We’ve all got to eat so it might as well be good! I’ve been a restaurant critic for almost 20 years, and have been writing a weekly restaurant column in Melbourne’s Sunday Age since 2006.
My approach is to always take a restaurant on its own terms: there’s no point slamming a burger joint because it doesn’t have white tablecloths. I try to be constructive in my criticism and I’ve always got the diner in mind: there are many places you could choose to go. Why should it be here?
Melbourne is quiet but some restaurants don’t know how to take a holiday and those of us who are town-bound in January are allowed to be glad about it. The diners’ part of the deal is to hit these restaurants hard and keep the wheels spinning. For a busy Malaysian hawker restaurant like Mamak, slowing down might feel like a space-time glitch and we don’t want that to happen – rotis are at risk here, people!
In many parts of the world sharing food is simply the done thing, not a new dining concept that needs to be explained by a waiter. So it is in Ethiopia where food is scooped from communal dishes with injera, a fermented flatbread. Sometimes stews are simply spooned over injera which acts as both plate and utensil. Many Melbourne diners aren’t cool with that so at Dinknesh Lucy food is spooned from communal dishes onto individual plates then mopped up with torn pieces of injera, no further cutlery necessary.
Dainty Sichuan, a South Yarra Chinese restaurant with a cult following, has just opened a very welcome second branch in Chinatown. The Szechuan food at Dainty, as it’s affectionately known, isn’t just chilli hot, it’s also spicy-spiky due to the fierce, floral Szechuan pepper that’s a key ingredient in this cuisine. But there’s an almost transcendental aspect to the food too. Eating it makes me elated, dazed and wobbly: climbing the Chongqing chilli chicken mountain is a bit like summiting Everest. During a recent session at the new Dainty I whispered to my friend that I thought my bones were separating inside my body. Weird. But great. And addictive.
The spot that used to be vegetarian canteen Soulmama is now Captain Baxter, a huge, handsome beachfront hangout for drinking and eating. The dining area and deck offer 180 degrees of bay – it’s tempting to say that the view never gets old except that it kind of does when the sun sets onto your dinner plate and turns the room into a glary hotbox. Window shades are expensive but they’re crucial.
Meet you for a drink then grab a bite? Catch up for coffee? Do lunch? Morris Jones aims to hit whatever spot you’ve got. The huge Victorian shop, refitted handsomely for all-day eating and drinking, opened in September 2011. The dining room is separated from a drinking corral by an island bar, there’s a courtyard and a loft party zone. Check-shirted barkeeps fuel a shiny, happy mood. Co-habiting drinkers and diners can make for tricky times but the Morris Jones crew does a good job, keeping things vibrant rather than ear-crashing.
If the holidays are about anything, they’re about having breakfast whatever time you like. If that ends up being Corn Flakes at sunset on the deck, or an 11am date with toast, tea and test cricket then so be it. If you’re lucky, you might happen upon an anytime breakfast at Mr Brightside, conceived and cooked with care, served with a side order of good cheer.
Black and sludgy doesn’t often add up to yum but when it’s squid ink paella at a fun Spanish pub the equation becomes delicious. The Robbie Burns dish is dark as a doona cave, thanks to squid ink that’s stirred into the rice with seafood stock as it’s cooked. Cubes of cuttlefish are hidden in the inky morass. Bright white grilled scallops and salty tangles of baby octopus add brightness and balance. Rich, garlicky aioli comes separately: stirring it in adds silky bite to the sturdy rice. Paella purists would gripe about the paucity of soccarat – the crunchy, sticky crust that lurks at the base of the pan – but the fact that we made such an investigative excavation is a tasty vote of confidence.
Dinner party anxiety is rife and should be listed as a phobia alongside decidophobia (fear of making decisions, as in ‘Should I make coq au vin or curry?’) and gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at, such as when you say ‘de poo lentils instead of de pwee’). We could call this particular dread of dinner parties something like ‘theydidn’ttellmetheywereglutenfreeophobia’ and undertake restorative hypnotherapy while eating fabulous stinky cheese. But until we are all cured and invited around to one another’s homes again we will continue to socialise in restaurants, which is why it’s sometimes nice to dine in a stately old spread like Epocha.
There are times you want to eat rather than dine, keep it real instead of keep up with the foodie Joneses, and blather on randomly rather than engage in meaningful discourse. At times like that, Rita is your lady. Well, she’s not really because there is no Rita here, but if there was, you’d love her for her friendly welcome, her wholesome food and her empathetic aura. She’s simpatico.
When a restaurant is more than 10 kilometres from the city, one big challenge for the owners is striking the balance between accessible and interesting. Sure, locals may have been grumbling about the lack of fabulous dining options near home but if someone is brave enough to open a nice, quirky little restaurant, will those grumblers visit it, and visit it again two weeks later, and spend money on drinks, and refrain from demanding chips with sauce? Maybe not.