Sausage in a Pancake.

This blog didn't start out to be anything other than a collection of eating experiences from restaurants, grand and humble, from our neighbourhood. I certainly didn't see this as a sort of "amuse bouche" blog that just provides entre-like links to a lot of other people's work and is little more than an aggregation service.

However, today I feel compelled to offer you the following link to an article about convenience food in the US, using the product "Jimmy Dean's Pancake and Sausage on a Stick" (also seen here with chocolate chips) as its centrepiece.

Photo source here, thanks to littleREDelf

You can learn a lot about a culture by looking at the products (and food) that have proved popular over time (including the now decade-old pancake and sausage on a stick!) and those that didn't quite make the cut. Cheese-filled hot dogs and microwavable bread might have failed, but they have nothing on the extraordinary "IncrEdibles..."

"...a late '90s convenience food product. Packaged in cardboard tubes and available in flavors such as Macaroni & Cheese and Scrambled Eggs with Cheese & Sausage, IncrEdibles featured a stick at the bottom of the cardboard tube, so after you heated them up in the microwave, you could simply push into your mouth without utensils."

OK, so they failed, but clearly somebody (manufacturers, marketers etc) thought humanity had sunk to this pathetic and disgusting state. Now, it's easy to mock (and fun, too!), but clearly there is something pretty fucked up about this corner of the world if IncrEdulous IncrEdibles were contemplated for a nanomoment longer than anyone could say, "ewwwwww."

Yes, I love a good pizza and a Chinese take-away every now and then. Yes, I'll eat a homogeneous frankfurt and enjoy it. I'll always have a pie at the footy and sometimes I'll have oven chips at home. But Sausage in a Pancake? Madam, I may not have much self-respect, but I have just enough to say, "no thank you, I'd rather mince my own head and feed it to the cat."

Crunch

When we first moved into the house where we now live, my oldest and dearest friend dropped in for a cuppa and viewing. I did the two-minute tour of the house and being the middle of the day, we decided to walk down to High Street for coffee. Taking the shortest walk, we got to High Street next to Brown's Motors, opposite Crunch. Pointing at Crunch, Mark said, "let's go there." By complete coincidence, Crunch was owned by Mark's sister Jenny.

Seussian Eggs

I'd first met Jenny decades ago when I was a gormless teenager and she was one of the few groovy adults I'd met. We met again some years later in the late 1980's when Felicity and I moved into a house in Tanner Grove in Northcote and Jenny lived a few streets away. I remembered Jenny as cool and having a relaxed charm back then, and she was the same at Crunch in the early 2000's. We ate there a couple of times after, chatting briefly and always smiling.

Crunch changed hands a year or so ago and Jenny and her family moved to Queensland. The coffee's still pretty good, but despite being the closest great coffee to our front door, I can't say we frequent Crunch. There's no particular reason, mind you, it's just not something we do

So this time was the first for a while we'd been to Crunch but it still felt familiar and welcoming. The coffee was really, really good (which makes such a difference at about 11.00am); the food was wonderful, and the service was OK.

F had the Seussian "Greens, Egg and Ham", which was a cross between Eggs Florentine and Eggs Benedict. Perched on slivers of Turkish bread was some spinach puree, acceptable ham and a couple of perfectly poached eggs, complemented by a small dish of lovely rich Bearnaise sauce with *just* the right balance of acidity.

I had a BLT augmented with avocado (aka "the BLAT"), again served in a modest Turkish roll with a thick layer of mixed baby salad leaves and some freshly made mayo. It wasn't intense, and the balance of bacon and tomato/avocado/salad erred towards the herbivorous. We got everything we ordered without hesitation but without a lot of good cheer either.

BLAT!

Crunch has great coffee, good cafe food and a view from one side of High Street to a slightly more appealing side. It's a funny, empty kind of room that feel like a small box with some modest, modern Scandinavian furniture and few pretensions. Crunch is groovy without trying too hard, in a strip where 1970's sparkle Laminex is revered and mixed crap chairs are de rigeur. Even putting aside the distant friendly connections (that have long since expired), I really enjoy Crunch and the warm, familiar sensation I get when I sit down.

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?

A diversion - Yum Cha at Plume

My sister invited us to yum cha in Doncaster with mum and dad. We went; how could we not?

One of those... you know.. ummm....

We go a few times a year and I suspect I enjoy it more than others. For me it's a particular heaven - lots of new flavours, textures and tea. Regrettably, as my love of the conversation has grown my hearing has declined. Welcome to "being old".

Eggplant. Succulent and wonderful...

Late Sunday morning at Plume in Doncaster is usually a loud, rambunctious affair. The floor captains (there must be a real name for them) with their Secret Service earpieces shout instructions to a team of crack waiting staff, gesturing like semaphore across the floor, or as though they are guiding a helicopter to land behind the kitchen. The tables are full and the conversation is loud; family groups are everywhere and children tumble across the floor. The trolley traffic is chaotic but inevitably seems to work without roadkill, road rage and with a minimum of swearing. It's absolutely fantastic.

But this Sunday was different. Things were quiet; maybe too quiet. The wind gently whistled between the tables and tumbleweeds blew across the floor. The listless bang of a saloon door. A tall, silent stranger looked at me from across the table before finally speaking. "It's very quiet today. Everyone must be recovering from Chinese New Year," said my brother-in-law, before picking up some gai lan with his chopsticks and dipping it in oyster sauce.

Roger and the Urbane parent

Very clever that man, and he was right. There were a few empty tables in a room where I had never seen tables empty for more than a few minutes as crockery was cleaned away for the next sitting. Nevertheless, it was busy enough to be lightly manic with a side order of screaming from the kitchen.

I used to be pretty indiscriminate about yum cha, but now I know what I like and can tell it from "meh, yum cha..." yum cha. A mix of the familiar and unfamiliar; a few fried dishes but mostly not; a catholic mix of flavours and textures; chaos, conversation and chili. Plume hits the mark perfectly for me - the dishes are either warmly familiar or charmingly unexpected. The food is just fantastic.

Tofu with prawn stuffing. Whoa....

Plume is often rated among the best of Melbourne's yum cha venues and the food and the crazymad atmosphere make it irresistible. Doncaster's not too far from High Street and once you experience the indoor street theatre that is Plume, you'll know it's well worth getting out of bed early on a Sunday morning. Oh, and by "early", I mean 11.00....

Dumple, now!

Peacock Inn Hotel & 303 High Street

According to their website, the Peacock Inn;

"was built in 1854 by Horace and Edwin Bastings. The following year they sold it to the 21-year-old George Plant. Plant was to become synonymous with the Peacock, holding the license until his death in 1895. His widow, Catherine then took over the hotel license until 1910."

Welcome to Northcote. Trains, trams and maybe a bus.

Cool. But Northcote has changed since then.

My mother tells the story of discussing Jane Austen in an English Literature tutorial at university. A young male student opined that Austen was clearly bourgeois rubbish, and believed he could smite a fatal blow against nineteenth century gentility with the profound and rhetorical question, "but where are the workers!?"

Fuck the workers; Lis declares victory over the lethargic

It was a fear of twenty-first century gentility that had made me reluctant to eat at the Peacock Inn Hotel. It's a lovely building with an almost Mexican, deco feel. As you walk past, however, through the window you can see the restaurant and its stark, modern furniture and hard surfaces. It bodes. Not of anything in particular; it just bodes. You expect the workers have well and truly been vanquished; gentrified away, somewhere well beyond the picket fences and sushi.

They had a groovy VicRoads/Metlink map of the northern suburbs. Cool, eh?

But no. Modernism aside, if you walk through the bleach-blond, overly thin, hatchet-faced restaurant, you get to the beer garden. A curvaceous, smiling and friendly beer garden with broad hips and.. oh, never mind. No "yummy mummies" here. No three-wheeled prams. A spacious beer garden full of... ummm... space... and... well... beer. People drinking beer, eating chips and smoking. Large people. Students. People talking philosophy, sports and shit.

*Smiles to self*

We also had great company - Lis, who has been with us on a previous journey to High Street, joined us for an evening high on the Hill.

Lis declares victory in general against, well, whoever

You don't go to a pub looking for authentic air-dried Japo-Scandanavian fish welts with a soupcon of green tea jus. No, you expect pub food; forty-seven varieties of schnitzel; the Ultimate Street Fighting Mixed Grill; chips with everything and maybe a token salad.

Lis ordered fish and chips, and by all reports these were pretty good. The fish was thick and moist and the chips were thick and crisp.

Al, F and I all ordered Veal Parmigiana (or in Al's case, chicken). Nothing says "pub meal" in Melbourne like Parmigiana. And this Parma (or Parmi?) was pretty good but not outstanding. Against it were a particularly sweet tomato sauce (although the tomato and onion were cheerfully and roughly cut), too much crumb; a slice of sandwich ham; and yearling masquerading as veal . In its favour, the beef was tender and the crumb was crisp.

I remember pub food in the 1980's as being utter, utter shit. These were the dark days of perverse liquor licensing laws in Victoria, and if you wanted to see a band, the pub was obliged to offer you food. Most of the time this meant getting a ticket when you paid the cover charge, which you could exchange for a plate of sandwich ham, potato salad and maybe some tinned three-bean salad. My expectations of pub food were set in this impressionable age, and they were set low. Since then, the food has only improved.

The Peacock Inn is not a gastropub (I still inwardly laugh, thinking "gastro-pub") but the food is decent pub food. The beer garden is spacious and there were a few free tables on Friday night, although plenty of people making plenty of atmosphere. Inside was similar, but with the now traditional large screen for sports. Charmingly, there are no poker machines.

We didn't stay for coffee or dessert. Knowing that there was an exhibition to support the opening of this year's Melbourne Ukulele Festival (MUF), we wandered down to 303 High Street for coffee. 303 has the ultimate location on High Street, being wedged between the Northcote Social Club and Lamb's (home of the second* best souvlaki on High Street).

We admired some hand-painted ukuleles.


My strong latte was good. F and Lis ordered some chemistry-set concoction called a "chai-latte-cino" (maybe). It was very milky and didn't have a lot of spice, strength or sweetness. Oh well. The band playing on the other side of the bearded door-bitch sounded fantastic, like a funky brass band on a billy-cart on their way to a hip-hop gig.

Lis has a collection of awesome tatts, but this is the best non-Escher one

It was a fun evening. In the absence of children I could have wandered into the back of 303 and enjoyed the band. But no, there were grumpy complaints, eye-rubbing and petulant foot-stampings. When the children had calmed me down, we agreed I needed to go home and have a nap.

*Ulysses is both the taxi driver's favourite and mine. One day I'll tell of our student days in the 1980's, eating double meat souvlakis and drinking chocolate milkshakes. On the basis of our then diet, I'm not sure how we lived this long... In the meantime, if your taxi driver smells of garlic at 4.00am, blame Ulysses.

We went back to Thy Thy two weeks later...

Well, we did, but it was a night that was not really about the food, so you'll have to read about it elsewhere. But it looked like this.

Cheese Club IV - Death to the Lactose Intolerant

Cheese Club has returned for the first time in a while but was well worth the wait. Joined again by the Urbane Parents and Penny and Kent, we glided our way through six wonderful cheeses and some wonderful wines (a 2007 Clockwork Cab Sauv (Margaret River); a 2000 Elizabeth Semillon (Hunter Valley) and a 2007 Scotchmans Hill Pinot Noir (Bellarine Peninsular)). So without further faffing about...

Cheese! In a box!

Holy Goat Eclipse - Kicking off with a surface ripened, fresh goats cheese, this was a sweet and ugly pyramid of joy. From central Victoria, this was a perfect balance of sweet and sour; lightness and depth. It had a consistent texture of tight, fresh curd (unlike the chalky centre and runny edges of, say, the Chabichou du Poitou), and the flavour was fresh and exciting. Very much a Quasimodo cheese - a little terrifying to look at with its curled, dark rind but sweet and gentle to know.

Holy Goat, Batman! It's as ugly as something really, really ugly!

That's Amore Smoked Baby Scamorza - The other Victorian cheese, this is a smoked and stretched curd cheese, bundled in to a little ball of mozzarella-like cuteness and burnished with a bronze sheen. The curd wasn't as stretched as mozzarella though, and although it had a bit of bounce it was softer than it looked. It had a salami-like, smoked smell, but the richness of the cheese is not overwhelmed by the burny stuff. Very popular on the night, and the best smoked cheese I've ever tasted (out of a small pool, to be fair...).

No ashtray necessary

Edel de Cleron - a washed rind cheese for those who don't necessarily believe that "washed rind" is the same as "biological warfare". This is a cow's milk, surface ripened and washed rind cheese that has all of the rich, gooeyness of a white mould cheese and the flavours of something heaven sent. The washed rind aspect was powerful but not overpowering and the texture varied from the ripe, gooey centre to the resisting rind. It had many layers of scent tussled together into a luscious whole. I think we'll leave the remaining half of this for a week to complete ripening - everything was so wonderfully complicated about this that a bit of time might produce something even more amazing.

Hmmmm.... Just you wait, my pretty...

Fougerous Rouzaire - a Brie, a lot like the Brie de Nangus - strong, earthy flavours; more salt than most local white-mould cheeses but not quite as salty as the Nangus. Popular with the white-moulders. Me? Yeah, as good as any, but I'm not really in a white mould mood. This wasn't on RHCL's recommended list but was an addition to satisfy those pesky white-moulders. Let 'em have their cheese I say. More of the others for me.

Quite nice, but you're going to have to get up earlier in the morning to impress me.

Casa Madaio Acacio de Bufala is made from Buffalo's milk and is a hard, cooked curd cheese from Eboli, Italy. This was definitely the most unusual cheese of the six. Penny described it as being "like a Manchego without the sheep's milk taste", which was a good call. It's texture was unexpected - while it looks like a hard granular cheese, it has a hint of resistance almost like a stretched curd cheese.

The flavour is big and round - the tasting notes talk about a "rich apricot fruity flavour". It certainly has a lovely acid balance and a bit of salt . I'm not quite sure what to make of this; I liked it, but ate it frowning in concentration. Not necessarily one I'd buy again, but only because there are so many other cheeses to try.

Things that make you "Hmmm?"

The last cheese of the evening was Onetik Bluette, a blue mould goat's milk cheese from the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, France. Quite frankly, this knocked everyone's socks off without the sense (or smell) that somebody had just taken their socks off, and was a perfect cheese to finish with. The texture was a blend of softly buttery paste and the slight grain of the mighty mould veins. A blue that everyone could enjoy, without it being bland - not so much sharp as tingly. This could easily become a new favourite and is on the "keeper" list and the "buying again" list and the "yes please" list.

Things that make you go "yummmmm..."

We also took delivery of some Aphrodite Haloumi, from Cyprus. I'll grill that and report back later. All in all an excellent haul.