Eating Melbourne

In which we eat some rather tasty sandwiches and OD on macarons.

EARL Canteen, 500 Bourke St (Little Bourke St courtyard), Melbourne. www.earlcanteen.com.au

I had arranged to meet my brother Dan for lunch today, so it seemed like an excellent excuse to visit the newly-opened EARL Canteen – a gourmet sandwich bar that opened last week in the little courtyard underneath MoVida Aqui at 500 Bourke St.

(I should mention here that the twittoblogosphere is very excited about EARL, because the people behind it are Jackie [Eating with Jack] and her partner Simon – self-confessed “food nerds”, both with quite the Melbourne hospitality pedigree. Not to mention Duncan’s macarons- but I’ll get to that in a minute.)

EARL Canteen is pretty much a sandwich bar – but not as you know it. Sandwiches, yes, but “gooor-mett” sandwiches.  I ordered the “Bacon Rage” ($13): thick cut Otway bacon, spicy kimchi and green leaves on ciabatta.

I confess that my main motivation for ordering this was my glee at the idea of a  #momofukurage-themed sandwich. Fortunately it was also delicious – the spicy kimchi added a lovely zing and heat to the salty-sweet bacon.  Also had a coffee to accompany my meal – they use Coffee Supreme beans, and make a very pleasant latte.

Dan ordered the Wagyu Meatball ($12.50): Moondarra wagyu meatballs in sugo, with zucchini pickles and shaved parmesan on a baguette.

Again, very tasty, although the meatballs could have been heated up a bit more – they were lukewarm in the middle. And not a sandwich that I’d try and eat on a lunch date, it’s a bit hard to get one’s mouth around without getting meatballs up one’s nose. (A classy look.)

To finish, we had to have macarons “By Duncan”. Duncan writes the Syrup and Tang blog, and is a macaron guru. (In fact I can thank his blog exclusively for teaching me how to successfully make macarons. I use the Italian meringue method, btw.)  Duncan is now also not only writing about macarons, but making them – and exclusively for EARL. That’s a big WOO and HOO for the macaron-loving people of Melbourne!

We tried “Clancy Dark”, finger lime + dark chocolate; and “Yannic Intense”, salted caramel. ($2.50 each.)

I should confess at this point that I never really understood the appeal of macarons before. Yes, I’ve baked them (after seeing Zumbo’s on Masterchef last year), and they’re a nice challenge for a try-hard baker like me… but they never tasted that great, and for all the trouble they took, they weren’t as popular as, say, sponge cake.

Duncan’s macarons? Finally I get what all the fuss is about! I’m now inspired to have another crack at baking them myself. So light and delicate in texture, but very intense in flavour. Macarongasmic.

My only quibble is that they are very small, so the macarongasm is over far too quickly.

Highly recommend EARL for a tasty weekday lunch in the city. In fact I wish to bob there was somewhere like this closer to my work.