Addis Abeba at The Night Heron

228 Nicholson Street
Footscray 
Victoria
3011

Although we'd previously popped in to the Night Heron for drinks, we'd not checked out their food options. These include the in-house 'FriendTime kitchen' on Sundays and on other days ordering from the near by Addis Abeba and coming in March Mexican from Los Pollos.

It took a couple of visits before we realised that the bar now occupies the space that once contained Taj Palace an old favourite haunt of ours. The new fit out is quite a change, with a wooden bar featuring some great craft beers.

Out the back the small garden area offers a surprising number of tables...

...and shade from a surprising number of trees.

On Wednesdays there is a regular deal of a veggie combo from Abbis Abeba and a pint of the house lager for $20.

The full menu is also still available.

The better half went for the Sega Firfir. The lamb was finely chopped and the torn injera took up the sauce full of flavour from the tomato, garlic, onion and chilli.

I took up the special offer and received my special vegetarian combination which featured all of the  veggie options available on the menu.The mild Shero featured chick peas and splint spicy powder cooked with onion and garlic. The more spicy Miser Wet had a kick with its red lentils cooked with onion and garlic in a chilli powder sauce. The Vegetable Combination mixed lentils, yellow peas, potato, carrot ,cabbage, silver beet and chick peas in a spicy sauce. Crushed fava beans cooked with onion, tomato and garlic went into the mellow Foul. The Firfir was a stew which consisted of tomato, garlic, onion and chilli powder tossed with injera. Along with this came an Addis Salad, all on top of a slightly darker than regular injara. Each element  was great and I loved the variety of flavours and textures.

It was pretty quiet the day we ate, but on other visits it has been busier, although that has been later on with more of a drinking crowd. The barman mentioned that somedays it gets busy with diners too especially on Wednesday when the deal is on. It took about 25 minutes for our meal to make it down the street, and it is great to have the option to get some of Footscrays great Ethiopian food in a different type of venue. It's also good to see the varied businesses of Nicholson street working together.

The Arbory

Flinders Walk
Melbourne
3000

We visited the Arbory on a sunny spring evening and after some searching found ourselves a pair of stools overlooking the river and in the shade of the trees that I assume influenced the name. It is a great location and the establishment makes great use of the strip of outdoor space between Flinders Street Station and the river.

There had been a horse race on, which meant there where plenty of frocks, hats and suits on display, among the more casually dressed punters. Despite the volume of people the wait to order wasn't too long and our pre-visit perusal of the menu meant we knew what we wanted to order. My schooner of Coopers green ended up never settling so I returned the murky glass and it was happily exchanged with a Mountain Goat.

It didn't take long for the food to appear. The crumbed mushroom and haloumi burger also featured tomato relish and salad and was a winner, with the crunch of the crumb and lettuce complementing the juicy 'shroom and cheese.

I had the Fish and Chip roll. I checked before ordering that the chips came separately, as although the pom in me loves a chip butty, I wasn't convinced that a regular bun could resonably hold that much. In fact only the generous battered piece of fish along with remoulade and lettuce sat pinned between the soft pillows of bread. The combination proved satisfyingly easy to eat and my only reservation was the speed which it slipped down at!

Both our meals came with decent portions of crinkle cut chips which hit the spot and ensured we left with our hunger satisfied.

The service was efficient in the face of the busy establishment and courteous even when dealing with the beer issue. The two burgers came to a fairly reasonable $31 whereas the schooners came at what seemed to me a steep $9 each. I guess the location, novelty and cool factor will continue to pull in the crowds at Arbory, and it does provide a great additional option on the Melbourne riverfront.

Fathers Office

249 Little Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
VIC 3000

I visited Fathers Office for the first time with fifteen or so work mates. I'd been to the previous incarnation, Match Bar a few times and the better half had worked for the guys setting it up for a while. The doorway on Little Lonsdale street opposite the State Library is fairly inconspicuous and leads to a staircase to the bar and restaurant on the first floor.

The look inside is stylish and modern, with half the space a bar area and the rest a sit down dining area.

We mostly ate from the corporate lunch menu, offering a range of dishes and a drink for $15. I had the fish 'n' chips, featuring 'seasonal white fish' lightly coated in a rosemary and ginger beer batter, shallow fried and served with shoestring fries. The batter was crisp but a bit on the oily side, the fish was well cooked and fries did the job.

We were mostly satisfied, if not stunned by our meals and $15 with a drink isn't too bad for food in comfortable surroundings in the city at lunch time. We were a little worried that the service might be slow with a reasonable sized group, but the food appeared pretty quickly. It's certainly a reasonable option to try for modern Australian/pub food in the CBD.

Borsch, Vodka & Tears

173 Chapel Street
Windsor
3181 Victoria

Just south of the junction with High Street Borsch, Vodka and Tears treads the line between restaurant, cafe and bar. When we visited on a Friday evening around 8 it was busy and pretty noisy. Inside it has a fairly European vibe which suits the Polish and Russian theme and menu.

Although we were near the front window, it was pretty dark, which meant the mobile snaps didn't turn out that well. I selected a couple of traditional eastern European dishes, the first being the vegetarian Polish borsch, a clear beetroot broth made using a vegetable stock, and was a lot thinner and less satisfying than the Russian variation I have tried before. 

The soup was served with a pancake, rocket salad and sour cream

My other choice was pierogi the traditional polish dumplings which were stuffed with a porcini mushroom and sauerkraut and coated with a breadcrumbs. These were fine but didn't quite live up to home made versions I've tried before!

I also got to try kopytka, the panfried polish gnocchi with a wild mushroom ragout and finished with truffle oil, possibly the best of the dishes I tasted. The service was reasonable given the venue style and the number of people in. The bill came to around $80 for two with a few drinks.

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Hoo Haa

1/105 Chapel Street
Windsor
VIC 3181

We were at Hoo Haa for an event, it's up some stairs from the street and the unimposing entrance could be easy to miss.

Once you are up on the first floor it opens into quite a large space, with some dining booths running down the left hand side, a large island bar in the middle of the space, a casual seating area towards the street and a small open area at the back. It straddles the restaurant/bar line and has a pretty stylish fit out.

I tried slices from a few different pizzas, including the tomato, fior di latte and basil, the prosciutto, tomato mozzarella and rocket, the bugmeat, zucchini and coriander, the chorizo and roast peppers smoked scamorza and the mushroom, taleggio, green olives and sage. They were consistently well put together with great thin bases. They weren't huge but they were a size that would normally satisfy me.

We also sampled the leek and gorgonzola arancini, the stand out crab croquettes with aioli, Deano’s sausage rolls and the roast beef and mustard rolls, the shots were taken the following day from a doggy bag we took home, so perhaps not looking quite as good as when served, but in better light!

I wouldn't have thought of eating at Hoo Haa before, but would go back again if we were in the area and fancied some Italian food.





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