Melbourne Food Reviews

Chefs Gallery

12/501 George Street, Sydney, NSW 

She Says

Until recently Gerard was flying to Sydney every week for work. Staying in Sydney (or any other city) every week came with a number of perks, including:

• buckets of frequent flyer points, I would actually need a bucket to carry them;
• a maid service;
• excited reactions from people when you come home for the weekend; and
• in some hotels a magic button on the phone labelled “Instant service – for anything you want anytime!”. Does that sound wrong to anyone else?

Probably the biggest perk though, in my opinion at least, is that someone else pays for you to go and eat out at restaurants every night. Every night! Actually I would get sick of that pretty quickly, but it still sounds amazing. I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of years hearing about all the delicious places Gerard has dinner in Sydney. So, when we were in Sydney for a long weekend recently I made it my mission to visit the restaurants that have made me the most jealous.

Chef’s Gallery and it’s handmade noodles was at the top of my hit list. Gerard had told me more stories than I can count about the noodles and crazy desserts here. What he didn’t mention is that the restaurant has a really slick atmosphere and amazing food. The noodles were probably the least impressive dish we tried, I was taken completely off guard by how good everything else was.

He Says

My commuting to Sydney is currently on hiatus, and one of the things I miss most about Sydney is Chefs Gallery. Nestled near Town Hall station in the CBD, Chefs Gallery can be easily identified by the queue of Sydney siders queued up outside, rain, hail or shine. And the giant illuminated sign.

Chefs Gallery puts a western twist on traditional Chinese dishes. There are some truly bonkers items, like the New Macanese style mini burgers, which you’ll see below, mixed with more traditional dishes, such as curry diced chicken noodles. The noodles really are a delicious and visual treat. On one (of many) visits to Chefs Gallery, I was sitting at the bar, which overlooks the kitchen. I saw one of the chefs (in the Gallery), hand pull a serving of Lamian noodles, boil the fresh noodles, plate them, and shortly afterwards they were served to my table. I’m sure plenty of restaurants do this, but I love that Chefs Gallery puts its kitchen out front and centre.

We Ate

Firstly we shared the noodles served with cantonese style BBQ beef and a fried egg ($13.90). The noodles were super fresh and tasty.

We also had the new Macanese style mini burger filled with pork fillet, lettuce, pork floss and mayo ($13.90). I didn’t know what to expect from these and I was blown away by how flavoursome and delicious they are. I was actually speechless. Gerard snagged the 3rd one when I was away from the table, luckily he ordered a second set. Well, not luckily for my cholesterol.

My other favourite dish was the shredded peking duck with cucumber and hoisin sauce wrapped in roti ($15.90). I love peking duck and don’t think that there are many ways to improve it, but wrapping it in roti was amazing. Who knew that combining peking duck and roti would be so great? Apparently Chef’s Gallery, for that, I take my hat off to you Mr Gallery.

Our last dish was the pan fried pork and cabbage potstickers ($9.90). These were good, but not as memorable as the other dishes.

To Conclude

Good atmosphere and great food. Get a serve of the mini burgers, or maybe two.

B.East

80 Lygon Street, Brunswick East 

He Says

I was so excited when my friend from work, Cuddles, sent me a link to the Day of the Dead Festival website. I did a little celebratory dance in my office chair just thinking about the glorious taco filled possibilities. Looking down the list of events the week before, the one that really caught my eye was the Los Hermanos Opening Fiesta on the 30^th of October.  As the event started at 6pm, we decided that we’d arrive at 6:30pm in the hope of getting a table, and then proceeded to invite a bunch of other Mexican enthusiasts.

Fast forward to the 30^th, and I was ecstatic for our dinner date. I drove into the city especially for the occasion, and there was much chatter during the day about dinner. Marg and I left work a little early, and after a hellish drive from the CBD to Brunswick, we arrived just before 6:30pm at 339 Victoria Street, Brunswick. Instead of the queue of people that automatically appear outside any new Mexican restaurant in Melbourne, we were presented with a shut roller door. Puzzled by this hipster influenced obstacle, I checked my phone for any clues.  After a bit of detective work, I found on the Los Hermanos Facebook page, a message posted only 2 hours earlier, stating that they would not be opening until the following week. I hit the roof. I can understand that these things happen, but surely this was known more than two hours out from the event? Not a single tweet from the DayOfDead twitter account, and the event is still listed on the Day of the Dead events page.

After blacking out for a bit from anger, and calling the others to tell them the terrible news, we had to find somewhere else to eat. After scratching our heads for a bit, we thought we’d try out B.East (as in Brunswick East, for the above grounders) on Lygon Street, after a friend had raved about their burgers. Hot and agitated, we made our way over to B.East, and after seeing all the reserved tables, we were lucky enough to scope a couple of barrels in the corner. The seating was a little uncomfortable, but to compensate the food arrived in record time (less than 10 minutes), and then we were on our way.

She Says

So, I’m not going to go into the Los Hermanos debacle again because I think Gerard has covered that pretty well. So, let’s accept, move on and focus on what we did get to eat.

B.East is essentially a big pub, complete with (as we found out when we visited) pub trivia nights. I was a little confused why we were told when we got there at 6.30 on a Tuesday night that there were only 2 seats free in the practically empty restaurant. My confusion continued until I saw a poster on the wall and realised that the tables were all reserved for Tuesday night trivia.

The service at B.East was super speedy, some of the fastest meal production I’ve had this side of Don Don’s. I’m going to be honest though (and yes, I realise that I’m going to sound ridiculously old when I say this) but my entire experience at B.East was pretty much ruined by my chair. I use the term ‘chair’ loosely. Now I’m normally fine with the eclectic collection of vaguely square objects that Melbourne cafes offer up as seating but I found this particular stack of 2 (or 3?) milk crates fashioned into a bar stool just ridiculously uncomfortable. I think it was largely because I’m short so my feet couldn’t touch the ground but had no where else to rest. Anyway, the chair was distracting while we were there and was the main reason why I ate super quickly and got out of there as soon as we were done.

We Ate

Gerard had the pulled pork – slow cooked pork shoulder, pork crackling, cos, green apple & cinnamon sauce ($13). He enjoyed the burger at the time, but the photos don’t really do it justice.

I had the classic – beef, cheddar, red onion, cos lettuce, tomato and tomato relish ($10). The fillings were pretty good, but nothing exciting. The bread however, was a pain; it tasted good, but it broke up straight away and left me with just a pile of crumbs and meat. You could definitely do better elsewhere.

We shared a side of coleslaw ($5) which was fine, it was coleslaw. [Gerard] The coleslaw was great times, not too creamy, not too dry; just right,

We also shared a serve of poutine ($9). The chips were pretty good and we enjoyed the gravy, but there probably wasn’t quite enough of it. There certainly wasn’t enough cheese, not for poutine.

To Conclude

Putting the ‘fast’ back in fast food, B.East serves up an ok burger in less time than it takes to order at some places. Just don’t try to sit down for too long.

Mamak

366 Lonsdale St, Melbourne CBD 

She Says

When Gerard goes to Sydney for work he goes out for dinner and then comes home and tells me about all the fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants he went to. One of his staple quick dinners in Sydney is the ever popular Malaysian restaurant Mamak which specialises in roti and other delicious bits and pieces. Luckily about a month ago Mamak opened an outpost on Lonsdale Street. Gerard and I tried to go for dinner at around 6pm a couple of weeks ago and found that there was already a queue out the door. So, a couple of days later I went back with some friends on a Saturday night. Luckily at 6pm on Saturday there were plenty of table free. They were all gone by 6.30.

The restaurant is big, open and frantic with large photos of what I assume is the Sydney version’s kitchen on the walls. The kitchen is right at the front of the space giving you a great view of the roti rolling magic from the street.

I really enjoyed the food at Mamak. It wasn’t as fancy as I expected, but it was quick, tasty and cheap. The service was also particularly good for this type of busy, no-nonsense Asian restaurant. Good times if you can get a seat.

We Ate

There were 4 of us and we shared a number of dishes. From the roti menu we tried the roti canai ($5.50) served with curry dip. It was delicious, just buttery enough. Next time I’d like to try one of the filled version. When I got home Gerard berated me for not also trying the dessert roti tisu, shame he forgot to tell me about it before I went!

Next up we tried the rojak ($14) – a Malaysian-style salad with prawn and coconut fritters, fried tofu, egg, cucumber and a spicy peanut sauce. This was delicious, easily my favourite dish of the night. If you could bottle this sauce I would drink it daily. Actually you probably could bottle it and I know that drinking it straight would be a bad move, but you get the idea. I’ll be eating this again.

We also had the nasi lemak ($8.50) with lamb (extra $3). The nasi lemak was tasty (and great value), but it was no rojak; that rojak was seriously delicious.

We shared a serve of a dozen chicken and beef satays ($16, $9 for a half dozen) with more peanut sauce. Personally I preferred the chicken.

Finally we had 4 pieces of the ayam goreng ($14 for 4, or $4 a piece). My BFF who came to dinner had been craving fried chicken all day and was devastated when we initially ordered and were told that they were all out of it. Luckily our lovely waitress came over to our table about half way through our meal to tell us that the chicken had been restocked and to ask if we would still like some. We jumped at the chance and really appreciated the waitress letting us know.

To Conclude

Mamak has taken Sydney by storm and now it’s Melbourne’s turn. If you’re looking for cheap, tasty Malaysian in the city and a roti-throwing-show you can’t go wrong.