Misschu

For some, lunching in Melbourne’s CBD gets about as good as a baguette from Degraves or a salad from the David Jones Foodhall. If you are thinking overpriced and overrated, then you would be right. Congratulations… As for the rest of you, happily eating your manky baguettes and soggy salads, this will undoubtedly be a revelation to you. It’s time to break free from the indie kids and tourists of Melbourne laneways… Misschu offers lunchtime reprieve- if you just know where to look.

It’s no denying that to get to Misschu, there is slightly more leg work involved. But if you want to be apart of the cool group – you will make the effort. Otherwise, I’m sure Laurent is more than happy to accommodate you…

Misschu is it’s own little brand of cool. It is just as much of a take-away joint as it is a restaurant. The menus are just like the forms you used to fill out for your lunch order from the school tuckshop; Nostalgic and cute. Tick off what you want from the menu and take it up to the counter, rather straight forward really.

Food comes out fast! But “fast food” this is not. It would be worth-your-while to kick off with some rice paper rolls, considering Misschu does claim to be the rice paper roll queen! We opt for Roast Duck and Banana Flower.

They don’t just arrive on a plate… how fucking cliché! They arrive packaged of course!

And yes, they do taste as good as they look. Juicy, fresh, crunchy, tasty. You can’t really go wrong here. Whilst we’re doing the ‘duck’ thing, we decide to go with a serve of the Peking Duck Pancakes. Again, they are yum, but tiny. We’re talking gone-in-a-mouthful.

Next up, we order some deep fried Pork Hanoi spring rolls. Can you really go wrong with spring rolls? Probably… But not at Misschu! Five bucks will get you a small bowl of these deep fried babies. They are crunchy, salty, porky (is that even an adjective?), and beyond moreish.

Even if you are “full” by now, you will have to find room for the most crucial of all dishes. If BBQ Pork Char Sui bun, doesn’t make you salivate, then you might as well not bother coming at all. This is the kind of thing that should make vegetarians to reconsider meat. They are THAT good. Amazing stringy pork is encased in a sweet fluffy bun. The fact that they are only $2.20 a pop, just makes it that much better!

To finish, we devour some pork croquettes, which was the special of the day. They were good. But nothing more than that. Crunchy outer; juicy inner. Big whoop… Order another pork bun instead.

All in all, I don’t think you can really go wrong with Misschu. They have something on the menu for every kind of weather, offering a quick bite over lunch or something more substantial for dinner. I feel it is noteworthy that Misschu is licensed too, so you can wash it all down with a beer, wine or get hammered on their frozen young coconut crushes on a hot day.

Don’t waste another cent in Degraves, Misschu’s cheap and cheerful fare is where it’s at!

Jack

Eating Out In Melbourne: A Rant

Recently, a friend reminded me that ‘nice guys come last’, and for some reason her words have continued to eminate with me. Sadly, I feel that Eyes on the Fries has become just that; the ‘nice guy’, and as I sit here and scroll through the past posts, as entertaining as they may be, I can’t help but feel that something is missing from the blog. Everything seems to be just a little too ‘friendly’ and ‘obliging’, which I have since decided that I am not okay with.

I feel as though this blog should be like that boyfriend or girlfriend that you dont want to bring home to meet your parents. We ought to be the one who rides a motorcycle, has facial piercings, and listens to some serious rock and roll. Yes people, it is very much a “lock up your daughters” situation. I have put on the leather for this post, and I certainly don’t plan on holding back on anyone with the nerve to serve up anything that looks like shit, tastes like shit, and is served by someone who doesn’t wear shoes (I’m looking at you Hairy Canary)… Yes bitches, your day of reckoning has arrived!

ARCADIA

Let’s kick off with Arcadia. My experience with Arcadia is that of shit food and even shittier service. My first encounter with this cafe was for a quick coffee and cake, the only issue being that neither my “coffee” and “cake” were quick. I place “coffee” and “cake” within inverted commas as my coffee could very well be mistaken for dirty dish water and my cake for some kind of inedible rock. But let’s just back track a bit to the ordering part… Unless I missed something, I was under the distinct impression that the staff (who literally look worse than a homeless person) actually came to take your order, instead of you doing all the leg work for your god damn coffee and cake.

Being the forgiving individual that I am, I later returned to Arcadia for a quick lunch… Sorry, did I say ‘quick’ again? There seemed to be no improvement on their lunch either. Some dry chicken sandwich eventually found it’s way to my table- fortunately this time without the leg work. However this didn’t change much, the food was still totally unsatisfactory…

I am still asking myself how this place is surviving on Gertrude Street with neighbors like De Clieu and Birdman Eating? At least you now know better than to waste ya pennies here…

COLONEL TAN’S

Do you know what is really starting to get old? Eclectic furniture. History shows, that the whole “deck your restaurant out in furniture from your gran’s house” movement coincided with the “indie” movement, neither of which are altogether acceptable… It seems, that for some reason, if your restaurant doesn’t include one article of furniture from a Salvo’s store, it is simply not ‘Melbourne’ enough…

Whilst we are on the topic of “second best”, we may as well talk about the overly kitsch Colonel Tan’s. I mean, I can kind of understand how it thrives, being situated down the “grungy end” of Chapel Street and all, but surely its saving grace should be its cheap and cheerful Thai street food not its fucking op shop decor. Well no, even the food doesn’t seem on par with it’s culinary counterparts: Cookie and Choo Choo’s at The Toff In Town…

During my visit, I was seated and told I had only an hour and a half before the table became reserved for a booking. This is not usually an issue, but due to incredibly slow service, I could only nibble on some pork spare ribs (and I mean literally ‘nibble’… These things were practically all bone!) and throw back a beer before we had to vacate the table! Perhaps the other items on the menu which I had thought I might have ordered as later courses are worth your while, but with service as slow as it was, one would need to set aside a good five fucking hours, in order to get a proper feed!

NAKED FOR SATAN

Not altogether sure why this place is hot on the lips of every second Melbournian at the moment… Well, yeah it’s fucking cheap. Actually, probably the cheapest feed you can find in this city. But cheap doesn’t always constitute palatable. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Perhaps it was the time of day which we chose to dine, but the pintos on offer ranged from some cold green puréed shit, to a slice of tomato and a leaf of basil on a piece of dry baguette. No points for ingenuity awarded…

Can’t really complain about the service here, as it’s kinda up to you to have your cake and eat it too… Or pintos in such a situation.

CAFE VUE

I feel especially cheated by Cafe Vue. I’ve given it a few chances to redeem itself, but there is always something or someone which manages to totally fuck it up.

The first time I went to Cafe Vue was for breakfast. And, let me just add that I was properly stoked for it too. Right from the get go, things were just… Lacking. I’m definitely one of those people who isn’t quite themselves without my morning coffee… Volatile is probably the best given adjective for my pre-caffeine self. So, as you can imagine, some lukewarm cup of crap by 11AM is hardly going to avail. Breakfast was hardly as delicious as it was cracked up to be. The ‘Spanish eggs’ are better described as some baked eggs in a flavourless tomato purée…

I returned, reluctantly, for lunch. No surprises, the burger and fries ordered were soggy and bland. However, this time I didn’t bother wasting my money on their coffee…

HAIRY CANARY

Yes, I know I have already gone to town about how shit this place is, but I feel it is my duty to inform you of the following… For some reason I ended up back at this hell hole not long ago, and in all honesty I can’t actually recall why that was..? Anyway, we all ordered some pizza and drinks, from the foreign waitress who initially seemed almost obliging.

When the food arrived, the issue did not seem to be a question of ingredient or flavour, the issue was again one of service… I’ll just be blunt. The waitress didn’t have any shoes on…

I find it quite abnormal to not wear any shoes for any line of work. But, I find it actually disgusting for this girl to have her dirty toes out around my food… Unsure if it’s a cultural thing or if she is a few crayons short of a box, but I question her own sanity along with the whole food hygiene of Hairy Canary…

Jack

CODA

I sometimes indulge in the idea of it surprising you readers that the fried food connoisseurs who write this blog are only the tender age of 18… And with a new Internet sensation surfacing practically daily, we could be the next flavour of the month! I’m thinking a Justin Bieber fan base, with a Matt Preston reading demographic. One can dare to dream…

Of course, you aren’t here to read about my overambitious, borderline conceited literary dreams… You are here to read about my latest venture for fried finery…

My trip to CODA took place after from what I can only recall as a big night. Waking on Sunday morning both hungover yet still drunk, my pounding headache was only slightly subsided by the sobering thoughts of what I would get to eat at lunch… And two double espresso’s…

Any-who, I walk into CODA and meet with the rest of my company. Our table lies right under the windows looking onto Flinders Lane… Or rather the people in Flinders Lane looking onto our table… I consider it to be almost voyeuristic looking in on intimate moments with me and my food… Moving on!

I think to myself, “What better way to sober up than with more alcohol!”, so I order a beer, and opt for some chips… sorry, “pomme frites”… to nibble on… Which I later realized was my breakfast. I digress…

The chips are good. Of the shoestring variety. But not salty… Boo. After asking for some kind of dipping sauce, the lovely waitress exclaims “hmm, well we have a Japanese mayonnaise”. Sold! Yes friends, it is Kewpie mayonnaise, which I have already proclaimed my intense love of here… Onward…

Time for some real food. The menu is made up of small things, big things, side things, and sweet things, and all made to share… We order the quail lettuce delight, herb crumbed lamb chop, blackened quail, and the zucchini fritters. The quail lettuce delight, which is basically quail san choi bao, is yum, kinda messy, but yum. The herb crumbed lamb chop, is so much more than “just a lamb chop” it’s crispy, oily, herby, say no more. The blackened quail is also worth checking out, however if you are by any means hungry, the meat to bone ratio is not nearly big or meaty enough to fill your hungry spot…! Oh, and the zucchini fritters are like these yummy fried balls with this amazing salad of buffalo cheese, mint and peas.

Moving on to something bigger and we all opt to go with the roasted yellow duck curry with the heart of palm, honeydew melon, mint and cucumber salad. The curry is full of flavour and carries nice hunks of duck, but is kind of spicy. Not like a chili spicy, more of a pepper spicy. So the cool salad with the sweet chunks of honeydew melon will somewhat save your mouth from the spice!

Funnily, I am not yet full. Or maybe it is just one of those times where your body unconsciously makes room for desert once you have seen what’s on offer. I break a mini-sweat during my deliberation, there are just too many good things on offer! I decide to go with the ‘chocolate bar’, a fairly nondescript, yet ‘says-it-all’ name really. However, once it has arrived I know I have made no mistake…

It really is one of those fancy deserts… Like something that they would chose to do in a pressure test on MasterChef. It is this chocolate case, filled firstly with a layer of grainy dark chocolate ‘dirt’ -if you will- then has some kind of creamy, white chocolate mouse-come-custard like filling topped with a very thin shard of of what I think was a bitter toffee, though I could be very wrong… Served with a scoop of raspberry sorbet and a few cherries in tow, this desert was a perfect end to a memorable meal. Justifiably so, as it has been well over 2 months since I actually visited Coda…

Anyway, not many negatives about this place at all. Amazing fit out and location, great menu, good music, and a waitress who won me over at the start with an above average serving of Kewpie! Woman after my own heart…

CODA
141 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000

Jack

Izakaya Den

Izakaya Den, or affectionately refered to by the two of us as “Izzy”, is perhaps my most favourite hang-out in this city. Firstly, it plays THE best music. Everything from Japanese pop to 80′s rap and anything and everything in between, not that you can actually hear the music over the multiple conversations, but the heavy bass provides the best background buzz. The space is great, a long white rectangular area – completely minimalist with a black and white fit out. Couches and tables line the right side; the bar and open-kitchen, as well as more seating, span across the left.

Finding what seems to be Melbourne’s worst kept secret is actually not that hard, just head to the corner of Russell St and Lt Collins St, head down one flight of stairs, open a glass door, push aside a huge black curtain, head down another set of stairs and take a sharp right. Simple. A warning, if you are planning grabbing a bite at Izzy at a civilised hour, so is the rest of Melbourne… If you front at anytime between 7.00-9.30, expect to wait at least an hour. This place is BUSY. However, it is completely worth the wait.

Right, drinks. This place is as much a bar as it is a restaurant, serving up chic cocktails, wine, spirits, sake, and beers. The drinks menu is actually double the size of the food menu, oh, and there are two drinks menus. The drink of choice for the two of us is Kirin. Ah, Kirin…

The food menu is small, but not at all limited. Not that it matters to either of us as we all know what we came here for in the first place – anything that’s been in the deep-fryer! For most people, those three words which they long to hear are ‘I LOVE YOU’… I on the other hand simply long to hear ‘DEN FRIED CHICKEN’ and my heart literally thumps in my chest. It’s not as sad as it sounds… These deep-fried chicken morsels are served with Kewpie mayonnaise, which is a Japanese mayonnaise, and has no Western equivalent due to its hierarchy in the kingdom of dipping sauces… I am often completely sarcastic, however I feel I’m making no overstatement in saying that Den Fried Chicken is… LIFE CHANGING.

While we’re on the topic of life-changing-finger-licking-goodness, it is worth scraping your pennies together for a round of Sweet Corn ‘Kaki-Age’. They are practically little clusters of deep fried corn! Genius on a plate! They come with Wasabi Salt that you can add to taste, which is so salty and so good. One cannot comprehend until one has indulged!

The rest of the menu is good, been there, done that. However, I just can’t help but feel as though the rest of the menu items become the Ugly Step Sisters to the Cinderella of the menu – Den Fried Chicken, and her Prince Charming –  a Kirin. A coupling so perfect; the stuff fairy tales are made of…

I should recommend to you all to come and find your own “happily ever after” at Izzy, but i’d prefer if you didn’t! The place is busy enough people, they dont really need your business too! However, if you do feel so inclined, they dont take bookings and the kitchen closes at 12 sharp! Which is okay because as you change back into your rags at the stroke of midnight, run up the first flight of stairs, push past the curtain, swing open the door, and run up the second flight of stairs – at which point you lose one of your glass slippers – you’ll find yourself walking home with the rest the Melbourne nightlife with one or none of their Tony Bianco’s on, aswell…

Jack

Chin Chin

It’s currently 4pm. Which means it has been well over 3 hours since our last ‘meal’. Agitated, and aimlessly strolling the city streets… Again, our thoughts turn to feelings of hunger. Surprisingly, neither of us jump at the idea of another round of chips, but somehow all the planets seem to align as the CHIN CHIN sign comes into focus… A small detour to the ATM, and our asses are happily seated on the lounges ready for some (more) deep-fried delights!

Beers are ordered, and we mull over the menu… The lady next to us is eating the DIY spring rolls, they look amazing, but healthy… I’m not really in the mood for ‘healthy’. So we settle for the Grilled Indian Matarbak filled w. Indian spiced beef and cucumber relish… (I hope your meal is looking all the more insignificant now)…

As we await the food, conversation turns to the blog, we think we should shift the blogs focus to fried food in general! So expect fried chicken, veggies, bread, beef, even a fucking mars bar if we feel so inclined!!

Our dish arrives… Only 4 pieces, that means ONLY 2 each… Hmmm, doesn’t stop us from devouring the plate in what seems to be record time! It’s yum, like really good! It’s full of flavor and oily, thus hitting all the right notes with the two of us!

Half full, we leave CHIN CHIN, it has been good, but quick… Don’t worry we’ll be back!

I’m still hungry, wondering what’s for dinner?

CHIN CHIN
125 FLINDERS LANE
CBD

Jack

Solarino

Well, what regulars we are here. This must be because the fry up that Solarino, in Howey Place Lt. Collins has to offer is one of the best chips in Melbourne. Here, you will find a classic french fry piled high… well salted, and sized to share. The chips have a crunchy outer, and a pillowy inner, yet although the chip has definite eat-ability on its own, paired with Solarino’s garlic aoli, this snacking experience is taken to another level. Be warned, the aoli will cost you an extra buck, but if you’re already forking out $8.50 for some chips, it’s hardly breaking bank…

A word to the wise, upon entry to this well decored, fry-laiden-haven, one musn’t be swayed by what seems to be a dellectable cake cabinet; you are only putting yourself up an over priced and extremely dry cake experience… Actually, THEY ARE DRYDRYDRY YOU WILL CHOKE ON THEM AND DIE!

For a decent coffee, and a waitress who will try to sum you up, one step in the establishment –  head on down to Solarino for good old chippie times!

7 Howey Place
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9663 2636

Adam + Jack