Restaurant Reviews – Page 23 – Dani Valent

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?

Elyros

Six weeks ago, the morning after Angie Giannakodakis received the Good Food Guide award for Service Excellence, she woke up gingerly, pulled on her tracky dacks and painted the bar at Elyros, the Camberwell restaurant she owns alongside Disa Dimitrakakis and Guy Holder. Elyros opened the following week and began serving honest Cretan food with the reassuring, heart-piercing hospitality that won Giannakodakis the prize.

Arisoo

When you think Korean food, do you think Spam? Well, you would if you were eating budae jjigae, or army base stew. This soupy hotpot was a dish born of necessity after the Korean War, when locals used food from American army stores to supplement their own scant resources. Korean cuisine is excellent at adopting, adapting and creating anew – indeed, an exuberant approach to fusion makes Korean menus among the world’s most entertaining. So, for army base stew, ham in a can, sausages and corned beef are added to a slow-cooked beef broth that is Arisoo owner Harry Park’s pride, joy and neverending round-the-clock project. Koreans were simmering bone broth long before contemporary health gurus started banging on about it; they were also onto fermenting way before modern science realised bacteria can be brilliant. Indeed fermented cabbage (kimchi) is added to this broth along with fresh cabbage, onions and chilli. It’s then boosted with your choice of fresh meats or dumplings, which all adds up to a spicy potluck treasure.

The Guilty Moose

When I’m out for breakfast I often feel that my first coffee is fighting with the breakfast menu: one is trying to wake me up and the other strives to put me back to sleep. Menu lullabies include those well-known numbers ‘smashed avocado’, ‘corn fritters’ and ‘poached eggs’. It’s not that I don’t want to eat that stuff – sometimes I do – but I also want other options to keep me alert, interested and keen. The Guilty Moose, a three-month old cafe at the beach end of Vic Ave, has a jazzy menu with Asian-influenced brunches propping up the standard snooze of eggs, extras and avo. It also has a large partially shaded courtyard, doubling the space that’s available on the broad Albert Park pavement and in two cosy dining rooms.

Morris Jones & Co

When a chef does half a dozen things to transform a chicken breast into thin crisps the only justification is that it eats better than it would have if it still looked like a piece of bird. I’m contemplating this with a mouthful of “chicken chip” at Morris Jones. A hapless fillet has been pureed, reshaped, baked, fried and salt-dusted and my mouth is full of bitter dust. The snack is a fun notion that should have been consigned to the not-full-enough bin of cute ideas that didn’t quite work. It doesn’t help that the chips are $4.50 for four, and that they follow an uncertain welcome. A staff meeting overlapped our arrival for dinner, resulting in three hesitant approaches to our table from three different people. One, “The waiter will bring you your menus.” Two, “I’ll bring you your menus.” Three, “Here are your menus.” It’s not a huge deal – we got the much-mentioned menus and it didn’t even take too long – but hospitality is largely about creating a relaxing environment in which diners can enjoy. This was simply unsettling.

Masani

Imagine running a restaurant for more than 30 years, opening every day for lunch and dinner, tallying more than 20,000 sittings and an awful lot of “Would you like to see the wine list?” That is the reality for Richard Maisano, who opened Masani in 1983, when Bob Hawke was prime minister and carpetbag steak (beef stuffed with oysters) was the height of sophistication. Maisano’s parents were hoteliers in fancy Italian resorts; they moved to Melbourne in 1971 when Richard was 13. He studied hospitality locally then boned up at Les Roches, a white-glove Swiss hotel school, and returned with the spit, polish and gumption to take on this handsome 1889 Gothic revival edifice.

Las Tapas

Las Tapas, a cheerful place for Spanish snacks, opened in Balaclava last summer. It’s small, unfussy and fun. The offering is authentically Catalan but the story is marvellously Melbourne. The two owners met at South Yarra bistro France Soir and realised their dreams aligned: they wanted to create a casual tasca-style bar in their adopted home.

Daniel Son

In crowded countries, school start and finish times are staggered to fit in all the kids. I think we need to observe similar protocol in Melbourne for weekend breakfast. If your football team missed the finals, or you say ‘awesome’ more than twice a day, or you’ve hassled anyone about the ice bucket challenge then you have to come for breakfast before 9am. Otherwise, it all gets a bit like Daniel Son on a Sunday at 11am: thick with people waiting desperately for a hangover-busting no-dishes brunch.

Dainty Sichuan Noodle Express

I’m not big on shopping centres. I’ve hyperventilated at Southland, I’ve chucked a wobbly at Chadstone, and the first time I came to Emporium I got so lost in a forest of puffy jackets that I phoned a friend to help me find fresh air. But I now have a better rescue remedy: it’s a $3.80 snack-sized bowl of green-bean jelly noodles at Dainty Sichuan Noodle Express. The noodles are slippery, spongy and cold, dressed with chilli, Szechuan pepper and black vinegar. They’ll fill a hole but they won’t weigh you down. They’ll give you energy for shopping or the not-so-simple search for daylight.

Vanakkam

The number 65 appears repeatedly on the lengthy subcontinental menu at modest, warm-hearted Vannakam. The 65 has nothing to do with price or quantity: it’s the name of a spicy south Indian sauce, the origin of which is variously attributed to the year it was invented (perhaps 1965), the notion that it was item number 65 at a well-stocked barracks eatery, even that it was made to sauce up 65-day-old chickens. Who knows? What isn’t disputed is the basic composition: chilli powder, ginger and garlic, rubbed onto meat (usually chicken) which is then deep fried. Vanakkam also lets the sauce work its magic on mushrooms, paneer and prawns.

Prix Fixe

Fun. If I had one word to sum up Prix Fixe, it’s that giggly three-letter syllable that could do with more of an airing in restaurants. There’s a themed menu that changes each month and a commitment to quality without the seriousness that often goes with it. August is a whimsical Lion, Witch and Wardrobe affair, entered through a cupboard of furs, with a menu that tours jolly old England. The stepped dining room has a dramatic, stage-set feel, as though you’re part of a comedy of manners called ‘The Restaurant’. Round tables dot the room; they always make conversation fun.

© Dani Valent 2024