Words and Flavours | Melbourne food and book reviews

The Breakfast Club

2009-07-05T21:37:00.004+10:00

206 St Georges Road, Northcote; 0418 379 911It's amazing what a cafe can do in a small space to sate suburbanites. Amazing too just how many gorgeous sets of retro crockery are around for said cafes to utilise to good effect.This tiny cafe, tucked away amidst flats, houses and the odd shop on St Georges Rd could one day be as definitive as its namesake film. There may only be three or four tables

Lomond Hotel

2009-07-05T21:13:00.004+10:00

225 Nicholson St, Brunswick East; 03 9380 1752It's amazing what can hide behind the walls of a corner pub. You might wonder on occasion if the Lomond Hotel is still open - it doesn't flaunt itself and neither does the clientele.When you do step inside, however, there's something of a tardis effect. To one side is a linen-and-silver-cutlery restaurant with a high-end menu. Through another door is

'The Slap' - Christos Tsiolkas

2009-06-15T11:28:00.000+10:00

The book everyone's talking about. That's the word on the street about The Slap. For everyone to be talking about it, the book must have an element of controversy, and that is one indisputable feature of Christos Tsiolkas' fourth novel. It's not controversial in that it tackles taboo topics in a radical way. Instead, it's got everyone talking because it's about us: it's about a group of people of

Cafeklatsch III: Fuel, Red Box III, Big Dish

2009-06-07T22:34:00.004+10:00

Fuel: 4 Margaret St, Moonee Ponds; 03) 9375 4499Red Box: 317 Sydney Road, Brunswick; 03 9387 8699Big Dish: 70 Wales St; Ph TBCWho would have thought that Moonee Ponds is only as far from Brunswick East as the city is? Probably anyone who'd taken the time to look further west on a map than Melville Rd! Puckle St, leading from Pascoe Vale Rd down to Moonee Ponds Station is dotted with cafes,

Provincial Hotel: $10 pie and pot

2009-05-31T21:14:00.005+10:00

299 Brunswick St, Fitzroy; 03 9810 0042I love a mid-week deal. We headed to the Provincial Hotel for the inaugural run of their $10 pie and pot. The pie options cater to the red-, white- and non-meaters: there's steak, chicken and mushroom, or pumpkin (and feta?). The pot of choice is Boags Draught (beats Carlton at least).The Provincial is one of those shabby-chic places - all distressed

Koliba Czech and Slovak Restaurant

2009-05-25T17:09:00.005+10:00

11 Johnston St, Collingwood; 03 9417 3797It's the simple things that can make you happy. For me, one of those is when you call to book an ethnic restaurant, and your booking is taken by someone who is clearly from that region.Such was the case when we arranged to go to Koliba one chilly Friday evening. I'd been waiting for the weather to cool sufficiently so that I could make good on Sarah's

'Food Investigators' - SBS TV

2009-05-24T20:17:00.009+10:00

7.30 pm Wednesday, SBSSBS earned themselves an appreciative following with their luscious series Food Safari. Maeve O'Maera has so far presented three series in one of television's most coveted roles, scouring Melbourne and Sydney for the best purveyors of a giddying range of national cuisines.The series spawned its own website and mailing list. The website in particular showed that the producers

'Gould's Book of Fish' - Richard Flanagan

2009-05-16T14:15:00.004+10:00

After an ambivalent response to Flanagan's latest book, Wanting - in which I highly respected the writing, but struggled with some conceptual realisations - I prioritised reading one of his earlier works, choosing the intriguing Gould's Book of Fish.This earlier is as audacious in its execution as Wanting was in its breadth of characters. In modern Hobart, a man finds an antique tome - the Book

De Los Santos

2009-05-11T15:01:00.010+10:00

175 Brunswick St, Fitzroy; 03 9417 1567I could sum up my visit to De Los Santos in the words of a close, food-loving friend: 'I guess everywhere can't be fabulous'. As I was considering how to write the restaurant up, I was struggling to come up with the words that indicated disappointment, but didn't engender a completely negative impression of the place. And 'not fabulous' is an indirect, but

Western Australia

2009-04-22T22:06:00.015+10:00

As we've already discovered in South Australia and Tasmania, making travel plans centred on Australia's great wine regions is a sure way to develop a holiday punctuated by exciting tastes and experiences.Margaret River is a special region, situated so close to some truly stunning coastline features, with crystalline beachs of aqua, turquoise and white, and phenomenal limestone caves with hidden

'Wanting' - Richard Flanagan

2009-04-22T22:05:00.005+10:00

In a magnificent piece of comedy, Stephen Fry postulates that 'there's language, and there's speech. There's chess, and there's a game of chess'. In the case of Richard Flanagan's Wanting, this statement could be revised to say there's an idea, and there's the execution of that idea.In this novel, the former is well formed, and, in an unusual move for a fiction book, quite explicitly explained by

Cafeklatsch II: North II, Gingerlee IV, Cavallero

2009-04-14T18:53:00.000+10:00

North: 717 Rathdowne St, Carlton North; 03 9348 1276Gingerlee: 117 Lygon St, Brunswick East; 03 9380 4430Cavallero: 300 Smith St, Collingwood; 03 9417 1377It's not breaking any ground to say that Melbourne has a surfeit of cafes. It's also established that in certain parts of town, a certain style of cafe has become de rigueur. So what do they all do to differentiate themselves from each another?

Pancakes, pikelets: Auction Rooms, Enni

2009-04-02T10:54:00.006+11:00

Auction Rooms: 103-107 Errol St, North Melbourne; 03 9326 7749Enni: 915 High St, Thornbury; 03 9484 8288The press was abuzz with news of Auction Rooms when it opened in mid-2008. Matt Preston was particularly glowing in Epicure about its interior. Despite its soaring ceilings and double-shopfront width, it is a cosy place to be, and it offers one of the broadest range of seating options Melbourne

Najla

2009-03-29T18:55:00.007+11:00

102 High St Northcote; (03) 9482 1168When I mentioned to a couple of Westgarthians that I'd been to 'that new Turkish place' on High St, their responses seemed strangely understated. That may have been because my description of Najla was a little skewed by the wine I'd been drinking across the road at Bar Nancy (Crittenden Pinot Gris - lovely to see by the glass). Najla has in fact been on High

Pubs not so grubby: Union Hotel and Prince Patrick

2009-03-29T12:59:00.002+11:00

Prince Patrick: 135 Victoria St, Collingwood; 03 9416 1455Union Hotel: 109 Union St, Brunswick; 03 9388 2235Pubs are known for re-inventing themselves. It seems the desire to drink in a particular locality is fairly constant, but our taste for the surroundings in which we drink needs to be regularly updated. As a rule, these re-inventions shift the pub away from the seedy end of the scale and

'The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow' - A J McKinnon

2009-03-16T14:52:00.009+11:00

A J (Sandy) McKinnon presents us with a travel narrative more Thor Heyerdahl than Frances Mayes (as a man who can survive a whole day on one sandwich, it's hardly a food journal!) With a couple of interruptions, McKinnon rowed a Mirror dinghy (christened Jack de Crow) from Shropshire (near the Welsh border) to the Black Sea in Romania. He mostly traversed canals, but it was not all placid sailing

The order of things; Hellenic Republic II

2009-03-15T10:05:00.001+11:00

434 Lygon St, Brunswick East; 03 9381 12228.30. Tuesday night. A quiet time for many a restaurant, but at Hellenic Republic it may as well be Cup Day. Our dinner at Hellenic was long overdue, an unexpected move (within the suburb, thankfully) having thrown a few unlaid plans into confusion. Since its birth last December, Hellenic has not wanted for custom. We chose a Tuesday evening in an attempt

Divisadero

2009-03-03T07:53:00.004+11:00

Divisadero is a Spanish word, and in Ondaatje's 2007 novel it has a brief presence as the name of a street a character lives on for a time. Its meaning - either to divide or to make something out (from a distance) - encapsulates the whole structure and modulation of the book. The narrative is fractured, keeping the reader at arm's distance from the inner sanctum of the characters. It shifts point

Hungary in the suburbs; North Fitzroy Arms & 'Prague' - Arthur Phillips

2009-03-02T10:46:00.000+11:00

296 Rae St, North Fitzroy; 03 9489 8519Recently, I've been working through a novel called Prague, set thus far entirely in Budapest. I felt a similar, though far more rewarding, disconnection with expectations this week when I ate a fine goulash at a pub with the distinctly local name of the North Fitzroy Arms. Perhaps both the novel and the pub are living in another time: the former in the

Bloggers' Meet, Take 2

2009-02-27T18:50:00.001+11:00

The bloggers' meet, postponed in February due to Melbourne's hottest ever day, has been rescheduled for next weekend, Saturday 7 March, at the Commoner in Fitzroy, from 2 pm. Full details at Duncan's site.

'The Raw Shark Texts' - Steven Hall

2009-02-16T15:09:00.009+11:00

My two-word review of the Raw Shark Texts would be 'utterly compelling'. I could hardly call that impartial, however! I do regard this as one of the best novels I've read in some years, but it's not without its flaws.The strength of the novel comes through its concept, one that explores the dangers lurking in our communications and the power of some media to enter or control our thoughts.

Salty and sweet; A Minor Place IIII and Giorno II

2009-02-03T11:18:00.005+11:00

A Minor Place: 103 Albion St, Brunswick East; 03 9384 3131Giorno: 608 High St, Thornbury; 03 9484 2040I love a dish that combines two elements of the taste spectrum. It probably won't do my rep any favours to admit that in my formative years one my favourite indulgences was to dunk the fries from a certain corporate-evil fast-food franchise into said franchise's chocolate sundae. Sickly sweet

'Naked' - David Sedaris

2009-02-03T10:48:00.004+11:00

He's deceiving, that David Sedaris. Not only is he almost impossible to classify (as discussed in an earlier review of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim), it also takes some perseverance to get into the right frame of mind to fully appreciate his essays. He can be outrageously funny, but even while delivering a riposte as sharp as a needle dipped in lemon juice, he can ruminate on deep

Toast; North Island and Crunch

2009-02-03T10:08:00.008+11:00

North Island: 111 Scotchmer St, North Fitzroy; 03 9486 8864Crunch: 669 High St, Thornbury; 03 9495 1655"It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you," opined British food writer Nigel Slater in his memoir, Toast. I haven't quite fallen in love with the cafe staff who have provided me with a golden serve of carb with toppings in the last couple of weeks, but as long as the bread is

'A Spot of Bother' - Mark Haddon

2009-01-31T15:32:00.004+11:00

Mark Haddon achieved a wide-reaching bestseller with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, a book loved by book groups and literary types, and taken up by high schools for English studies. As in that earlier novel, Haddon again builds a story around observation. His main characters are a little less confrontational this time: rather than a teenager with Aspergers, the novel works