food geek

Restaurants, recipes, rants.

fifty-six threads

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

56 Derby Street
Kensington
(03) 9376 6885

https://www.ames.net.au/fifty-six-threads-cafe.html

Let’s shake things up, I’d say. Let’s find somewhere else to have Sunday breakfast, I’d say. Then, time and time again: it’s too hard, I’d say, and we’d head back to Cafe le Chien as usual.

Then one week we actually did it  – we found a new place and tried it. Fifty-Six Threads is a lovely little place on the ground floor of a block of commission flats at the back of Kensington, just a couple of minutes from the main drag. It was set up by AMES to provide employment and training opportunities for new local migrants. The wood-panelled interior looked inviting enough, and we found a seat easily enough at just past one o’clock on a wintery Sunday afternoon.

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The menu isn’t huge, but there’s plenty to choose from on the all-day breakfast menu, and a regularly changing list of specials. We both opted for a breakfast dish. The 56 Threads Breakfast was a generous platter of all those breakfast favourites: pork and fennel sausage, bacon, eggs how you like them, garlic mushrooms, spinach and a little pot of onion jam all served on sourdough. Orlando would have preferred a less fancy sausage but he cleaned his plate nonetheless. Three eggs were ordered and two arrived with a pre-emptive apology and a fourth egg offered to make up for the mix-up – nice. My Green Eggs were delicious: poached eggs (you can choose scrambled or fried) on sourdough with green pesto, plenty of avocado, spinach and a handful of garlic mushrooms.

Tea was served in small enough pots but refills of water were provided quickly and with a smile. The cake stand had tiny and large muffins as well as other slices and delights to tempt as you pay your bill.

Coffee is supplied by the Social Roasting Company – another social enterprise – and whilst we didn’t try it, the steady takeaway traffic seemed to indicate its quality.

Just under $40 for a substantial breakfast for two: not much cheaper than our usual haunt, plenty of delicious food and the added bonus of knowing your money is going towards something genuinely useful in the neighbourhood.

Fifty-Six Threads Cafe on Urbanspoon

Plough Hotel

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

www.ploughhotel.com.au 
333 Barkly Street, Footscray
(Corner of Geelong Rd & Barkly St)
(03) 9687 2878

I’ve been driving past this place for seven years, and never once desired to try it. Tuesday night parma and pot for $10, Candy the Clown on Sundays. No thanks. Then about a year ago the place shut down with a promise on the takeaway blackboard that they would reopen “soon”. Finally a couple of months ago there were signs of life, a new coat of paint outside, hints of cool new lighting inside. The Plough was back.

One rainy Thursday night about month after their grand opening, we wrapped up warm and ventured out. The parking is limited around this part of Footscray but we found a spot beside Mitre 10 on the Prince’s Highway (their car park takes about a dozen cars).

Inside, the bistro area was busy enough, with people perched on bar stools drinking and eating at high tables. The pale wooden floors and modern bistro lighting invited us further in, to the restaurant where we were shown to a window table and offered a drink.

The menu was relatively short but there was plenty to choose from: I’d call it posh pub grub mostly, with a decent list of pizzas too. The drinks list has a respectable choice of beers, but as non-beer-drinkers we satisfied ourselves with a couple of glasses of red from the short but well-chosen wine list, and some Mount Gay rum for my dining companion, served straight up with no mistakes (unusual in this town).

For starters we chose a plate of “sticky buffalo wings” to share. These were a little disappointing: well cooked for sure, but a little lacking in the crispy-roasted-skin department. Too pale and slippery for our liking.

For main course I was tempted by the fancy chicken parma (gypsy ham, mozzarella, beer batter chips) but we both opted for the burger: made from veal and heaped with caramelised onion, fresh tomato, a slice of good cheddar and a garlic aioli. The Plough is not too posh to offer tomato ketchup either. What a plateful of food. You need more than two hands to tackle the burger (I gave up, took the lid off and carved it up in the end) and the chips were plentiful and nicely cooked.

We certainly enjoyed our first experience at the Plough, and ventured back a few weeks later on a Friday night. We were recognised and greeted by our original waiter like old friends which was a nice touch. It was much busier that evening and they were doing a blistering trade.

Our starter was a shared plate of calamari with lime and chilli, which was perfect and not too huge a portion. Sadly our friendly waiter got my main course wrong – I was served another burger instead of a steak sandwich – but I wasn’t that fussed and didn’t bother having it changed. A complimentary glass of wine appeared by way of apology. Orlando’s Gippsland T-bone steak was perfectly cooked and generously proportioned. Another enjoyable evening that didn’t break the bank, we agreed.

By chance I noticed a couple of days later that we had actually been charged a little over $355 for our modest evening meal. We returned and a refund was arranged quickly and without fuss.

All in all, there are still a few rough edges to the service but none of it has put us off our new local eatery. We are looking forward to spring and summer when we can stroll down there of an evening – and I am looking forward to our next visit when I shall try their pizza.

 

Plough Hotel on Urbanspoon

the big barossa

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

A free hire car upgrade is always a good way to start a weekend away. Satnav on and away we go, out of Adelaide, up the Main North Road to wine country. Shiraz country, to be precise: the Big Barossa.

Once past the outer suburbs the landscape becomes more and more sun-scorched, all browns, ochres and straw-yellows. An hour later we round a bend in the highway and there they are: vineyards stretching as far as the eye can see. “Hello vines!”, I call excitedly.

Off the main highway we meander towards the town of Nuriootpa. I welcome each winery sign like an old friend: Torbrecks; Richmond Grove; Peter Lehman. We locate our guesthouse and head straight to the cathedral of wineries. Penfolds seems the perfect place to worship on an Easter weekend.

I queue to buy some tawny, then join the crowd at the tasting bar. Never mind the pinots, or the affordable Koonunga Hill: I ask the pourer to start me on a shiraz-grenache-mourvedre mix. The first sip is divine, and so it begins.

On down the list I go, past an interesting shiraz-mourvedre and a very lovely cool-climate shiraz, but predictably it is the big Bin 28 that has my eyes rolling back in my head as the deep purple liquid hits home.

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The big hitters of 2010 – Bin 408 cabernet sauvignon and Bin 389 cabernet shiraz, the Baby Grange – are tempting. But it’s the last pour, the 2010 Bin 150 Marananga shiraz that is the very best of all. As the last drops trickle down, I thank the lord for those first pioneering Barossa winemakers who made their home here way back in the mid-1800s.

Back in our guesthouse, we open a bottle of the farm’s own 2008 shiraz and lower ourselves into the waiting hot tub on the verandah. We sit and gaze over the vines as the sun sets, moving on to a decent local tawny as we put the world to rights.

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Back inside we curl up on the sofa with a platter of local pates, cheeses and salamis as darkness settles and the countryside falls silent.

Another day in wine paradise.

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fill up on bread – year in review

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Whale Restaurant, Narooma

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment
The building looks unremarkable really: a standard-looking motel, albeit on a hill overlooking the ocean. But a couple of steps past the reception desk and everything changes. My gaze is immediately taken past the bar to a bright welcoming restaurant with beautiful views across Wagonga Inlet and beyond to the surf-swept beaches of the southern NSW coast. Continue reading →