair. Just as I am about to help myself to an orange, which is what I would do at home, peeling it over my empty curry plate, the waitress asks if we’d like dessert. Well, yes. There is one dessert, a lime, coconut and raisin pudding. As I am a foreigner in this territory, my non-vegan brain added cream to the list of dessert ingredients. Unfortunately I was wrong, which is a pity because the dessert was quite dry. On the way out one of the staff explained to me that vegan baking is a tricky business. Cream. I’m sure the cow wouldn’t mind.

There is plenty of demand for places at Lentil As Anything, so they tend to squeeze as many people in as they can. We felt a bit uncomfortable lingering over our empty bowls and chai glasses, knowing there were people waiting out on the street to get in. We carried on our catching up outside before going our separate ways, but had to split up in the end as people kept thinking we were the end of the queue to get in. I can see us going back for a quick feed.

When you go be generous, the food and the optimism are well worth it.

Off the map to St Kilda – Fine dining in the principality of Luxembourg

August 23, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

Intense activity behind the bar Photo: Felicity Watson — Intense activity behind the bar
Photo: Felicity Watson

The first thing was the smell – I wasn’t on King Street anymore. The sea; not fresh-pounding-waves sea, but briney-lapping-seaweed sea.

This is Strop, going off the map to the smart new Luxembourg Bar and Bistro at the suave end of St Kilda, up near Albert Park.

It is a special ladies-only treat at one of the other ladies’ favourite haunts. Favourite because of the flavours, as will become obvious, but also because her favourite (and only) sibling is Head Chef.

I have seen so many succulent Instagram pix of the food here, my mouth is watering before I’ve even sat down. I creep up on Flick who is sitting at the business end of the counter, consorting with the staff. Hugs, kisses and exclamations ensue.

We settle and get on with catching-up. We used to work very closely together, but in the last few years we have only seen each other once in a blue moon. There is lots of interesting news to share, but I can’t help noticing the activity in the kitchen – there is unexpected busy-ness with extreme tweezers. The best kind of micro-management.

Looking back on the copy of the menu (liberated for research purposes) I realise I missed an entire section of the menu entitled Raw. Ahh well, next time.

Some delicious interestingly-presented homemade bread and butter came first, ‘Mum made the hessian sacks’ says Flick – that is dedication. They were swiftly followed by Potato skins, whipped cod roe and avruga (caviar). Very good; crunchy, soft, light and creamy all at the same time.

Our other choices to share came from the Plates – Small area of the menu. Fried broccoli with caper & raisin dressing, and salted ricotta, I love a brassica and this was so very tasty. Radicchio, smoked duck breast, grape and walnut – was delicious too – it was one of the dishes requiring extreme micro-management (tweezers used to arrange the grape slivers, amongst other things), and it paid off. Finally, a dark, fragrant bake was delivered in its cast iron pan, it was the Tripe and cuttlefish braise with brioche crumbs. A more unlikely-sounding combo is hard to imagine, but it too was scrumptious.

Head Chef delivering a dark, fragrant bake Photo: Felicity Watson — Head Chef delivering a dark, fragrant bake
Photo: Felicity Watson

The stylings here are nice, all the staff have an old-fashioned green and white tea towel usefully attached to their simple uniforms. There are two very groovy wall-light fittings – the best I’ve seen.

All the flavours are delectable, one after the other, interesting and unlikely combos to delight.

Being so close to the kitchen action can be very distracting. I admire the deft slicing of vegetables on the super sharp mandolin. I’d have bandaids on every finger …

The waitstaff are charmingly helpful, especially because Flick is ‘family’, but I suspect they’d be friendly to all.

Our conversation meanders around our respective jobs, Flick’s is expanding in wonderful ways and she’s excited. My work life has changed minute by minute these last couple of weeks and the phrase ‘HR people are so shit’ is uttered – even though some of my favourite people work in HR – but in this one particular instance…

In order to take our minds off the HR crisis we decide to order dessert. There are wonderful fruity options, and we decide on Buttermilk panna cotta, blood orange, fennel granita & meringue as well as Mille-feuille, spiced quince & brown sugar cream.

While we’re waiting, I decide to seek some kitchen interpretation. I wanted to understand the roles of the people I had seen working so hard. Jess, a delightful waitress (do we say that still?) and aficionado, as it turns out, of the Garden History Society, explained some of the intricacies of the kitchen.

We’d been watching at close-hand the Cold Larder blokes, putting together the cool elements of the dishes with their tweezers. The Pastry Chef also got in on the assembling action – but mostly with the sweet things.

Slightly further away was the Sous Chef, the Head Chef’s right hand – presumably able to step into the breech when the Head Chef’s partner goes into labour – not imminent, but soon. The two of them worked closely together to get the timing right and also with tweezers, to get the dishes just-so as they left the kitchen. Both unexpectedly relaxed and happy, on the outside at least.

Further still are the people on ‘meat’ and ‘fish’ – literally slaving over a hot stove and various proteins.

Waaaay at the back is the washer-upper working hard. I didn’t get their proper name.

Gorgeous green fennel granita wins the eye-candy award Photo: Felicity Watson — Gorgeous green fennel granita wins the eye-candy award
Photo: Felicity Watson

The very beautiful desserts arrived. So many flavours, and all of them delicious, together and separately. Who knew fennel could be granita-ed? Head Chef, Chris Watson did.

We shared the desserts like ladies, not fighting over the crumbs at all.

All-in-all it was a wonderful experience – I would recommend our kitchen-view seats for entertainment and learning, and Luxembourg for the flavours and the textures.

As we watched the rapid and continuous delivery of beautiful food, Flick said ‘I just can’t believe my brother’s a boss’, but Boss he is, of a great bar and bistro – go there when you can.

387 Newtown Social Club – Evacuation imperatives

August 17, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

I feel like a bit of a fraud writing about the Newtown Social Club without having been to a gig there. A quick glance at their website will tell you that this place is first and foremost a music venue, which is lovely, except that most bands don’t start hauling their amps up the stairs before my bedtime. So this is going to be a review of the drinkey and eatey bits of NSC rather than the venuey bits.
This is the first time we have eaten at the Social Club, but I have had a few quiet settling ales there before plunging on to various quest destinations. One of the things I have noticed is that the front bar seems to have been mainly designed with evacuation in mind. There are very wide front doors and a distinct lack of furniture except around the walls. No doubt this is part of the requirement to get large numbers of sweaty music fans off the premises quickly, but it does limit the opportunities for sitting down with a quiet beer in the front bar.
Out the back though, there are plenty of tables and chairs – and a kitchen. The menu is refreshingly concise. As this venue used to be a pub, I have decided to conscript it for the Burger Wars. In contrast to Deans Diner, there are only two types of burger on offer. You’ve got your meat burger, or your vegie burger. And the pulled pork roll does not pretend to be a burger, which is a refreshing change (I’m looking at you Bank Hotel).

The lighting is so dim that I have to go and stand in front of the blackboard menu before I can actually work out what the fine print says. A pleasant surprise is the prices: $13 for a burger, $9.50 for a pork roll. We try the salt and pepper squid for entree and a beef burger for him and a pulled pork roll for her.
The crowd is mixed. The younger folk are in the front bar where the main feature is the pool table. In the dining area the demographic seems a bit older. Tonight there is a surprising amount of turquoise coloured hair, even for Newtown. There is a large group of women with quite a few attendant children, making me wonder if the Wiggles were playing upstairs, but Strop decided it was just a birthday celebration. The dining room is a good spot for groups, with tables that can easily be dragged into a variety of configurations.
The food doesn’t take too long and is generally good. The squid is tender and spicy with a nice bit of wasabi in the aioli. Always a plus. The insides of the pork roll and the burger are good too, but both are let down by the quality of the buns. My burger suffers near catastrophic failure when all the juices combine with the pressure of my fingers to turn the bun into very tasty, finger-licking mush. Luckily we have plenty of napkins on hand for just such an emergency. The pulled pork and the chili salsa are excellent, and the chips are some of the best we have encountered on the quest. As Strop put it “They were crispy even when they should have been soggy.”
There is a nice noisy relaxed vibe to the Social Club. Good music playing and it’s not too crowded. If they had a few more comfortable places to sit I might become a regular.

385 Deans Diner – Burgers and bereavement

August 8, 2014 by Andrew Christie 11 Comments

I was sitting down to start writing a different version of this blog when I got the call from the nursing home.

Last Friday night we went out to Deans Diner. My mother died on Saturday morning. There is no connection between these facts other than that I had been to see Mum on Friday just before I went to the Diner. Strop had planned the outing with our nephew Keir and his girlfriend Zoe, for some teenager-paced burger action. When I got there I was a bit under the weather with a cold, and worried about Mum’s complete lack of interest in food, and in life more generally. CityRail hadn’t helped my mood either. Not that they were doing anything special – just being their usual selves. So clearly I wasn’t really in the mood for a night out, but I was willing to make an effort, suck it up for the greater good. Take one for the Quest.

Strop has been very keen on the idea of Deans Diner, talking it up at every opportunity despite the fact that it really did not fall within The Rules (because: no plates). She had heard Good Things about the burgers from her network of connected young groovers (otherwise known as Facebook). And I can see the appeal: retro/original milkbar vibe, overlaid with 1950s aesthetics, and rock’n’roll burger stylings. The burgers come in lots of variations, all with suitably daggy RnR names, plus they do fresh-fried fish and chips, and for drinks there are spiders in colour themed candy-striped containers. They even have a few Greek specials and baklava for dessert (though I think they pronounce it differently than they do at 3 Olives).

Having talked up the burger joint for about a month, Strop, no doubt wanting to preserve the currency of that well known old proverb, Perversity Thy Name is Strop, ordered moussaka instead of a burger. As punishment, the Burger Gods elected to give the tattooed and dreadlocked staff the impression that Strop must be a vegetarian – the only logical reason to avoid a burger after all. So they gave her vegetarian moussaka instead of meaty moussaka. Apparently it was awful – although we only have her word for that – no one else was stupid enough to give it a try, as we were all perfectly happy with our meaty burgers. There was The King (Keir), The Queen (Zoe) and The Jackson Five (me). Splendid burgers one and all. The chips were a bit pallid and stodgy, but the ginger beer spiders were excellent, as were the staff. Friendly (except for punishing Strop), even though they were working flat out on a very busy Friday night. Later Strop and I had a brief discussion, trying to work out if they were hippies with tatts, or hipsters with dreads – an important distinction in the tribal inner west. Afterwards, Keir and Zoe went off in search of exotic desserts, while Strop and I toddled home to bed.

On Saturday morning I watched Mum dying on the floor of her room, surrounded by blue clad paramedics. I stood outside in the corridor with my hands on my head, hoping that I had made the right decision, telling them not to resuscitate her again.

Let her go. It was over. She was over it.

I knew it was going to be serious when I arrived to find two ambulances occupying the driveway of the nursing home. When I walked into her room, the oldest ambo asked who I was, double-checked I was her son, talking directly to me. Serious voice. While the others kept working, cross-checking the drugs, deciding what to do next. They had a pulse going again, but she wasn’t breathing herself, being ventilated by one of the blue heroes. While I listened to the explanations of what had happened I thought, so this is how it ends, lying on floor with your nightie cut open, tubes taped into your face, and cords stuck to your chest. I was glad she had knickers on.

Now as we deal with the mundane aftermath of death, I wonder why I don’t feel anything much. I don’t know what her life or her death meant. Do our deaths mean anything? Does it matter how we die?

Everyone is very nice to you when you are bereaved, which is great, but it leaves you in a pretty weird zone. A kind of bereavement bubble.

Dad was sitting in the corner of Mum’s room – not his usual chair – everything had been pushed aside to clear a space on the floor for the ambos to do their resurrection work. He looked smaller and older than I have ever seen him.

Later, after the ambos had gone, we sat in the room with Mum, back in her bed but still tubed up, waiting for the cops to come. We’re still not sure exactly why they were called. The doctor came later. With exasperatingly long pauses and hand wringing, he seemed genuinely concerned, upset that he still didn’t know what exactly had been wrong in the weeks leading up to her death. When you’re 91 it doesn’t really matter. In between visitors, we sat and waited, saying the things we hoped were the right things to say.

We heard later that three other residents of the nursing home had died in the past two weeks. Flu season.