C’est la vie – ’tis all for the better I say, the new look is certainly a big improvement on the old one, thats for sure.

And a very warm welcome to all our new writers too!

As young Justin mentioned a few weeks back I went back to Europe for a break with the folks in England and France, and have picked up a fair few culinary recipes, stories and restaurant reviews along the way. So I will be doing a run of posts on my whole time in France shortly. Yes these are all from France, not England – sorry Anglophiles. I mean I could tell you about the amazing culinary experiences I had in the UK, but then I’d be lying. Badly.

I’ll get cracking on these once the jet lag wears off along with the euphoria of being back at work!

Till then…

Jeff

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Can the new management inspire me more than the predecessors?

Let’s find out!

(*) Ok,ok – we didn’t notice anything had changed until late on Tuesday arvo!

Service Quality - 5.5/10

Top marks for being keen and eager to help with my meal choice upon ordering. Top marks also for providing a quite unexpected miso soup as a starter. Not so good marks for bringing the soup out 10 seconds before the main, giving me a choice of eating one of the two whilst the other one went cold. Also not so good marks for bringing the miso soup out without a spoon.

Should the customer have to go over to the counter and get the spoon themselves? Probably not!

Service Speed 6.5/10

Ordering is done upon entry to the cafe with no waiting, unless someone is in front of you of course, and I ordered one of the staples of Japanese cuisine, a Chicken Teriyaki don (my Japanese tastebuds are not as adventurous as most other cuisines). So I can only really the speed of the wait for the food to arrive.

Which wasn’t bad at all ~approx 10 mins. Although bringing the soup out straight away would also have helped boost this score, as I wouldn’t have noticed as much time going by twiddling my thumbs…

Food Quality 8/10

…and its the food the new owners score highest on. The Teriyaki don was top notch, freshly cooked in a wok, pretty much in front of my eyes, and was topped with a good array of condiments – picked ginger, spring onion and seaweed. Best of all the teriyaki source was not a heavy thick one but light not too salty and just the right quantity to flavour the steamed rice without drowning it.

I’ve had chicken teriyaki from a fair few places in town – this is easily one of the best ones.

And the miso soup (which I tried a bit before leaving in preference of the teriyaki) was pretty good too!

Ambiance 6.5/10
Unfortunately the new place doesn’t make a good enough break from the past. I mean if you’re going to change the name, change the menu and change the furniture, why put an ‘Under New Management’ sign in the window? Its not “Monkey Magic redux” – it’s Haru and the New Management sign is just confusing. Also the interior hasn’t completely changed – sure the chefs all have brighter-than-white brand spanking new uniforms (I almost had to put my shades on!) but the drinks units, cutlery and layout of the venue is still exactly the same. The decor is an improvement though, and I guess for any new visitors are not going to notice the similarities.

Value for Money 7.5 / 10

The price has come down a bit from Monkey Magic – the Teriyaki is now $8.30 as opposed to $8.60 previously, and is also a larger serving than before. For the quality that sounds like good value for lunch money to me!

Overall Ranking: 6.8/10

In closing, the great food on offer is let down somewhat by the unclean break from the old Magic Monkey. It really needs to find its own identity if its going to flourish and do justice to the excellent array of food options and quality thats now being served under the new owners.

But if for nothing else than the love of good food, give it a try!

I went I think 3 times. Once to try, once with a friend, and once out of desperation! So I am quite interested by its closing and the opening of ‘Haru’, a more traditional Japanese alternative and dropped by there today. While it’s not perfect it is a darn sight improved on the old venue – so check the review out of Haru coming soon.

And a word on our review policy – note, unlike other Restaurant Review sites, we do not get free meals for ANY reviews we do, nor does the venue know they are being reviewed at the time – it’s a strict policy of mystery reviews. Therefore the quantity of reviews we can do is limited by our lunch budget for the week as well as the time we can spare from our respective jobs. While I’d love to review a place a day for you all and tell you everything about it, a lunch visit to the likes of a Seamstress or Flower Drum wipes our budget for the rest of the week out.

Also our formal reviews are scored out of 20, the same as The Age, but we go further and break that down into 5 categories in order to be more accurate – both to you the reader and to the restaurant, who sometimes with The Age’s reviews might not get a clear picture of why they got a particular score.  We are also not quite as tight assed as The Age mob in our scores as we do consider the relative market segment they are aimed at.  That way a more ‘low-brow’ cafe that would otherwise never hope to get more than an 11 from The Age simply because they don’t stock $40 bottles of (free) wine can score reasonably reflective of its market positioning.

All of which is a somewhat long-winded way of saying we’re not as exclusive as The Age in our reviews! And that probably works better in stretching our lunch money further too! Which is not too say we don’t review the pricier places – Movida’s (expect to pay about $40 a head) review is coming soon, and we plan to visit Long Grain in August which is similarly priced.

So if you are a small, vibrant cafe with at least a freshly cooked-to-order menu (excludes fast-food joints now Macca’s are ‘made-to-order’) then drop us a line and we’ll review fairly as per the above stipulations.

All The Best,

Jeff.

Up at the ‘Paris’ end of town, Bourke Streets vibrant pre-theatre strip used to be bookended at number 1 by The Hard Rock Cafe, replete with (mostly, if not completely) tacky Americana including a sign out front advising all nuclear weapons to be left outside.  Inside it served typical American mass-consumer fare : over-sized, under-seasoned and over-here!  The Hard Rock Cafe played out rather like a Burger King to TGI Friday’s McDonald’s.

But its not what used to be located there, it’s the venue we’re interested in! 

The Hard Rock closed last year and its Windsor Hotel owners stripped it down and left it with bare bones fittings to be used as a corporate conference venue.  Presumably they figured they could either make more money this way (debatable) or possible they just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of finding a new tenant to take over this admittedly large venue and do it justice.  After all their core business is hotels, not a property landlord.  A conference venue is much easier to maintain and look after even if it doesn’t create the same revenue.

The advantage of setting the Ramsay restaurant here is not only is it a good size, but restoring it to its previous function of a restaurant wouldn’t be that complicated.  It represents another blank canvas waiting to be painted on.  There’s nothing there in the way of building that would need taking out. 

And I have I mentioned the location?  It’s higher profile than Oliver’s Fifteen, in an already successful strip of similar good quality restaurants and cafes.  From the European round the corner all the way down Bourke pretty much to Exhibition St the venues are all good and another can only add to the areas reputation – and not only as a pre-theatre strip!

Anyway, The Windsor’s owners should think again – the opportunity to host a prestigious venue like a Ramsay restaurant isn’t going to come up every day, and the prestige and publicity can only be a good thing.  Get creative guys – visitors to Melbourne could even be tempted to staying at the Windsor if there was a cross package with a restaurant of this profile affiliated with it!

Pros : Well established area in the CBD, large size, blank canvas of the current conference room.

Cons : Convincing the hotel to restore it to its previous use?

So after a brief beer or two we’ve come up with a list of the Top 5 places, which we’ll reveal one at a time starting today.  These five are all central locations in or close to the CBD – we may do an outer suburb top 5 if time permits.  

So without further ado, lets kick off with number #5 – Abbotsford Convent!

There is little doubt that the Convent is a roaring success since it was saved from being turned into just another bland residential townhouse development and handed over to the community.  They’ve done an admirable job in turning it into an Community Arts venue hosting cottage scale artists and a small selection of eating venues (bakery, organic cafe selling beer).  And lets not even get into the success of the Farmers and Slow Cook markets that keep the place thronging with crowds every other weekend.

Yet for all the micro-developments that have so far moved in, the vast size of the place means most of the convent and its adjoining buildings and outhouses still lie disused, derelict and in need of restoration. 

What better choice then to house a top-class restaurant sympathetically decored in keeping with the style of the Convent?  The Convent is ideally located close to the CBD and public transport (via Collingwood train station) and has ample car parking facilities opposite.  The blank canvas of many of the building still empty leave vast scope for creating an interior in a wide range of ambient non-corporate decors – given a talented designer all bets are open for the style and ambiance of the place! 

As for cons?  Well the micro-style of the existing convent places means anything too large might be hard to get away with, so may limit the size of any restaurant.  Also I suspect (purely my guess here) the parts of the Convent still empty are empty for a reason – they’d cost more to renovate to a usable standard.

Stay tuned for Location number 4 as we head West-wards…:)

Yet we outperform every other country at the Olympics when you count medals per head of population. We have a bi-polar disorder in this country when it comes to our attitude to food. People are either extremely diet conscious and athletic or extremely fat obese and (usually) lazy. There doesn’t seem to be an much in between.

The obesity epidemic in Oz is a rather distressing statistic, but what to do? In the long run, perhaps a food tax on fatty take-away fast food joints is the way to go. In the short term, I think we need a bit of the shame tactics akin to desperate parents who hang signs on their kids saying their bullies, and then making them stand on the street corner.

Yup, its time to rewrite our favourite songs to publicise our fatness! Here is the chorus to the new fat version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, to be always sung until the point when we’ve been shamed enough that we’re no longer fatter than the Yanks!!! All join in now ‘a-one, two, three and’…

‘Fatter than Americans,

We’re fatter than Americans!,

We eat too much chips, beer and greasy feeds,

With our big fat guts, and our lardy butts,

We’re fatter than Americans watching TV!’

Anyone want to do the verses?

Service Quality - 6/10

Let’s be honest up front – at lunch pretty much every weekday Florentinos is packed.  Fortunately my friend had already managed to fight the throngs and get a table which he guarded with his mortal life, so the usual custom of waiting propped up by the bar or in the doorway was skipped this time round.  But as a result of a crowded full-to-the-rafters bar the service is sometimes stretched in the time to wait to get served.  When I did finally get the menu I went for a cheese potato gnocchi whilst my friend took the seafood spaghetti.

Service Speed 5/10

The waiting time to then get the food delivered is pretty arduous at times so let me give you a general rule of thumb for lunch at Florentinos.  If you want to get lunch and back to the office in one hour, stick to one course only.  This will take pretty much take out your whole lunch hour.  If you have time to take for a longer – or liquid! - lunch then by all means go for more courses.  It’s simply a fact of life that the food takes a while here – ours was about 30 minutes in the making…

Food Quality 7/10

…But the food is worth that wait!  I had a superb gnocchi with a well balanced cheese sauce.  Its pretty easy to make a top heavy sauce that drowns the gnocchi or pasta, however mine was just right.  The seafood spaghetti was, according to reports, even better – with baby octopus and other suspects of assorted crustaceans.  It got good two thumbs up from my friend!

 Ambiance 7.5/10
It’s busy, it’s loud, it’s a touch chaotic.  In a word it’s vibrant!  But if you don’t like squeezing past people to get to the other end (where the rest rooms are) in a long and narrow bar, then maybe it’s not for you.  But I love it!!!

Value for Money 7 / 10

It’s certainly reasonable for the price.  We paid about $20 dollars a head for our meal with one drink.  Overall ‘The Cellar Bar’ represents the bistro value section of the larger adjoining Florentinos restaurant empire.  If you want your money to not go as far and have a more formal reserved fine dining experience, may I suggest Florentinos bigger restaurant next door?

Overall Ranking: 6.5/10

The fried chorizo is important as it releases its oil into the pan which helps make the calamari and rice turn more orange, although most of the red in the dish comes from the pepper and tomatoes. So its important to buy good quality chorizo for this, as opposed to some of the cheaper supermarket one’s that haven’t been cured properly.

Ingredients (for 2-3 persons)

2 Spicy Chorizo Sausages – Chopped into slices

1 Medium Sized Calamari (cleaned)

1 Red Pepper – Chopped or Sliced in rings – your choice!

1 Tin of Red Chopped Tomatoes

1 Onion – Quarter Chopped

2 Cloves of Garlic – Crushed

1 Fresh Red Thai Chili – Sliced thinly

1 Dried Thai Chili – Roughly Chopped

1 Cup of Arborio Rice

4 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

Vegetable Stock

50g of butter

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

Cooking:

1. In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil and add the onion and chorizo. Fry until the chorizo is browned and the oil turns orange with the released fat of the chorizo. Remove the Chorizo.
2. Fry the calamari in the chorizo oil with the dried chili until the calamari is cooked and has picked up the chorizo colouring. Remove the Calamari.
3. Fry the rice for a minute or two (you may need to add a glug of olive oil if the pan is dry) and add the 1st Ladle of stock. Keep cooking adding extra ladle when the rice has absorbed the liquid. For the following ladles add the ingredients as specified.
4. 2nd Ladle : Add the chorizo, calamari, fresh chili and garlic.
5. 3rd Ladle : Use the tin of tomatoes INSTEAD of the vegetable stock.
6. 4th Ladle : Add the red peppers.
7. Keep add extra ladles until the rice is fully cooked and serve with parmesan.

Total Time – approx 1 hour.

Also prawns can be added to this dish, which makes the flavour much more of a seafood risotto. Use 2-3 (depending on the size) raw prawns per person and cook as per the calamari.

Enjoy!

I will be strict here and insist on pork rib chops for this as they are by far the tastiest chop type with this. Also you MUST use red gum honey for the best result. I’ve experimented and tried blue gum and plain honey and neither are anywhere as good in the end dish. Finally it’s important to have a good quality overproof pan or casserole dish with a lid – the best dishes need the best utensils!

I’ll also aim to get some photos of this out on the weekend, as I will be cooking it then.

Ingredients (for 4 persons)

• 4 Pork Rib Chops – (these are the best chop ones to use)
• Flour for dusting
• 300g Blueberries
• 60g Red Gum honey
• 150ml ml Red wine
• 25g Butter
• 3 tablespoons Olive oil
• Salt

Preparation:

1. Dust the pork chops with flour.
2. Process the blueberries in a blender for a minute and when pulped add the honey, and blend again for 20 secs or so until mixed.

Cooking:

1. In a large ovenproof frying pan, melt the butter with the olive oil.
2. Add the chops and fry turning occasionally on each side until both sides appear lightly browned all over. Season with a little salt.
3. Add the glass of wine and cook further until the liquid has partly reduced down from evaporation.
4. Turn the heat off and immediately spread the blueberry mixture over the chops. Then cover the pan and transfer to a preheated oven at 200°C and cook for 15 – 20 minutes.
5. Remove and stand for 5 minutes before serving with your choice of side dish.

Total Time – approx 45 mins.

And for my recommend choice of side dish / accompianment?  I like to go for some simple roasted garlic and rosemary potatoes. These can be cooked in parallel with this dish so doesn’t push out the total cooking time too much.

Enjoy!

In that time it carved out a great reputation as a hip, bohemian café specialising in a traditional home- cooking style. I did so well it was sold on about 10 months ago with the baton passing to the new owners. Could they keep the great name going and maintain the high standards of the early years?

Justin, armed with his trusty camera and I went to find out!

Service Quality - 5/10

Now don’t get us wrong, we went in and were served at the bar, where all orders are taken. The service was great in fact, and very knowledgable in picking out our lunches. I went for the Calamari salad special; Justin the slow-cooked lamb shanks (he just couldn’t help himself!).

But shortly after sitting down we had the rather unwanted sight of one of the waitresses being corrected by the manager on some point or other of service. Frankly, all such discussions should be out of sight and mind of the paying public, no matter how much the manager might feel it was warranted. Hence the downmarking – it’s purely for the boss.

Service Speed – 7.5/10

The service was fast and efficient; it took about 10 mins from ordering for the food to turn up – those wanting a fast lunch shouldn’t be disappointed!

Food Quality – 8/10

The good news is, the food itself is still great. Justin’s slow cooked lamb was 3 hours in the making, beautifully moist and fall-off-the-bone tender. It also had gained tremendous sweetness from the vegetables it had been braised with in the oven, and certainly won Justin (our lamb shank connoisseur) over!

My calamari was also good quality, not too oily and with a light batter. The dressing it was in with the salad complimented it out nicely.

On the way out we grabbed coffees and a chocolate tart to go. Their coffee is actually quite decent, and well worth stopping by for a take-away cup even if you’re not hungry. Even better was the chocolate tart, not too rich and balanced off by the pastry. If the tart is anything to go by, the rest of the selection of cakes and frainds are well worth trying out.

Ambiance – 7.5/10

The Mess Hall vibe has still got all it’s charm, even if it doesn’t seem quite as hip as it used to the last time I was there (almost two years ago). It’s still quite easily the most bohemian and grungy looking restaurant on it’s block. It just didn’t seem as lively in past times as the place was relatively empty when we eat there.

Disabled people should note that there is seating access available on the ground floor, but no disabled toilets as they are up a flight of stairs on the first floor.

Value for Money – 7/10

Most mains are in the $14 – $18 price range, which is quite reaonable for the quality and quantity of what you get.

Overall Ranking: 7/10

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