Code Black Roasters - North Melbourne

One of the many things that Melbourne does better than Sydney is their coffee. For whatever reason - Melbourne coffee is mostly smooth and creamy and delicious, whereas in Sydney, getting one of these creamy rich coffees is like winning the lotto. So it was a no-brainer that we would be hitting a lot of cafes whilst we were in this wonderful city.

We visited Code Black Roasters which is a few blocks away which is a few blocks away from the Queen Victoria Markets. The place was hipster - you could tell by the bearded employees and the crowd that's here (mac-books galore). As predicted - coffee was AWESOME. Rich, aromatic, creamy, hits the spot.

Foodwise, I ordered the hot smoked salmon and hubby ordered a 'T-rone' steak sandwich. The toasted sourdough sandwich had thin porterhouse steaks cooked medium (or a bit more medium-well) with thin haloumi slices, iceberg lettuce, a jalapeño mustard and tomato sauce. It was tastier than I thought. The steak slices were more tender than expected and the haloumi and mustard complemented the meat well.

My hot smoked salmon was cooked through and a bit tough and rubbery. I would have much preferred it loads more pink. Likewise, my poached egg was overdone and un-runny which was a let down. I liked the crispy herb potato hash and of course, the avocado (which you can't really get wrong). The hollandaise sauce was also OK. All up - it was OK... just not great.

So I guess that the coffee was amazing but the food may need to be refined a bit.

Ratings:
Food - 6.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 6.5/10
Overall - 26/40

Code Black Roasters
119 Howard Street
North Melbourne
Tel: (03) 9381 2330

Grand Trailer Park Taverna - Melbourne

A couple of my friends in Melbourne seem to love burgers as they go to Grill'd on a regular basis. Just for a change, I thought I'd lure them to try another burger joint - Grand Trailer Park Taverna. Stepping in their upstairs venue, it gave off a retro style vibe - disco balls, fairy lights, trailer type seats. Kinda fun and casual feeling.

My friends ordered a spiked milkshake each. One was the peanut butter and jelly, and the other, the kinder surprise. Does it surprise you that there's an actual Kinder Surprise sitting atop the frangelico/baileys milk concoction? It was kinda tasty and quite sweet. I liked it more than the PB and Jello which tasted a bit more like cough syrup with the Captain Morgans Rum in it.

Burgerwise, hubby ordered the KSA, which is pretty much the original burger with beef, cheese, tomato, lettuce and sauce on a brioche bun. The bun was a bit dense and proved to be a bit too much by the end of the burger. The balance of their 'special sauce' and mustard was pretty tasty with the juicy meat patty. Not a bad burger. I just wanted a different bun.

I couldn't resist but get a deep-fried mac and cheese croquette in my burger. Deep fried mac and cheese IN my burger!!! It made my burger massive and even more massive than need be. Loads and loads of carb. Yum in the first bite. After that - a little too dense. The rest of the burger was pretty delicious though :)

Chips were also quite tasty. Crispy enough on the outside and soft and fluffy on the insides. A must get accompaniment to burgers I think :)

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 6.5/10
Overall - 27/40

Grand Trailer Park Taverna
87 Bourke Street
Melbourne
VIC, 3000
Tel: (03) 99723699

Hakata Gensuke - Melbourne

There's lots of lines for eating places in Melbourne. We lined up at HEAPS of them this trip. Luckily for us, Hakata Gensuke was one long line we managed to side step as we came here a little later than the normal lunch crowd.

The ramen portion here is not big, but the soup is thick enough that the package as a whole is filling enough (for lunch anyway). The three of us ordered slightly different soup bases. I ordered their signature Tonkotsu with an addition of a runny (super delicious) egg. The pork broth was super flavoursome. Thick. Collagen-rich. A tender pork cha-cha slice, black fungus and spring onions came with thin noodles. I got my noodles cooked normal - you could also request them hard or softer than normal. I loved it - hit the spot for my ramen craving.

Hubby go the black Tonkotsu. Lots of garlicy flavour in this. And super super black. The soup was slightly less thick than my signature tonkotsu but was heaps yum anyway. Again, it came with pork, black fungus and spring onions. Hubby got the noodles with goey egg and seaweed (the sides are NOT cheap).

Our friend ordered the 'God Fire'. As the name suggests - it was spicy! You could request the level of spice. My friend (being Korean) ordered a spice level of 3 of 4. It was a huge hit of chilliness. He seemed to quite enjoy the noodles, so I guess it was tasty enough :).

I would come back. But I love ramen - so I'm possibly biased. However, the amount of lines that we see as we go past this place suggests that other people like this place too.

Ratings: 
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 6.5/10
Overall - 29/40

Hakata Gensuke
168 Russell Street
Melbourne
VIC, 3000
Tel: (03) 9663 6342

400 Gradi - Brunswick (Melbourne)

World's best pizza and I don't have to fly half way around the world for it? That's right! The amazing pizza maker at 400 Gradi recently won the title of 'world's best pizza' for their Margherita pizza. As we were in Melbourne for the F1, we thought that we'd take the opportunity to check out just how good this pizza is. Situated on Lygon Street (and also another branch at the Crown), I was a little worried about the potential for it being a tourist trap type place. Luckily, the restaurant was far far away from the tourist bit of Lygon.

We had to order the Margherita - but we added anchovies to it. The pizza base was pretty amazing. It was thin and soft on the middle of the pizza, doughy and chewy on the edges and just that tiny bit of crispiness. The tomato base was rich and the cheese was really tasty and stretchy. When you eat it the traditional way (ie. you roll it all up), it was the perfect bite every time. The anchovies gave the whole pizza an extra dimension.

We also got a pasta - the tagliatelle con prosciutto crudo croccante. In English, it means pasta with crispy prosciutto, rocket and shaved parmesan. What's not to love about it? The pasta was cooked al-dente. There was a ton of salty prosciutto to it, and we got extra cheese to add to it if we wanted. It was pretty tasty. I wish we got a bit more rocket though~

We couldn't look past dessert. We ordered the tiramisu and the chocolate fondant. The tiramisu was really smooth and creamy. Good amount of coffee flavour in it. Quite liked it. The chocolate fondant came with vanilla bean ice-cream and a sprinkle of white chocolate shavings. The fondant was oozy on the inside... but not oozy enough for my liking. It was nice and chocolately and dense, and the ice-cream was yum. I was expecting a bit more from this dish but I guess it was OK.

So all up, pretty delicious pizza. Tasty pasta. Good desserts. Be sure to book if you are planning to come here - just in case!

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29/40

400 Gradi 
99 Lygon Street
Brunswick
VIC, 3055
Tel: (03) 9380 2320

Ezard - Melbourne

We had a booking at Ezard for 9.30pm. We thought that we'd be the only ones dining by this time but we were wrong. The restaurant was still packed out, and there were others like us, with bookings late into the night.

The ambiance here was dark and "romantic?". The food and aromas around us were great, but the service was a bit slow. Bread was given first. The bread was good... but what was better was the trio of powdered accompaniments. One was a sichuan pepper type mix - almost like a 5 spice mixture? Another was this awesome seaweed mix - kind of like jacko rice. And the third...? It was this powdery sweet and spicy mix. My fav was the seaweed one, hubby's favourite was the 5 spice one. Of course, we could also mix it up with the creamy tasty butter.

bread with condiments

The amuse bouche was this tiny crispy tasty thing. I can't for the life of me remember what exactly it was...but there was a bit of chilli stuff and some sashimi stuff and altogether, it was tasty and texturally complex and pleasing.

amuse bouche

We ordered an oyster shooter each. It was japanese inspired with refreshing cucumber, apple and yuzu. Went down in a gulp. But it was a good gulp :)

oyster shooter

Menu-wise, there was a choice between the degustation or the 3 course a-la-carte. After much deliberation, we opted for the three course, with hubby sacrificing his dessert for two entrees. Entree one was a steamed spanner crab dumpling garnished with yarra valley salmon roe and chervil. A really yummy and aromatic coconut tom kha soup was drizzled on top. It was really tasty!

spanner crab dumpling

My entree was the butter poached marron. This perfectly cooked. Tasty, juicy, super sweet. It was served with a foie gras parfait, madeira jelly, chocolate crumbs and bits of candied oranges everywhere. YUM! (but I like all marron :P)

marron with foie gras

Hubby's second entree came probably half an hour after the first? Hubby said it was well worth the wait though - a super tender, really really flavour-packed soy-glazed slow cooked lamb belly. It was soooo lamby. Rubbed with five spice salt and pepper, and served with blood plum and native mint, hubby enjoyed every moment of this dish.

lamb belly

Mains probably came another half an hour later? (yes, service was crazily slow >.<).  Hubby had the wagyu beef (marble score 8). The beef was really really rich and really melt-in-your-mouth tender. It came with white polenta and morels. Accompanied with it was a red wine jam, foie gras and a sticky shallot jus. On top of the beef pile was a mache salad. I thought it was tasty - but it got a bit boring after a while. Hubby likewise liked it, but it lacked any WOW factor.

wagyu beef

My main was pretty good. I initially wanted the john dory - but this was sold out. Instead, I opted for the next best thing - the gold band snapper. This came with tiny crispy golden brown corn croquettes, thinly sliced chorizo, tasty anchovies, dots of garlic aioli and lemon. It exceeded my expectations. The fish was cooked perfectly and with a slight crispy skin. And anchovies and aioli are welcome in my mouth anyday!

snapper

The palette cleanser from memory was really good. But I don't remember what it was... I think it was some lime meringue thing? I wish I had better memory :(

palate cleanser

For my actual dessert - I got something AWESOME!!!! It was tasting plate with 6 different dessert minis! There was the pear and poire william parfait, native apples, butterscotch sauce, pear pearls and figs. The whole dish was very very peary. The parfait was rich and smooth. Hubby liked it, I didn't so much... slightly too sweet for my liking. Another dessert was the custard apple mousse served with quandong sorbet, pressed green apple, puff pastry crisp and honey oats. Thirdly, the cheesecake with honey, rosemary and blueberry sorbet and almond crumble. I quite liked the cheesecake. The honeycrunch ice cream was also to my liking. It was served with lightly toasted gingerbread, cinnamon oil and a crisp sugar swirl. There was also a trio of sorbets. But my favourite for the night? This chocolate 'hemisphere' that looked like a half coconut shell. The 'whites' of the coconut shell was a smooth coconut jelly thing. It came with a yummy chocolate sorbet, kaffir lime jelly, almond and hazelnut. Loved it! I think it was the only mini dessert that I completely devoured and finished.

dessert tasting plate

Ezard offered amazingly tasty food. Everything was quite YUM. However, the service was quite abysmal. Our three course meal took 3+ hours (well past midnight)... I shudder to think what would have happened if we got the 8 course degustation? So would I recommend this restaurant? Yeh - but ONLY if you have hours to kill.

Ratings:
Food - 9.5/10
Service -5/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29/40

Ezard
187 Flinders Lane
Melbourne
VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9639 6811

Hardware Societe - Melbourne

We met up with one of hubby's colleagues for brunch in Melbourne scheduled for 9am on a Sunday morning. Sounds a bit torturous eh? But turns out - it was pretty lucky, cos any later, we'd be waiting in a super long line.

Coffee first - amazing Melbourne quality (as usual). The coffee in Melbourne just seems stronger and smoother than Sydney ones. Super delicious and much needed for such an early morning weekend breakfast.

skim capp

For the day, there were a couple of specials. One was a sweet dish... chocolate pancake? I don't remember... (my memory is failing me... must be old age). The other was a simply delicious sounding confit duck with poached eggs. I was soooooo close to getting the duck until I remembered... it's 9am. I don't think my stomach is made for oily duck at this time of the day. So instead, I had the bacon slab with corn croquettes, two poached eggs and toasted sourdough. ZOMG it came out like a mountain! The bacon slab drew the jealous eyes of my two male breakfast-eating counterparts. It was beautifully caramelised, crispy and a thick slab of meat! I actually loved this dish - particularly the croquettes with hollandaise sauce. But I think that this is the first time I wasn't able to finish my two eggs at a breakfast. So crazily filling (even with hubby picking at my dish).

bacon slab, poached eggs with croquettes

Hubby had the baked eggs with chorizo and manchego. He thought this was crazy delicious. It had really strong flavours - really tomatoey and with lots of spice.

baked eggs with chorizo

My hubby's colleague ended up ordering the duck. It turned out less impressive than the bacon slab, but it was still really well received. I think that the duck was fall off the bone, tender and tasty? Again, it came with perfectly cooked poached eggs.

confit duck with poached eggs

Colleague's newly-wedded wife went for the omelette. It was topped with a neat pile of prawns. Out of dishes on the table, it looked the most healthy. The fluffiness of the eggs looked quite cleanly appetising :)

prawn omelette

Lots more coffees were ordered around the table. By the time it was 9.30am, there was a ton of people lining up. Whilst the staff weren't crazily attentive, they were nice enough to not hurry us or kick us out.

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29.5/40

Hardware Societe
120 Hardware Lane
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9078 5992

Saint Crispin - Collingwood

I had complained (just a little) about how we hadn't eaten at a nice restaurant for a while. And so - my awesome hubby decides to spoil me with two hatted restaurants in one day.

For a late lunch, we headed to Collingwood on the outskirts of Melbourne CBD to Saint Crispin. As we had landed relatively late for lunch, only the two or three course menu was available (as opposed to the two degustation options). It took all my bargaining power to convince hubby that a two course meal was more than enough for lunch!

Treated first to their amuse bouches - a crispy rice cracker with seaweed salt flakes and a 'pressed melon'. The rice cracker was a tiny bit moist - not as crispy as I've had at other places before. The 'pressed' melon was a super dense melon ... I'm not too sure if I'm a fan. The bread, on the other hand, was amazing ESPECIALLY when had with their french onion cream cheese dallop. Super rich in oniony flavour, smooth and light. The butter was also not bad but nothing in comparison with the onion concoction.

bread and amuse bouche

For our first course, hubby opted for the quail. The quail was perfectly cooked, juicy and tender, and served with shaved cuttlefish, shiitake mushroom and kombu. The kombu broth was soooo rich and soooo tasty. The whole dish was a bit of a flavour explosion.

Quail with cuttlefish

I had chosen the Atlantic salmon. Small slices of sashimi style salmon was served with a smoked oyster puree sauce, pops of salmon roe, finger lime and sea vegetables. This was quite light and refreshing. A good start to my very short time in Melbourne.

Salmon with smoked oyster

Hubby chose the Cone Bay barramundi for his main. Crispy skinned, perfectly cooked barra was served with plentiful dallops of eggplant, tomato and sea urchin. Bits of kale and quinoa also made it to the plate. We both liked this healthy option.

Barramundi with eggplant and sea urchin

Mine was a Bannockburn chicken - both breast and thigh, both perfectly succulent and juicy. YUM. It came with tasty sweetcorn, spaetzle and basil. LOVED it! Really really tasty and really really well done.

chicken with sweet corn

 A sweet ending of raspberry marshmellows was provided. Not a huge fan of marshmellows normally, but these were pretty good - fluffy and not too sweet.

raspberry marshmellow

 I'm not used to having two course lunches. Looking over at hubby, I could tell that he didn't either. But the food was pretty delicious here. Service was slightly lacking... but we had an enjoyable enough experience.

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 30/40

Saint Crispin
300 Smith Street
Collingwood
VIC, 3066
Tel: (03) 9419 2202

Vue de Monde (2) - Melbourne

Our previous visit to Vue de Monde had been mind-blowingly awesome. As such, when we were organising a last minute trip to Melbourne, we decided to see whether or not they had a dinner reservation available and to our luck, we were offered a 8.30pm seating on a Monday night.

Our expectations for this dinner were high (due to our great experience last time). And despite being 8.30pm, hubby still opted to do the 10 course degustation. We were greeted warmly by our waiter who asked about our food preferences (of which there are various things I do not eat), and they tailored our amuse bouche and our degustation accordingly.

sticks and stones

Again, being playful with rocks and logs, our amuse bouches comprised of several things. We got chips again, which was much to our delight. It came with an awesome creamy and tasty macadamia dip. As I don't eat wallaby, a lone slice of wallaby meat was rolled on a salt block before carefully placed on the rock. Hubby said that it was tasty but in the chewy, textured kind of way. I got a herb gel in place of the wallaby which was tasty enough. The carrot with mussels and brown butter cream was deceivingly simple looking but amazing! Loads of flavours came in all at once with the humble carrot stick. Likewise, the marshmallow sprinkled with truffle and nuts was delicious! Sweet and savoury and chewy and soft and crunchy all at the same time. The smoked eel was a bit of dubious one... toffee-like substance coated the eel (most probably the white chocolate), then topped with caviar. It was really sweet, and the toffee got stuck to our teeth. 

chips with macadamia nut cream

salt cured wallaby

carrot with brown butter

truffled marshmellow

herbed gel

white chocolate eel

Amuse bouches over, our first course was the trout - or at least their play on a trout sandwich. Dehydrated powdered trout with breadcrumbs, egg cream and, fish roe and snowy wasabi - all plated nicely and all  played their different roles in offering the range of taste, flavours and textures. The powdery trout carried intense flavours and when eaten with the icy wasabi - it was YUM.

trout sandwich

You could smell our next course from a mile away. The Melbourne onion soup was boiled and scientifically dealt with a the table. Supposedly, the soup enters the top bulb, soaks in some more smoky and oniony flavours, before the flame goes off and the soup goes back down. Really though, the waiter admitted that it was just for the theatrical WOW value :P. It was sooooo intensely sweet and oniony.  with the intense broth was onions done a few different ways. Hubby loved it. I loved it too, initially anyway, until it just got a little too much.

melbourne onion soup

The next course was one of my favourites. It was simple looking but amazing! The marron was cooked perfectly - juicy and sweet, and when combined with the brown butter and pork floss?!?! Flavour explosion and then some. I could just lick up that brown butter and pork floss creamy combination.

marron with brown butter and pork floss

The bread basket again came with warming stones. The bread was crunchy on the outside and fluffy whiteness on the inside and was quite delectable when eaten with the creamy french butter.

bread with warming stones

delicious creamy butter

There was then a great big runny duck yolk with green beans, powdered peas, crunchy Parmesan crisps, apple discs and mint. The yolk broke into a nice gooey runniness.

duck yolk with pea, mint and apple

runny yolk :)

The palate cleanser was the same as last time - simple refreshing flavours of cucumber and pineapple sage with the theatrics of liquid nitrogen and the fun-ness of us crushing it all up. A good show, good fun and good taste all wrapped up in a simple package :)

palate cleanser

The barramundi and banana prawn was also mindblowingly awesome. Both seafoods were cooked perfectly. bits of foam here and there and a perfectly rolled slice of potato. There was a subtle hint of garlic flavour and I LOVED the purple cauliflower. who would have guessed that such powerful tastes can come in such small packages. this came with a super crunchy deep fried prawn legs with an intensely delicious and smooth brown butter blob. The dish was amazingness!

barramundi and prawn

deep fried prawn legs with brown butter

I don't eat lamb either and so, whilst hubby got a lamb dish, I received a fish course. Hubby's lamb was from Flinder's Island. There were two different bits of the lamb - one was supposedly yum and the other, also yum but crazily 'lamby' (ie. full of lamb/game meat flavour). My Striped Trumpeter was also good. It came with leek, oyster, kale and tarragon.

Flinders Island Lamb

Striped Trumpeter

The next course was also cooked at the table. With the portable barbeque brought over, I know that it was meant to be a piece of kangaroo meat, but due to the fact I also don't eat kangaroo, this became wagyu beef for us. The wagyu was accompanied with beetroot, saltbush, their house-made BBQ sauce (that thick yellowy paste that looks nothing like BBQ sauce) and truffle.

Wagyu Beef

We were a bit greedy and wanted the cheese course too (even though we were full). The cheese cart was rolled over and I opted for all cows milk cheeses whereas hubby went adventurous and got all goats/sheeps/ewe milk cheeses. I preferred mine. It came with yummy breads, condiments and delicious fresh honeycomb.

Cheese Cart

bread and condiments

assortment of cheeses

We received a spiced tea with a frozen milk blob before our official desserts arrived. I'm not a fan of cinnamon and this was very cinnamony (or some sort of spice that I disliked).

spiced tea

Dessert time came and it was close to midnight. I think that the staff were possibly feeling tired and fatigued by now. The first dessert was the while chocolate ganache swirl with rhubarb, ground chocolate and coffee iceream. The white chocolate swirl was really rich and creamy. The coffee icecream was also quite yum. There were little chocolate crunchy balls to add the texture :)

white chocolate ganache with rhubarb and coffee icecream

The last course of the night was the chocolate souffle with chocolate mouse and creme anglaise truffle. I think that as far as souffles go, it was not a bad one. Just that I'm not a super fan of souffles... Hubby liked it though! :)

chocolate souffle

Lastly, petit-fours and coffee. There was this ice cherry thing which was intensely frozen - like a frozen pop that doesn't really melt, lamington-looking cubes with really really smooth chocolate mousse innards and a drop of concentrated raspberry sauce, these 'one penny' copper looking coins which was actually really soft and gelatinous, and my favourite of the lot - the chocolate clam shells with olive oil. Amazingly sweet and savoury - much like a lightly salted chocolate.

By the end of the meal, it was past 12.30am. We received a doggy bag filled with next day's breakfast (a loaf of brioche, muesli, tea, cookies, honey) and were personally walked downstairs. 

Was it a great meal? Yes!

Would we return? Yes! But probably not any time too soon. It is quite costly afterall :)

Ratings:

Food - 9.5/10

Service - 9.5/10

Ambiance - 9.5/10

Value for money - 8.5/10

Overall - 36.5/40

Vue de Monde
Level 55, Rialto Building
525 Collins Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9691 3888