Mishra's Kitchen

On quiet-as-the-proverbial Wembley Ave, the Bollywood tunes sing sweetly down the empty street, and you can't help but be drawn in to Mishra's Kitchen.

This sandwich bar by day morphs into an Indian restaurant at night.  Inside, the decor is slightly functional but still belies a loving touch.

Chef Sanjeev is the personality behind Mishra's Kitchen and he is full of smiles, whether busy at work in the open kitchen or checking that everyone's happy at your table.  A smartly-dressed young waiter gave us attentive, friendly service.

Onion bhaji, $5

Onion bhaji to start.  I found these a bit dull - I prefer the more freeform style of bhaji/pakora that, say, Indi Hots do.

Samosa, $5

These samosas were nice - love the authentic touch of ajwain seeds in the dough - but they were big and, for me, too substantial for an entree.  More like a light lunch really.

Alu baigan masala, $10

Top marks for this eggplant and potato curry, the potato perfectly tender and imbued with spices, the eggplant silky with glistening black skin, all in a rich red sauce.

Butter chicken, $12

Great butter chicken too, not too buttery and with rich tomato flavour.  I may or may not have hoovered up the leftovers for breakfast the next day.  One great thing about Mishra's is all the menu items have codes as to whether they are gluten- and/or lactose-free.

Shabnam curry, $10

This mushroom and pea curry was well made with fresh vegies but was very rich, not from excessive oil or butter but from coconut cream.  It was a little too much for me but if you were hankering for a creamy curry, this would wrap you up like a fluffy blanket.

Special of the day, $12?

This was the chef's special of the day, a chicken and vegie curry in a coconut sauce, which I think was the same sauce as the mushroom curry above - an unintentional double-up on our part.  Delicious but again, rich.  I am keen to try more of the tomato- and/or vinegar-based curries like the eggplant and potato above.

Rice, $3

Tender basmati rice, each grain separate...

Plain naan ($2) and garlic naan ($2.50)

...and winning, proper tandoori naan, big discs puffed right up like woodfired pizza, providing contrast between crackled top and chewy bottoms.  Spy the tandoori oven in the earlier kitchen pic, skewers dangling promisingly above it.  I think the naan prices are really fair - hate paying $3.50 or more for one soggy garlic naan at other places.  

We only really skimmed the surface of the menu and somehow managed to unintentionally miss the entire tandoori section.  I had four kids with me and felt like I was playing that carnival game where the gophers pop up out of holes and you have to bash them down with a squishy hammer - averting crises left, right and centre!  To this end, the butter chicken was a hit (pun fully intended).

I'm keen to try the Goan fish (with ground coconut, tamarind and whole spices), the vindaloo with garlic and green chilli and even the kormas, with an almond-based, white sauce.  The serves seem bigger than other Indian restaurants and the prices are great - $10 for veg curries, $12 for meat and $14 for seafood.  Next Indian takeaway night, I'm here - parking is a snap to boot.

Thanks to Kenny for the company and the great tip - check out Kenny's visits here and here!  Also thanks to Melissa who wrote to me, saying: "Thanks for creating your blog and celebrating the west!  My partner and I went to Mishra's Kitchen at Wembley Ave, yarraville last night.  Best indian in years (since the Carlton Curry House uni days).  Great food, prices and a chef that is passionate about his food, sharing and the community feel."



Mishra's Kitchen
18 Wembley Avenue, Yarraville
Phone:  9314 3336
Open Mon-Sat 11am-3pm (lunch menu) and 5pm-10pm (Indian dinner menu)


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Pepper

This is a sponsored post for Australian Mushroom Growers' "Mushroom Mania" campaign.  The Mushroom Mania campaign is on for all of July 2012 and over 2,000 restaurants are participating by putting delicious mushrooms on the menu.  Please see end of post for full disclosure.

All of Melbourne is indelibly imbued with history but the Flemington/Newmarket area has a particularly interesting past.  After thousands of years of custodianship by the Doutta Galla tribe of the Wurundjeri people (who now give their name to the local health service and pub), white settlement began in earnest in the 1850s.  A number of beautiful heritage buildings still stand in the local area.  Stroll up Wellington Street and check out the corner post office and this courthouse and lockup complex, complete with Byzantine-style cupolas.

Photo from Flemington Heritage, a project of the Flemington Association.  Permission for use sought and granted

Newmarket Saleyards (see the city in the background!)

Image held by Melbourne Library Service (original here).  Permission for use sought and granted

Flemington's train station is called Newmarket.  My parents still remember when the housing estates that now sit on either side of Epsom Road were literally the "new market" - an enormous livestock market that was relocated from its original site at the Vic Market in the 1850s.  At one stage it was apparently the world's biggest livestock market.  Look down next time you drive along Epsom Road and you'll see part of the cobbled walk where hundreds of thousands of animals made their way to slaughter.  The market was only closed in 1987 with declining profits and complaints about the smell.  Read more with this great interview from ABC Landline, as well as Museum Victoria.

Pin Oak Crescent, hugging the curve of the railway line, is lovely to wander up.  Soon you'll come across another slice of Flemington history - Girdwood's Hygienic Library, where citizens could borrow books with the comfort of knowing they had been wiped with formaldehyde between borrowers.  This was part of a phenomenon of the 30's and 40's of private libraries in Melbourne where you could pay to join and then borrow books as normal - here with the added benefit of knowing all traces of others' grubby mitts has been obliterated.  Read more here at the State Library's La Trobe Journal.

The Girdwood's Hygienic Library sign still remains on this gorgeous Art Deco building, but now it's home to Pepper.  Despite it being a rainy Tuesday, it was filled with a happy hubbub of locals, stopping in for a leisurely brunch or swinging past for takeaway coffees.

Pepper has an older-style Melbourne cafe feel, with big brekky plates, focaccias stuffed fit to bursting  and great wheels of cake in the glass cabinet.

There are a number of cosy corners to hole up in, including a sunlit back room, still with its original Art Deco details.  Pepper is great for kids, with cheerful orange plastic cups for water and freshly sharpened pencils.

Mushroom salad, $12

The brunch receptors in my brain were crying out for bacon, maple syrup and oodles of cheese (preferably all on the same plate).  Instead I was virtuous and picked a salad, which turned out to be delicious.  The perfectly-cooked, slippery little sliced button mushies, still warm from the pan, married perfectly with really fresh walnuts (old nuts have a bad rancid taste - not here), curled baby spinach and rich shaved Parmesan, all in a sweet balsamic dressing.  Loved this combo - you could put it through risotto or pasta for a great dinner.  It got hoovered up in record time.

Poached eggs with mushrooms, $11

My kids are seriously bipolar when it comes to vegetables.  One minute they cannot get enough of, say, red capsicum, and then the next week they will scream as if I have put severed fingers on their plate.  Thankfully 'tis the season of the mushroom at the moment and they were happy to share some poached eggs and simply sautéed buttons.

Pepper is a genuine, local cafe in a gorgeous pocket of Melbourne.  I've stopped by before in the warmer months, where you can loll on the outside tables of an afternoon, order a glass of wine and bask in summer evening sunlight.  They're open on Thursday and Friday evenings for pizzas and baked spuds.

Often people challenge (always good naturedly, I must say!) the fact that I consider North Melbourne, Flemington and Kensington part of the west.  My reasoning is if I traverse somewhere on the way home from the city to the west, it's west (can someone please design me a really circuitous route that takes in Abbout Felafel House?!).  As further evidence, I give you this gorgeous heritage sign.  Spot the W.1 which stands for "West 1", as in London's postcode system which divides the city up into four main quadrants.  Apparently Melbourne had the same system before the standardisation of postcodes in the 1960s.  So if it's good enough for Flemington's town planners, it's good enough for me.  :-P



Pepper
44 Pin Oak Crescent, Flemington
Phone:  9372 2726
Hours:  Mon-Wed 7am-4pm, Thurs-Fri 7am-9pm, Sat & Sun 8am-4pm

Disclosure:  This post is the second in a series of three for Australian Mushroom Growers' "Mushroom Mania" campaign.  I had free choice of any three participating Victorian restaurants and was required to choose at least one dish in which mushrooms were the "hero" ingredient.  I am being paid a flat sum for my writing which does not include meal expenses.  The restaurants were not aware of exactly who was visiting and when but may have been aware that they would be reviewed at some stage over the course of the campaign period.  Australian Mushroom Growers and Pepper have not sought nor been given any editorial control of this post.


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The Courthouse

This is a sponsored post for Australian Mushroom Growers' "Mushroom Mania" campaign.  The Mushroom Mania campaign is on for all of July 2012 and over 2,000 restaurants are participating by putting delicious mushrooms on the menu.  Please see end of post for full disclosure.  

Once upon a time both the church and the corner pub were local meeting places where people could bump into each other.  This sounds throwaway, but that casual running into people and just knowing people's faces is an incredibly important part of feeling like you belong to a community.  Now, just as many churches are being decommissioned, we see many corner pubs closing and being turned into apartments (think The Albert and The Buckingham in Footscray).

It is possible to reverse this trend and the Courthouse in North Melbourne shows it how it's done, creating a modern yet still genuine pub, a new community hub that feels quite timeless.

Running in its present form since about 2002, the Courthouse is a great multitasker, marrying a classy Euro-feel bistro with a front bar that takes craft beer seriously.  I love the intimate dining room with its Art Deco (I think?) light fittings, fireplace and dark wood panelling that feels straight out of Paris...

...hence French bubbles are a necessity!  The wine list by the glass is small but confident - two sparkling (one dear, one not) plus about ten reds and whites that eschew stock shiraz and semillon for more interesting European varietals.

Chestnut soup, wild mushroom crepe, hazelnut and nutmeg, $16

The Courthouse are big on making everything, I believe right down to their bread, and this dish, although small, had so many delicately formed components.  Frothy chestnut soup surrounded a delicate parcel of earthy braised wild mushrooms.  The silky, dark mushies had the intriguing tingle of fennel seed, which provided a counterpoint to the rest of the dish's richness.

Pan fried gnocchi, local wild mushrooms, porcini cream, truffled pecorino, $25

This dish had a family tree of mushroom varieties, if you like, from good-natured, populous wild and cultivated varieties, to the regal, more often dried porcini, to the big chief of the mushroom world - the truffle, here gently infusing hard pecorino cheese.  The pan-fried mushies tumbling over the gnocchi were gorgeous, from juicy little buttons to slices of wild varieties that had such an interesting texture with an almost meaty grain.  I found the gnocchi surprising at first, as they were more like large potato dumplings - I know, that's what gnocchi are! - but once I got over the expectation of cloud-like little balls and enjoyed the contrast between creamy interior and crispy edges, it was delicious.

Black Angus porterhouse steak, hand-cut chips, parsley and horseradish butter, $27

Come to Mama!  Gorgeous juicy steak, its juices muddling with the fabulous seasoned butter and facilitating much happy swiping of chips.  Ideally I think this dish needs to be augmented with a side, but we were still content at meal's end.

Good coffee topped it off.  The service at the Courthouse is really good too, attentive and genuine.

This is a great local secret, for me best saved for special occasion dining, but I'd happily have a Temptress every week in the front bar.

The Courthouse

86-90 Errol Street, North Melbourne

Phone:  9329 5394

Restaurant hours:  Mon-Sat noon-3pm, 6-10pm

Disclosure:  This post is the first in a series of three for Australian Mushroom Growers' "Mushroom Mania" campaign.  I had free choice of any three participating Victorian restaurants and was required to choose at least one dish in which mushrooms were the "hero" ingredient.  I am being paid a flat sum for my writing which does not include meal expenses.  The restaurants were not aware of exactly who was visiting and when but may have been aware that they would be reviewed at some stage over the course of the campaign period.  Australian Mushroom Growers and The Courthouse have not sought nor been given any editorial control of this post.


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Common Galaxia

Like the silvery native fish that gives it its name, the exterior of Common Galaxia may blend into its surroundings, but step inside and you will see how fresh and unique it is.

This is the second venture for the owners of South Melbourne's Dead Man Espresso, one of Melbourne's most renowned coffee-centric cafes.  Although I have heard there are also practical reasons behind the move to these premises, I do think the fact that an already iconic business from the other side of the river should choose Seddon as a viable site for its next venture is yet another signpost in the inner west's evolution.

The coffee's serious business here, but still accessible.  The Seven Seeds house blend is broken down into its regional components and complemented by a guest blend (today from Market Lane) plus another for pourover (above).

Luscious latte love.  Each table has a little caddy on the side for salt, pepper, cutlery and the menu, folded up like a love note.

The menu has cut the apron strings of build-your-own breakfasts and is completely awesome.  Think pikelets with apple curd and dulce de leche, and baked eggs - yes, I know, but they're with chorizo made with Warialda Beef (think Beatrix's Rachael!) or four types of braised bitter greens.  Their namesake even makes an appearance, I think as crispy whitebait-style fish, cosying up with shaved fennel and native lemon aspen berry mayo as one of their smorrebrod offerings (open Danish sandwiches on rye).

$14.50 (plus bacon, $18)

Choosing something was the sweetest form of torture but this dish of avocado, chevre, chickpeas and pomegranate "gems" on pumpkin bread was delicious.  The bread was quite sweet, the seeds on its crust contrasting with the melt-in-your-mouth goats cheese, the tangy pop of pomegranate seeds and a side of rich, crisp streaky bacon.

The fish may be common, but this Galaxia is truly special.



Common Galaxia
Shop 3, 130 Victoria Street, Seddon
Phone:  9689 0309
Hours:  Tues-Fri 7am-4pm, Sat & Sun 8am-4pm



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Monga Sweet Cafe

If you're trying to assimilate into another culture, I think breakfast is the final hurdle.  Sure, lunch and dinner can be exotica day in and day out, no sweat - but even long-term expats, faced with early morning fried noodles or rice balls, just can't stomach anything other than cornflakes or Vegemite toast.  Perhaps the second-last hurdle in food terms is dessert.  I may crave anything but meat and three veg for dinner, but I just can't see myself being hormonal and chewing Mr Baklover's ear off until he gets me a bowl of snow fungus soup.

That's why I think Bryan had a bit of trepidation bringing me to Monga, a well-hidden "dessert lounge" above Russell Street serving Hong Kong-style snacks, drinks and desserts.  I was game anyway, and it's certainly a lovely space to linger in, all dark wood and peep-hole panelling like you're in some sort of secret club.

Hong Kong has some absolutely zany dishes, the result of many cultures exerting their influence on this tiny island.  Monga have many savoury dishes that proudly feature Spam, plus fried instant noodles, the rather odd breakfast above (with hot dog sausage) and a toasted bun that Bryan describes receiving, only to find that between the slices was a slab of butter about half an inch thick.

Mushroom and steamed chicken on rice double boiling set, $10.50

We went for a double-boiled chicken and mushroom dish.  The way I understand it, double boiling means the ingredients are placed in a sealed vessel that is then placed in a pot of heated water.  There's no direct flame on the ingredients themselves, making for an extremely gentle style of cooking.  This dish was quite fabulous, with tender pieces of chicken in a light but delicious marinade, plus fat shiitake mushrooms on well-cooked white rice.  The accompanying sauce, a very light, thin soy, complemented it perfectly.

Delicious milky iced tea - far less tannic than Singaporean/Malaysian teh tarik.  This was included in the price of the chicken and mushroom dish above.

Papaya poached in almond sweet soup, $7

Scary dessert time!  Bryan had another double-boiled dish, papaya pieces in almond milk.  I loved the almond milk - sweet and refreshing with a light marzipan flavour - and the tender almond kernels floating in it.  The papaya didn't taste ripe though and did nothing much for the dish.

Black sesame rice ball with ginger sweet soup, $7

I went for rice balls with my choice of black sesame, in a ginger syrup.  They were fantastic!  The glutinous rice dough is tender but intriguingly sticky to the tooth, while the black sesame paste is nutty, very sweet and pleasantly textured.  The ginger syrup felt nourishing, sweet but with good ginger heat.

Upon leaving, we spied this so we HAD to go upstairs - wouldn't you?!

Bryan loves the upstairs here as it reminds him of an old Hong Kong-style gambling den...

...and in fact, Monga's menu even includes your choice of game!

If you feel like coffee and cake in the city after dark, rather than settle for a tired baklava and bad coffee on Lonsdale Street, turn the corner and ascend to Monga.  I wasn't sure if iced tea and glutinous rice balls would hit the spot, but it turns out they really did.



Monga Sweet Cafe
Level 1, 217 Russell Street, City
Hours:  11.30 am - 3 am, 7 days


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