Brunswick, on Melbourne’s inner north has long been overshadowed by the more artsy Fitzroy and the very Italian Carlton, despite arguably having the highest concentration of specialty groceries, Middle Eastern bakeries and a plethora of restaurants serving Turkish, Afghan, Lebanese and Greek cuisine. This could be due to the sheer long stretch of Sydney Road, the suburb’s main artery, which makes walking the whole strip practically impossible.
Of course, the key to appreciating Sydney Road is not to ‘do it’ in 1 day, but to savour its different pockets over time. Sydney Road actually cuts through three suburbs – Brunswick, Anstey and Coburg – although Anstey is not really considered a suburb in its own right and is conveniently lumped into either of the bigger suburbs. The furthest reaches of the road in Coburg is home to many of the traditional Turkish restaurants and stalls selling succulent doner and shish kebabs, while in the Anstey portion halal butchers sit alongside Middle Eastern bakeries selling the famous Lebanese meat pizzas, baklava and zaatar spice mixes made of dried thyme, oregano and sumac berry powder.
The Brunswick part of Sydney Road is experiencing a sort of makeover that is also being felt in the once-sleepy suburbs of Collingwood and East Brunswick. Small, funky little cafes are mushrooming in little corners off Sydney Road that are obscure enough to be slightly mysterious yet easily accessible for inner city folks hungry for a bite or a strong, full-flavoured cuppa to unwind. The same forces that created Fitzroy’s rejuvenation, the rather adversarial combination of gentrification and cash-strapped students forced out from living in the city, are responsible for this timely addition to Brunswick’s street scene.
For these cafes deftly mix all the different elements of the suburb’s culinary heritage – Italian, Turkish, Lebanese – into a uniquely Australian interpretation that the inner north of Melbourne can claim as its own. Ray, one of the first of these cafes to open up shop, boasts on its menu board baharat baked beans with chilli labna and toasted pide; Arabian-style bircher muesli with cream, pistachios, poached fruits and honey; poached free-range eggs with capsicum pesto, spinach, fetta and dukkah and lamb kofta with hummus and lemon honey yoghurt, just to name a few. Common enough to not intimidate, but peppered with one or two unfamiliar ingredients to entice and excite in equal measure.
I’ve only recently discovered Ray, despite it being in such close proximity to my house. But I guess that’s part of what keeps Melbourne’s café scene so interesting. And it just goes to show that all that effort in remaining incognito – the unassuming exterior, the lack of signage, the off-the-beat location – actually does work! The coffee is supposed to be excellent, although on both visits I had tea – an act of rebellion perhaps, although one that I’m afraid is without cause. The next time I pop over at Ray I’ll be sure to get a coffee, and try more of their exotic fare.
Ray
332 Victoria St
Brunswick VIC 3056
Posted in Food | Tagged: Brunswick, inner north suburb Melbourne, Melbourne, Ray, Sydney Road | 1 Comment »
La Paloma, Brunswick
Posted by kampunghouse on July 15, 2009
Tucked away on an anonymous spot on Albert Street, a few steps shy of the traffic rush descending upon Sydney Road, La Paloma is like a little slice of Buenos Aires in bohemian Brunswick. Housed in a building that looks like it has seen better days, distressed walls with patches of stripped paint, weathered door and quaint wooden stools provide subtle clues to the atmosphere inside the café. The gleaming glass frontage and jade green tiles hint to a café that takes pride in itself.
Inside, a small blackboard announces the menu of the day. There are three or four dishes and two sweets – churros topped with dulce de leche and cake. I’m usually a sucker for sweets, but on this day I’ve come for the salad roll, which has received ecstatic raves in Melbourne food blogs. How often does a salad roll elicit such excitement as to compel people to wax lyrical about its merits? At first glance it looks innocent enough – tomato, cucumber, whole lettuce leaves, mashed seasoned avocado and a delicate layer of beef pastrami tucked into a rustic bread roll. It’s one of those things that make you say, “Pfft. I can make this at home” until you take a bite and realise, no, probably you can’t. The whole lettuce leaves provide visual novelty from the common chopped lettuce treatment in other salad rolls while the creamy, comforting avocado provide textural and savoury contrast to the crusty bread. But it is the beef pastrami which hands down steals the show, punching way above its weight in depth of flavour. You can opt to omit the pastrami, but you seriously are missing out.
The walls are painted Argentine blue, bullfighter red and Hispanic terracotta. There are small frames of Expressionist paintings of Spanish bulls, a little girl in a blue dress and a South American Indian man with a wizened gaze. The whole place drips with effortless charm and understated lust that marries the uninhibited passion inherent in the Argentine spirit and the whimsical eating habits of residents in Melbourne’s inner north. La Paloma is one of those cafes you want to adopt as your own, but how long can you hide the guilt of hiding it from everyone else?
La Paloma
259 Albert St
Brunswick VIC 3056
Posted in Food | Tagged: Brunswick, inner north suburb Melbourne, La Paloma, La Paloma Brunswick, Melbourne, mini cafe, new Brunswick, rue bebelons, Sydney Road | Leave a Comment »
Damascus for Munchers
Posted by kampunghouse on March 18, 2009
The Old City of Damascus is essentially a tangled network of alleyways criss-crossing and snaking through buildings patched up and conjured through centuries of trade and human settlement. This medieval city feels more like a village that has completely outgrown itself, with no planning or consideration for later, modern inventions such as the private automobile. This makes it the perfect city for the wandering pedestrian, with no cars in sight and all those narrow cobblestone alleyways to get lost in.
The authorities have done a rather remarkable feat naming and putting street signs for the myriad lanes that sew the entire city together, although the sheer number of lanes jutting out from the main thoroughfares renders the effort a token gesture at best, and a lost cause at worst. My Lonely Planet guidebook, in the interest of being thorough, provides a map of the Old City but is smart enough to advise visitors to disregard it, and instead walk straight in and lose yourself amidst the chaos. You’ll eventually find a way out.
The great thing about all that walking is that it works up an appetite, and Syria is a great place for the frugal visitor to hear his stomach grumble. Food is extremely cheap and Syrian food, like most Mediterranean cuisine, is not as confronting as say, the more exotic fare of the East.
It’s hard to pass off a helping of shwarma, the Arabic equivalent to the Turkish kebab, with the addition of gherkins and mayo. However, a full meal will slow my walk and discourage me from further munching, and that’s not cool. No, what I want is something leaning towards a snack, and thankfully there are plenty of stalls specialising in munchies. Most of them can be found in the left alleyway jutting out from the main thoroughfare of Souk al-Hamidiyya, just before the Roman colonnades that form the entrance to the Grand Umayyad Mosque. Here, among shops selling Qurans and touristy keychains and decorative glass beads are stalls selling pies with olive paste stuffing, meat and cheese, as well as the tasty lahmacun, a sort of pizza dish where spicy minced lamb is spread onto a thin dough and sprinkled with a squirt of lemon juice and chili powder.
There are also hole in the wall bakeries scattered throughout the Old City, selling buns which have the most wonderful texture – a delicately crunchy exterior that gives way to a soft centre. There is a croissant whose similarity with the well-known French is only in shape; the Syrian version is more bread than pastry, not at all flaky but much more filling, less decadent, more peasant. Complex carbohydrates are nice, but there’s nothing like a quick hit of sugar to get you going, so I often treated myself to a date bun, a long knotted bread filled with date paste, which is similar to the red bean paste of Asia in both colour and in the subtle flirting between sweet and savoury. The bun is shaped like a Bueno kinder bar, where you can tear off a piece to eat individually, although the expectation of course is to finish the whole thing eventually.
We always ended up buying lots of bread and sesame-topped buns from the bakery, and the breadman (is that what they’re called?), in true Syrian hospitality would offer complimentary pieces of pineapple jam tarts which simply…crumble in your mouth. I was instantly hooked. Is this true Syrian hospitality or a clever marketing ploy? I wasn’t sure.
Note: For a taste of the lahmacun and Arabic-style pies, head over to A1 bakery on Sydney Road Brunswick, where they’re crisped up to order in the traditional oven.
Posted in Food, Syria | Tagged: AI Bakery, Brunswick, bueno kinder, Damascus Old City, lahmacun, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, shwarma, Sydney Road, Syria | Leave a Comment »
A Rather Tantalizing Act
Posted by kampunghouse on March 14, 2009
I usually spend the better part of my weekend late-mornings still asleep, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of those industrious people who wake up at 8 am for a run at the park, a hearty weekend breakfast with friends or grocery shopping at the market. If I feel productive I might while away the day reading newspapers over a plate of solitary lunch. I spend most of the week engaged with society-at-large, so weekends are the time to switch off and spend quality time with myself.
However, about a fortnight ago my local street put on its annual Sydney Road Street Festival and for some reason, buoyed by a strong sense of community, I decided to go down for a stroll among the throngs of locals and inter-suburb visitors alike. Sydney Road, Brunswick has a special place in my heart for being the unpolished multicultural gem of Melbourne without being self-consciously so. Halal butcheries dot the strip, baklava bakeries are aplenty and Melbourne’s most prominent Italian supermarket is merely a few steps from my place. Having said that, the street festival is like any other flea market, really. You will find, as you would at the Southgate, St Kilda and Camberwell markets, sellers of scarves and shawls, postcards, fridge magnets, artisanal soaps (Melburnians love their soaps!), and up-and-coming buskers looking for their big break.
The highlight of the festival would have to be the acrobatic and low-level BDSM act from a ragtag bunch of street performers who call themselves the Caravan of Dooom. Capitalizing on the edgy, decidedly non-mainstream vibe of Sydney Road, they wear their “anti-circus, anachro-punk” label with pride, and entertain the crowds with sexual innuendos and politically incorrect –but absolutely brilliant- punchlines.
One of their acts involved slicing a cigarette – surely public enemy number one these days – with a thunder cracking whip – definitely the most sexed up instrument of corporal punishment. With judicious references to alcoholism and bondage amidst acrobatic performances with weapons-grade appliances –think kitchen knives, the aforementioned whip, metal chains – these dirty pretty things make sin and public misdemeanour so, so tantalizing.
To view videos of their acts, go here
Posted in Culture, Melbourne | Tagged: BDSM, bondage, buskers, punk, street festival, street performers, Sydney Road | 1 Comment »
