Meals and Bars in the 'Bourne

Winter's heading in... No more beer gardens and rooftop patios. I thought it time to check out a few venues that I have not frequented since I've been back, or that have, well, just appeared.

First off, Section 8, the shipping container place. It is sorta like the anti-St Jerome's, open (except for the cyclone wire fence), tree filled, and situated in a mirrored location, on a laneway just the other side of Swanston. Reasonable wine, great atmosphere though the palattes that make up the seating "booths" can tend toward the damp side.

Next up, the newest of the new, St Jerome's younger sibling, Sista Bella. Tucked away, all Melbourne-like, behind a dumpster, down a lane that comes off another lane. I'm surprised they don't have a secret knock to get you in. Decor is what you'd expect from the crew, something like Kingswood Country come to life. There is food coming but at time moment the staff will order you a pizza. Good enough for me.

The latest find, and the one that will be most sorely missed over the winter, is the patio out back of The Green Grocer on St Georges Road in North Fitzroy. Best brekkie in the city. I know Byron has been raving about it for years but I'd never bothered to believe him, to my detriment. Fantasticly peaceful organic glory.

Oh well.

It is time to start sourcing new hangouts for those chilly nights. The other side of Melbourne beckons.

Moroccan Soup Bar

Have you heard of that mystical Melbourne institution The Moroccan Soup Bar? The spoken menu, the unlicencedness, the vegetarian goodness?

So had I.

But I'd never tried it... until now.

And it was worth the wait.

We booked it for Andrew Ballem's going away dinner. Actually, it didn't have all that much to do with me, it was actually Andrew and Cormack who'd decided to organise it. And organise it they did (in their haphazard way).

The place is always booked to the brim. The tressel tables were crammed with people who, judging by their rosy complexions, were obviously were only tourists in the world of vegetarianism, just like us (well, most of us anyway, the guest of honour was a vegetarian but we forgive him).

And what a tour it was. The owner comes out and forces you into buying a banquet, which consists of lots of food for not very much money. She brings mint tea for (almost) everyone and then you nosh down on some bread, dips and things that once were crudités but are now pickled into something not so crudité.

The main dishes were fantastic. The most recognisably Moroccan one was the vegetable tagine with cous cous. The rest were a sublime lucky dip. The potatoes with soured yogurt were spicylicious as was the eggplant. But the dish on everyone's lips was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. It tasted to me like toasted garlic buttered pita broken up into yogurt and mixed with chick peas and toasted nuts but Cormack was convinced there was a butterscotch flavour. Whatever it was, it was certainly moorish (sorry, couldn't resist).

Coffee and deserts followed but everyone was pretty full so we paid up, tipped the conveniently jingly change into the conveniently placed tipping urn and headed off to Deco for a bottle or three of wine.

4 and a half yums out of 5.

Bread vs. Bag

Being breadless at home today, I decided to pop out for my first extremely local take-away lunch.

I live within spitting distance of Smith St but even that seemed too far away, so I checked out Roundhouse Roti. It looked appealing and it is only about thirty paces from my doorstep.

After my experience at Quashie's last year, I was really looking forward to noshing down on some roti. The bread here is all made fresh behind a shield of shatterproof glass.

I ordered a roti chanai to take away and settled in to watch the dough throwing. Seeing food prepared in front of you is always a treat. It gets the tastebuds excited.

They handed me my takeaway in a big brown bag. One of those thick, sturdy brown paper bags that you used to get in grocery stores before they discovered that every household in the western world had an undedicated drawer/cupboard that could used to store to plastic ones.

Unfortunately the bag was more satisfying than the food. The bread was fresh but rather tasteless. It didn't help that the curry was runny and a little bland.

Look, I don't want to rubbish the place. I am going to go back there and check out the dhal and the other dishes. I'll get back to you on that.

Cyrano de Bergerac (or, Make Love AND War, But Mainly Love)

Last week, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I ate snails.

Don't think I didn't tell you because I was ashamed or anything, it is just that I was waiting to show you the photos. Seeing as I have taken to not carrying my camera around with me as obsessively as I once did, I tend to rely on others to upload theirs to their chosen corner of the web before I can adorn my posts with their prettiness.

So here it is, courtesy of Steff.



It all went down at Bergerac's, a French restaurant on King Street, where we were served by the magnificently French Mathilde. (I think she may have known someone at the table because she was terribly familiar with us and at one point even drank our wine, ZUT ALORS!)

Aaaanyway, as far as long winded introductions go, very few people at our rambunctious table of ten (How do you ask a deaf man if he wants to buy a chicken?) had any idea of why there were numerous portraits of a nasally endowed gentlemen adorning the walls of the establishment.

I took it upon myself to educate at least one of them. I enticed her in with promises of Tuna Surprise and the chance to see me in tears.

I love Cyrano de Bergerac. It is one of the many films I revisit often if I want to give myself a good cry session (though I did manage to refrain this time around). It is one of those films that takes me right back to those introverted days, when I would pine away at the thought of love but never dare to dream of grasping at it.

Deppardieu is resplendent as Cyrano, the self-proclaimed grotesque with a soul full of poetry, a hopeless case of love and a handsome protege/mouthpiece. It is his film. He commands the eyes and ears in every scene. He gets to run around being swashbucklery in countless vistas of beautiful French countryside as well as a chateau or two. He gets to recite his heartfelt poetry to the stirring strings of the magnificently lush score. His plight is plausibly heartbreaking, and made all the more so through the dramatic irony that we know that his love is far from hopeless.

Of course, it is difficult spending a whole movie wanting to slap sense into the main character but the dramatically tragic ending more than makes amends for all that pent up admonishment.

Add Cyrano de Bergerac to my list of films you must see before you go to another French restaurant.