Dexter

Playing a little catch up here. 

Brad and I went to Dexter towards the end of last year, but since our visit, I longingly look at the Google location for Dexter starred on my Google Maps on my phone every time I open it. I’m just not really ever in Preston that often - although we have looked at apartments in the area once or twice (Dexter’s just not open at 10:30am in the morning…)

The bright and light filled space, is not what you expect a BBQ restaurant to look at - but being a self proclaimed ‘Non-traditional American BBQ’ restaurant that would make sense. Brick laid bar, handsome ocean blue tiles accented by light ply and black steel framing. It’s contemporary, fresh and incredibly inviting. 

Dexter’s KFC - Kentucky Fried Cauliflower - was definitely my kind of KFC. Golden and crisp on the outside, but sweet and tender cauliflower on the inside. With a bit of hot sauce on the side? Best picked up and stuffed into your face with fingers. 

But the main show of course, was the cured beef brisket, served with bone marrow mash, pickles, and a charred marrow rubbed sourdough trencher. Um. Drool. Drool. And drool some more. I haven’t done a lot of BBQ in Melbourne - but definitely was one of the best briskets I’d had. It melted in the mouth, and I loved the moistness of it (can you say that about meat?). And that bone marrow mash? Divine, purely divine. So smooth and so rich! 

To offset the richness of our smoked brisket goodness, we got some green chilli slaw on the side which hit the spot just right.

With news that these guys are opening a second shop in the CBD, you can only imagine how excited I am!

Dexter

456 High Street

Preston

 

The Catch Up - Fall menu at Nieuw Amsterdam, Le Petite Prince & House of Crabs

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

You may notice these days, that there’s quite a bit of a gap from when I have a dining experience on Instagram, versus when it’s up on the blog. 

It’s definitely hard to stay on top of everything, between flat out days at work which leave me not wanting to be in front of a computer, nights out and then making sure I’m in bed by 10:30 so I can go to the gym (prioritising fitness, whoo!) and well…blogging is a bit of work!

So here’s a little round up of a couple of places that I’ve been wanting to write about, just to help expedite the process a little!

NIEUW AMSTERDAM

106-112 Hardware Lane

Melbourne 3000 

 

A couple months back, I popped into Nieuw Amsterdam to check out their new (and now obviously running) autumn menu, matched with cocktails. 

I’m always amazed at how creative with cocktails the guys at Nieuw Amsterdam get. One of my favourites from the evening? Peas-go-sour. A play on a ‘pisco sour’ (see what they did there?) with pisco, applejack, lime, snow pea syrup and habanero shrub. What. It’s fresh, it’s springy, it’s almost healthy…right? 

Highlights included the deep fried pickles we munched on prior to our meal; which are basically the perfect bar snack. How come these aren’t everywhere? Golden, crunchy, piping hot and just yum. 

Southern fried quail with romesco sauce and pickled grapes are also pure fried perfection. I absolutely love that these meaty mouthfuls are only dedicated battered, and the kick in the seasoning. There’s a lovely heat, and each mouthful is still so juicy. Happy sighs. 

Curry spiced lamb ribs with cauliflower, eggplant, coriander and lime are also a favourite of mine, again amazingly meaty and no-hands-barred with all the flavour. Love the charred outsides and still pink insides.

It’s hearty, hearty food, it’s been a little bit of a warm autumn sure, but once we swing full on into the colder weather…? Oh goodness. Perfection.

LE PETIT PRINCE

1A Mercer Road

Armadale

 

Armadale and Toorak can sometimes be a bit pretentious, and hoity-toity sometimes. But I love being surprised and instead of finding overly healthy dishes, or a little bit too intricate plating, just great big hearty dishes, that still look great.

Le Petit Prince did just that for me. Beautiful coffees, in sky blue cups, and a pumpkin dish with roast pumpkin two ways which I just want to eat all my life. I don’t think you guys fully understand just how much I love pumpkin. Also helps this dish is loaded with haloumi as well, sprinkled with a bit of dukkah. It’s wholesome but not heavy comfort food that I love eating while sitting outside in the breezy weather. 

Brad’s mixed mushrooms, Spanish morcilla, poached eggs, smashed avocado and feta is also a surprisingly generous feed, and incorporates all my favourite things…what’s not to love?

HOUSE OF CRABS

34 Inkerman Street

St Kilda

 

When I hear there’s a new restaurant open beneath the slick and very cool Newmarket hotel…well…House of Crabs isn’t exactly what I expected when I walk in.

You’re instantly transported to the quirky corner of the south, with funky lamp shades, fringe and red…lots of red. It feels a little burlesque bar, but with a band playing Cotton Eye Joe instead. It’s kind of hilarious and the atmosphere is instantly jovial and bright. 

The cocktails are hard, but delicious; yes there’s a mini bottle of tequila that’s pouring out into my glass. 

But it’s really all about sitting down at the butcher paper lined tables, donning some blue plastic gloves…and getting intimate with some crustaceans. 

Mussels, prawns, and a selection of crabs are available to have as a boil, with your choice of sauce. The Singapore sauce is one of my favourites, totally reminds of chilli crabs back in Singapore, and I can’t remember which, either the Cajun or the Creole has some beautiful curry-ish flavours going on. 

It’s a bit of work, but it’s a whole lot of fun and always a great icebreaker. Good way to vet out a potential date too (if they ain’t peeling prawns or getting into crabs, they’re a party popper and a no goer I’d say).

The stuff on the side is also really good too, lobster fries with bacon, cheese and lobster gravy are terribly moreish and I love the crunchy buttermilk chicken bits with cajun sauce. 

Also highly recommend the soft shell crab tacos with jalapeño mayo and apples, beautifully crisp and a nice kick of heat. 

Le Bon Ton

Walk into Le Bon Ton trailing a piece of string behind you. This place is huge, and a total maze!

The unsuspecting eatery, located in a quiet spot of Collingwood, is easy to walk by, even if you are looking for it, as several of my friends found when trying to meet up for dinner! But once in, the room is warm, atmosphere buzzing, noise levels high and staff busy as bees. 

Oh, and it smells amazing. 

On this particular Friday night, I had booked a table for 10 to have a little pre-birthday dinner, as several of us had wanted to check out Le Bon Ton…and well, birthday’s are just perfect catch up’s aren’t they? 

I was definitely impressed with how big Le Bon Ton was, but was quite pleased that our table was in a slightly isolated area, so that we could still hear each other comfortably and feel like we had a private area for us!

As we were a table of 10, we had to go with the set menu, The Southern Pride menu, for $59 per person which consisted of three courses, with numerous dishes in a couple of the courses.

On a Friday night, you gotta be on time, we were given due notice when booking the table, that we had to give it back in 2 hours, and gently reminded throughout the night. So when I gave the go to start the menu at quarter to seven, I wasn’t overly surprised with how fast our first round of dishes came out!

Chilli cheese fries, with traditional Texas style style beef and bean chilli with a cheddar sauce totally hit the spot and put everyone in a southern kinda mood. Yum. Meaty, and hearty, chips weren’t as crunchy as advertised, but considering they’re sitting under a fair bit of chilli there, they are forgiven. Serious comfort food here. 

The black bean hummus with pico de gallo, ancho creme and BBQ spiced tortilla chips was an interesting take on the usual hummus as well, a bit richer in flavour I found personally. 

The fried chicken was definitely a winner; Southern style buttermilk tenders with cracked pepper and white gravy were juicy and tender, with a decadently crispy batter that wasn’t very oily on the fingers. Sarah did comment that they’re usually a bit expensive if you get them ala carte, but they are definitely worth it. 

Once we had polished off the first lot of dishes, the waiters descended with hefty wooden boards topped with meaty deliciousness. The Smoker’s Lot included a serve of the grain-fed Riverina Angus beef brisket, Otway Ranges pork shoulder, Jalapeño and cheddar hot-link sausage and chicken basted in apple BBQ sauce. Talk about a smorgasbord! 

I simply loved the pork shoulder, and generally found everything to be tender, and although all smoked meats, each with a slightly different flavour profile. The brisket smoky, the chicken surprisingly sweet and the sausage with a  bit of heat, all around, a good feed. 

The meats come with a range of salads to accompany; a potato salad with spring onion, fresh dill, pickles and mayo, iceberg salad with dill, cucumber and lemon dressing and a tangy coleslaw with cabbage, carrot and onion. All cooling and refreshing, a nice contrast to the meats. I have a serious soft spot for good slaw.

Did I forget to mention the cocktails at Le Bon Ton? It’s a cracker of a list, and the sazerac, in my opinion, is best had with a blend of whiskey and Martel VS Cognac in a ‘New York’ style mix. It’ll hit you hard, but it’s smooth. 

Although mains were a sharing affair, dessert was an individual serve of chocolate brownie…which was a little bit lack lustre. A bit dry, a bit too dense, sure it was chocolatey, but it didn’t quite hit that the satisfyingly indulgent mark for me. This was begging for a scoop of ice-cream to go with it. 

Le Bon Ton had all the atmosphere, it was a fun environment to bring a group of friends and laugh and make merry in. And although the food was generally good, I did find it to be on the expensive side, although I guess American barbecue tends to be. Although I enjoyed myself immensely, with great company of course, Le Bon Ton doesn’t rank so high on my re-visit list. 

Le Bon Ton

51 Gipps Street

Collingwood 3066

 

Nieuw Amsterdam - Fall Menu Tasting

Disclosure: I was invited as a guest of the restaurant 

There are a couple of restaurants on my list, that are always guaranteed to be failsafe recommendations, and are always floating around somewhere in my consciousness, reminding me that I always really ought to revisit.

Nieuw Amsterdam is one of those places. But not only for the food, but for the fascinating things they’re doing with cocktails as well.

So when I was invited to taste the new fall menu (one of my favourite seasons), how am I to say no?

Nieuw Amsterdam has recently welcomed a new head chef, Jeff Trotter, ex sous chef of the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld and also with some previous experience in Michelin starred restaurants, bringing his own elegant take on ‘New American’, featuring some New York classics. 

Before we could eat anything though, bar manager Sean McGuire ensured we had our liquid appetisers first! The first of four matching cocktails was the ‘Poor Al’, standard whiskey, dry vermouth with lopsang tea syrup and lemon topped with soda. It’s Nieuw Amsterdam’s take on a winter Tom Collins…and it’s dangerously fresh, like a breath of fresh air, and easy to drink. I’m not usually a whisky cocktail kind of person, but would faithfully return to this with no problem!

Smoked mackerel croquettes came out golden and utterly perfect. I love mackerel personally as it is, but smoked? And deep fried? I might’ve been in heaven. The golden crust was perfectly crunchy, and the smoked mackerel inside was just molten and saucy. Fantastic.

Pop Scallops made me smile, I love this fascination with popcorn at the moment, as you would never have expected it in anything remotely fine dining or fancy…yet there it is, in all it’s popped glory. Popcorn, utterly perfectly cooked scallop, nice little kick of chilli, watercress and celeriac, adding a cool and refreshing note, I found the dish well balanced and a whole lot of fun as well. 

The Mac n’ Cheese souffle is exactly what you might ask for, sure, a little denser and heavier than a traditional souffle…but what did you really expect when mac n’ cheese are added into the mix? Cheesy, and creamy, the addition of a green pea puree and a hint of chorizo oil helped cut through the richness and brighten up the flavours. 

The basil daiquiri is one of the most delicious things I’ve drunk recently, with white rum, green chartreuse, basil, cracked pepper and lime. It’s refreshing, but savoury, just strong enough for you to know you’re getting your hit, but so complex and delicious that by the time you’ve realised how many ‘little’ sips you were planning to take to make it last…you might’ve finished it already. 

It was on to meatier items next, the barbecue lamb ribs with tomato and chipotle an absolutely meaty delight, just slipping off the bone. The kick in the chipotle gave me a surprise, but was completely welcome. Shrimp n’ Grits with okra, corn and gumbo sauce is a delight poured at the table and the smokey beef brisket is amazingly tender and hearty.

We share a plate of yam gnocchi as well, with goats curd, maple pecans, thyme and parmesan, but I could easily clear a plate on my own (if I didn’t have so much to eat already). The gnocchi are like light and fluffy pillows, nicely paired with the velvety and creamy goats curd and rich and only just lightly melted parmesan. The yam and sweet potato crisps add a nice bit of texture to it as well. 

For meat dishes, a meat themed cocktail seems appropriate, and we’re presented with ‘Elmer had a Little Lamb’ which is made of lamb fat washed buffalo trace bourbon, mint, sugar and crushed ice. It’s rich and savoury, delightfully aromatic, especially with the sprig of rosemary and slightly perplexing, but in a delicious way. 

To finish, we were treated to a bevy of desserts, all with familiar, classic and comforting flavours, but presented beautifully. 

Pumpkin doughnuts with Jack Daniel’s cream were a table favourite, the doughnuts lushly dusted in sugar, with a touch of crust, but overall light and fluffy. Not so much pumpkin flavour in the doughnuts, but that Jack Daniel’s cream, heaped up in a big mass was everything.

Nieuw cheesecake with black cherry, thyme, black pepper and milk, was elegant, and lighter on the flavours, whilst the fried apple pie was a piping hot pocket, with maple and raisins and a cream cheese sorbet which was a lovely balance to all the sweetness.

My favourite though, and yes, partially because I’m just a sucker for chocolate, was the chocolate mallow, served with a raspberry marshmallow and snowed under by caramelised white chocolate and toasted coconut. Wow. Creamy, and filing in the mouth, yet oddly light at the same time. I loved the toasted coconut that added some texture and crunch. 

It had been a while since my last visit at Nieuw, but as always, they put on a delicious show, and have made me feel a bit guilty that my visits are always so far apart. Next time an out of town guest is around…

Nieuw Amsterdam

106-112 Hardware Street

Melbourne VIC 3000