On Saturday night last week, I'd planned to have a quiet night in and cook some pasta. Then I saw this delicious looking post on Agnes' blog. I called Cafe Vue, booked a table, and we drove straight over. Oops!

Cafe Vue
401 St Kilda Road
Melbourne Vic 3004
Ph: (03) 9866-8055
Website


For some reason it was very quiet, despite it being a Saturday night. The busy breakfast and lunchtime crowds were nowhere to be seen. In fact, apart from us, there was just one group of about 10, and only 3 other couples all night. (One of which included a fellow food blogger - HI!) Perhaps people just don't realise it's open for dinner!

For dinners, they do a fixed price menu: $45 for 2 courses, $55 for 3. It's $10 cheaper if you go for lunch. The meal starts with some delicious house-made baguette, which comes warm in a little cloth bag. It's actually a re-useable cloth envelope, interestingly enough. The waitstaff were super nice and quick to refill the bread too - one of the bonuses of coming on a quiet night, I think.
Butter is my friend.

The menu had changed a bit since Agnes' visit, so the braised beef cheek with confit potato which caught my eye was, unfortunately, not available, but the new menu had quite a few nice options as well. We both got a main and shared a dessert - I really don't know how anyone could manage 3 courses to themselves!

I went for a seafood option - poached kingfish in curry sauce.

Kingfish poached in curry sauce


The kingfish fillet was gently poached in a coconut-based yellow curry, served atop pommes mousseline (AKA really smooth and creamy mashed potatoes), with a refreshing cucumber-coriander leaf salad. Scattered around the plate was 'curry mix', kinda like Malaysian keropok - a crunchy mixture of wild rice, couscous, corn, pecans and other little spicy goodies. Such an unusual combination, but it worked so well! I absolutely loved it.

Sandra went for braised wagyu with pickled radish. Not knowing how the pickled radish would taste, she asked if it could be left out. However, our waitress let us know it was a good flavour combination, and suggested that they bring it out separately so that she could try it and see if she liked it - clever!

This came with pommes mousseline as well, although the presentation was a bit more whimsical, and "what is life without whimsy?"

Braised wagyu

And here is the pickled radish. How cute are the little pieces! They were both refreshing and mild in taste, and a great foil for the rich braise. I'm really glad we still got them.

Not having entrees meant we had room for a side! The fries were slightly chunky, with the skins left on for extra tastyness. Fabulous, although they got a bit too salty towards the bottom of the plate.
Pommes frites - $8

As soon as I saw "cookie" on the dessert menu, y'all know I had to order it! Below we have the deconstructed cookie with milk ice-cream. Ta-dah!
Deconstructed cookie with milk ice-cream

There were chocolate cookie crumbs, piped blobs of dark chocolate mousse, 2 scoops of light milk ice-cream, and a few shards of dark chocolate, which, infathomably, didn't melt no matter how long I held them between my fingers! When I asked, our waitress said they were tempered - but I still don't get why they wouldn't melt. Any ideas, food techie people?

Mmm... milk ice-cream.

The serving of this was massive, and even between 2 of us we struggled to finish it. But, of course, we did.

All up, dinner for 2 was less than $90, with dee-licious food, a nice relaxed atmosphere and great service. Great value for a special little dinner, and definitely more accessible than the whole shebang down at the original Vue De Monde. Thanks to Agnes for the heads up!

Read about my previous visit to Cafe Vue here.

For Father's Day this year, I wanted to take my dad somewhere a bit different from our usual haunts. My dad is half-Burmese, and I'd initially planned to go to Rangoon House - he's been once and says it was great - but they're unfortunately closed on Sundays. Inkeeping with the Burmese theme, we took a little gamble and googled "Burmese restaurant Melbourne". Burmese House is where we ended up.


Burmese House
303 Bridge Road
Richmond VIC 3121
(03) 9421-2861

I only made the booking a couple of days before Fathers' Day, and was surprised by how easy it was to get a table. I must admit I was a bit nervous that the restaurant wouldn't be very good, but I needn't have worried. It was fabulous!

Burmese House is on Bridge road, near the corner of Church street. It's the one with the teapot shaped sign. I'd read online reviews that said the upstairs was much nicer than downstairs, so when I booked I requested we sit upstairs. Although when we got there I thought the downstairs looked pretty good too, and I would have loved to watch the chefs cooking. Next time, next time!

Upstairs

The menu has a mixture of curries, stir-fries, and noodle dishes. They don't seem to serve pork, so we couldn't order Dad's beloved Burmese pork curry. (His grandma used to make it!) I guess I'll have to learn how to make it myself. So speaking of which, anyone got a recipe for Burmese pork curry?

We started off with a couple of entrées.

Roti bread with a dipping chickpea sauce - $7.50

The roti bread was nice and crispy, and whilst I've come to accept that no roti here will ever compete with the roti back home, Burmese House do a good version. The chickpea sauce was similar to a spicy soupy dahl, topped with delicious crispy onions. On a less celebratory occasion, I'd have been happy to have a big bowl of this to myself for dinner!

Marrow (long melon) fritters served with tamarind sauce - $9.80

Deep-fried food is usually a safe bet, and these marrow fritters were great! Marrow is a zucchini-like vegetable, and it was cut into thick-ish strips and deep-fried in a light and crispy batter. They were a little bland by themselves, but the sharp and salty tamarind sauce really perked them up.

For mains, we ordered 3 dishes to share between the 4 of us. You can choose from very hot, hot, medium or mild, and we chose 'hot'. (The mild has no chilli whatsoever, so everyone from chilli-wusses to chilli-champions will be happy!)

Tamarind Beef - $16.80

Tender slow-cooked beef, smothered in rich gravy - fabulous. This was my favourite dish of the evening.

Chilli Chicken - $18.80

Stir-fried chicken with cashew and dried chilli - $18.80

'Chilli chicken' and 'stir-fried chicken with cashew and dried chilli' sounded a bit similar on the menu, but our waitress assured us they tasted different, and indeed they did. The chilli chicken was like a dry chicken curry, with a lovely layering of flavours.

Steamed rice - $3.00 per serve

Now, even though we all enjoyed the curries, the stars of the night were the chilli sides we ordered. First up was hot pounded shrimp paste (which I suppose is like a Burmese version of Malaysian sambal blachan), which was, unsurprisingly, very hot!

Hot Pounded Shrimp Paste - $4.80

But my parents really, really loved the Balachaung, which they said tasted just like Malaysian "hair ko". It's kinda like prawn floss, with little pieces of dried shrimp and chilli. Super tasty and addictive! Mum and Dad say this is the type of thing you eat with plain white rice. Another item on my list of things to learn how to make.

Balachaung - $4.80


We really enjoyed Burmese House, and I'm really glad we took a chance on somewhere new! We left full and happy, making plans to return.

Hi everybody!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my Arintji post. I'm pleased to announce that My Restaurants Melbourne has won the $75 voucher for Arintji! I hope you enjoy taking your partner for a belated birthday dinner.

I've passed your email on to the good people at Nuffnang, and they will be in touch with you shortly to pass you the voucher!

xox Sarah

This post is sponsored by Nuffnang and Cadbury.






















I’ve done something a little different for my latest sponsored post for Nuffnang and Cadbury Bar of Plenty – I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

GIVEAWAY: Now that you have seen my love affair with chocolate, share yours with me for the chance to win Cadbury chocolate to the value of $50! Just leave a comment on this post, answering the question “Why are you in love with Chocolate?”

Leave your answer by 5pm on 20th September. I will choose the winner based on the most creative answer and announce it on the 21st September. My decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into! Good luck guys! Aussie residents 14 years and older only, sorry! Full terms and conditions are here.

If you don’t win the chocolate, fear not! Cadbury’s new Bar of Plenty, featuring interesting combinations of delicious ingredients covered in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate, will be available in major supermarkets and other selected outlets.

It had been ages since I'd seen my friend Richard, cafe-owner and smiley guy extraordinaire, and when my parents told me he'd renamed and rebranded his cafe, I thought it was time I paid him a long-overdue visit.

Hehe, looks like a little Pac man!

Pan Y Café
654 High Street
Kew East 3102
Ph: (03) 9859-9976

We visited on a Saturday at about 1:00pm, after the crazy breakfast crowds had died down, armed with a box of pistachio crescents. (Richard really likes them, and we'd found my stash of frozen dough in the freezer the night before, so thought this would be a nice opportunity to bake them.)


Pan Y Café means "bread and coffee" in Spanish, and the name was chosen because Richard wanted a simple name that had a universal meaning. They serve a range of your standard cafe fare, but of really good quality. Think filled baguettes, rolls, pies, pastries and cakes. Their bread comes from the Abbotsford Convent, which is also where their organic coffee is roasted.

We had a light lunch, kick-started by a round of coffees. For some reason, I always think of cappuccinos (cappuccini if we're being pedantic) as a special weekend drink, so tend to order them rather than lattes when I'm not getting takeaway. Pan Y Café's was good, but slightly hotter than I like - although I think this is a necessity for the location!
Cappuccino - $3.30

Baked Ricotta Danish - $3.50

Their ricotta danish is a nice, simple, not-too-rich breakfast pastry - just croissant dough filled with ricotta and studded with raisins.

I was a bit hungrier and went for a chicken ciabatta. I actually felt like one of their multigrain roasted-vegetable ciabatta, but they had all sold out earlier that morning. (Why is it that suburban families wake up soooo early?)
Chicken Ciabatta - $7.00

I've put the prices above (as best as I can remember) above, but having said that Richard wouldn't actually let us pay! (Perhaps he was all buttered up because of the home-made pistachio crescents, hehe). A big thank-you! Lovely to catch up!

Steer Bar and Grill
The Olsen
637-641 Chapel St
South Yarra 3141
Ph: (03) 9040-1188
Website

We just got back from the launch party of Steer, a new Brazilian restaurant in The Olsen hotel on Chapel St. I do like Brazilian food, although it is quite under-represented here. In fact, the only Brazilian restaurant in Melbourne that I do know is Rio's on Church St, which I think focuses more on the party aspect than good quality food. What I do know of Brazilian food I picked up from my lovely friend Clarice (who you may remember from Eurotrip '06!). She introduced me to such delicious homey treats as brigadeiro, goiabada, farofa and hearty bean soups.

Steer, on the other hand, is definitely not homey.

Firetwirlers

Brazilian cuisine, whilst varying from region to region, is based strongly on beef. Steer's slick interior is dominated by the beef theme, with a 4-meter high sculpture of a bull near the front door, and a slightly abstract mural on one wall.


Australian wines were free-flowing, as were Peronis and Coronas. However, I must say I was hoping that some Brazilian beers, cachaça or caipirinhas would be on offer! The restaurant was packed with people, and for the first part of the night a great band was playing chillaxed tunes. I love good live bands. Later in the evening they were replaced by recorded music that kept skipping. Not the same!

Ooh... pretty carafes behind the drummer.

There were separate food stations set up in different corners of the restaurant, which developed long queues very quickly!

"Oyster Station"


"Fresh from the Sea"

This station was set up with a kingfish ceviche - raw cubes of kingfish lightly cured in a citrus dressing. I was polite and only took one, but could have easily had more. The fish was incredibly fresh, and the dressing was sharp without being overly acidic. I also found the confetti of different colours very appealing and pretty.



The chef only made small amounts at a time from the above ingredients. He explained to me that the fish gets too soft if it spends too long in the acidic marinade.


A-hah! There was cachaça! It was just in the ceviche, not in the drinks!


"Brazilian Street"

There were deep-fried and baked pastry goods at this station. The chef very patiently explained what each of the items were, although unfortunately I couldn't remember the Portuguese names - oops! In fact, all the chefs and waiters were incredibly nice, very knowledgable about their food and wines, and happy to talk about them. Love!

Most of these crunchy morsels were filled with slow-cooked tender meat. Delicious!

**EDIT** My friend Clarice emailed me with the proper Brazilian-Portuguese names - yay!! The little pastry things are generically called 'salgadinhos', which means "salty goods" in Portuguese. Top left and bottom right are 'esfihas', little triangular mincemeat parcels which are actually Lebanese and were brought over to Brazil by the large wave of Syrian/Lebanese immigrants in the early 20th century.

Top right are 'coxinhas', made with shredded chicken meat and shaped to look like a little chicken thigh ('coxinha' means 'little thigh'). And bottom left are 'pastéis', which are kind of flat little pies that look like ravioli.

Clockwise from top left: Beef, Confit chicken croquettes, lamb, beef

I found the lamb one slightly dry, but really enjoyed the beef and chicken ones. They were accompanied by an addictively bright and sprightly chilli sauce. It reminded me of the chilli sauce you get with Hainan chicken rice. Must find a recipe for the Brazilian one!


"Taste of Brazil"

And this is where we find the meat.

'Churrasco'!


Mmm... carnivorous.

The beef here was served with a citrus chilli sauce, and farofa (toasted manioc flour) studded with apple pieces, confit garlic and chunks of bacon. The chef wielding the knife warned me that the chilli sauce was lethal, but, um... I found it quite mild. I do like my chilli super-hot though.


According to its website, Steer Bar and Grill officially opens tomorrow. Although we only tried a small selection of dishes, I liked everything we tried, and was especially impressed by the service. (There isn't a menu on the website yet, but I'll be interested to see it once it's up!) I know opening nights can be incredibly difficult and hectic, but everything ran very smoothly this evening. The chefs and waiters were very friendly and efficient, which I think bodes well for the restaurant when normal service starts.



Sarah and Sandra attended the launch party of Steer Bar & Grill as guests.