Cedar Bakery

Outside

Cedar Bakery makes Lebanese 'pizzas' and pastries and is also the largest Lebanese supermarket within a lazy bike ride from home. We know them fairly well - weekend lunches are often a few of their joyous pizzas, and if you need dried apricot paste in a sheet this is the place to go in Thornbury/Preston. They also have a huge range of Mediteranian stuff - olives, nuts, cabbage rolls, oils etc and also do roast lamb for events.

Hard to get excited by a photo of a supermarket, I know...

On this day we ordered four pizzas (they're quite small) - two lamb, one herb and sesame and a salami. The lamb is literally just a thin spread of very finely minced lamb on soft, thin bread spiced with lemon juice and chili; the herb was almost overpowering in a resinous way; and the salami was lovely, although a bit too much haloumi (or W calls it, "squeeky cheese") for my liking. The lamb pizza is the standout - just perfect.

A nice place to pick up a cheap and easy Saturday lunch, and to wonder whether next time we might get some take-away cabbage rolls. A modest highlight on High Street, but a highlight nonetheless.

Lamb (Lahem Bil Ajine); herb and sesame; and salami with squeeky cheese -
make sure you fold the lamb in half

Pizza Meine Liebe

With wonderful English understatement, Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason once described the months before the band tore themselves apart in a whirlwind of mutual loathing with the sentence, "things got so bad, someone almost said something." And that's how we felt about Pizza Meine Liebe and why we won't be going back.

Pizza Meine Liebe is a few doors up from the brilliant Estelle, and has a plain but inviting front room surrounding its pizza oven. It looks like a suburban pizza shop from 1980 set in a shopfront from the 1960's, which is obviously very Northcote, what with nostalgia having only been invented in 1952.

Outside

We'd been told over the phone that they had two sittings and we booked for an earlier sitting, knowing we wouldn't be able to linger. That should have been ok.

Only once before on High Street had we been told we were booking in the earlier of two sittings and that was at Otsumami. Our experiences couldn't have been more different. At Otsumami we never felt rushed; we were served quickly but not once did we feel under any pressure to order or to eat faster. At Pizza Meine Liebe, however, we felt continually pressured to order, to eat and to leave. We were not even half way through our pizza when we were asked if we wanted dessert. We declined.

We ordered four pizzas, a truffle-paste-and-potato pizza that was resplendent with the heady scent of the great black stuff; another with potato, caramelised onion and Taleggio (which was beautiful); one with mozzarella, mushrooms and rocket; and something called a superMario which, although generous with anchovies, was not nearly as interesting as the ingredient list had suggested. The bases were lovely - just thin enough and chewy with puffy edges and the toppings erred on the side of excess.

The truffle and mushroom paste one

A pear, walnut and fetta salad was alright. Nothing more to say. The wine list was short but good and we had a bottle of breezy sangiovese.

The service wasn't rude, but it was perfunctory and focused on getting us out of the door. Pizza Meine Liebe was also, without question, the noisiest place we've been to on High Street and the volume was, frankly, unbearable.

The mushroom one

It's a shame, really. Pizza Meine Liebe makes good pizzas that compare well to its neighbours, although it's nowhere near the best in the area. Both I Saluti and Pizza Farro are on par, with Pizza Farro being better than Pizza Meine Liebe, but both have the bonus of welcoming service and not feeling like you're in cattle class. At Pizza Meine Liebe I felt like just another inconvenient customer gumming up the efficient operations of a restaurant.

Of course, if you don't mind going a little further to North Fitzroy, Supermaxi is in a different class altogether. Their pizzas are a little better but their other dishes are suburb and the service, even in a place so busy, was excellent.

Pizza meine liebe? Nein danke.

Supermaxi

Yeah yeah, so Supermaxi's not on High Street, but it is on St George's Road, a ten minute stroll from the Westgarth end of the Street Referred To In This Blog's Name.

Cool.

It's also in North Fitzroy; it's right next to the bike path; it's only been open a few weeks; and, between us booking and eating, got a good review in the broadsheet. In other words, it's exceedingly hip, extravagantly groovy and crowded with coolhunters. Which suits me just fine, because I am a coolhunter hunter, focused not on the next cool thing, but on the people who will find it. It's all very meta and self-referential, so from time to time you'll have to forgive me for talking total wank.

Somebody's talking wank here.

On this night we'd been invited by Suzanne and JB, who were seeking out my coolhunter hunter skills not because they needed them, but because are specialist coolhunter hunter hunters. Amazing really - sometimes I can't remember if any of us really exist or who's following who. Also in attendance was Mel* and Matt, who are just cool, three teens (or proto-teens) and two small humans.

Supermaxi 's minimalist decor and maximalist crowd noise provide an intense backdrop for the food and for a cheerful shouted conversation. Being coolhunter hunter hunters, Suzanne and JB reported that they'd been there a week or two earlier and that the food was worth the layers of self-referential, nested conversations about who was a coolhunter/hunter and who was just hungry and wanted dinner.

Battered Beetroot - earthy, powerful and red with an attractive exterior.
(Insert Julia Gillard reference *here*.)

Organising a table of 11 to get their act together to order is hard at the best of times, but Suzanne took charge of the situation and the entrees. The Cauliflower fritters were creamy and soft in the middle while still firm and the batter was perfectly crisp. The onion jam that came with them was sweet and tart. For a glorious colour hit, the Beetroot fritters were earthy and sweet. Simple, smoky grilled prawns in their shells quickly followed and were promptly devoured. Cool.

Cauliflower Fritters

The only thing that arched an eyebrow or two was the Oysters Kilpatrik, mainly because no-one could remember if they are meant to be retro-cool; nostalgically comfortable; neo-seventies or whether they've gone right through to "were popular years ago, then shunned before passing through charmingly naff and retro but are out the other side back to being mocked". That's the problem with being a coolhunter hunter - sometimes you have to draw a flowchart to remember where a particular meme is up to.

Anyway, although these were good, I prefer oysters to be a bit more like Ursula Andress - not covered in much and fresh out of the sea.

We ordered a mix of pizzas and other dishes. The pizzas are the best we have had yet in the area, edging ahead of both I Saluti and Pizza Farro . With thin and asymmetrical non-conformist bases, all were both comforting and interesting enough to hold your attention to the last bite. I had the pizza de jour, which had broccolini, anchovies and chili, and thanks to a mix up in the order, got to share it and the fish of the day with Matt.

The pan fried fillets of white fish had a glorious crispness and a lingering taste of butter. It was cooked perfectly.

Fish of the day, but I can't remember what kind it was

Others ordered the pescatore pizza, which was described as perfect; a "GTV" with eggplant and which was named after the chef's Alfa Romeo; and a beautiful pancetta and Gorgonzola pizza which I will definitely be ordering at some time in the future.

Idiosyncratic like an Alfa Romeo, but more reliable

I didn't get to taste Emily's artichoke ravioli, but after she'd eaten it she was sitting back in her chair and black leather coat, looking both satisfied and, of course, cool.

Put the camera away mum - it's very uncool

We had some beautiful Italian wines, but don't ask me what they were. Remembering wine labels is passe and verges on the gauche.

We almost all ordered dessert, which is a damn good sign, and these didn't disappoint. The fried custard was thick and gloriously unctuous, and was served with a drizzle of honey giving it a beautiful Moorish sense of mystery. Emily had the chocolate panna cotta and raspberry, and it had the light touch of a great panna cotta, perfectly balanced between richness and light with the slight bitterness of good cocoa.

The skeptical looks typical of coolhunter hunter hunters

In summary, Supermaxi has cool food, good service (although the night was frantically busy) but is amazingly loud and required some uncool raising of voices. There were no surprises either way with the bill, and in the best sign of a good night, it wasn't until I got home that i realised how amazingly tired I was. I'd go again, but once I've been somewhere it generally doesn't stay cool for much longer. However, I will be going again once it becomes passe, because that's when I feel most at home.

Pizza Farro

It's a warm, humid Thursday night and we're walking down to the nearest pizza place on High Street to home. And the nearest pizza place happens to be Pizza Farro. Pizza Farro prides itself on making pizza bases from spelt. Well, you might ask; "what the %$# is spelt and why should I care? Is it some sort of hippie rubbish from the mountains of Tibet, only eaten by goatherds and unlucky goats?"

Alternatively, in a more polite universe, you might have wondered more discreetly... " What is this thing, this spelt? What does it spell? What did it spelt? What will it.. ummm... Spool? Spult?""

Spelt, according to the collective oracle, is apparently a hexaploid species of wheat. So there you go. Wikipedia says it is "a wheat species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat and the wild goat-grass Aegilops tauschii. "

Or maybe it was delivered unto us by aliens. Or maybe it's some sort of manna gifted unto us by the flying spaghetti monster. I'm not convinced by the theory of genetics - like the creationists, I think we need to give equal time to the theory of alien-gifted grain. Nor do I subscribe to the so-called "theory of gravity".

Sweet decor

And while I don't want to be drawn into religious matters, on the subject of the flying spaghetti monster, surely a flying pizza monster would be both more aerodynamic and more likely to be closer to divine perfection?

A family affair

Penny and Kent are about to fly into earthquake-prone Santiago. And when I say "earthquake-prone", I mean, "had a major one last week.. and.. well... just watch out, ok?". Tonight is about wishing them farewell, bon voyage and a degree of geological stability. It's a bit tough to organise a holiday and then discover your destination has been picked up by the ankles and given a rough and ready shaking until all city's loose change is rattling around your feet.

Anyway, we were there with Penny, Kent, Judy and nephew Matt who was staying with Judy.

Pizza Farro is directly opposite our favourite cheap and familiar pizza place, La Casareccia, which takes a more traditional Australian approach to home delivered pizza, if that's not an oxymoron, so the night made for an interesting comparison.

The first thing you notice about Pizza Farro is the warm and comforting decor. In the front half there's a bunch of friendly crap hanging from a rail (upside-down pot plants, nouveau-rustic implements); while in the longer rear section there is a wonderful collection of rolling pins hanging from the ceiling in elegant rows.

I wish I'd thought of that. It's perfect.

The staff are charming in a perfectly natural way (no artificial ingredients or training in how to smile) and efficient. Ordering was easy and drinks were brought out swiftly.

F, Judy and Will all had pasta. Contemporary accounts spoke highly of the spelt pasta, although from across the table the pasta looked a little grey. But F's marinara was very fresh with large pieces of seafood and a light lemon tang, and Will's special order of cheese only was accommodated without any hesitation.

Sisters

The rest of us had pizzas to share, and they were pretty damn good. We ordered a pizzas with prosciutto, broccoli, pancetta, ossobucco (?!) and sausage.

All the pizza bases were thin and slightly crisp -just perfect. Must be the spoolt. The prosciutto was light and salty; the pancetta had (I think) some melted nuggets of blue cheese that gave it another dimension and the ossobucco was rich and hearty while maintaining the grace of a thin pizza with a crisp base.


The broccoli pizza was wonderful, and so much better than I'd expected. The firm texture of broccoli, almost crisp, was balanced with formaggio and chili flakes - one I will order again.

Broccoli pizza - who would've thought?

Although expectations were high for the sausage pizza, it disappointed only by comparison to everything else. It was ok. The sausage was nothing special and the slices were thin. No other flavours set it on fire, and in the absence of fire...

A largely conventional sausage pizza

I was a bit surprised at the number of pizzas that had rocket dumped on top. Half of the pizzas brought to us were smothered in rocket. Now, I think the invention of rocket sometime in the last decade or so has been one of the great achievements of mankind. How else would I have taught my children about adult concepts like "bitter" and "salad"? But this time too many pizzas were given the rocket treatment and it gave them a homogeneity that they didn't deserve.

And then, in the middle of food and general bonhomie, O-week made it's appearance by virtue of a band of undergraduates marching up High St in identical t-shirts and diverse voices. I can't identify any of the many songs they sang concurrently in the moments they passed Pizza Farro, but that wasn't really the point.

The bon voyagees

I was a bit green and timid to really get into O-week celebrations, but by half way through my undergraduate year was traipsing through Fitzroy and Carlton with fellow students of physics and chemistry, engaged in both bold neurochemical empiricism (n=1) and lustful experiments in the most physical of physics.

But on this night the students were charming, chanting and deeply inoffensive. They marched past us in the restaurant, chanting something or other, looking young and perky, and it saddened me that I was not outraged.

The author, nephew Matt, Kent and Penny

Desserts were had by the few, and the reports were all positive. A rich, moist beetroot chocolate cake was enjoyed, and the gelati had both an intense flavour and just the right texture.

Pizza Farro is now the second quality pizza place we've visited on High Street (I Saluti was the other) and it compares well. The pizzas are great; those that ordered pasta dishes all spoke highly of them (putting aside the undead colour of the spelt pasta). It also has the advantage of being within walking distance from home, and that's got to be good. We'll be going again, and we'll enjoy it.

What are you looking at?

I Saluti

At last, we're back on High Street proper. We're not somewhere else, we're not having take away, drinking beer or shopping at the market. We're doing what we set out to do, which is to enjoy and record the restaurants of Northcote and Thornbury.

Arriving at I Saluti also means we are getting ever closer to the glorious summit of Rucker's Hill, and will soon have to cross the street, descend and start heading north.

I Saluti celebrates its wood-fired pizza oven by literally raising it on a pedestal. A cheerful space with perky, good-humoured staff, it's a bit more casual than its almost-neighbour, Cafe Bedda, but just as warm and inviting. Racket, but chipper racket; not the sort that makes me realise how old my hearing has become.

Action packed!

In a mix of opportunism and willingness to share, we were joined by Penny, Kent, Elisabeth and Cameron. Cameron and I both Joined Up In Canberra All Those Years Ago at the same time in the early 1990's, and now he was visiting from Oop North; Lis is one of my joyfully madder colleagues; and Penny and Kent are, wonderfully, family.

Cameron and the author, seen here dressed as the white person he is.

Kent, Pen and Al

The greatest challenge of the evening was the calculation of optimal seating. Far more complicated than a garlic-tinted version of the traveling salesman problem, we ended up moving at least once, but still ended up with Al and Em feeling they'd been isolated at the junior end of the table. Both fiddled with phones. Thus is the way of the world.

We all opted for pizza, pasta or risotto, and all were pretty damn happy with what they received. The pizzas all had the right balance of thin/crispy/chewy crust without overdoing the top layer. I'm a bread fiend when it comes to pizza and there's nothing that turns me off pizza more than the "too much ain't enough" approach to cheese and foamy, dull bread. But these were perfect - mine was mostly Mediterranean vegetables with hot salami and a chewy, thin base. This is closest I get to a vegetarian pizza. I take the Bill Bailey, post-modernist approach to vegetarianism: I eat meat, but I do it ironically. And these were worth the irony.

My pizza

Cameron had a Lebanon-inspired lamb kofta pizza. Lamb good, sweet chutney a little out of place, but overall a worthy crack at the pizzorial arts.


F and Al were happy with their seafood risotto and Lis thought the chorizo pasta was pretty fine.

Dessert, alas, was a mixed fare. The bread and butter pudding, if it was bread, was the sort of bread where the use-by date on the packet says, "don't worry - you won't live that long." Although the stodge was interleaved with dried fruit and drizzled with a good custard, it was still stodge.

And when I say "dried fruit", I mean the brand-free boxes of mixed dried fruit you get to make a boiled fruit cake. Sultanas? Check. Currants? Yup. Peel? Oh yes (but never enough). Cherries? Well..... There are at least lumpettes of cheerfully coloured jelly disguised as cherries - that's close enough, surely?

On the other hand, Em and the Wubbleyou shared a chocolate and pistachio pizza that looked pretty fine, and A's panna cotta was perfect - judiciously sweet and the right balance of lightness and girth.

Yes, the food was great, and the atmosphere and staff were warm and friendly. But what really set the night apart; what really made it special was the company. Oh, and the weird hands. Weird stuff.

So if there was a lesson from the night, it was that taking friends makes the food even better. It seems pretty obvious in hindsight, but it's important to remember that, although it might seem like I'm writing about the food, it's the night that's far more important. And this night was fun. Conversation that never waltzed but occasionally pogo'd; company that was friendly but never demanding; and food that didn't demand respect but earned it anyway.

From left: Em, Cam's nose, F, Lis, a glimpse of Kent, gesticulating Pen