restaurants and cafes

HOT: A1 Bakery, 645 Sydney Rd, Brunswick

July 13, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

I remember my first visit to A1 Bakery and being astounded by the cheap prices for the freshly baked lebanese pizzas. Well, amost 5 years on and it’s still dirt cheap, mostly hovering around the $3 mark. My zaatar pizza ($1.50!) consisted of a soft pillowy base, the complete opposite of a crispy Italian crust, [...]

HOT: Hausfrau Bakery and Cakes, 32A Ballarat St, Yarraville

July 12, 2009 ⋅ One comment

Hausfrau is a cute bakery cafe styled with kitsch 50s-style laminate, enamel jugs and crockery of bright blooms which serves an array of savoury and sweet treats as well as selling loaves of bread. Its warm cosiness was very popular when we popped in for a movie post-mortem so we had to wait a while [...]

HOT: Alice in Wonderland, Cafe Vue, Little Collins St, Melbourne

July 10, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

As I mentioned before, my birthday treat from my parents was dinner and drinks at Cafe Vue. It wasn’t as busy on Friday night as I was expecting, so we had our pick of the outdoor tables (with overhead heaters). For the next three hours, we tripped through Alice in Wonderland with drinks in hand, [...]

HOT: J Cafe Restaurant, 167 Exhibition St, Melbourne

July 9, 2009 ⋅ One comment

The Japanese are reknowned for their quirky mash-ups of Eastern and Western culture, from costume-play to J-pop. So it’s no surprise that someone thought “Hey, I like burgers, I like sushi – I know! A sushi burger!” This bizarre sounding ensemble consists of two sushi rice patties, special sauce, lettuce, no cheese or pickled onion, [...]

NOT: Gigibaba, 102 Smith St, Collingwood

July 9, 2009 ⋅ One comment

Today I welcome my first ever guest blogger, Tranzie. The binary rating system is catching on! Here’s her potentially controversial NOT for Gigibaba: hey, we tried gigibaba last night and the food was so delicious, the atmosphere was great and they had a great wine list (where you could buy your wine in odd portions, [...]

HOT: Shark Fin House, 131 Little Bourke St, Melbourne

July 5, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Whoops. Luckily no one important reads this blog, otherwise by now I would have been held to account for my wee defamatory comment on Shark Fin House. Correction: There is no third floor, and the top floor (second floor) doesn’t appear to be a special area for non-Chinese where they serve sub-standard food. Although if [...]

HOT: Commercial Bakery, Rear 360 Lt Collins St, Melbourne

July 2, 2009 ⋅ One comment

Commercial Bakery is the kind of hidden Tardis-like cafe on which Melbourne thrives. At first I thought it was a tiny establishment selling only what was displayed in its window shelves, but step inside and you see that a large warmly-lit split-level area stretches into the back beyond. Its frontage caught my eye because of [...]

HOT: Cafe Vue, 430 Little Collins Street, Melbourne

July 2, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I can still remember my visit to Shannon Bennett’s first Carlton restaurant and my initial encounter with multiple courses of wildly fantastical food combinations. Now, when I am asked to name Melbourne’s best restaurant, I invariably answer ‘Vue de Monde’. Since moving to his CBD location, Bennett has expanded his repertoire beyond molecular gastronomy to [...]

HOT: Ca De Vin, GPO Melbourne 350 Bourke St, Melbourne

July 1, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

When I logged into Facebook in the morning, I discovered that my Tokyo-based friend Andrew was in town for a one-night only showing. Whenever I have visitors in town I always try to take them to somewhere in a laneway. Ca de Vin was right near his hairdressing appointment, and a perfect venue as it [...]

HOT: Palomino, 236 High St, Northcote

June 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The design brief for Palomino seems to have been ‘stylish kitsch’. Look around and there’s tacky porcelain ornaments randomly resting on the ledges and dotted around the boxed wooden shelving. The backdrop though is a stylish royal blue feature wall, fern wallpaper and hanging round orbs of soft light over the bar. Only Anita tried [...]

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