SSSSSSaffron

The other afternoon I had the luxury of an afternoon sleep and when I woke up, I couldn't get the Morroccan Soup Bar out of my head *see last post. So I lay there for ages yearning for MSB takeaway for dinner that night.. which led me to dark thoughts about Darwin's shitty takeaway options. THEN I thought that, actually, you know, I've become complacent. Goddammit. We regularly get TA from about 5 places - all pretty ordinary. Why not get something GOOD I thought, strike out on a limb. And Saffron popped into my head.

Now I've only been there once and from what I remember the service was weird, they tried to rope us into a banquet that none of us wanted, no-one knew where to get cutlery, crockery or water and we all got jack of it pretty quick and then never went back. BUT from memory the food was really good. This being a classic case of cutting ones nose off to spite ones face, I decided that Saffron was the TA option I had been denying myself. And you know what? It was really really really really nice! I could go even go WAAY out on a limb and say that it was as good as HANUMAN!!! (crazy I know). Have I mentioned that it's Indian food?

We started off with small ordering intentions, but by the time the sissy and I had finished with the menu we had ordered 90 bucks worth of stuff including saffron rice, steamed rice, some very yummy very deliciously charred sweet breads - one was a garlic naan and the other was a onion and cheese bread that was soooooooooooooooo good - tender sweet, really tasty....we got butter chicken (average - oh maybe that's unfair, I'm not a huge fan, so I'm probably not the best judge), a green dhal that i LOVED, and a paneer dish with peas for the vego girlfriend - my only criticism of it would be that they were all a bit sloppy - a lot of liquid and perhaps not huge amounts of other content and paying what we did, I would expect there to be CHUNKS of THINGS dammit - especially when it's peas and cheese!!! The other massive bonus for kid bearing folk is that they offer a kids menu, which looked so yummy I would have been quite happy to eat off it :-)))))) baby vego spring rolls, baby vego curry puffs, breads, chicken with coloured rice - yum!

Ok so Saffrron is out the back of the Parap Markets - near the alleyway that contains 24 hour Art. This is so slack but you might have to look it up on the net - incidentally you can see all their menus and contacts on the internet, which is pretty handy.

melbourne

What to say - I LOVE MELBOURNE FOOD!!!!!!

Such good food - such good coffee. The standouts:

The Moroccan Soup Bar - situated in North Fitzroy, when a friend suggested it, I had to get on-line to check reviews. I was a bit cynical I admit about a place that had soup in the title, even though I love soup. What I found on the internet were unequivocal raves about the place, which it totally lived up to. It's hard to quantify exactly what is so appealing about this place and I tried - I took a poll with all the people I was with. The results?
The line snaking out the door, so that if you get in you feel like one of the chosen people. Really.
The spoken menu - nothing written.
The attention to personal detail - food intolerances, allergies all catered for.
The ambience - cluttered, warm, bright inviting colours, rickety chairs so you feel like you've been invited to someone elses house.
An owner that obviously feels passionately about what she does.
The price! 20 bucks for a banquet that included 4 extremely delicious courses and was so massive that we were in danger of exploding. I had to go for a walk in the middle of it.

Atomica - Brunswick St, Fitzroy.
I'd never been to Atomica before but what I found was great coffee (their own blend), a comprehensive menu with some good sweet and some good savoury, good service despite crowding, a communal table that was great to sit at. I had some french toast with caremalised bananas and pecan crunchiness that was the bomb.

Marios - Brunswick St, Fitzroy.
I always go to Marios to feel like a local. They've been there forever, the food is always consistent (not fantastically innovative or anything, but nice), the coffee is lovely, the service is soooo quick and I love the gruff waiters in their ties, waistcoats and aprons, they do breakfast all day and you can bet your bippy you'll run into someone vaguely famous there. Not Tomkat sadly, but still, Spicks and Specks is pretty good.

Babka - Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Are we detecting a theme here?
Oh. My. God. What can I say about Babka that hasn't already been said? The BEST croissants, baked yummy things ever. The smell. The warmth. There's always a queue to buy baked stuff or to get a table. Locals come prepared with a paper and take up a posi against the wall until they get a seat. I got up super early (for me)(on Saturday) and headed down to share a table with a complete stranger and it was soooo worth it as I tucked into my citrussy blintz filled with cottage cheese. YUm!

Cafe Bedda - High St in Northcote.
So good! Italian never tasted so fresh and clean.
Starters: Warm olives, (yuk I thought, but promptly changed my mind when I ate them), eggplant fritters, pork and fennel sausages - yum!
Mains: I had some soft pillowy gnocchi in tomato sugo with scattered basil leaves - so simple. Awesome.
Great desserts: a twice baked chocolate souffle that looked like heaven!!! I had cannoli and coffee and felt all italian.

melbourne baby!!!!!

Off to Melbourne tonight - expect breakfast/coffee/food blogging from around
Melbourne on my return :-))))

we gove there

No we didn't, we flew there, but i had to slip that into my header somehow!!! hmmm.... songs for nhulunbuy....on the wings of a gove.... i'm not in gove...
and i gove her

I've just been to Nhulunbuy.

Ate at the Walkabout Lodge restaurant two nites running - it was really nothing special. The first nite I had chicken with wasabi butter on a thai salad. Even though the chicken was pretty nice, there was nil evidence of wasabi and the thai salad seemed to consist of mostly western salady type things. Second nite I had pesto encrusted lamb with market vegetables, which i think should translate to vaguely pesto-ey tasting lamb with a lot of fat but cooked very nicely, with some yucky old veges i bought down the local Woolies and didn't bother to cook very well (am i sounding negatory yet?). Had coffee (twice) at Munch'n'Crunch. Hard to trust a cafe with that many apostrophes in its name *frowning* Nothing to report there either apart from lots of preparation and elaborate pouring-milk-off-the-back-of-a-spoon type business. Had a coffee at the three C's cafe, which would be my pick of the bunch.

Gove - I gove in.