Clyde Park Pizzas

Food Stall at the Golden Plains Festival
Meredith
Vic 3333

The better half had previously enjoyed a visit to the Clyde Park Winery so I took the chance to sample one of their pizzas while we were at the Golden Plains Festival, near Meredith. We'd passed the winery itself on our drive on the A300 Geelong to Ballarat road.

The pizza's generally eschewed tradition, but I decided to stick with the original margarita. I only had a short wait despite the stand seeming reasonably busy. The  woodfired oven turned the simple combination of tomato, mozzarella, baby bo-cconcini and herbs into a tasty treat.

The only downside to the meal was the food envy resulted in not all of it remaining mine! Oh well it's good to share... If we see the tent or pass the winery again we'll be likely to try it again.

Barkers Cafe at the Whitten Oval

417 Barkly Street
Footscray
Victoria
3011

Barkers Cafe occupies most of the foyer at the main entrance to the Whitten Oval's and looks out across the ground. We'd never really thought of visiting, but I won a voucher so took the opportunity to give it a try. Although the street address is Barkley St, the actual entrance is opposite Sutton Way, behind the statue of Ted Whitten.

The cafe counter has a modern look and stands out from the rest of the space. We found a seat near the window, but it turned out to be a bit warm, so moved further back.

My Allpress coffee long black was great, smooth with no bitterness.

We shared the "Scrambled Special", the eggs being augmented with dill, chilli marinated feta, grilled pepper, rocket and avocado served on toasted ciabatta. I wasn't sure the combo would work but it turned out to be a winner, and satisfied both our breakfast needs.

The eggs were $15 and coffees around $4 each. We got there soon after it opened at 9 on a Saturday morning and were the only customers when we ordered and got our freshly prepared meal pretty quickly. We were impressed by the set up and have another good local cafe option...

The European Bier Cafe

120 Exhibition Street
Melbourne
VIC 3000

I met up with some furthr colleagues at the European Bier Cafe as it was a convenient a location for us all.

We found ourselves a booth table ordered at the bar and then had a bit of a wait before the food started arriving...

My Margherita pizza was the first meal to turn up. The crisp scone dough base was topped with sliced tomato, buffalo mozzarella and a fresh basil oil/paste. The fresh flavoursome ingreadients lifted it above my initial assessment and it was hard to fault the value for $10.

The remaining meals arrived over the next five or ten minutes, and once they got their dishes everyone seemed happy, but I didn't get too many details so from here on in it's pictures only.

The pepperoni with salami, mozzarella and fresh parsley:

Nachos with cheese, jalapeños, sour cream and house made guacamole:

Onion rings:

The zucchini and eggplant lasagne with salad and chips:

Penne with pumpkin, spinach, red onion, garlic, pesto, parmesan, veg and cream:

In the end I had to dash off as we'd had a fairly long wait, but that would be only real negative about the meal. The European Bier Cafe is a good option for pub style food and pizza's at this end of town.