admiral cheng ho

Eating vegetarian while you are in your 20's and do not have any religious or actual medically diagnosed health problems is choosing to be cool. I joke (half joke) with my friends that I am 70% vegetarian. So technically, I am 70% cool.

Admiral Cheng Ho is the sister cafe of the wildly popular (but such a pain to access if you don't live in the area) Monk Bodhi Dharma.

We got here on a windy September morning and were surprised at how cozy this place was.

It was bright, airy and unpretentious. I tend not to drink coffee because it makes me super high and ostensibly hit people in the face in my excitedness. But I have second hand information that it is very, very good here. The gravity with which ACH takes coffee is evident in the fact that half the menu is about bean varieties.

Despite the waitstaff all looking like they belonged in a special magazine for beautiful hipsters (one exists, yes?) the service was not great. Maybe I am spoiled by the super peppy wait staff at other Melbourne cafes - I felt that here the staff didn't know the menu very well nor were very enthusiastic. Maybe just hung over from partying with other beautiful people?

Northside quinoa pancakes

Umami mushrooms

Food was great. Pancakes according to 1405 tasted "healthy" - I think quinoa is still an acquired taste. I liked it. It was very dense and satisfying.

Mushrooms were a highlight. I loved that everything was vegan so even the cheese was made from cashews. Super vego-luxe.

As we left the cafe we saw what looked like a motorcycle rally - men, women, children, riding bikes. Wearing leather on what was now becoming an unseasonably hot day. God, north side, you're cool.

Admiral Cheng Ho
325 Johnston Street
Abbotsford 3067
9534 7250

kinfolk

I love eating breakfast with friends before work, there is a kind of zen-quality to the early commute, an honesty to your conversations because maybe your work-self masks aren't fully on yet, and a feeling of virtuousness at having gotten out of the house so freaking early. Also I am never late to work when I have a prior-work engagement, bonus!

Kinfolk is a cafe in the Spencer Street end of the CBD which runs 100% on volunteers, and 100% of the profits are donated to a charity. This is so double bonus. Also, the coffee is solid, and the food is absolutely beautiful.

Quinoa porridge with poached pear, dehydrated fruit crisps and blueberries.

purple peanuts

It's a well known fact that Purple Peanuts is one of the most reliable lunch places in the CBD. Fast, tasty, efficient, and the food is always of a good quality for lunch fare. This is not fine Japanese food like sushi (although that is available), the crowds come here for the salads and the hot foods.

The cafe is decorated with cutesy lights, blue knitted octopus (I am not making this up), a poster for a Bruce Lee film from the 60's and outfitted in simple wooden tables and stools. There is a small seating area jostling for space in the open kitchen. The menu is written in coloured marker on to pieces of brown lunchbag paper and blu-tacked to the walls.

And there is always, always a line for lunch. There is a reason for this - lots of cheap lunch options, with no skimping on the right ingredients.

Brown rice salad with vegetables.

Kakuni pork.

Tsuke don.

It is a big ask to consistently roll out good food in one of the busiest areas of the city while still retaining some kind of eccentric identity and authenticity. Purple Peanuts has this, and continues to make food that gives comfort to hundreds of people a day.

Purple Peanuts Japanese Cafe

620 Collins Street

Melbourne

0403 235 410

kokoro ramen

Remember the first time you went to Japan and realised you were in love with ramen? How could a bowl of egg noodles in hot broth make you so happy? The collective "irasshaimase" when you walk in from the crisp cold wonder of the neon world outside. The wooden tables and chairs with whimsical fabric seats. The delicious smells wafting out of giant cauldrons of bubbling soup. The fact that you were overseas with your boyfriend. I distinctly remember a fight in a Tokyo laundromat over whether we should split the load of washing into two (me) or whether we should just stuff it all into one machine and buy a bowl of ramen (1405).

Kokoro Ramen is yet another ramen place in Melbourne. It is on Lonsdale Street, a block from Melbourne Central train station. The place is warm and almost always full. Cheap and cheerful, it is also authentic in a way that some franchised chains could never be.

Sapporo miso ramen with corn, bean shoots, pork, egg, bamboo, seaweed and a block of butter.

 Despite the fact that there are no greens on the menu (I am a stickler for greens with every meal), you can get black fungus mushrooms in your ramen.

Tokyo shoyu ramen with egg, bamboo shoots, spring onion, seaweed and soft shell crab.

Hakata Tonkotsu ramen with spring onion, red ginger, black fungi, ajitama egg, roasted sesame seeds sweet-marinated pork belly.

This was the vegetarian option... with extra pork.

There is usually a line for tables on these winter nights but wait time for a table on a weeknight is like 10 minutes - everyone is in and out. Hugely filling, rich creamy pork bone broth. Perfect after work quick dinner.

Kokoro Ramen
157 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
9650 1215

stove monkey

You know those friends that you never see - sometimes due to the fact that they live in another continent, sometimes because you are a lazy ass (who doesn't deserve friends) - but when you do, it's like no time has passed? 

My friend C is like that. She was in London but she's back and we're right back where we left our last conversation. We go back to a time when girls hung clickety things from pink flip phones and she has stuck with me through all the fucking psycho phases of adolescence.

Stove Monkey feels like Aix in Centre Place, a hole-in-the-wall cafe C and I used to go to a lot during uni-times. SM has those comfortable seats, mismatched crockery, French music, and a feeling that the owners really care about making everyone eat well. SM do sandwiches and other lunchie items but their main thing is soup.

Pea and and ham soup.

Beetroot soup.

Winter happiness is a big bowl of tasty soup, a good friend and a warm window. Also, I heard a rumour that they do crumbed poached eggs...

Stove Monkey

191 Clarendon Street

South Melbourne

9090 7844

hercules morse

Hercules Morse is a modern Australian restaurant that everyone in South Melbourne is talking about.

The owner let me know that they opened up in February 2012 but I swear I have never seen it til this year, maybe because it feels so out of place between a Commonwealth Bank on the corner and an unoccupied mystery white building, like Zooey Duchanel at a careers fair for lawyers. 

Despite its unassuming face, HM has a beautiful fit out. Clean lines of wood and painted steel with lightbulbs that remind me of the ones at my yoga studio all combine to provide a trendy but warm ambience. There are wooden slats for bar tables against the side of the wall facing the open kitchen and my friends and I always sit here. Also, this is the best place to ogle the food that come out of the kitchen. 

Cauliflower and cheese balls with lemon rosemary salt and a dijon dipping mayo.

Steak carpaccio with apple, herbs and dusted with parmesan granita. 

Roasted beet salad, dehydrated feta, maple walnuts and roquette pesto.

Hercules Morse
283 Clarendon Street
South Melbourne
9690 9402

wat da pho

So those of you that know me know that I love fish sauce and everything related to it. The only reason I haven't eaten my way through Vietnam yet is because this year I'm taking my sister on a trans-America trip which is just hemorrhaging money. A recent conversation between a most awesome friend and I over work email (talking about banh hoi which you can read about here):

me: that ban hoi place. OMG BAN HOI. FISH SAUCE.

H: FISH SAUCE. VIETNAMEEEEEE!

me: I WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM AND JUST EAT ALL OF THEIR FISH SAUCE. ALL OF IT.

H: I WANT TO GET FISH AND SQUEEZE IT INTO A BOTTLE

me: I WANT TO GET FISH TO FERMENT IN THE SUN WITH THE AID OF BACTERIA AND THEN SQUEEZE THE DRIPPING CARCASS INTO MY MOUTH.

True story.

Anyway, as luck would have it a new Vietnamese place called Wat Da Pho opened up around the corner from my work. They have MSG-free pho and other delicious ricey distractions. Cow and chicken Victoria Street pho it ain't. There is a TV in the corner that, instead of 80's karaoke clips, broadcasts Luke Nguyen's hyper-coloured culinary journey through Vietnam. The tables are not sticky and you don't need to wipe the chopsticks before using them. Decor is fresh, young and spot on the zeitgeist. Perfect for the South Melbourne yuppy (do we still use that word?) crowd. WDP are so cool that they serve the customary bean shoots and Vietnamese mint on a wooden chopping board.

And their beef pho.

Underneath this steaming pile of rice noodles is buried beef.

Y'all know how I feel about MSG free pho but this was surprisingly delicious. Fat rice noodles, fresh crispy beanshoots, very tasty broth. Without the MSG you don't get dry mouthed and sleepy 2 hours post consumption. There isn't much to complain about. 

WDP are acutely aware of their new Asian kid on the block status and as such have culturally sensitive names for the rest of the menu like "sticks on da chelli" (grilled skewers of meat on a bed of soft rice vermicelli noodles) and "ching rolls" (seriously).

Chicken sticks on da chelli.

Here you pour a small pitcher of fish sauce yourself. After this photo was taken my tertiary educated friend E spilled the fish sauce up her sleeve. She had a hard time explaining to people at work why she smelt like Bikram feet. JUST JOKES E I LOVE YOU!

Prawn ching rolls.

I have an inordinate amount of photos of food from this place on my phone. I go here at least once a week to bask in all the fish saucey goodness. WDP also serve very fresh rice paper rolls, $10 for any 3. They even have vegetarian options with a seriously yummy marinated tofu strip. My workmates are aware that I do rice paper roll runs, all the freaking time.

My afternoon tea.

South Melbourne sorely needed authentic Asian eateries and despite not being authentic in a Footscray kind of way, WDP ticks all the boxes. Watch out for the sometimes long wait at lunch, otherwise you can always get a table at dinner.

Wat Da Pho
212 Clarendon Street
South Melbourne
9696 5605