Snow Tree, Footscray

So someone was talking on Twitter about the new frozen yoghurt place opening in Seddon, and someone else directed them to the blog, "...and now it's a fucking froyo place".  Go check it out, but it's basically before-and-after shots of places that were "business X" and are now frozen yoghurt joints.  What rancour! I thought.  Who could get grumpy with frozen yoghurt?  So swirly, sweet and studded with delicious toppings - why, if unicorns poo, they must poo frozen yoghurt.

But seriously, as far as I can gather, the blog "[tracks] New York's downfall" by tracing the closure of diverse small businesses in favour of corporate frozen yoghurt chains.  There may be more frozen yoghurt joints around Melbourne than ever before, but I don't think we're at quite the same level of small biz displacement.

Indeed, Footscray seems to have been a particularly hostile environment for species froyus yoghurtus.  Yogurt House gave it a crack but didn't succeed.  And then came Snow Tree, who did waffles and frozen yoghurt.

I have no idea how successful the sweet offerings were, but for whatever reason, Snow Tree have decided to turn their attention to a new menu of savoury Korean food.

It's not the best location - right next to a noisy bus stop - but inside it's surprisingly quiet and peaceful.  The slightly whimsical, mismatched decor is endearing if a bit odd.

The lunch specials are total bargains.  This bibimbap was $12 and came with three side dishes, salad, miso and Korean chilli sauce.

Bibambap is kinda the equivalent of Korean meat and three - or rather, seven - veg.  The meat n' veg in question are all really simply seasoned with maybe some sesame oil, salt and pepper, and it's served on white rice in a searing-hot stone bowl, which is meant to crisp up the rice around the edges.

This was my meal, but I have such massive food envy of the bibimbap that I have forgotten what it was called.  I think it was only ten dollars, so at least I could revel in my gold coin savings!

As well as miso, side dishes and salad, mine was a "bit of everything" with tempura vegies, crumbed prawn, spring roll, coleslaw, beef stir-fry of sorts and lots of nice rice.

'Twas all good, cheap and satisfying.  A good little option to have in Footscray when you're tired of pho for lunch.  And there was no room for dessert - froyo or otherwise!

Snow Tree

12/119 Hopkins Street (entrance on Leeds St), Footscray

Korean bread at Footscray's Bread Kingdom

Footscray has gone Gangnam style!  In the space of a week, not one but two new Korean businesses have opened on our fair streets.  Bread Kingdom is the latest addition, a Korean bakery specialising in fluffy cakes and other sweet treats.

It was early in the morning when I stopped by so the baskets weren't fully loaded, but I still took my time weighing up the flavour of my mid-morning blood sugar spike.

Apparently French-style bakeries are big in Korea and Bread Kingdom certainly continues in that vein, with madeleines, layered sponge cakes (including pumpkin and purple sweet potato flavours) and girly-pink Swiss rolls.

There are savouries too, like these mini burgers, croque monsieurs and toasts with an egg cracked in the middle, each one wrapped in crisp, shiny cellophane.  Everything's very reasonably priced so you can get yourself a great little spread for not much dosh.

I love Asian breads.  They don't seem so much kneaded as spun, like fairy floss.  This means that for each earnest Sourdough Kitchen fruit bun, I could cram in at least five Breadtop baked goods, each one bristling with different combinations of pork floss, Kewpie mayo and loads of buttery margarine.  YUM.

This is super-sweet Janet, the owner-operator of this franchise of Bread Kingdom, who you're likely to see seconds after entering as she springs up to you with a tray of samples.  She'd written to me out of the blue earlier in the week to tell me she'd opened up.  I introduced myself after paying for my goodies.  

  

Because the station's in the way, it's easy to forget that it's a mere 9-minute walk down to the river...

Shell ball $2.50

...and what a lovely place to spread out in the sunshine and unwrap your treats, with palm trees waving above and people fishing languidly beside you.  These are "shell balls", piped cookies with an extremely tender crumb like the crumbliest shortbread.  Apparently they are made with zero flour - just condensed milk, regular milk, eggs, baking powder and surprise ingredient, white bean paste!  The bean paste (white beans as in like cannellini or navy) gives the cookies body and also adds loads of protein.  The orange flavour (above) is delicious, made with real orange peel in the mix - there's also coffee and green tea flavours.  And they are definitely 100% gluten and wheat free - I have checked with Janet that the baking powder is indeed so (McKenzie's brand).  Silly yaks, get on down!

Cinnamon manju, $3.20

These are manju, kind of like moon cakes with a thin, not-too-sweet dough dusted with a little cinnamon and wrapped around jade-green sweet bean paste.  Yummy!  PS:  The vast majority of goods are made in store and are made fresh each day.

Sandwich, $3.50

Yes, I am telling you to eat a cold, triple-decker, plastic cheese and ham sandwich.  Why?  Because it is SO DARN YUMMY.  I admit I would never have bought this but Janet had it out as a sample.  I went round and round the store and I still couldn't bring myself to leave without buying it.  The bread is soft yet crisp with golden margarine/butter, the melted cheese, the salty ham...  You might think I've lost my mind but I loved it!  Sometimes the wrongest things are the rightest.

Honey castella, $2.20

Janet threw in this freebie for us and it was a light, airy, chiffon-style sponge with just a touch of rich egginess.  Quite plain, but like sponge or tea cake, I think it's meant to be like that.

Bread Kingdom have a coffee machine ($2.50 coffees!  Party like it's 2001!) and a few small tables up the back so you can sit in and share some coffee and cakes.  The hot tip for next time is their "rice donut", made with sticky rice powder and cinnamon sugar - the rice powder is specially imported from Korea, so it's as authentic as possible.  Could it be that Footscray will now be famous for not one, but TWO donut varieties?

PS:  If you are vegan and/or interested in Korean food, you should read Alien's Day Out, a super-cool blog about eating 100% vegan in Seoul, South Korea.  Ever grateful to the reader who sent it in after I (I now realise stupidly) said Korean was not vego friendly.  :-)

Bread Kingdom
7 Paisley Street, Footscray
Hours:  Daily 7am-7.30pm

Bulgogi Express - Korean in Footscray

My friend firmly believes that the windswept strip of shops at the corner of Gordon Street and Ballarat Road, remarkable for its Pizza Hut and long-shuttered doctor's surgery, is the next big thing.  I wasn't so sure.  However, the revelation of Bulgogi Express' homestyle Korean menu could be the turning point the strip is looking for.

This shop has a curious history, and I've never been quite sure if it was a public restaurant or a dining hall of sorts.  Ian gave me the hot tip on the FFB Facebook page, enticingly describing bibimbap and bulgogi grilled tableside.

Bulgogi Express now has new owners (only for the last three weeks at time of writing) and while there's no more tabletop bulgogi action, there is a simple and enticing menu of homely Korean fare.

The restaurant has a contract to feed Korean students at Vic Uni, and while we ate two separate groups came in, flung their bags dow and began raiding the slow cookers and bowls of kim chi at the back of the restaurant like adults coming back to mum's house and rifling through the pantry for snacks (not that I would do that!)

Japchae, $10

Japchae is a dish made from chewy, clear noodles made with sweet potato flour.  Often it can descend into glugginess, but this version was awesome - the noodles still springy, not at all soggy, aromatic with sesame oil and entwined with beef and vegies.  YUM.

Beef bulgogi, $10

Top points for value here with a heaping serving of wafer-thin, well-marinated beef cosying up to white rice.  I preferred the lighter flavours of the japchae, though - the very sweet beef got a bit much over time.

Korean-style ramen and rice, $10

Normal people would be quite sated at this point but greedily we wanted more...until I was faced with my nemesis, plastic cheese!  Korean cuisine has co-opted some elements of the Western pantry, particualrly in the dish budae jjigae or "army base stew"- an (IMHO) nauseating combination of instant ramen, frankfurters, Spam, plastic cheese and baked beans.  It's a favourite of Melbourne blogger The Quince Poacher, who fondly calls it "a seven year old's dream dish".  Underneath the cheese this dish was quite good, with large jiao zi-style dumpling, springy instant noodles, kind of thick, starchy discs and broth with a good chilli hit but I couldn't get past the fromage au plastique.  Not doubting its authenticity though!

With lovely, friendly service and all the tropes of a good budget restaurant including a single-page, handwritten menu, chattering telly in the corner and only one drink on offer - Coke, $2 - Bulgogi Express is definitely worth checking out.  Save some japchae for me!

Bulgogi Express

203 Ballarat Road, Footscray (shop is on Gordon Street)

Hours:  Daily noon-3pm, 5-9pm


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Donwoori

Korean BBQ is heaps of fun.  If you are one half of a couple where you regularly lament "but my partner eats nothing but meat and bread", I promise you that Korean BBQ is the way to break that cycle.  Who can resist all that smoky, Maillard-reaction deliciousness occurring before your very eyes and most importantly, nostrils?  And so it's rice, not bread.  Meh, who cares!!

Donwoori is the newest in the string of Korean BBQ joints in West Melbourne, although when I say newest, it's been there for about four or five years.  It's quite tiny inside, with handsome young men doing a delicate dance with enormous pots of white-hot charcoal.  I love all the wood here, like at Wooga right nearby - it gives it such a cosy feeling.

The cosiness gives a convivial atmosphere, helped by the delightful young Korean waiters.  Grab a Hite Korean beer and maybe some soju, sake-like Korean rice wine.  I think it tastes like metho but Mr Baklover loves it!  Traditionally in Korea it is rude to pour your own drink, so your dining partner should pour yours, making sure they place their alternate hand on the forearm of the pouring arm.  The closer to the elbow you place this hand, the greater the status of the person you are pouring for.  There are a whole lot of other customs about who drinks first, who lights whose cigarette and so on.

You can pick and choose your meats but the banquet sets are easiest.  Little bowls of kim chi and other pickled side dishes arrive first for beery nibbling.  Often you will get lettuce to wrap your grilled meat in, but here we got an emerald bowl of shredded spring onion with sweet bean sauce.  I think it was for eating with the meat but we ate most of it beforehand, it was so yummy!

Butterflied beef rib, unfurled like a pennant.  The banquet ($39 for two) also had topside beef (no pic, too busy gorging) and...

...marinated flank steak.  The meat sizzles away merrily over the hot charcoal and depending on the establishment, will be turned and taken off for you.  I find it hard to wait though!  There are sauces for dipping, a sweetened bean sauce and sesame oil with garlic, and tender short grain rice.

Also part of our set was this soybean paste stew, which was gorgeous, like a warm hug from the inside.  It had juicy tofu and seductively soft cubes of potato and zucchini as well as petals of cooked beef, all in a smooth soybean broth.

Seafood pancake, $12

Looooved this Korean pancake.  Sometimes called Korean pizza, they are crispy, usually thin pancakes filled with all manner of tender seafood and just-cooked veg.

I really enjoyed Donwoori, although IIRC I think the meat was a little tastier at Wooga next door.  (Also much love for Hwaro in the city which I will write about one day.)  Donwoori is a firm favourite of Melbourne bloggers Agnes and Thanh.  Get that stick-in-the-mud partner down there and get stuck in.

Donwoori

276 Victoria Street, West Melbourne



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Sori Cafe - Japanese/Korean in Kensington

Bloggers, how do you blog?  I do so surreptitiously, self-consciously and am petrified of the day when someone tells me off.  I also know I have only a limited number of years before my kids start to self-destruct from embarrassment when the camera comes out, so am making the most of it while I can!

Sori Cafe is a real neighbourhood treasure, an authentic Japanese/Korean cafe tucked away in Kensington.  The kitchen is up a small flight of stairs at the back of the restaurant and (at lunch at least) the little ladies in gorgeous pressed aprons dart up and down, taking your order, running back up to flip the okonomiyaki, pattering back down with a bottle of water.

Complimentary banchan to start - traditional Korean tidbits eaten before the meal.  Soft, surprisingly buttery potato and carrot; a tasty folded egg omelette; zucchini cooked with sesame oil (delicious - one to make at home).  Check out the kid-friendly portion and crockery!

Fried dumplings (gyoza), $6.50

Little slippers of crunchy goodness, filled with soft vegie mash.  The pastry is actually quite crisp like a cracker.  The little side salad had a quite divine creamy sesame dressing.  Delish!

Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake), $6.50

Home-style Japanese pancake - a thick batter mixed with here shredded cabbage and a little diced octopus.  This was just lovely - the tonkatsu or Japanese BBQ sauce was here a home-style relish, almost jam-like, which contrasted with the sweet, creamy Japanese mayo.  These are my go-to shopping centre secret - they are tasty, filling, sort of healthy and usually cost about $4.

Hoedupbap, $16.50

Something for the last breath of summer - a warm salad of raw salmon and fresh salad vegies atop warm rice, the yin to bibimbap yang.  Drizzled with thick, mild Korean chilli bean sauce and mixed up, it was simple, honest, refreshing yet satisfying.  The miso was excellent, totally authentic.  In recent times Sori Cafe seem to have shrunk their lunch menu to the classics, so visit at dinnertime to try the full menu including japchae, stir-fried sweet potato noodles.

Exterior - check.  Food - check.  Interior - we could not resist the sunshine and so had sat outside, so how to get this last shot?  I put my camera on the counter, fumbling in my bag for my wallet while trying to corral the kids and hoping the moment would present itself.  "Are you a blogger?" said the waitress.  "Erm, yes, I am..." I trailed off uncertainly.  "Don't worry," she winked.  "So am I."

Sori Cafe

174 Bellair St, Kensington (map)

Phone:  9372 2025

Hours:  Mon-Sat, lunch 11.30am-3pm, dinner 5pm-10pm  

Wheelchair Access

Yes

Woo Ga

OK, I think I made a bad call.  Hyeung Jae in Hopkins St, aka "the new Korean BBQ place", is not that great after all.  I took a group of friends there having raved about it and we were all sorely disappointed.  Yes, the pork belly was good, but the portions were smaller, the seafood pancake mushy and gritty, the bulgogi soggy and sweet and the salad underdressed.  Maybe it was just that night but I really am sorry if I sent you there on a fool's errand.  Anyway, I have the cure for all your Korean BBQ cravings - Woo Ga in West Melbourne!

I love the whole thing in Melbourne where we love to make "little" things - kind of like our revolt against the rest of Australia's obsession with big things.  Three restaurants of one ethnicity or cuisine and suddenly a strip is "Little Athens" or "Little Tokyo".  Following this logic, "Little Seoul" is along Victoria Street in West Melbourne, facing the Queen Vic Market and under the shadow of the tall city buildings beyond.

Wooga is all wood inside, with chunky tables with dark centres scarred from innumerable charcoal braziers being placed on top.  Its specialty, you see, is Korean BBQ which is traditionally cooked semi-DIY-style at your table.  Despite going on a Monday night it was packed.

We chose a banquet that come with marinated topside, beef brisket and a butterflied beef rib ($39).  A great stone bowl of real charcoal is placed in the middle of the table, radiating warmth, and a removable grill placed over the top.  The staff expertly place the meat atop the coals for you and any smoke is sucked up the retractable, practical yet attractive copper flue that hovers above each table.

One thing I love about Korean BBQ is the little archipelago of side dishes you can flavour-hop between while waiting for your meat to be done.  Here we have sweet, tangy pickled onions that had a slightly hot and spicy onion kick in the tail; a riotously crunchy slaw with a light sesame and vinegar dressing; the most fabulous kim chi, fermented cabbage in a mild yet flavoursome chilli sauce; and a warm salad of gently wilted bean sprouts tossed with sesame.  As is traditional, when finished all of the dishes will be refilled ad infinitum.

When the meat is done, you can dip it in either this Korean bean sauce (somewhat like hoi sin but with a much less cloying flavour) or sesame oil mixed with a little minced garlic and pepper.  Atop a little rice, a bit of Wooga's grilled beef is a little slice of heaven.  I think my favourite was the marinated topside, having the right amount of weight to undergo enough grilling to have both caramelised exterior, tender interior and plenty of real beefy flavour.  The thin butterflied beef rib was very good too, and the wafer-thin brisket was tasty but needed careful attention it did not overcook.

Also included in our banquet was the "bean paste soup" - a rich, tasty, miso-esque broth with a little of that mild chilli that coated the kim chi, loaded with diced silken tofu, potato, zucchini, onion and spring onion.  Miso with benefits!

What a lovely, social, interactive way to enjoy a meal.  It was such a step up from Hyeung Jae.  We were delighted too to get the bill and find out that it had been $39 for the entire meal rather than $39 each.  Awesome value!  The staff were delightful, there was cool jazz piano playing, and it was a buzz to walk out the door and see the city right there.  The city skyline - that's a big thing I rate wholeheartedly.



Wooga/Woo Ga
270 Victoria Street, West Melbourne (map)
Phone:  9328 1221
Hours:  Mon-Fri 5.30pm-10.30pm, Sat & Sun noon - 3pm

Wheelchair Accessibility
Door:  Multiple steps to enter
Layout:  Somewhat roomy; could accommodate

Bathroom:  Somewhat inaccessible