Monday, February 15, 2016

Belleville

I love Melbourne. I love that we travel with umbrella and sunglasses at all time. I love how much food we have available to us. I love that you have to explore and that sometimes, the best food isn’t just found on the shopfronts facing the main streets. 

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Climbing stairs, and sneaking down into basements; enchanting visitors and locals alike, it's always a good time.

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I had heard a lot about Belleville, and how good their chicken was, but hadn’t gotten around to visiting (as always); so it was good news when my boss decided that we should have our work Christmas dinner there last year to round out our year.

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To find it, head into Chinatown, find Globe Alley just off it and climb up a couple flights of stairs until you enter the unexpectedly ginormous space. In true Melbourne-style, it’s got a bit of a worn out warehouse feeling, with mix n’ match furniture and neon green walls adorned with graffiti, framing the huge windows. 

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It’s definitely an easy chilled out space, with a fun and accessible cocktail menu, presented in a graph. It asks you what type of person you are and what time of day it is, then at the intersection, provides you a suggestion of a cocktail. Or you can just read through and make the choice yourself, but where’s the fun in that? 

All our cocktails were delicious; I suitably don’t remember exactly what we had, but I do recall them being easy to drink, not too sweet and gone very quickly.

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I do remember our food though. Watermelon salads with chargrilled watermelon, Vietnamese mint, roasted peanuts and Sichuan peppers and Rad Thai’s; wok tossed glass noodles with crispy eggplant were refreshing salads with plenty of crunch. Perfect for summer. There was also a green mango salad special available that evening, which matched the refreshing Asian theme very well. 

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Streetcart Corn - chargrilled corn with spiced parmesan, butter and miso aioli were almost totally creamy and cheesy mouthfuls; the guys at Belleville were very generous with the parmesan, and that’s totally okay with me! 

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Popcorn chicken, karaage chicken with togarashi and tonkatsu aioli, are delectably crunchy bites with a pop of spice to the flavour. They disappear very quickly, especially when you’ve got a cocktail on the side!

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Personally though? My favourite side has to be the Belleville poutine, beer battered chips with shredded cheese, house chicken gravy and hot sauce. This really could just be a meal on it’s own. I absolutely adore the fries, with that gorgeous battered crust, they’re crunchy delights, which go so well with all that gravy. Completely and utterly moreish. 

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But we can’t forget the rotisserie chicken at Belleville, which is really the star. Whilst everyone else in town is battering and deep frying theirs, Belleville’s is a salt water brined free range chicken, that’s perfectly roasted. We get a whole chicken that’s miso butter glazed (Yes, yes, yes), and it’s an epic looking little feed. Pitchfork and all. 

The chicken itself was a touch dryer than I hoped it would be, but I still absolutely lapped it up, I loved the skin, I loved that I convinced myself it was ‘healthier’ than fried chicken, and therefore ate a whole lot more. Totally logical right…?

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Dessert specials rotate, and on this particular evening we enjoyed warm chocolatey Nutella ‘bombs’/donuts with a raspberry sauce or something similar to dip into and a very decadent popcorn and salted caramel pannacotta (on the jiggle scale it scored very highly too). 


For somewhere with a relaxed vibe to hang with the friends (a lot of them too if you wanted to), have some drinks, and possibly have some great food as well, Belleville is a great option; I’m coming back for that poutine!

Globe Alley
Melbourne, 3000

Belleville Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato 

2 comments:

  1. This made me drool on my computer, which is possibly not good for my computer.
    I follow your feed (ahahahahah) on Instagram
    Gonna go right ahead and pop you on my blogroll
    Cilla

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't often go for a whole chicken but that really is drool worthy ... aaaaand The List just got longer!

    ReplyDelete