Sicilian in East Brunswick at Bar Idda

Bar Idda
132 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9380 5339


Saturday night was an East Brunswick sort of a night. Before Miss B's birthday drinks at Mr Wilkinson, CD and I had dinner together at Bar Idda. Love their business cards that look like Italian playing cards, and the ultra-gaudy plastic covers on the outside tables.


I'd never been to Bar Idda before: last time I'd visited 132 Lygon Street was in 2007 when it was Rumi, before Rumi moved a few doors down the road. The red and green stained glass windows remain, but the restaurant is now Sicilian.


Given my Friuli-Venezia Giulian heritage (and Nonna's cooking), I'm much more familiar with northern Italian food, but I've become increasingly fond of southern Italian food and its Moorish, moreish flavours in the last few years. After all, what's not to love about saffron, cinnamon, mint and chilli, eh? CD and I perched up at the bar and decided to share a series of rustic dishes. The red we drank was the 2007 Donnafugata 'Sedara' Nero d'Avola ($9/$43), made from an indigenous Sicilian grape varietal, served in a simple glass tumbler.


We started with the suppli (a saffron rice croquette stuffed with three Sicilian style cheeses, $6.50) and the impanati di Messina (little pastries filled with roast chicken and Bar Idda's pork sausage, $10.50). The pastry on the impanati was a little on the thick and chewy side for my liking but the filling was good, as were the cheeses oozing out of the middle of the suppli.


We were impressed with the plate of gnocchi we shared: fat, fluffy pillows made with ricotta and a hint of lemon, fried with sage butter and served with caciocavallo ($15).


We also had the saffron cauliflower with fried currants, pinenuts, onion and anchovies ($9.50) and the cucuzza (preserved pumpkin with cinnamon and mint, $8.50). The cauliflower was a little light on the saffron (and very similar, come to think of it, to the cauliflower I had last time at Rumi) but the anchovies were a great touch. And we really loved the generous serve of cucuzza (which we ended up sharing with the charming Jason who was dining with a lady friend at the other end of the bench).


To finish we ordered poached quinces, washed down with a sip of Jason's grappa di zibbibo. As those who put up with my yammering on Twitter are aware, I am ALL about the poached quinces at the moment: conveniently, last week's Good Weekend featured an Andrew McConnell poached quince recipe, which I slavishly recreated last Saturday to pleasing effect. The poached quinces at Bar Idda didn't have the same gorgeous dusky red tinge that mine and A.Mac's had, but they were nicely delicate in flavour.


As was the case when the restaurant was Rumi, if there isn't a spare seat then you can go for drinks next door at The Alderman and order items from Bar Idda to eat in there. Win!

Brunching East of Brunswick at El Mirage

El Mirage
349 Lygon Street, East Brunswick (map)
9388 0966


One sunny morning on a recent weekend the charming J invited me to join a group of his friends for brunch up in Brunswick East/East Brunswick. The venue of choice was El Mirage, a former factory turned rather lovely cafe with elegantly curved wood panels linking the southern wall to the ceiling.

Our dining companions ordered dishes such as the Slim Jim (poached eggs, ricotta, fig chutney and avocado, $12.50) and the eggs Florentine ($12.50).


I'm a sucker for lemon curd, so I ordered the pancakes with lemon curd, mascarpone and maple syrup ($12). The pancakes were nicely fluffy, but a huge dollop of curd, a huge dollop of mascarpone AND lashings of maple syrup sprinkled with sugar? Just too much, in my opinion. I ended up scraping off half the curd and most of the mascarpone. Maybe with fewer toppings the dish would be a bit more manageable.

I teased J because of his boring boring brunch choice: poached eggs on toast, no sides ($8). To be fair, he had a heavy cold at the time, so he probably wasn't thinking straight. Anyway, as poached free range eggs on toast go, they looked pretty tasty (and we did our best to make them look vaguely interesting for the blog).


After we finished brunch a group of us decided to stroll in the glorious sunshine up north for more coffee.

The Brunswick East Project
438 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9939 8422


The East Brunswick Project is the home of Padre Coffee (also available at a stall at South Melbourne Market). Blends are roasted on site and the Slayer Synesso machine is manipulated with aplomb. I enjoyed the cafe latte I had, although I was already regretting the fact that I'd had two coffees with brunch. Three coffees kept my heart beating fast for the next few hours.


Sigh. It seems that fixies are becoming increasingly de rigeur interior decorating items for inner-suburban specialty coffee havens.

Hipster power!


But seriously: enjoyable brunch, enjoyable coffees. :-)

Amnesty Fortnight: dinner at Rumi

Rumi
116 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9388 8255


Okay, this is a quickie, because it's Amnesty Fortnight and I have a dinner date in a few hours. These photos have been sitting in my drafts folder since a while back, but I felt compelled to share them anyway because (a) Rumi seems, somewhat undeservedly, to have dropped off the Melbourne food blogging radar, and (b) it was such a great meal.

The very generous, very delicious Rumi banquet will only set you back $40 per person - outrageously good value in my opinion.


The occasion was the birthday of Beatch, my charming friend from Sydney. We started with the Rumi house cocktail, which was sort of a Cosmopolitan by way of Constantinople: vodka, pomegranate juice and lime.

The opening entrees included green olives pickled with wild fennel, mixed Lebanese and Iranian pickled vegetables, labne with Lebanese flat bread and crudites with almond tarator.


These dishes were accompanied by a plate of lightly fried sigara boregi filled with three kinds of cheese: haloumi, feta and kasseri. Next came a salad of beetroot, shankleesh, Spanish onion and torn mint.


Then it was fried fish kofte with lemon and toum (a Lebanese garlic dipping sauce), and Persian meat balls in tomato and saffron, with labne.

Because Miss A is vegetarian, they also brought us a serve of chickpeas and lentils in tahini yoghurt and parsley. Chickpeas and lentils generally get a big YAWN from me, but I had a taste of these and they really were very nice.


The one vegetable dish that we all LOVED was the fried cauliflower, which came with pine nuts, caramelised onion and currants. BEST CAULIFLOWER EVER.


Also extremely good were the joojeh kebabs of marinated barbecued quail with muhummara, a walnut garlic sauce.


The freekeh salad contained Bulgarian feta, almonds and pomegranate vinaigrette. They also brought out an extra little vegetarian salad for Miss A.


And then there were the mains! The spiced lamb shoulder had been slow roasted on the bone until it was achingly tender, served with sirkanjabin (a sweet mint sauce). Accompanying the lamb was braised greens, a rice pilaf and a cos and herb salad with sweet and sour dressing.


The last time I'd been to Rumi was for lunch two years ago, back when it was located a few doors down the road at the site now occupied by Bar Idda. The new venue is bigger and brighter, but still retains the flowing Arabic script on the walls that was such a feature at the earlier location.


Oh and then we decided to order a SMORGASBORD of delicious Middle Eastern desserts: they included arak-poached apricots and fresh Medjool dates (each stuffed with labne), pistachio halva, Persian fairy floss, Turkish delight, ma'mool (Arabic shortbread filled with dates, rose water and coffee) and an almond milk pudding with sour cherries and rose jam.


We finished our meal off with Lebanese coffee accented with cardamom. Excellent food, value, service, setting and company!

Exploring Brunswick (East)

This post is an overdue hangover from my recent Amnesty Fortnight. I've been to a few places in Brunswick/Brunswick East recently, so here they all are...



Sugardough Panificio and Patisserie
163 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9380 4060


It was a Saturday morning and Mum and Dad swung past to pick me up so we could all go market shopping together (aw!). A few minutes into the journey it dawned on me: "Hey wait, we're heading north! But I was going to see if there was any sel de fleur at The Essential Ingredient for the salted caramel and chocolate ganache tart I'm attempting tomorrow!"

Aha, but we weren't going to Prahran Market, they informed me. We were going to the Queen Vic, but first they wanted to take me to an undisclosed location for brunch. The location turned out to be Sugardough Panificio and Patisserie, a place Mum recently discovered by following her nose (literally - the smell of freshly baked pastries was hypnotic).


As the name suggests, it's a bakery that embraces both Italian and French style breads and pastries. As well as being a bustling cafe, there was a near-constant queue of people wanting to buy bread - loved the look of these baguettes in their little wooden bin.


Dad and I shared a bacon and egg panino, which featured excellent bread (natch), tasty relish and the yellowed yolks I've seen in ages.


Mum ordered a bombolone, filled with crema pasticcera. It was very good, one of the best I've tasted in Australia.


They also sell proper cornetti! The Italian cousin to the croissant, the cornetto is sweeter, less buttery/flaky, and more likely to be filled with crema or marmellata than dark chocolate (see an excellent article on croissants vs cornetti here). They're brilliant. They taste just like Italy. :)


Wicked of us I know, but we also bought a slice of this delectable-looking sweetened ricotta and nutella crostata, to take away and eat later that afternoon. It was bloody lovely.




Robbie's Stein
99 Sydney Road, Brunswick (map)
9388 9817

The following weekend I was back in Brunswick, helping CD inspect rental terraces. We walked through the open door into the first place, only to come across a gentleman sitting on the floor, fixing a drawer with a screwdriver. We greeted him somewhat uncertainly, asking where the real estate agent was. He politely informed us that he was the new tenant, and had been living there for the last three weeks.

"Oh. ... OH. So we're standing in your hallway then. I suppose we'd better go. Terribly sorry." I dithered, à la Hugh Grant. (Actually, if my life WERE a Hugh Grant movie, accidentally trespassing into a guy's house would have been a great/awful romantic comedy premise.)

We had lunch at Robbie's Stein to recover.


As well as being a restaurant and wine bar, Robbie's Stein is a fish and chippery. It's one of CD's favourite places, so she wanted to show it to me. I loved the interior, especially the gorgeous pressed ceilings.


CD ordered bacon and eggs but I wanted something fishy. I ordered and enjoyed the fresh and tasty lemongrass and coriander fish baguette with cucumber, lettuce, tomato and spicy peanut sauce ($15).



Mr Wilkinson
295 Lygon Street, East Brunswick (map)
9388 8578


From my selfish perspective the best thing about CD moving to Brunswick is that I'll have a close friend living there, so plenty of excuses to explore the surrounding bars and restaurants! Hopefully she'll be living close enough to Mr Wilkinson for it to be her local...


Mr Wilkinson is an effortlessly fabulous wine bar on Lygon Street. It's named after Thomas Wilkinson, the man who founded the suburb of Brunswick over 150 years ago. I found out about the bar from the lovely Lucy from The Design Files, whose partner is one of the owners. I dropped in there for a pre-Hellenic Republic glass of wine one Sunday evening and was suitably impressed. Beautiful but unaffected.


I just love the look of the place, particularly the use of lighting and natural light, and our table made from a repurposed wooden shutter door. As well as a carefully thought out wine, beers and booze list, a couple of snacks (olives and light tapas) are on the menu. As I said, we only had time to glug one glass of wine before our dinner reservation - but I look forward to returning sometime soon.



Hellenic Republic
434 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9381 1222


For my birthday this year my zia P and her partner M, both fans of the blog, informed me that their birthday present would be buying Melbourne Gastronome dinner at the yet-to-be-visited venue of her choice! (I ask you, is there any better present for a food blogger??) :)

My venue of choice was Hellenic Republic (based chiefly on how amazing the kefalograviera saganki looked on Where's the Beef)!


A contrast to Calombaris' slick CBD Press Club, Hellenic Republic is all friendly, rustic white-washed walls and blue-and-white decor. An Evil Eye on the wall kept close surveillance on us as we ate our meal.

Even though everyone had told us not to, warning that there'd be way too much food, zia P and M insisted we order one of the Trapezi banquets, so that we'd get the full treatment. We ordered the Trapezi Beta, at $59.50 per head.


This is the kefalograviera saganaki, sinfully fried with sweet peppered figs. It tasted even better than it looks, if that's even possible. Olives and toursi (pickled vegetables) in the background.


The grilled kalamari was beautifully simple, and simply beautiful.


The taramosalata ($10) wasn't part of the set menu, but we ordered it as well because we'd heard good things. Somewhat unusually, it was made from white roe (pictured on the left, next to the dolmathakia and Greek salad). I'm really glad we ordered it: the taramosalata was my second-favourite item after the saganaki.


For mains, we had silverbeet, spanakopita and a seafood youvetsi (stew) not on the regular menu, and some lamb on the spit served with chips. The lamb was delicious but by the time it arrived we were all getting horribly full...


As well as a fruit platter, dessert consisted of a bowl of loukoumades donuts and a risogalo (rice pudding), then a piece of walnut cake (complete with birthday candle!).


A big GRAZIE to zia P and M for taking me out for a belated birthday dinner! xx