Yum cha at Gold Leaf Sunshine

In the eastern vs western suburbs friendly rivalry, we might score a goal in the injera stakes, but they lord it over us with yum cha.  At least we have at least one great example in Gold Leaf Sunshine.

This is our favourite local place for the yummy stuff.  My earlier post about Gold Leaf Sunshine was kind of lukewarm, but we've been many, many times since and always love it.  It reminds me of a temple from the outside, reclining peacefully under the gum trees.

This day we wandered in to a full lion dance ceremony celebrating Chinese New Year, complete with handsome young men banging drums, firecrackers popping crazily and children being terrified, made even more awesome by the fact it was Australia Day.

One reason I love Gold Leaf is their unusual and unique yum cha items.  These soft "spring rolls" were fantastic, pliable flat rice noodles curled around a fresh prawn, dried mushroom and tender bamboo shoot filling.

Bouncy butterflied prawns with a tingling umami hit of XO sauce, rich with dried seafood and Chinese air-dried ham.

Sweet pucks of prawny mince on tender silken tofu discs in a very light thickened stock.

These were deep-fried har gow-like prawn-stuffed dumplings, but with a different wrapper that was pleasantly thick, crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside.  They were fantastic!

Getting back to the classic hits rotation now - big, porky siu mai with lots of juice for contented dribbling.

Yes, I know it is bogan but we call these football dumplings...and yes, you do get three here - the plate got tackled the minute it was set down.  Rightly so too as they were pretty unreal.  They are properly called ham sui gok and are made with a sticky dough enclosing a pork mince and mushroom filling.

The yellow dumplings' above more virtuous cousin - har gow, steamed prawn dumplings with a little bamboo shoot.  These were quite good.

Another favourite, totally flaky pastry that melts on your fingertips, filled with warm chopped BBQ pork.  Master Restaurant in central Footscray do these incredibly well too, as well as blind taste test-winning BBQ pork buns.

Cheong fun are thickish, wide rice noodle sheets gently flopped around a filling such as prawns, long Chinese donut or BBQ pork.  These prawn ones are my favourite - they're so slippery and delicate with a thin, sweet sauce that's just divine.  Gold Leaf's were just slighly on the mushy side but still delish.

Enter the evil twin!  While these also contain prawns, they're made with beancurd skin instaed of rice noodles and are lusciously deep fried for instant crack-tification.

The only speed hump in the meal was this rather bland sticky rice.

Just perfect fried squid legs with tender thighs snaking down to snappy little ends, dusted all over with coarse salty crystals.

Personally I love the stacked jellies with fruit and coconut layers, but this quivering bowl of rainbow iridescence is a childlike pleasure.

I wasn't a fan of this coffee jelly - it tasted suspiciously like instant.

I know these as banh bao chi.  You can buy them from To's in Little Saigon in white and green hues, but these ones were the best I've had.  They are soft glutinous rice dough with a filling of chopped peanut, coconut and granulated sugar.  These skins were so fresh, they almost melted on your teeth, collapsing and inducing much undignified stuffing of bao into mouths.

Gold Leaf is busy and colourful, innovative and progressive yet still stays true to its roots - a bit like the western suburbs, I guess.

Gold Leaf Sunshine
491 Ballarat Road, Sunshine
Phone:  9311 1863
Yum cha daily - prices $5.30 - $11.00 per plate.



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Mauritian food at Crouton, North Melbourne

Some eateries are superheroes - when evening falls, they step into a metaphorical phone box and transform themselves from standard sandwich bars or cafes into Nepalese or Thai restaurants and the like. This double identity can be challenging, though.  Often customers aren't aware of the establishment's flipside and so it suffers from lack of patronage.  Other times, maybe they over-reach.

Still, there's such a thrill on browsing a menu you think you've got figured out before you read the second line and some exotic dish jumps out and ambushes you.  Crouton Cafe is a small, workday cafe that offers a Mauritian menu at Saturday lunch only.

Mauritius is a small island nation to the east of Madagascar, off the southeast-African coast.  It was apparently uninhabited until the early 1500s (apart from dodo birds!) and waves of Portuguese, French, African, Indian and Chinese settlement have produced a truly multicultural, creole cuisine.

Dholl puri, $5

The British ruled Mauritius from 1810 to 1968.  Slavery was abolished in the early 1800s and, as occurred in Malaysia, Britain imported indentured labourers from India to work the sugar fields.  This dish takes up the Indian thread in Mauritian creole cuisine, featuring a chewy flat bread similar to roti filled with turmeric-scented stewed vegies.  This was tasty but the vegie curry was very oily - the oiliness could indeed be authentic, though.  See more about Mauritian street food here.

Bol mixe, $9

Crouton Cafe offer a choice of "bol" (short for boulette, I believe) which are various ball-shaped goodies in soup, such as fish balls, bol chou chou (choko balls), and wontons.  We got to try all three in this mixed dish.  The fish balls tasted like standard fish balls you would get at a Malaysian restaurant - bouncy and fresh.  The wontons were quite dense and the pastry a bit overdone.  The bol chou chou were pretty good, balls of rice, a little mushroom and green choko.  I'm pretty sure the stock was powdered - it was really just a vehicle to suspend the bols in.

Fried rice, $9.50

This was recommended but after the rice in the bol chou chou, I wished we had tried the haleem or lamb curry for something different.  It came covered with the omelette like a little blanket, perhaps harking back to this Mauritian dish, bol renverse ("upside-down bowl").  The rice was quite nice with chicken, Chinese sausage and carrot with light soy flavour but unless it's Vietnamese fried rice with salted fish, I'm probably a pretty hard customer in terms of fried rice.

I'm not sure what to make of our meal.  It was fun to try something different and the staff are lovely, but I think I might have gone for the wrong combination of dishes.  Compared to when I first spied this place, I am pretty sure the Mauritian menu has been pared back - maybe they don't get enough customers because of their everyday-cafe outward appearance.  Still, if you're passing by, the prices are low enough to take a punt.

Crouton Cafe

5/520 Victoria Street, North Melbourne

Phone:  9329 5304

Hours:  Mon-Fri lunch (standard menu), Sat lunch (Mauritian menu)

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Also just opened at 20 Wembley Avenue, Yarraville, is Cup and Bean, a coffee-centric cafe and greengrocer combo serving Cartel Coffee out of Geelong.  Sadly I didn't love my latte but I am of genus fussus pottus when it comes to coffee, so do try it out for yourself.  The owner is very passionate and a sandwich, freshly made from produce straight from the fridge and on house-baked bread, was fab.  See more at Consider the Sauce.

Taiwan Cafe

If the queues out the door of this tiny Swanston Street spot are any indication, Melbourne can't get enough of Taiwanese at the moment.  We carpe diem'd at a momentary lull and got the last table right away.

It sure is tiny inside, with tables just a hair's breadth apart.  I don't mind eating like this if I'm in the mood - the busyness creates a real buzz, and the dark decor here adds to the sense of cosiness.  The lanterns and wall art give a feel of winding through a busy Taipei backstreet in search of great eats.

Over gorgeous fresh soy milk and lemon tea, M broke it to me.  He's joined the good guys - he's gone vegetarian.  NOOOOOOO!!!!  Where has my cartilage-chewing, bone-nibbling, stock-dribbling eating buddy gone? Sigh..........  It's cool.  We can still be friends.  Just...  I can't do vegetarian ma po tofu.  I just can't.

This Ma Po Tofu was yummy with cloud-like silky tofu pieces with a light sauce, tasty pork mince, lots of black pepper and chilli.  The "thing" here, however, is the range of bento-type boxes with rice (dressed with a little pork mince), greens, fried egg and something fried to outrageously golden crispiness.  I tried, I really did, but I just have to have some time away from batter.  Those jeans aren't gonna shrink themselves.

The menu helpfully picks out the recommended dishes, but when you order one that doesn't have the little stamp of approval, it's with trepidation.  These vegetarian noodles were one such unmarked.  They were of good consistency and flavour but the total lack of wok hei made them a bit tedious.

Their pork dumplings, apparently a specialty, were merely acceptable.  The mince was not very juicy and it was slightly grainy.  Far better at Shanghai Street or next door Dumplings Plus.

Their vegetarian counterparts were quite horrid unfortunately, with muddy, underseasoned spinach and not much else.

At least we found some common omnivore ground in the spring onion pancake DMZ.  This was great with a flaky, roti-like texture.

Taiwan Cafe isn't a very vego-friendly restaurant which constrained our ordering.  I enjoyed the ma po tofu a lot and am keen to try the fried offerings when I'm out of elastic waistband territory.  Taiwan Cafe is hot but a commitment in the face of all this deliciousness to karma-free eating is decidedly hotter - well done my friend.



Taiwan Cafe
273 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Phone:  9663 6663



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Addis Abeba

With the exception of the fabulous, boundary-bending African Taste, the Ethiopian restaurants of Footscray tend to toe the line of their traditional cuisine.  The differences and variations are still there, but rather than the brash contrast of primary colours, the differences you note are subtle, like the gradations of red in the sky of a shepherd's-delight summer night.

I like many for different reasons but a firm favourite is Addis Abeba.  It's owned and run by Bitsat and Tesfaye, an Ethiopian celebrity couple of sorts - she's a famous traditional singer and he is an actor, writer and director.  The interior of the restaurant is homely and warm, the dusky scent of frankincense hanging thick in the air.

Vegetarian combination, $12

I can never go past the veg combo.  This is served the traditional way, heaped directly onto the injera on a colourful platter.  From 12 o'clock, soft yellow lentils; meltingly soft cabbage; Bitsat's own creation, potato with berbere; rich red lentils with berbere spice (my favourite); potato and carrot, yellow with turmeric; and nutty, toothsome brown lentils.  If you have room, spring for the salad which is really delicious with a lemony dressing.

Special tibs, $12

Special tibs are so good - tiny pieces of very tender lamb, cooked with onion in butter and scattered with green chillis for crunch and punch.  The doro wat is amazing too.  This celebration dish of chicken and eggs cooked in deep red berbere spice is only available here on weekends and Addis Abeba's is my favourite version anywhere in Footscray.  Bitsat explains the onions must be stirred continously for hours or they catch and create a burnt flavour.  This is the only version I've tried that doesn't have just a hint of slightly bitter charred onion.

Plenty of injera for pinching up each greedy mouthful.  I also love the injera on the bottom of the platter which has soaked up all the juices.

Addis Abeba very kindly hosted us for the photo shoot for this article.  Bitsat is gorgeous - the journalist told me he didn't like African food but with cheeky persistence she wouldn't let him leave until he ate at least one bite, explaining that in Ethiopian culture if you don't eat someone's food, it's a grave insult.  Trust me - you can't stop at one bite, and the only insult will be the way you bump both sides of the doorway as you stagger out, newly rotund but oh so delightfully stuffed.

Check Addis Abeba out in Epicure.  Thanks for the lovely company, Lauren of Corridor Kitchen!



Addis Abeba
220 Nicholson Street, Footscray (n.b. not Addis Cafe which somewhat confusingly is next door)
Phone:  9687 4363
Hours:  Lunch and dinner daily


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Laksa Bar, CBD

My husband migrated here in 2006.  He brought a fresh eye to Melbourne - looking for something to do, he would exclaim, "Let's go get an Italian ice [gelati] and walk along the Yarra!"  Um, people who live here don't do that - much to our detriment in fact, as it's indeed a lovely thing to do.  For dinner, he loved to go to "Chinatown", usually to eat Singapore noodles with gusto, much to my chagrin.

I love going into town now.  I still get a buzz now going in on the train, seeing the Heavenly Queen gazing benevolently over the Maribyrnong, then screeching round the bend from Spencer Street, high up all Bladerunner-like.  This visit I found Little Lonsdale particularly lovely to wander up, from QV and the State Library to this peaceful block with spreading trees...leading up to Laksa Bar.

This place has been getting a bit of buzz and for enticing reason.  They purport to offer eight regional variations of laksa.  In a laksa-mad city, this seems a particularly smart business move.

The fitout is smart, if a bit concrete bunker-like, with exposed bulbs and silver-shiny industrial trimmings.  Order at the counter where candlenuts and cinnamon quills are displayed in apothecary-like glass bottles, hinting at aromatic alchemy in the kitchen.

Satay tofu (entree), $5.80

Lovely, juicy cubes of lightly-fried tofu with refreshing onion, cucumber and pineapple, nestling under a cosy cloak of "generation recipe" satay sauce.  This was quite yummy, very sweet and tangy with tamarind, although not all that peanutty.

Nasi lemak with house sambal and fried chicken, $11.90

Nasi lemak ("rich rice") is coconut rice with trimmings, including crispy anchovies and peanuts, perhaps some fried chicken or fish, and plenty of sambal - house-blend chilli sauce.  All the components of this were promising.  The coconut rice was luscious (not at all like gluggy suburban Thai joints - this was light, the grains were separate and it melted in the mouth).  The ikan bilis and peanuts gave fantastic crunch and the garguantuan chicken drumstick was tasty.  I liked the sweet sambal, despite it not being very hot at all, although apparently it wasn't very "correct" by Malaysian/Singaporean standards.

Asam laksa, $13.90

This famous dish from Assam features mackeral, tamarind and tomato for a tangy, fishy, spicy, dark soup.  This was a disappointment, overly sweet with no mackeral flavour and really tasting just like tom yum.  The (presumably defrosted) ginger flowers had an unpleasant flaccid texture.  Jo and Bryan, Singapore food connoisseurs, agree that one of the best Assam sauces in Melbourne can be found on White Lotus' mock fish, of all places!!!

House curry laksa (seafood), $15.90

The moment of truth!  We stared.  We spun the bowl.  Cue giggles.  Fried wonton skins, a chopped fried egg, a wedge of lemon, battered fish?  The toppings are certainly untraditional, save for the generous helping of cockles, tiny blood-coloured crustaceans that are an essential element in authentic Singaporean-style laksa and char kway teow.  The broth was very mild, extremely creamy with warming spices like cinnamon and cumin but no chilli heat or seafood flavour (we did ask for the menu's promised "higher level of spiciness" but none ensued).  The bowl was so chockers with noodles (half yellow Hokkien, half rice vermicelli) and toppings that there wasn't much broth to sample at all.

Bryan's authentic home-made Singapore-style laksa - drool over it here
You can also read about authentic Singapore laksa here

I don't really know what to make of this laksa.  It is like craving chocolate mud cake - dark, dense chocolate cake, where the fork cuts through it just like a spade through rich, dark loam.  The "give" of the chocolate ganache icing on top - swipe it through a little cream for rich, luscious perfection.  To order chocolate mud cake and then be presented with a chocolate sponge with cream in the middle, perhaps covered in chocolate shavings.  "Oh," you say.  "This is nice, but I really wanted thick, rich mud cake."  "Well," replies the waiter, not unkindly, "that's how we do our mud cake".  You see my quandary - it was well made but not laksa as I know it!

On leaving, I could see a chef in the open kitchen gently shaking candlenuts into a commercial food processor.  I do believe they make the spice bases, the sambal and the sauces from scratch.  While the satay tofu and nasi lemak were good, in the case of laksa, I'm just not sure it really does what it says on the tin.

TOM YUM LAKSA??!!  That's like having Christmas Easter eggs!  Oh wait - don't tell me they've done that already?

You might like to follow me on Twitter (@msbaklover)

Check out Bryan's recollections (and much better photos) and Temasek's cheerful and positive thoughts



Laksa Bar (Facebook)
1/108 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Phone:  9663 1941
Hours:  Mon-Fri 11am-10pm, Sat & Sun 5pm-10pm



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Elceed

ALCIDE IS IN NORTH MELBOURNE!!!!!!!!

*Whisper*  Oh.....  *cough* you mean as in ELCEED - a totally cute new cafe, not the totally cute werewolf.  Right, ahem...  Excuse me.  *Straightens pearls*

Continuing the Queensberry Street awesome cafe trend, Elceed more than exceeds at fabulous coffee and gorgeous brunch-y things whipped up in the open kitchen.

The back room uses lots of white to lift the room away from the old tiles - they could be daggy but against all that gloss, they start to seem almost retro.  Orange pops to create a vibrant yet still welcoming vibe.

There's lots of little touches that belie a thoughtful hand, like the vintage teacup sugar bowls and tiny flowers on the tables.  Service is efficient and friendly.

Truly fantastic coffee, an absolute steal for $3.20.  Gorgeous, silky milk, sourced with a fair price for farmers from Jonesy's Dairy.

Pea and broad bean smash with mint, ricotta and poached eggs, $14.90

This was a symphony in green - garlicky yet sweet smashed peas and broad beans smushed on good bread, with sunny, oozy poached googs on top.  The snow pea tendrils tasted outrageously healthy yet were moreish, perfect licked with some good olive oil.  My only suggestion is ditch the phallic pepper grinder and equip each table with a mini version.  I love cracked pepper but feel like a doofus while the waiter stands there grinding and grinding and grinding...

Sweeties are also a go go, as well as daily fresh juices if you feel like something cleansing.

(Menu posted with permission - subject to change)

There's much to love about North Melbourne's newest cafe.  OK, so there's no buff Bayou-bounding werewolves, but I reckon the "candied prosciutto" on the menu could equally prove a pearl clutcher.

You can read more about Elceed from Ellise @ Charles Whyte - thanks for the tip Ellise!

(Alcide is from HBO's True Blood, if you haven't had the pleasure of watching it yet!)

Elceed (Facebook)

610 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne

Phone:  9326 8648

Hours:  Mon 8am-3pm, Tues-Fri 7am-4pm, Sat 8am-4pm

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