Gingerboy: Worker's Lunch

Forgot to prep work lunch and not quite in the mood for a couple of rolls of sushi?

It’s hard to go past Gingerboy’s recently launched Workers Lunch set for $27 with a main dish and a glass of wine.

Especially when the dishes on offer include slow cooked beef cheek or fried chicken as options. Yessir!

When I popped by with my colleague (god I love working in the city now!), we ordered the slow cooked beef cheek with peanut chilli caramel - a hefty serve with beef that’s just falling apart and delightfully sticky and sweet, and the green chicken curry which had a nice bit of heat.

Hot tip, there’s a bunch of sides available for $10, and you really can’t go wrong with getting the crispy fried sweet corn cakes. They’re slightly puffed, so light and so delicious. Perfect if you’re getting a curry to mop up all that extra sauce.

Gingerboy

27-29 Crossley St

Melbourne VIC 3000

 

Oneyada

Is brunch-fatigue a thing? It’s such a Melbourne problem to have, when Brad and I sometimes wake up and just don’t feel like the usual latte and runny poached eggs. I guess when you do it every weekend it can get a little old.

So we are quite lucky to live in a city where when we are hit with an onset of ‘brunch-fatigue’, we actually have options where we can just switch it up, do something a little different, and return to the usual program the following week. 

Oneyada, which opened on Victoria Street in Abbotsford (but most of us would probably just say Richmond), serves up Thai style breakfasts - which suited us just right. Run by the same people behind the well loved Jinda Thai, Oneyada is a cosy and relaxed space to start the day in. 

Brad started with a Thai coffee, with condensed milk, whilst I opted for the hot Thai milk tea which I absolutely loved. I had never had Thai milk tea hot before, but I would love to more often as it was so smooth, warming, aromatic and comforting. 

With Melbourne’s winter that never seems to be leaving, it was a fresh and sightly cool morning when we visited, so the jasmine rice soup with barramundi, ginger, spring onion and soybean nam-Jim was just the right type of comforting food that I needed. There’s just something about Asian style broths which are so wholesome and delightful. The flavours were familiar, but also light, and I loved the ginger and the soft rice that were lovely and soft in the soup. 

Brad went with the congee with pork balls which was gloriously thick and steaming hot. As he was feeling a little under the weather, this is exactly what he needed, especially loaded up with ginger and coriander. He also opted for a soft egg on the side, for a little extra protein kick. 

I also couldn’t resist giving the ‘Kao Jee’, egg coated stick rice cake, a go when I saw it on the menu - out of sheer curiosity and since it was only around $5. It’s a perfect little snacky item between two, but was a bit denser than I thought it might be. 

When I used to visit Asia as a kid, I thought it was weird when people would eat rice and noodles for breakfast, but now? I get it. I really do. Wholesome, hearty, and like a warm hug of flavour to get you started on your day - if you’re needing an Asian breakfast fix, or just want a break from eggs, Oneyada has got you sorted out. 

Oneyada Cafe

239 Victoria Street

Abbotsford

 

Sweet Salt - Bomba Goes to Spain - Son in Law

Disclosure: I was invited to dine as a guest at the following venues 

Sweet Salt

296 High Street

Northcote 

 

When you get an invite from a fish and chip shop claiming to have made the perfect f*cking chip…you make sure you’re attending. 

Located on High Street in Northcote, conveniently across the road from the Northcote Social Club (so easy enough to stumble to after a few too many beers), it’s not at all what you expect.

Beautiful, slick and airy interior fit-out, not too dissimilar from what you might find in a cafe, with the usual blue and white palette, but a surprise hit of pink as well. 

Talking to the owners, I learn everything is made in house, from the dimmies to the infamous chips. After being frustrated with middle men supplying half decent potatoes, they took matters into their own hands and source directly what they need, and then craft a damn good potato chip. 

Hard to say if it’s the perfect f*cking chip, but as a potato loving girl, I’ve got to say they were damn good. Absolutely golden, crisp (not too crunchy) and with that actual warm potato flavour, not just starch. Potato cakes totally killed it as well. 

Can’t go wrong with freshly shucked oysters, and I totally died over the plate of meaty snapper cheeks (which I don’t think are regularly on the menu, but oh my god they should be). I was also majorly impressed with their house-made steamed dimmies, one version made with spanner crab that I loved, and one version made with barramundi which Brad preferred. Regardless, they were actually full of flavour and tasted like seafood! 

Freshly made Taiyaki, a Japanese style dessert, with red bean in the middle, is also most definitely worth waiting for. I’ve heard that they’re planning to introduce more Taiyaki flavours, so looking forward to returning again soon!

Bomba Goes to Spain Lunch

103 Lonsdale Street

Melbourne

 

Jesse Gerne’s got a real good thing going. Once a year (if not twice), he and a handful of his staff from Bomba and Anada make their way to Spain on a smorgasbord of an adventure. Seriously, his stories make you jealous, at times squeamish (how about some bull’s testicles at 8am in the morning?) but most of all, mouth watering.

He returns from these adventure around Spain, and highlights the different areas in Spain visited, with a variety of lunches. 

This year, I had the pleasure of having a gastronomical tour through Andalusia, where the boy’s ate cuttlefish vagina’s (the direct translation into English!), at a bar run by a pair of deaf and mute brothers and drank enough sherry for a fleet (or at least that’s what it sounded like)! 

These lunches are usually $65 per person, and although it says it’s four courses, you get so much more than that!

From briny Wapengo oysters with sweet nettle vinaigrette, to just the most meaty and delicious Sardinas fritas (sardine fritters) with lemon. Sardines are totally underrated just for the record.

Thin slivers of pickled pork belly leave you licking your lips for more, while the montadito of huevos revueltos with morcilla proves you can totally have scrambled eggs for lunch on perfectly charred bread. 

Make sure you pull up your iPhone camera and get some selfie action going on to check your teeth after the cuttlefish and pipies in generous amounts of squid ink, and sigh with happiness over the Rabo de toro; ‘Fighting Bull’s Tail’ in oloroso and celeriac puree. If you’ve had their pork jowl in Pedro Ximenez, it has similarities to that for me. 

After a lazy 3 hours of eating, and convincing myself I have space for Pedro Ximenez ice-cream, torrija, sheep’s milk yoghurt and poached pear, Bomba’s ‘Goes to Spain’ lunches prove to be an enjoyable, filling and relaxing way to spend an afternoon. Keep your eyes peeled for the next one!

Son in Law

56 Johnston Street

Collingwood

 

Even though I do work in a business where we deal with a lot of hospitality operators, I don’t often talk about work. I’ve been quite fortunate that I can keep work and the blog separate, for the most part, but there are times like these when I’m quite happy to bring them together.

The crew who once operated Ayatana came to BrandWorks for a new brand, and a little help with the interiors. Tony, Petch and Joyce were amazing to work with, and it’s been simply thrilling to see their restaurant come to life. All the colour makes me so happy!

Son in Law is the newest Thai addition to Johnston Street, living where Bayte used to be, whipping up Thai favourites such as pad thai and their namesake, Son in Law eggs, but also throwing a little fusion into the mix with sliders and tacos…because why not? I attended the launch, but also visited for dinner with the BrandWorks team, where we ate and loved everything. 

Highlights included the sweet crunchy tamarind salad, those son in law eggs, the crispy barramundi fillets and crispy soft shell crab with tight prawns in a traditional Thai green curry. We ate in true family style…and man we were stuffed! 

Magic Mountain Saloon

Disclosure: I dined as a guest of the restaurant 

I’m usually a morning person. The type of person who’s alarm on the phone is the ‘Harp’ sound, because it takes that little to wake me up in the morning. Even at 6am in the morning.

However, I haven’t had that much experience with whiskey, and even after just a couple of nips, was definitely finding the following morning much harder to navigate. Crusty eyes, fuzzy brain, yawns the whole way into the city for my morning breakfast date.

Caryn later tagged us in with the caption: Why did we agree on such an early morning breakfast?

Because it was Magic Mountain Saloon…and it was exactly the type of food I needed that morning.

On a cold morning, the red glowing neon is an unusual beckoning symbol, you feel like you could be going to a bar instead. 

But pop yourself by the window once you’re in to soak in the day light as it gentle creeps in and face the rainbow mountain mural, which is awfully soothing…especially when you’re feeling a bit blurry in the head.

Magic Mountain Saloon encourages you to extend your night with cocktails prominently displayed on the breakfast menu, along with a variety of rather interesting cocktails as well. Being it was so cold though, and I was feeling a bit rough, it was a mint and ginger tea for me, for sure.

Breakfast at Magic Mountain Saloon is also not your usual eggs Benedict affair. During lunch and dinner, the restaurant-slash-bar-slash-dance all night spot serves up Thai influenced food (like it’s bigger siblings Cookie and Toff in Town), so why should that be different in the mornings?

Thank god it isn’t. 

Because when you’re hung over, the chicken and kaffir lime scotched egg, stacked high with pork ribs and drizzled in a sweet and tangy tamarind sauce is actually everything you need. The scotch egg itself is completely bursting with flavour, the kaffir lime a delightfully bright and aromatic start to the day, jumping into your nostrils and waking up the brain, whilst the abundance of chilli is also another delicious alarm. True to it’s influence, the flavours are not diluted in the slightest, and I love it. The pork ribs are lovely meaty morsels, not too fatty, perfect for just tearing off the bone. 

I absolutely adored this mother of a protein hit to start my day.

We also got the sticky lamb and shrimp rice, with green apple, omelette, coriander, ginger and chilli. Total Asian style breakfast, and it’s so okay. The lamb was sweet and jammy, tender too. The rice was delicious, well seasoned, kind of nutty, and with just enough oil through it to make it totally moreish, and the green apple added a beautiful freshness. Although I was full, was definitely tempting to get more mouthfuls of this going on.

We also could not resist the black sticky rice with strawberries, banana, coconut cream and dried mango granola. Pretty, and again, very tasty. I was surprised that the black rice was actually served warm, I loved it wasn’t goopy, the texture and the flavours reminded me of the traditional Thai mango sticky rice…but with bananas and strawberries instead. It all worked very well and definitely something I want to have again. 

Caryn and I had a great morning hanging out, complaining about how early it was and stuffing our gobs with good food. It’s a great spot to catch up in the morning as it’s not too busy (yet), so you can hear each other and just chill out in the space a bit. I also reckon the food is amazing value, even though I did not pay for this meal, I couldn’t believe our scotch egg with all it’s pork ribs, was only around $18…it was really, really big. All the meals were! Good spot to feed the menfolk for sure. 

Although I don’t often do breakfast in the city, Magic Mountain Saloon is definitely somewhere I would see myself coming back to, for something a little different, that’s also insanely satisfying. I’m pretty sure I did not eat until about 3 or 4pm that afternoon afterwards….

Magic Mountain Saloon

62 Little Collins Street

Melbourne 3000