Still haven’t quite finished entertaining L. After dinner at The Deanery, we had a hot date with a booth at The Toff In Town. Thank goodness for bookings because the bouncers are…choosy with whom they let in.
Our booth seated about six people ‘intimately’ or four people with a fair bit of space. The decor is pretty swish with lots of old world accents. I particularly liked the chintzy tablecloth.
Again, you will all have to put up with my shitty mobile phone photos. Sorry about that. Tristan and I shared a bottle of cider from France – Bordelet sidre brut tendre, a nomtastic drop.
The gals Nat and L had cocktails. The one on the left is the Violet Ayala – a champagne cocktail with violet and aloe vera for the sophisticated pallet (sic). The one on the right is a Ginger Marmalade Margarita – a classic take on the margarita with ginger, kaffir lime leaf and homemade marmalade.
Nat and L being silly girlie girls had to have both the cocktails with the word ‘violet’ in them. The one below is the Lilac Velvet – a gin-based cocktail with grape, lemon, vanilla and juniper. I think the red blob at the bottom is a glace cherry!
We all decided to share a cheese platter too. On the night we went, our cheese platter consisted entirely of cow’s milk cheeses. I’m afraid I only remember that the one of the left was Delice. It also comes with plenty of crackers and muscatels, mmm.
I may have tittered a little upon seeing that you could order Bridge Road Chav beer. I think they mean ‘Chevalier’. Despite the constant spelling errors littered through the menu, the beer list is cracking though at times quite expensive.
Still, if you want to impress the hell out of an out-of-towner, I’d recommend a Toff booth. It’s got a fancy button so you can summon bar staff and everything! They do have plenty of nibblies too, but if you want to be really lazy, best to have dinner beforehand at Cookie, that which I’ve been meaning to review (using iPhone photos – that should be fun!).
That was me trying to get a booking for my Sydneysider bestie L for a bunch of us Twitterers to dine at Cookie. For days, no one seemed to be answering their phone. When I finally got through, of course they were all booked up for the night we wanted to dine.
Panic panic panic more.
Tristan suggested The Deanery and I remember hearing some food blogger wanksters saying the food wasn’t half-bad. So I booked.
Relief!
Not to betray my (old) age or anything, but didn’t The Deanery once used to be frequented by drunk, suited bogans? Perhaps so. It didn’t seem so upon my first visit: the bar area was crowded but the punters were polite. The dining area looked very fancy indeed and the venue’s wine storage is visible from almost every table. Woah. So this is a wine nerd joint, eh?
So of course I ordered a glass of Bridge Road’s Chevalier Saison. I later learnt on Twitter that the keg that just been tapped that same night we were there and more reassuring, The Deanery’s Twitter presence was conversing with Bridge Road’s. Good to see more good food places getting in on the craft beer love.
It gets better.
I didn’t actually order it at the time, but Tristan and Luke had a bottle each of the Weihenstephaner hefe weissbier. Remember guys, when life gives you lemons, get it the fuck away from your hefeweizen. One of my favourite pearls of wisdom from Twitter. Remember folks, this is the One Wheat Beer To Rule Them All.
I love how the menu is divided into small, medium and large dishes, allowing you to choose lots of small things to make up a meal. Of course, if you prefer the more traditional option of just getting one main, there’s that too. Luke opted to do this and had a humble old steak. He seemed pretty taken with it!
His partner Kim chose the Momofuku-inspired steamed pork buns as a starter, as did Tristan. Due to the absence of serious tech, you’ll have to suffer my ghetto mobile phone photos. I do apologise as it won’t do the morsels justice. I believe these appear in the Momofuku cookbook so you can try your hand at making them at home, like this blog has. The consensus seemed to be that The Deanery’s take on them were okay.
Kim then went with the duck pie, celeriac purée and preserved mushrooms on my erroneous advice that it came highly recommended. Turns out I had confused it with The Lincoln’s duck pie. She decided to order it anyway and declared it wonderful.
Big sis L started off her culinary adventures with the quail with coconut, yoghurt and tamarind chutney. She really enjoyed it but as quails are a somewhat bony bird, that can dampen the nomming experience. Just the way the figurative cookie crumbles!
After much indecision (with which the waiter was not very sympathetic, it has to be said), for mains she chose to have the pork belly. Greedily, I looked on!
I had two starter-type dishes: first, a trio of freshly shucked oysters with the house made XO sauce – not only do they look visually stunning, but devouring them was a punchy, flavoured treat. The last time I’d had oysters previous to this occasion, they weren’t fresh so this restored my confidence in them! A trio wasn’t enough.
My second gluttonous escapade was the rabbit rilette with prunes. I was curious as to what rilette was and discovered that it’s a meaty, finely shredded preparation that lends itself to spreading and snacking as if parfait or pâté.
Consider this bouche much amused! Under the layer of fat, the meat hides making it easier to spread and enhancing each others’ flavour. I love these sorts of dishes because I really do find they whet the appetite but they’re also substantial if you’re not wanting an epic fatty meal.
To bulk up my deliberately small meal, I ordered a side of the watercress and fennel salad. As a personal preference, I would have preferred more watercress rather than fennel and for the salad to be equally composed of both ingredients as fennel is rather astringent. Besides, I’m British and we love watercress, haha.
Tristan’s main was the slow braised goat, almond and currant couscous with yoghurt. High fives for goat meat! Surprisingly, I don’t think he was as gushy about it as I expected.
The fitout of the eating area is swanky and the service is mostly lovely – big sis L wasn’t impressed with the waiter that served her and to be honest neither was I, only because I sometimes got the impression that he’d much rather be doing something else than helping our table (as was in evidence when we asked for the bill). The rest of the staff were great and it’d be ace to try out more enticing menu items on a future visit! Was a shame there was no time for dessert as we had to nick off and pretend to be cool cats at yet another Melbourne hotspot…stay tuned!
Sigh. Melbourne. Raining like almighty feck. Just another wintry day*. What could make the day better? Ramen. From a shop no bigger than a hole in the wall.
Menya is located en route to Melbourne Central train station and it’s really bloody small. A shame, given that it serves semi-decent ramen. It’s not really a sit-and-have-an-existential-crisis kind of joint, it’s more of a eat-and-fucking-get-out-you-decadent-Western-swine one. This isn’t actually a problem.
Like two stoned and/or drunk teenagers, guts ruled over the higher faculties. T and I sniggered like Beavis and Butthead and insisted that the gyoza pizza was mandatory. No, never mind that a bowl of ramen was on the way. We were intent on gorging like those wacky Romans (minus the bulimia and worms). Behold – it is a work of pure, meaty beauty.
Yes, yes, it’s not really a pizza. However, after sharing one of these bad boys, you won’t have a gyoza craving for a month at least. As far as gyoza go, these are really good. Beautiful, crispy dumpling skins as you can see, and a generous amount of meat filling them. I used to get told off for filling gyoza skins not even this generously when I worked as a Japanese restaurant waitress.
There was a bit of a wait for food and the idea was that the gyoza ‘pizza’ would be for starters. There wasn’t actually much time between that and the arrival of our chosen bowls of ramen.
I chose the pork ramen. Surprise, surprise. I was actually hit with a wave of existential nausea over the plethora of ramen choices, so went with a good old friend. Indeed, @cookinwithgoths might like to know that I am not one of those dickheads who doesn’t eat pork. Under the pretence of making my dinner healthier, I ordered it to be topped with menma. Actually, I lie: I love menma and don’t get many occasions to eat it.
The chashu was thickly sliced and generous in supply. This is ramen I’d return for.
T had the Menya ramen – kind of like an everything ramen: seafood and pork. The eggs looked like those I lust after on the ramen blogs I read, minus the soy-soaked tinge.
At Menya, you can choose what broth you want for most bowls, but I don’t believe that option was available for ours. Judging by the opaqueness of broth in the ramen we ordered, I’d say it was possibly a tonkotsu-type broth?
It’s still not quite as rad as Ramen Ya, but don’t rule it out. One of my fave cookie-foodies went on a ramen quest that makes my dinner look modest – check out Billy’s round-up of a day spent on finding Melbourne’s best ramen. These ramenhunters also note that Menya’s toppings are plentiful and it’s a good, cheap feed.
T also informs me he’s become an expert at slurping down a takeaway ramen as he travels home on the train. Alas, that is a skill I’ve yet to master.
*Melburnian winter reserves the right to make itself known outside the designated period known as ‘winter’ and will continue to do so until further notice. In the meantime, read your horoscope: it’s probably more useful than consulting a meteorologist.
