FFB mega-post - Footscray pub goss, dumplings galore, and the FFB dish of the year!

To me, leftovers are like dominos.  Each skerrick, each tidbit does not get thrown out but joins the next meal in an endlessly delicious loop.  That bit of leftover rice is perfect mixed into a spinach and ricotta pie...and that last scoop of ricotta is perfect spread on a thick bit of toast, topped with frozen berries, and grilled till soft, warm, gooey and sweet.

The point when it gets a bit tricky, though, is when I'm going away for a while and need to clear out the fridge.  Sometimes it's kind of awesome - bacon, featuring in today's breakfast, lunch AND dinner! - but it's a real challenge making a dinner out of a manky end bit of cheese and a pile of cucumbers.

In the spirit of the fridge clean-out, then, I present to you a banquet of a blog amnesty post, bringing together all the treats and tidbits I've enjoyed over the last few months.  Join me in clearing out the virtual crisper drawer and making a gorgeous word salad out of it all.  Then we'll be ready to enjoy all the new and exciting treats that 2015 is set to deliver!

FYI, this post is going to be pretty epic.  Pretty much as epic as this oyster I ate!

It was from these guys and was amazing, going from minerally and sharp at first chew, to creamy and unctuous at the end.  'Twas et during a trip to Hobart which I just loved every minute of.

The food highlight (apart from the above oyster) was the degustation and matched sake at Three Japanese.  This place is proud to not do the usual sushi and teriyaki chicken thing, and to serve food that Japanese people would apparently go out to eat in Japan - not necessarily what westerners expect.  The sakes we tried were incredible and so varied.  If you thought like I did that clear sake was essentially metho, this is where to go to have your mind thoroughly blown.  Food highlights - chawanmushi savoury custard with sea urchin, and sesame-encrusted rice ball in sublime chicken stock.

I just have to show you where I stayed - a gorgeous Air BnB in West Hobart.  I love the architecture in Hobart.  The Tuscan toilet block units Melbourne is so enamoured with have not yet spread there, and long may they never.  Look at that roaring fire!  Not visible are the harbour views from every room in the house.  It was very hard to get on that bus to the airport.

But get on I did, back to the west.  Even giant oysters can't trump the yum cha at Gold Leaf Sunshine.  This continues to be my go-to, not just in the west, but anywhere in Melbourne.  (Recently tried elsewhere - Golden Dragon Palace, Templestowe [overpriced and yawningly average]; Me Wah, Hobart [strange, staid, expensive and unremarkable]; Tao Tao House, Hawthorn [exxy, boring].

Oh, Gold Leaf, I do heart you!

Speaking of dumplings, we recently decided to give Magic Momo in West Footscray another go.  The guys who own this place are so nice and are trying so hard.  In the last year or so they redid the whole menu to focus exclusively on Nepalese food.

A lot of the south Asian restaurants in West Footscray and surrounds have the atmospherics of a bus shelter.  Hats off to Magic Momo who have gone to some effort with colourful piccies and posters and nice tunes playing.

The momo here are really pretty good.  Here we have steamed, fried and in a spicy sauce.

We loved the lamb choila, with spicy, tasty chunks of lamb, spicy soybeans, and rice bubble-like "beaten rice".

Also had this vegetarian thali-style dish which we weren't mad about - everything on the plate needed more oomph.  Go, bring a BYO bottle and give Magic Momo a try.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Over December we also really got into the Plough.  Scott Thomas, who used to run the Courthouse in North Melbourne and the Montague in South Melbourne, recently took over as head chef and the food has done a complete 180.

LOOOOOOVED these oysters with creme fraiche and fish roe!!!  Such an inspired combination.

We have eaten a lot of things on the menu now and are always very happy.  There are a few small misfires, like kipflers in duck fat that weren't crispy enough, or a millet salad that needed a bit more zing.  But on the whole, I think the food here is fab.  Congrats on snaring Scott Thomas and long may his steady hand steer this plough.

The other big news in the Footscray pub scene is that Sean Donovan has sold the Station!  This news was met with much devastation.  I have never blogged about it, but the Station is one of my most regular haunts.  We went back with trepidation to see if it was still any good.

Well, a rump like this does not lie.  Still as gorgeous as ever.  People think the Station is too expensive, but their entry-level steak is $28 (including chips, salad and sauce) and is bloody amazing.  A steak at most other pubs in Melbourne would be around the same price, and most are nowhere near as good.  Try it before you knock it!

PS: Did you know the Station do possibly the best pub kids' meals in Melbourne?  They're not cheap - about $18 from memory, which includes drink and ice cream - but much better quality than the normal crappy offerings.  And the ice cream had real vanilla beans in it.

Speaking of ice cream, you must try the green tea ice cream at Sapa Hills.  You met Long in this post and Ha, his wife, makes this ice cream at home for the restaurant.  It's delicious, richly flavoured, refreshing and not too sweet.  Totally going back to try the black sesame and coconut flavours.

I know our banquet table is beginning to groan, but let me just wedge a few more delicious treats into those gaps.  Just a few weeks ago we got back from an amazing two-week trip to Chicago, where my children proceeded to claim their culinary birthright in the form of Lucky Charms (cereal with mini marshmallows), ranch dressing, mozzarella sticks and other nutritionally disastrous delights.

The adults didn't miss out either, merrily scarfing Italian beef sandwiches...

...Pequod's special caramelised cheese crust Chicago-style pizza...

...and Paradise Pup's drip-down-your-forearms juicy burgers and fries with sour cream, bacon, and Merkts spreadable cheddar!!!  Some of these things we ate while watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on Food Network, which is kind of like drinking Bollinger when you're already completely pissed.  It was the most deliciously debauched two weeks ever.

But much as I love Chicago food in all its colon-blocking glory, it was yet again time to come home to treats like those at Co Thu Quan.  I continue to be completely enamoured with this fast-paced, cute-as-a-button and uncompromisingly Vietnamese cafe, tucked away inside Little Saigon market.

And it is here that I am delighted to present their banh trang cuon as the Footscray Food Blog dish of 2014.  These are rice paper rolls, made with either a different rice paper or a different process so that the skins are slightly crackly and tantalisingly al dente.  They're filled with julienned sour green mango, tiny dried prawns and spicy, rich beef jerky.  They are completely amazing, and just five bucks a plate.  Run, don't walk!

And so that concludes this pot luck of a post!  I feel refreshed and ready for all the delicious things 2015 will bring.  My fervent hope for Footscray is that as gentrification continues at breakneck pace, while we may be having lots of fun with what's new, let us continue to appreciate what we already have.  Will you join me in a cheers to that?

The Last Jar

An Irish pub. Too many bad Baileys experiences at Bridie O'Reilly's might make you run a mile, but The Last Jar ain't no marketing gimmick. She's the real deal, and you should make a special trip to check this one out.

This pub was the old Arthouse and is smack-bang on a busy corner. The cars outside clatter over the tram tracks, but step inside and the noise fades away. My maiden name is Reed, and my collection of 50+ sunscreen bottles shows that despite many generations living in Australia, the Emerald Isle still courses in me veins. It started to bubble the minute I stepped inside.

This is the kind of place you could pull up a pew and proceed to get very merry over the course of an afternoon. It's charming and not at all kitsch. The staff we spoke to all had that beautiful Irish lilt that makes even "would you like to see the menu?" sound like a folk song.

And what a song. The Last Jar seem to be on a mission to make everything they can in house. House-baked bread, house-cured salmon - even house-made curry sauce, which from Dublin to Derry is the de rigeur dip for your chip.

There's a beer garden upstairs which won't break any hearts but if you want a bit of sunshine, it does the job.

Do you have a "Do not pass go, do not collect $200" dish that as soon as you see, you just must order? One of my many is mussels. I love the rigamarole of foisting each meaty morsel out of the shells, dunking the bread in the juices, and slurping the last bits of goodness out of each shell - and off the shell itself! These were cooked with cider, dill and loads of sweet onion and served with crisp house-baked potato bread.

This heaping portion of house-cured salmon clocked in at a mere $12. Take a slice of soda bread, apply cream cheese in portions that defy gravity, and drape liberally with smoked salmon. Fabulous.

These beauties had that crystalline crunch that can only come from being carefully twice or even thrice cooked. The "curry sauce" is very Irish - a gravy-like dipping sauce lightly seasoned with curry powder. I'm probably too deep in the dead 'orse camp to fully appreciate it, but if you want a real taste of Ireland, order some up!

On leaving we spied a blackboard advertising a full Irish breakfast, featuring black pudding, sausage, toast and more, all made in house (says the website, "Everything except the egg"). "How much?" we asked. "Twenty dollars," said the barmaid, "but you can get a pint of Guinness for six dollars with it".

Beer. With breakfast. God, I love the Irish.



The Last Jar
Cnr Elizabeth and Queensberry Streets, Melbourne
Phone:  9348 2957

PS:  More Rickshaw Run volunteers still needed!  Read more about the Rickshaw Run here, and about volunteering here and here.  Give me a call on 0438 583 808 to discuss how you can get involved.  And if I have somehow failed to return your call, text or email - I've had a lot, bless you all! - PLEASE feel free to call me back and remind me!

The new Plough Hotel, Footscray

"Now stand up straight," I said, fussing other my kids like we were about to meet the in-laws for the first time.  "I want you on your best behaviour.  This place is a little bit posh."

We were at the doors of the newly gussied up Plough Hotel, where I'd been just a few nights earlier for a lovely launch party complete with oysters, bluegrass and freely-flowing Brunswick Bitter.  The refit is stunning, with glossy white tiles, luminescent bare bulbs and the visual pop of green succulents peeking out from shelves and tables.

The pub has been here since 1868.  I remember its former incarnation, windows daubed in fluoro paint that Candy the Clown was in attendance on Fridays.  We'd had a few good roasts there but it didn't really rock our world.

The Plough closed for what must have been a good year or two before opening under the stewardship of the team behind North Carlton's Kent Hotel.  Instead of Candy with her balloon animals, there's now Kelly Brothers cider and 2 Brothers Grizz amber ale on tap, plus Mountain Goat's steam ale and more.

"Bistro or dining room?" said the lovely waiter, and soon we were lolling languidly in a booth in the bistro.  Apparently the dining room has the same menu but is just a little more formal.  I bet its big north-facing windows let in lots of lovely light all day.

The Plough has a menu that, on the face of it, could be that of any true-blue country pub - burger, fish and chips and even bangers and mash.

$11.50

But dig a little deeper and that burger has a veal pattie and roasted garlic aioli, and the fish and chips is flathead with local beers that change weekly, apparently.  This was the kids' menu fish and chips and the fish was indeed a lovely flattie tail.  It went down a treat.

$11.50

LOVED this kids' burger, the pattie so mild and sweet in flavour, with proper bread.  The Plough has just started getting bread from Sourdough Kitchen.  I'm definitely keen to try this munchkin's bigger sister!

$11.50

Kids' chicken parma which also got two thumbs up.  The chips are "roughed up" on the outside, making them crunchy all over and eminently stealable.

$22

Great bangers and mash - quality pork and fennel snags with peas and pancetta lardons, in an intense, delicious gravy.  The sausages were denoted as "Benalla", but our waiter just said they were from that area - I'd love to know more, if they're from a particular butcher or from a particular breed.  There was a slight hiccup in this dish's first incarnation on the table in that the sausages were a touch pink.  The friendly staff dealt with it with aplomb though.  Being open for less than a week, this was nothing more than a minor mishap on the kitchen's behalf, and I also think the friendly yet professional way it was handled was telling as to the Plough's integrity and commitment to real hospitality.

Tucking into ice cream with strawberry "sauce" (actually coulis - yum!), my 5-year-old said, "Mum, I thought you said this place was posh?  Where is the posh bit?"  And indeed, I had read the Plough all wrong.  It's classy and it's gorgeous, but it's also down to earth - and downright good.  Welcome to the neighbourhood and I look forward to many more ciders to come.

The Plough Hotel

Cnr Geelong Road and Barkly Street, Footscray
Phone:  9687 2878

Tacos and live music at Footscray's The Rev!

If it wasn't already so awesome to have a new local, Footscray's The Reverence now serves a Mexican menu!  We're talking pulled pork tacos, black bean burritos, chimichangas and more.  HOT DIGGITY!

The fam behind venerable North Melbourne punk institution The Arthouse have taken up residence at the old Exchange in Napier Street, christening it The Rev.  There's live music right throughout the week but since I saw this vid last year - 

- I've been hanging for some nearby Mexy goodness.  When I saw this video for the first time with a few friends, when the dog thinks of the taco, I swear we all jumped up at once and screamed!

$6.00

There was more swooning than screaming when this wicked pulled pork number landed on our table, though.  Gorgeous silky pork with crunchy cabbage in a proper, fragrant soft corn taco - why didn't we just order 10 of these?!  PS:  The Rev are seriously vegan friendly, offering a vegan pulled "pork" taco, smoky "chicken" torta, tofu and black bean burrito and loads more. 

$5.00

More street-style goodness, with really smoky corn cobs dressed with mayo, chilli and lime.  Delish.

$6.00

Loved these shoestring fries, really crunchy with seasoned salt and vegan mayo for dipping.

$10.00

I wasn't totally sold on the corn crust Calabrese pizza - each salami slice had the anchovies and olives surfing on top, making an umami flavour bomb, but I think they'd be better spread out.  Mr Baklover thought the crust was really good though, robust and crisp.  Really, I think I was just lusting after more tacos.  There are vegan and vego pizza options, with gluten-free bases available as well ($2 extra).

Mr B wants to point out that they pour a really good Guinness and have a Roberto Sport foosball table.  I love the Coopers and Fat Yak on tap and reading all the graffiti in the toilets.

  

And evidently everyone loves the courtyard, bliss on a hot summer's eve.  The hot tip is Tuesdays, for $3 tacos and $3 Tecates.  Now - that noise would be YOU screaming!

The Reverence

28 Napier Street, Footscray

Phone:  9687 2111

Hours:  Tues-Thurs 3pm-1am, Fri-Sat noon-1am, Sun noon-11pm (closed Mon)