dine out... help out - StreetSmart Australia

You may already have read about it on Ed's blog, but I wanted to draw your attention to the StreetSmart campaign running from 9 November - 24 December 2009. StreetSmart is a charity that supports and strengthens smaller, grassroots community organisations helping the homeless.

A bit more about the campaign, quoting from the StreetSmart Australia website:

For the six weeks in the lead-up to Christmas, StreetSmart partners with restaurants to ask diners to make a small donation to StreetSmart on their bill. Every table is asked to add $2 or more to their bill, not even the price of a coffee or mineral water. It’s a simple idea that adds up to a big impact on the lives of people who are homeless.

So when you are planning a night out think about taking a simple action and book at a StreetSmart participating restaurant. While you are there encourage your fellow diners to dig deep and leave your donation on your bill. Be it meeting up with friends, family or an office or business function we need you to get involved.

Tipping:
Please remember that your donation should not replace any tip you would usually leave, we want you to consider any donation over and above your tip and support the staff and restaurants who are supporting us.

100% of your donation goes to work:
StreetSmart operational expenses are funded through sponsorship partners allowing us to guarantee to the community that 100% of your donations are distributed directly to charity recipients.


One of the great things about the StreetSmart campaign is that it helps smaller organisations that rarely receive extra funding and often lack the resources to fundraise or access the networks for grants and funding. You can learn more about the initiatives that the funding helped since its Australian inception in 2003 here.

A full list of restaurants participating in 2009 is here.

Of the participating restaurants, these are the ones I've reviewed (with links to my reviews):
Anada, 197 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Birdman Eating, 238 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
**newly participating** Cumulus Inc, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Cutler and Co, 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
ezard, 187 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Gingerboy, 27-29 Crossley Street, Melbourne
Ladro, 224 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Laksa Me, 1/16 Liverpool Street, Melbourne
Longrain, 44 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Paladarr Thai Issan, 7 Rowe Street, Alphington
Panama Dining Room, 3/231 Smith Street, Fitzroy
Portello Rosso, 15 Warburton Lane, Melbourne
Provenance, 288 Smith Street, Collingwood
Red Spice Road, 27 McKillop St, Melbourne
St Ali 12-18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne
St Jude's Cellars, 389-391 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
And in Noosa:
River House, 301 Weyba Road, Noosaville
Wasabi, 2 Quamby Place, Noosa Sound

If you're planning a meal out in the next six weeks, I urge you to consider choosing one of these (or one of the other participating restaurants) and donating to the campaign. I'm planning on visiting a few of the ones I haven't been to yet (at this stage I'm most interested in checking out Libertine and The Deanery, but am open to suggestions - feel free to leave a comment nominating your favourite restaurant on the list), and will write them up on the blog.

If you work in a restaurant that would like to participate in the campaign (and don't worry, it's not too late to join), find more info here. Let me know if you join the campaign, and I'll edit this post to include your details. I'm also happy to promote the details of any other restaurants already participating in the campaign that I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet.

If you're a food blogger and would like to help promote the campaign, Ed has plenty of great ideas on his related post.

You can also donate directly to the campaign here.

To stay updated on StreetSmart news and events, follow @StreetSmartAust on Twitter or join its Facebook group.

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Oh, and speaking of Facebook: there's now a Facebook page for Melbourne Gastronome. If you're a fan, why not Become a Fan? As well as sending a notification when the blog is updated, I'll also be writing the occasional silly note on the Facebook page wall - and only on the Facebook page wall - about blog-related trivia (such as the one I wrote this week entitled "PR: how to irritate a food blogger while trying to score free advertising on their blog for the product you're flogging").

Back to Alphington: brunch at APTE

APTE
538 Heidelberg Road, Alphington (map)
9482 2991


Ain't it always the way - I'd never been to Alphington before and then I went twice in one week! First to Paladarr Thai Issan and then to APTE. When we shared an office last year J always used to wax lyrical about his local, APTE (he pronounced it "apt-ee"), and insist that I ought to review it for Melbourne Gastronome. Then best-friend-K started raving about it too (only she pronounced it "apt").

I'm still not clear on how it's meant to be pronounced (does anyone know?), but I do know that it's an acronym that stands for A Place To Eat, and that it's the sister cafe of Hawthorn's Liar Liar. I went one bustling Sunday morning a few weekends ago with b-f-K. Oh, but I should point out for the record that when I visited APTE I was suffering a monstrous, heinous, soul-destroying hangover... I'm amazed the photos are in focus.


We arrived at about 11 and the place was packed, with several groups waiting for tables and a seemingly endless supply of waiters sprinting from one end of the cafe to the other. It was chaos, but it was cheerful chaos. Nonetheless, I took in the polished concrete floors, the babble of conversations, the shrieking of babies and the barrista banging various metal objects, and quickly told b-f-K that with my head in the state that it was, it'd have to be a table in the back courtyard or nothing.

B-f-K ordered the smoked Tasmanian salmon with a pea, feta and corn fritter, avocado, rocket and a dill sour cream ($15.50). A very b-f-K sort of dish. I had a taste, it was bloody lovely - the additions of feta and pea made the corn fritter really interesting.


I ordered the toasted house made banana and coconut bread with honey labna, pistachios and roasted seasonal fruit ($13.50). Should have been a winner, right? After all, I adored a very very similar dish I had last year at Porgie & Mr Jones... Ah, but I wasn't hungover then. I'm afraid that although this looked and smelled amazing, in the state I was in this dish defeated me in about five minutes. I ate about a third of it, and felt ill. And I never thought I'd say this, but there IS such a thing as too much labna - too much, too rich. Too hungover, which is most unfair to APTE as I'm sure that this dish is in fact quite lovely in normal circumstances.

Food blogger FAIL, I know. Maybe it's best if you just judge from the pictures for this one, eh?


I don't have any kids, but if I did I'd be pretty happy to see these ample toyboxes at APTE. Bet the place is swarming with yummy mummies at about 10am on a weekday.

Fabulous fabulous Paladarr Thai Issan

Paladarr Thai Issan
7 Rowe Street (corner Yarralea St), Alphington (map)
9499 9477 (bookings), 9497 5987 (take away)


A few weeks ago during the Heatwave From Hell best-friend-K and I decided to check out Paladarr Thai Issan, a restaurant I'd heard about through the grapevine. It's in Alphington, a suburb I'd never been to until that hot, hot Wednesday evening (for the uninitiated, it's just past Fairfield on the train line).

We were an hour late for our booking (b-f-K's car had been locked in the car park near her work, then train after train was cancelled so by the time we got there we were both hot and frazzled), but the extremely friendly staff at Paladarr had agreed to hold our table - just as well, as all other tables were occupied. Several glasses of iced water and a Beer Lao each and we were as relaxed as this guy.


With a Good Food Guide chef's hat to its name, Paladarr Thai Issan is the latest baby of chef Chaloem Chaiseeha and his partner Bryan Derrick. Upon entering it is immediately apparent how much love and attention they give the place, from the tasteful decor and beautiful courtyard to the mouth-watering menu (which features many interesting-sounding dishes, including Issan-style curries without coconut milk). I knew I loved this place even before I counted the number of times the menu uses the word "fabulous" (5. "Must bring DJ here!" I thought to myself).

We started with Miang Karm ($8 pp), a construct-your-own appetiser of chapoo (betel) leaves into which you fold all sorts of goodies like pickled ginger, chilli, toasted coconut, diced lime, dried shrimp, diced red onion and cashews, topped with a tamarind sauce.


B-f-K's hand is pictured below modelling a folded leaf. We shared an entree of Larb Thauhoo Hedt ($15), a salad of silky tofu and mushrooms mixed with coriander, spring onion, mint, chilli, lemon juice, fish sauce and ground rice. It was nice, but I wish we'd tried the crunchy salad of macadamia and cashew nuts instead - it looked fantastic.


And then it was the red duck curry. Ah, the red duck curry. It's such a staple of Thai restaurants I felt almost guilty ordering it, particularly as there are so many unusual dishes at Paladarr, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for red duck curry. And this Kaeng Ped Bet Yang ($33) with pineapple, cherry tomatoes and Thai basil was EXQUISITE - the duck had been roasted to perfection!


In addition to regular steamed Jasmine rice, Paladarr offers Khao Neeow (Issan-style sticky rice) and Khao Neeow Dum (black sticky rice), $7 each. "You simply MUST try this traditional nutty fabulous rice", the menu enthused (sounding scarily like me when I get excited about something). We dutifully ordered some traditional nutty fabulous rice, and were glad we had done so... both were, well, fabulous.


The other main we had was the Pad Ped Talay Pon Lah My ($35), an intriguingly fruity stir-fry of rockling, prawns, fresh pear and mango tossed in a light curry sauce. The mix of flavours was certainly unusual, but we both loved the way they tasted with the sticky sauce.


I've very keen to head back to Paladarr Thai Issan soon to sample more of their dishes (preview them for yourself on their excellent website). Not only does Paladarr Thai Issan offer cooking classes with Chaloem, they also run culinary tours of Thailand. B-f-K and I have been half-planning a trip to Thailand in December, if only the next tour was then instead of September-October!