Hanoi Hannah in Prahran: Melbourne's south side gets some Vietnamese

Hanoi Hannah
180 High Street, Prahran/Windsor (map)
9939 5181
website
Open 7 days, 11am-11pm (breakfast coming soon)
No bookings


Located in Prahran/Windsor on High Street just off Chapel Street, new casual Vietnamese restaurant Hanoi Hannah cheerfully plugs a gap in Melbourne's dining scene by giving south side residents in need of a phở fix a cheap and bustling option on their side of the river.

It opened a fortnight ago, and when I tried to pop in for lunch with Jackie a few days after opening, one of the owners had to ruefully tell me that they were unexpectedly closed for lunch that day because they'd run out of food (!). I made plans with Tom to try again and we went for dinner on Wednesday night: it was already buzzing with young trendies.


Tom ordered a fresh coconut juice ($5) which came served in a branded coconut, in the manner of some of the cocktails the bartender was making. I was happy to see Halida beer from Hanoi on the menu (which I haven't had since I was in Hanoi six years ago), but our friendly waitress explained that their Halida supply was still in a boat on its way to Australia. I settled for a bottle of Ba Ba Ba Premium ($7) instead.

The bò lá lốt cigars ($8), served on skewers, were excellent: the vine leaves were crispy but the beef was succulent.


Seeing "pork belly sliders" on the menu nearly made me drop my monocle in surprise. Yes, very On-Trend Dude Food Melbourne ca 2012 (wouldn't they be more at home on the menu at The Smith across the road?), but not very Viet Nam, I'd've thought. But my curiosity was piqued, so I ordered them for us ($8 for two). And yes, they were very good - obligatory brioche bun, Sriracha Kewpie mayo and all.


Tom reported back favourably on the vermicelli salad with grilled chicken ($10).


I had a bowl of the beef phở ($9). While it wasn't the best phở I've had in Melbourne (that would probably be a tie between Hùng Vương and Phở Tam, both in Footscray), it was a damn sight better than some of the phở I've had on Victoria Street. Good price, good noodles, good beef, reasonably rich broth - though a few different garnish herbs to play with would've been great.


It's easy to see why Hanoi Hannah is packed already. The booze list is short but savvy, with an eye for what the kids are drinking in Melbourne at the moment. Most dishes hover around the $8-$10 mark: a glass noodle salad with shredded duck is the most expensive option at $13. Bánh mì are available at lunchtime and as noted at the top of this post, they'll soon be open for breakfast. I'll be back!


If you can't get in, I've heard good things about bistro Franco Choo's across the road, plus cheapish Thai food (that I loved) at Colonel Tan's is only a short walk away. The [aforementioned] Smith if you're prepared to splash some cash.

Pssst, Hanoi Hannah: upload a higher res version of the image on your website, so that we can read all the writing!

Two coffee cafes, south side

In the space of two weeks I visited two separate and equally coffee-focused cafes south of the Yarra. These are their stories. CHUNG CHUNG!

Crue Coffee Lounge
194 Toorak Road, South Yarra (map)
9827 5058


When I recently tried out the new Outpost by St Ali Aaron suggested I also check out Crue, located only a stone's throw away on Toorak Road. Crue has been operating since about the start of the year and is also very much a coffee-focussed cafe where food plays second fiddle.

Coffee fetishists can enjoy watching their coffee (one of the many single or mixed origins on offer) being ground, poured and served via the live video camera feeds on the screens behind the counter. When I went in with Mum and Dad, we had coffees made from beans a customer had brought over from London coffee house Flat White.


While the food may play second fiddle to the coffee, we were all very taken with our brunches. Mum loved the taste (and the presentation) of the bircher muesli with poached pear, banana, kiwi fruit and antioxidant juice ($10).


Dad attacked the huge serve of baked eggs with masala spiced du Puy lentils, spinach and scented raita ($14). My order was a perfect hangover cure: dukkah spiced fried eggs with organic Merguez sausages, rocket, flat bread and roasted tomatoes ($14.50). Both dishes packed plenty of punch.


There were two other details about Crue that I loved. One was the blackboard of brainteasers, which is updated weekly. Answer all the questions correctly and get a free coffee.


The other detail I loved was next to the three group Synesso machine - a jar of dog biscuits. :)



Dukes Coffee Roasters
169 Chapel Street, Windsor (map)
9521 4884


Last Sunday I was meeting the divine Miss S for brunch (before she jets back overseas to continue her showbiz career). I suggested we try Dukes, which had been recommended to me by Jack. Dukes is in Windsor, just a few doors down from Borsch Vodka & Tears, so I strolled down from Richmond in the sunshine.

As you can see from the photos, the Dukes roaster is right there in the back of the cafe, and coffee paraphernalia abounds. I wanted to have a siphon* coffee, but the blondie serving us said they couldn't oblige so I settled for a latte instead.

* Can a nice coffee geek explain to me whether I should be spelling it siphon or syphon? I've seen both spellings used more or less interchangeably online - is there a distinction? Or a stylistic preference?


I rapped Miss S over the knuckles for ordering something as boring and unexciting-for-the-blog as poached eggs with a side serve of bacon ($13.50). I was hoping she'd try something like the buttermilk pancakes with vanilla bean mascarpone and citrus segments in a toffee syrup, or the sweet potato and corn fritters with crispy pancetta, spinach and harissa mayo! :)


I wasn't in the mood for eggs, so on the strength of Jack's recommendation I ordered the burrata on ciabatta toast with asparagus ($15). So glad I did! The fresh, vividly-green asparagus (don't you just love springtime?) tasted fabulous with the creamy, mozzarella-ey cheese and a squeeze of lemon. A great brunch dish.


When we visited, Dukes was PACKED. Blondie waitress apologised when she took our order, saying the kitchen was a little behind and that there may be a wait of about twenty minutes for our food. I appreciated that she told us upfront, and we weren;t bothered by the subsequent wait - it's all about managing expectations, eh?

South Side tapas at Basque, Windsor

Basque
159 Chapel Street, Windsor (map)
9533 7044


When G moved to Melbourne a few months ago, she toyed with the idea of living on the North Side - looked at rental places in Fitzroy and Collingwood. But no, she chose to go South Side, and found a very cute little terrace in Windsor (guess she won't be joining the facebook group called Bitch Please... I'm from the Northern Suburbs then... but maybe she could join South of the River - the better place to live in Melbourne or The Best Looking Chicks in Melbourne live South of the Yarra).

Off-topic, I know, but what I just love is that for all three of the above facebook groups, the #1 "Related Group" is Melbourne is better than Sydney! :-)

As a Cremorne resident, I get to stay pretty neutral in the North Side vs South Side gangland wars (though does living 100m north of the Yarra technically make me North Side?)... but I was nevertheless very happy to visit G's hood the other week and check out the best tapas Windsor has to offer.

Basque was comfortable and not at all pretentious, unlike some tapas places I've been to. We liked the oh-so-romantic candlelight (helped with the digicam photos of the food!) and the guitarists strumming in the corner, softly enough so that we could hear each other and catch up on each other's stories.


The tapas we had was very nice - nothing truly ground-breaking, but then that's not what we were looking for. First up was bunuelos de manchego - house-made cheesy puffs sprinkled with paprika salt ($6). Sinful but not too oily.


Calamares a la romana - crispy fried calamari tossed with lemon, chilli, garlic and coriander ($14). Very very lemony, but I liked the touch of coriander.


Quoting from the menu verbatim: codorniz con chocolate - pan-fried quail served in a rich jus finished with sherry and chocolate ($12.50). This was probably the most interesting dish of the night for me, for the simple reason that I haven't had many savoury dishes with chocolate sauce. I liked the flavour of the bitter chocolate with the slightly gamey meat. Good beans too.


Sauteed spinach with almonds ($9). Simple, effective.


Empanada de pollo - chicken, red pepper and almond empanada with a crisp sherry pastry ($8.90). The empanada was the only slight disappointment - too much damn pastry.


We finished off with a serve of churros to share. G had never had them before, so she was in for a treat. :-)


I don't think the South Side tapas were as exciting as those I've had North Side, but hey they were perfectly tasty and the place had a great little atmosphere. Can anyone recommend any other South Side (or North Side) tapas venues (ie not in the city) that are worth a visit?

When you're good to Mama...

Mama Ganoush
56 Chapel Street, Windsor (map)
9521 4141


The appearance of favourable reviews of Mama Ganoush (complete with beguiling photographs of dreamy starry interiors) on Stickyfingers' and Ed's blogs late last year ensured I tucked the Windsor restaurant into a corner of my brain, ready to suggest it as a venue to try next time I found myself southside. It may have taken a while but lo and behold, best-friend-K and I were going to a 30th at the function room at the Rails just across the road, so dinner at Mama Ganoush it was!


According to the Epicure review, the restaurant is housed in a former shoe shop (the Epicure review goes on to quip: "With a thorough and stylish makeover elevating the place well beyond its Elsternwick sibling [Arabesque] in the glamour stakes, Mama looks and feels more Blahnik than Bata" - am I the only one who threw up a little reading that last phrase? What is this, the freaking Sunday Life magazine?! Did Lethlean really write that, or is it the unfortunate result of some lame copy editor trying to add a touch of "journalistic bling"? Ughh).

Anyhoo, the point is that Eric Hendry's kitchen is churning out damn fine Middle Eastern food with a modern twist, in a dark sexy restaurant that continues to be packed on weekends (five days in advance, we were only just able to squeeze in a reservation for two at the last available table). The menu has changed quite a bit from when Sticky and Ed reviewed it, so here's a sample of what's currently on offer (apologies for the poor-quality photos due to the mood lighting):


Quail with za'atar crumbs, eggplant fattouche and goat curd ($17.50). I've freely admitted in the past that I don't know much about Middle Eastern cuisine, so I had to do a little googlestalking to learn that za'atar is a mixture of spices used as a condiment, and fattouche is a salad characterised by small pieces of toasted or fried pita bread. The quail was juicy and tender, and the salad was tangy and studded with pomegranate seeds, so I was happy as a sandboy.


The other small dish we shared was the Aleppo style 'wagyu' beef tartare with salsa harra, fresh mint and jou-jou bread ($21). I've been reading up on Aleppo, a Syrian city which was awarded the 2005 Grand Prix of Cultural Gastronomy by the Académie Internationale de la Gastronomie in Paris - read a snappy article about Aleppo by Melbourne-Lebanese legend Greg Malouf (his brother Geoff is an owner of Mama Ganoush) here.

This dish wasn't quite what we were expecting: the construct-your-own meat, spicy salsa, fresh lettuce and mint on soft round bread topped with a pickled chilli felt a little like a posh Middle Eastern version of fajitas! That said, we really enjoyed it.


We got one main to share: Middle Eastern spiced fried duck with honey and currant pilav, mint labne ($37), which was similar to the quail (spice-encrusted poultry with gooey deliciousness on the side - I suppose in hindsight we should have chosen something different for more variety) but it too was excellent. Loved the flavour of honey that really came through in the pilav.


Our side was the cucumber salad with sumac, chevre and pine nuts ($10). Simple, delicious.


We felt sated. That is, until we saw the dessert menu and b-f-K talked me into sharing the hazelnut and milk chocolate mousse with chocolate fairy floss, and praline ($13). I'm SO glad she did - the mousse had just the perfect amount of sweetness and richness. It turned out to be the second time that day that I'd had Persian fairy floss (I'd made JP cupcakes just that afternoon) - think I prefer the chocolate to the pistachio. And how cute is this dessert - it looks like a little toy head with a greying wig!

So all in all a rave review for Mama Ganoush from me. I want to revisit soon to try a few more dishes - the Turkish style Mussaka, the salt roasted black bream, the winter tabbouleh with chicory and red lentils... mmmmm....

Pre-tennis brunch at Orange

Orange
126 Chapel St, Windsor (map)
9529 1644

CJ is back in town! After nearly a year overseas my partner-in-crime and fellow pho/chilli oil dumpling/dirty martini enthusiast has returned to Melbourne! To celebrate I invited her along with me to the tennis - I had been given two free corporate tickets for the Sunday day session - but we started off with brunch. For once I had use of a car so we drove past Replete, but there was a goodly queue (and anyway, I've already blogged about the brunch on offer there)... so after discussion we decided to go down to Orange instead.

Down the good end of Chapel Street, Orange is a nifty venue that works for breakfasts, for nightcaps, and for everything in between. In winter the little room out the back with a roaring fireplace is a great location for sipping brandy, but on a summer's morning the Parisian bistro-style front room is ideal.

The first decent coffee CJ had had in TEN MONTHS (accompanied by my hot chocolate).

CJ ordered the Grilled Italian Bread, which came with avocado, "sun blushed" tomatoes (!!), field mushrooms and chilli jam ($12). CJ broke off half a slice for me to try - it was bloody lovely. The homemade chilli jam was not too spicy - just right for brunch - and the chewy bread was lightly brushed with oil and had grill marks striping its sides.

Most unusually for me, I was in the mood for a sweet rather than a savoury brunch. I decided on the Crêpes with orange (appropriate given the restaurant name, eh?) and maple syrup ($9.50). I liked these even more than I liked CJ's dish - the combination of slightly-tart-given-the-season orange with maple syrup (mixed in with a small dollop of melting cream) was inspired, and the crêpes were soft and tasted like real crêpes, as opposed to tasting like wussy thin pancakes (as is so often the case here in Oz).

We felt that given the terrific quality of the food, the breakfast prices at Orange were very modest. We also enjoyed the tennis, especially when Frenchy meilleurs amis and doubles partners, Gasquet and Tsonga, were pitted against each other in a rather exciting singles match. The intermittent rain made the rows opposite us periodically erupt in a colourful sea of umbrellas... :)

Post-election Yum Cha at Red Door

Red Door
1 McIlwrick Street, Windsor (map)
9510 9658

The advent of the silly season means that, blog-wise, I'm a little (um, actually a lot) behind, but I wanted to write about the yum cha we had the day after the election. Because planning the yum cha was left to the last minute it wasn't really a proper Yum Cha Posse, but the three of us that went had a fine time.

Feeling rather tender after the excitement of election night (I had been to three election parties; at the last one, F and friends had made beautifully decorated pinatas representing 16 of the most marginal seats, and each time one was declared, we'd bash the appropriate pinata to the strains of the "Keating! the Musical" soundtrack), I rocked up with R and H at Red Door.

Red Door is both a Chinese antiques/furniture store and a yum cha cafe, located just off Chapel St near Windsor station. Although the Orient Express in Victoria St Richmond was first in combining Chinese antiques/furniture store with cafe, Red Door is the first I've heard of in Melbourne to serve yum cha. It makes for a fun experience eating yum cha surrounded by carved beds and cabinets (if it had just been two of us, we totally would have sat in the little alcove in the top photo), but there are no yum cha trolleys.

As Elliot from the blog 1001 Dinners 1001 Nights wrote in his recent review of Oriental Tea House (another Chapel St yum cha restaurant eschewing trolleys during the week), having to order yum cha from a menu does not permit the instant gratification of seeing what you are getting and having it immediately, but it does ensure that whatever you do have has been cooked only a moment ago especially for you.

Personally, I'm a sucker for the trolley dollys and miss that spontaneity - plus at Red Door each dish took a noticeable interval before arriving, so we had to PLAN our meal a little more than I would have liked. That said, however, the food itself was delicious and I'm happy to forgo the trolley experience occasionally for something a bit different!

We started with Northern Chive dumplings, which came in a separate dish with their own special soy sauce. They were different to the chive dumplings I've tried at other yum cha establishments - slightly spicy.

Next was tofu skin rolls with prawns, very juicy and fresh, followed by meaty Shanghai dumplings.

Pork and peanut dumplings, with shards of peanut clearly visible through the translucent dumpling casings, only just managed to stay intact as we picked them up with our chopsticks, but were delicious. Also very good were the prawn and crab dumplings. We got seconds of these... :)

To finish off, there were three varieties of warmed sweet buns to choose from: custard, lotus and red bean. I went with custard, which turned out to be an excellent choice. If you feel like a yum cha that's a little out of the ordinary, head on down to Red Door!