501 Receptions, Footscray

Have you ever wondered exactly what "a touch of class" could be?

I have walked past 501 Receptions maybe 1000 times in the years I've lived here, but I've never been inside.  That is...

UNTIL NOW.

Would you like to join me?

Well, are you?

The occasion was one of Women of the West's regular "Ladies' Nights".  WOW is two local women who put on great evenings for local lasses, as both a way to let your hair down AND raise money for local not-for-profit organisations.  This night's dosh went to Women's Health West in Barkly St, Footscray, who work promoting women's health and offer services to those experiencing family violence.

This is very commendable.  But I can't help it - I couldn't stop nerding out about finally being inside the big 501.  It really is a working reception place!

Our $70 ticket bought us unlimited booze, entertainment and three courses of fine 501 fare.

Some antipasti (which were fine)...

...followed by some hoopla...

...and then the main event!  Sue me, but I thought this was actually pretty yummy!  I'm a sucker for a roast of the day.

Here we are mid-shimmy.  Really fun, daggy disco dancing with "Cathy's Crazed Institute of Disco".  I loved that 90% of people got up on the dance floor!

Things were a bit hazy by this point, but loved the cupcakes from Cupcakes by Paolo, and I do love a good Lindor Ball.

Well done to organisers Michelle and Sarah, who looked amazing in matching lace bodysuits and made putting on a big event look easy.  The night embodied what I love about my fellow women of the west - we're generous, gregarious, and don't take ourselves too seriously.  And as for 501 Receptions - I can honestly say that it does indeed have a touch of class!

Check out Women of the West's Facebook page to stay up to date with future events.  I have just discovered that 501 Receptions has a website, which you can check out right here!  Also, Women of the West have a new event happening soon - deets below.  I'm not associated with these guys - I just like what they're doing!

Kebab Surra, Footscray

So on the last day of the school holidays, I had my friend's daughter E here.  I told everyone to pack up as we were going out for lunch.  "GOLDEN HORSE!  GOLDEN HORSE!" shrieked E with delight.  No, we can't go to Golden Horse (a local yum cha joint), I explained - we needed to go somewhere for Mummy Lauren's work.  "It is a place that does meat on sticks, rice and bread," I explained.  E looked at me for a while.  "That......is......the......SAME AS GOLDEN HORSE!" she squealed with delight.  I have obviously been missing the kebab, rice and bread trolley at yum cha for years!

I do love this kid - she was the same with whom I had this exchange a while ago:

"Lauren, do you write and take pictures of food?"

"Yes, I do!"

"So does that make you a food blobber?"

"......Why, yes.  Yes, I do believe it does."

Anyway, we set off to our meat-on-sticks meal - destination, Kebab Surra.

This is a "Persian" restaurant that has just opened in Barkly Street, Footscray on the old site of Shebelle.  What was dark and moody has become bright, white and very functional.

Sure, the decor may not move you, but you will start swooning immediately when the scent of charcoal and sizzling meat hits your nostrils.

Here is Muhammad and the place where all the magic happens.  Long metal skewers threaded with meat are placed over this pit of gently glowing charcoal.

About half of the menu is varying combinations of kebabs - chicken, meat or mince - with (again) various combinations of rice, salad and bread.  The "Special Kebab Surra" meal ($14.99) seemed a sensible place to start.  The kebabs were just gorgeous - smoky, juicy, beautifully marinated.  Lovely delicate basmati rice...

...house-baked flat bread (kind of like Turkish bread, but much thinner and therefore more crisp in parts - I spied the tandoor-like oven out the back)...

...and really simple but good, crunchy salad with a thin yoghurt dressing.

Do you like dumplings?  Of course you like dumplings - you live in Melbourne!  (If you don't, I am very honoured you are reading this blog.  Hi Uncle Thom in Colorado!)  Although they're most strongly associated with Asia, many cultures around the world have dumplings and olden-days Persia (more on that later) is no exception.  Their incarnation is called mantu or mantoo, and they are something I've always had an odd relationship with.  People have raved about them, but every time I've tried them I've been a bit underwhelmed.  They've been nice but not mindblowing.

Well - Kebab Surra's mantoo ($13.99) are COMPLETELY OFF THE HOOK.  Now I see what all the fuss is about.  There's saucy lamb mince and yellow split peas, very loosely bound in a wonton-like yellow skin, drizzled with tangy tomato and yoghurt and dusted with dried mint.  These are AMAZING.  Although it doesn't say so on the menu, I think they come with bread and salad.

I had a chat to owner Ali after our meal.  When Kebab Surra say "Persian", they mean the cuisine of the border regions of modern-day Iran and Afghanistan.  He's very proud of his new business and he totally should be.  I think you can really taste the love in the food.

I was raving about the mantoo and he said that that is their specialty, and it is a particularly Afghan-style dish.  Another house specialty according to Ali is the qabuli polo.  The menu reads: "Rice steamed with lightly fried sultanas, carrot slices, oil, along with lamb qorma cooked with tomato, spices, garlic, onion, and served with naan & salad".  Ali explains that it's incorrectly described as coming with lamb qorma, but it actually comes with a lamb shank.  And vegetarians - there is a traditional vegetarian mantoo dish arriving any day now - I am really, really keen to try this!

One quick note - there is a bit of discrepancy between the printed menu (scanned below) and the one on the wall.  Plus, I think you get bread with things, even though it's not mentioned on either menu.  Don't get yourself in knots - if you're not sure what comes with what, ask!

So E, we did not get to go to Golden Horse.  But we still got to eat dumplings - AND meat on sticks.



Kebab Surra (Facebook)
241 Barkly St, Footscray
Phone: 0470 665 359 or 0470 227 824
Hours: Mon-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri-Sun 9am-10pm

HealThy Self Co., Yarraville

Do you know what a "crunchy mama" is?  In Australia, we might say "hippie mum", but it doesn't really translate.  Like GMO canola seeds drifting on the wind, crunchy mamas have taken up residence in every nook and cranny of the inner west.  You can spy them being trees at creative dance workshops, burning up Facebook in various bulk-buying food co-ops, and carrying a baby on the back while gestating one on the front.

Don't come after me with handmade pitchforks.  I speak with love because I am a crunchy mama too.  Not nearly as crunchy as when I had my first baby (no cot, no pram, made my own ring sling, made my own cloth nappies AND MADE MY OWN BABY BUTT WIPES) but I'd still consider myself somewhere on the crunchy scale.

Image by Amber Dusick from the blog Crappy Pictures. Used with thanks per FAQ terms.

Speaking of which, you HAVE to check out Crappy Pictures' "Scale of Crunchy Mamas".  It goes from level 1 ("Plans to breastfeed, owns a Baby Bjorn") to level 9 ("Can sew an entire quilt in one night by the light of handmade beeswax candles while sipping tea made from homegrown chamomile in a mug that was hand formed from clay mined from her backyard. While nursing").  Ba ha haaaa!

So I'm probably somewhere in the middle of that scale.  But I think I just got a whole lot more crunchy after discovering Heal.Thy Self Co.

This is a new cafe in Yarraville which is basically like stepping into an Instagram feed.  The menu is radiant with superfoods.  We're talking kombucha tea, kale smoothies and raw vegan cheesecake.  It's a little slice of San Fran in Ballarat Street.

I have been hearing a lot about kale (and if you haven't either, you must live under a rock) but I still don't really "get" it.  I've tried to cook with it but it tastes like horse feed.  Finally I get a crunchy gold star, though, as I tried Heal.Thy Self's kale smoothie ($9) - and loved it!

This 'un has greens, banana and a whole host of ingredients I had to google after the fact.  There's "super greens powder", raw vanilla protein powder and maca powder in the mix (maca powder is a dried, powdered form of a root from Peru, purported to have fertility, antidepressant and bone-strengthening qualities).  Actually, I just realised it doesn't actually say it has kale!  But surely I still get a gold star for drinking something that shade of emerald.  It was really nice - sweet but with an earthy, vegetal undertone.

My friend A decided to "be kind" to herself with the eponymous "be kind" smoothie ($9), with mixed berries, banana, lucuma powder (a dried powdered Peruvian "superfood" fruit), coconut, filtered H20 and "raw wild berry fermented super protein powder".  Yum - and it matched her handbag!  Instagram-approved.

Heal.Thy Self do a brunchy-lunchy menu of things like a raw choc chia parfait (chia mousse, activated buckinis and coconut yoghurt) or toasted sandwiches with roast veg and cashew cheese.  If that all sounds too Jesus sandal, there is a smashed avo option or a good old ham and cheese toastie (with grass-fed butter, of course).

We went the choc-ana bread ($12.50) which was pretty awesome.  Loved the "choc nut & seed butter", which was sweet without being cloying, and went perfectly with bananas and honey.

But we LOVED the raw vegan raspberry cheesecake.  I'm assuming it was made with silken tofu.  It had a fabulous mousse-like texture, wasn't too sweet and was bursting with real raspberry flavour.  I would have loved it if the base was more crunchy to add some contrast, but it was still delicious.

Detoxifying dandelion tea (actually a blend of dandelion, wattleseed & cinnamon, $4.50) - the staff had a timer behind the counter to register when it had brewed sufficiently before serving.

I had the same thing but in latte form ($5) with the recommended oat milk.  This was delicious - spicy, slightly (and not unpleasantly) bitter and creamy all at once.

I really like this place.  I only have one teeny grumble.  Most of the staff were lovely and sunny, but there was one who was a bit stern/business-like when we first walked in and were dithering about wondering where to sit, how to order etc.  It's probably not something I'd care about in any other cafe, but given how the concept and the menu just radiate health and happiness, I think it's really important for everyone to be on board with big welcoming smiles and attitudes.

Heal.Thy Self Co. is a great thing for Yarraville, which has been eclipsed by Seddon in the last few years as the cool place to be in the inner west.

Going back to Amber Dusick's "Scale of Crunchy Mamas", she talks about how "people attempt to self-righteously out crunch one another...  How we awkwardly fumbled around subjects like vaccinations or circumcision or extended breastfeeding and tried to fish out each other’s stance on it. Back in those early months, every decision felt like it defined us".

I first mentioned nine levels in the "Scale of Crunchy Mamas", but there are actually 10.  A level 10 crunchy mama "does most or all or some assortment of the above levels but they don’t give a crap about what anyone thinks.  They aren’t keeping track and they’ve outgrown the labels.  They certainly don’t preach to others or judge people about their choices.  They’re just doing their own thing".

Image by Amber Dusick from the blog Crappy Pictures. Used with thanks per FAQ terms.

A level 10 crunchy mama is a diamond.  To my friends A and A - and anyone out there expecting a child, or parenting little ones - may you be strong, confident diamond mamas.

Heal.Thy Self Co.

26 Ballarat St, Yarraville

Phone: 9687 3330

Hours: Mon-Fri 6.30am-4pm, Sat-Sun 7.30am-4pm

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