Lunch at Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander, Healesville, Yarra Valley

It’s a rainy, freezing, depressing Monday in Melbourne, and you’re hosting interstate visitors. What to do?! Bugger off to the Yarra Valley for lunch, that’s what.

The Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander winery is on the main street of Healesville, and it’s a huge barn of a place comprising a bistro, cellar door, bakery, pizzeria, cheese room and coffee roastery. So yeah, pretty much foodie heaven. I’ve been there a couple of times before, usually at lunchtime on a weekend when you’ll have to wait an hour for a table… I can happily say it’s much easier to get a seat on a rainy Monday. (I hereby give you permission to chuck a sickie to go. I’ll write you a note for your boss.)

There were four of us, so we got to do my very favourite type of lunch: Let’s Order Way Too Much Food and Put It All In The Middle To Share.

Their menu consists of Antipasti, Pizza, Not Pizza (cute), Pots (i.e. casseroles and tagines) and assorted sides. We ordered a mix of everything, to be brought out in no particular order.

The pizzas are really, really, really good. Lovely crispy thin sourdough bases. We had the puttanesca, with olives, Spanish anchovies, capers and mozzarella:
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and also the plain old margerita – mozzarella, tomato and basil:
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Mmmmmm… pizza…
Moving on, the mushroom and manchego aranci were cute little mini balls of nom. I only have a picture of one of them because I wasn’t fast enough with the camera and everyone pinched them out of the dish too fast, but you get about six per serve:
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There was a great little pocket of melty gooey manchego cheese in the middle.

There was also the eggplant and pumpkin tagine with giant couscous and labne:
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This was not bad, although could have been a bit more spicy. (And personally I feel “giant couscous” is misleading. I wanted couscous the size of a fist! This was just “Slightly Larger Couscous”. … OK, I’m being silly.)

The house cut chips with aioli were fine:
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To drink, we had one of their house wines, the Giant Steps Gladysdale Vineyard Pinot Noir 2008. Really delicious – juicy and fleshy without being too over-the-top. I was vaguely irked by them effectively charging corkage for it though, considering you’re drinking it right there in their winery. (It’s $45 if you walk over to the cellar door counter and buy it, but $54 to drink it there. Yes, I know they have to wash the glasses… but still. It’s their own wine!)

For dessert, I’d saved room for the Portuguese tart, which was to die for on my last visit. This time it was less exciting, I think because it wasn’t warm? The pastry had congealed a bit. Last time it was fresher out of the oven, perhaps. Still really good custard.

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I also had an espresso with their own roasted coffee. They give you a double ristretto (with 20g of coffee) – zing!

Alas, on this occasion I did not get to attack the cheese room. Which just means that now I have an excuse to go again soon.

Giant Steps / Innocent Bystander on Urbanspoon

September 29, 2009 | Kate | Tags: | 4 Comments »

George Calombaris doesn’t like food bloggers

We interrupt your regularly scheduled food reviews for a brief editorial.

There’s an article by Megan Miller about food bloggers in today’s Herald Sun Food Extra liftout (pp30-31 – unfortunately they haven’t put a copy online). In addition to featuring some of the best Melbourne food blogs (including Tummyrumbles, Breakfast Out, Eating with Jack, Fitzroyalty, Gourmet Husbands, Melbourne Gastronome, Totally Addicted to Taste and Where’s the Beef?), Miller interviews George Calombaris – who takes the opportunity to take yet another swipe at food bloggers:

Celebrity chef George Calombaris believes online reviewers don’t have the credibility of their mainstream counterparts and bloggers are unsympathetic if there’s been a bad night on the floor, or the kitchen’s understaffed.
Critics from newspapers and magazines generally visit a noshery at least twice before writing their review.
“They monitor it and see what’s going on,” Calombaris says. “These are trained professionals. These critics know what they’re talking about. They’ve got a palate. They eat, that’s their job, that’s their living. (Bloggers) have no idea about restaurants. They’ve got no idea how they’re run.”

On the whole, I actually like George’s restaurants. I’ve had very enjoyable meals at Press Club and Hellenic Republic. But his attitude towards food bloggers is completely bizarre.

No, most food bloggers are not “trained professionals”. But they are customers. (Customers who probably eat out a lot more than the average punter, for that matter.) Does that not qualify them to give an opinion?

Customers have no idea about how restaurants are run. And most of them don’t care. Why should a paying customer be sympathetic about a bad night on the floor, or an understaffed kitchen? They are there to have a pleasant evening and a nice meal, and they pay for that experience. If you pay big bucks for a meal and it falls short, would you be inclined to revisit and pay more of your hard earned cash, just in case the kitchen was having an off night the first time?

As a business owner, George should understand that “unqualified” customers will come and judge his businesses every single day. Every person that comes through the door will form an opinion as to whether or not they like his food and his restaurant.

Some of them will tell their friends about whether it was good or bad. Some of them will never say anything but never return. If he’s really lucky, some of them will blog about their experience so that he actually gets some feedback about what they liked and what they didn’t like. If it was your business, wouldn’t you rather know if someone had a bad time so that you can fix the problem for future customers?

Don’t forget, George, it’s we the average punters, not the professional critics, who are filling up your restaurants every night.

| Kate | 50 Comments »

Lunch at Journal Canteen, Melbourne CBD

Lygon St used to be the place to go for authentic Italian. Sadly these days most of the restaurants there are overpriced tourist traps. To get real Italian food, you now need to go a little off the beaten path… in Journal Canteen’s case, this means finding a mezzanine level in the CAE library on Flinders Lane. (Walk in, turn right past the Journal Cafe, and go up the stairs.)

When you get there, you discover the kind of decor that is politely described as “modest”. It’s actually very evocative of that fabulously daggy cafe fitout that you find all over Italy – the sort where the family that owns the cafe did a “modern refit” in the early 70s, complete with laminex, fluorescent lighting and chrome chairs, and sees no reason to change 30 years later. I just love it.

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It has a great view of Flinders Lane and Centre Place. I really did feel a bit like I was in Europe.
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The chalkboard menu is simple, brief, and changes daily, with an antipasto plate, four choices for mains (all around the $20 mark) and a featured dessert.

I chose the lasagne but it had sold out, so my next choice was the veal shank with risoni pasta:
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I don’t often order shanks, as my partner has a fabulous recipe that most restaurant shanks don’t compare to. I think this one gave him a run for his money. The meat was falling gooily off the bone, with a delicious gravy.

My partner ordered the roast chicken, which was fabulously juicy and lemony and herby, served rustically with a few potatoes on the plate:
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We were also given a simple salad to share – just some iceberg lettuce and fennel with olive oil vinaigrette.

The meal was very filling but we were intrigued by the dessert of the day, a “sweet ravioli”, so we ordered one to share. (Andy, one of the chefs, is a mate of my brother’s so he gave us an extra one. Thanks Andy!)
The sweet ravioli was a deep fried pastry, filled with ricotta and sultanas. Not exactly health food but very very tasty.
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Journal Canteen is a really tasty and well-priced lunch in the CBD and I’m looking forward to visiting again soon.

Journal Canteen on Urbanspoon

September 28, 2009 | Kate | Tags: | 1 Comment »

Breakfast (and a show) at Palace Westgarth Cinemas, Northcote

I am going to let you in on one of my very favourite (if unconventional) breakfasts in Melbourne: breakfast at the movies.

I go to the Palace cinemas in Westgarth, which is my local, but you could do it at any cinema that offers food beyond popcorn and Maltesers. (Unless you really want to eat popcorn for breakfast.)  There’s usually a session at around 10.15 or 10.30, which still allows for a bit of a sleep-in; I get there about five minutes before the session’s due to start and order a latte and a piece of panettone for $6. The Westgarth makes surprisingly decent Lavazza coffee, and the generous wedges of panettone are always fresh.

Cinema 1 is the best for movie-breakfasts, as it has the comfy high-backed seats with little tables in between each seat pair where you can put your coffee and plate. (The smaller cinemas 2 and 3 just have cup holders so you’ll have to have your plate on your lap.)

The early sessions are usually pretty empty, unless it’s a kid’s movie. So you get the cinema almost to yourself, along with a lovely hot coffee and delicious Italian pastry – what glee! Why line up for the crowded 8.30pm movie session with all the other suckers?! Or have to wait for a table at brunch?!

Interested to hear if any other cinemas are suitable for movie breakfast?

September 8, 2009 | Kate | Tags: | 1 Comment »