P is for Peruvian

Newcomer Peruves it’s worth it! 

Piqueos is the new cool kid on the Carlton block.  It has all the makings of a great Melbourne restaurant: a menu designed to share, a fabulous cocktail list, wonderful food and of course, exposed brick walls.

Our national drink of the night was first up, Pisco Sours all round.  When I went to Peru in 2005, this was my drink of choice.  A light, sour, alcoholic cocktail which, when combined with malaria tablets, worked quickly.  With the exception of the malaria tablets, Piqueos replicated this cocktail perfectly.  Unfortunately at $20 a pop, it did not come with the price tag you might expect in Cuzco but, of course, one that you could expect in Melbourne.

6 of us dined as the style of Piqueos demands, we shared everything, starting with one of the empanadas each.  An empanada to me is like pizza: when it’s good, it’s really good and when it’s bad, it’s still kinda good.  Take a combination of great ingredients (- beef, olive, egg – or – chicken and char grilled corn – or – cheese, potato, onion – in the case of Piqueos), wrap in a little carbohydrate parcel and fry.  These ones were exceptional.

Following these, we ordered the cebiche and mollejas.  The cebiche was truly out of this world.  A tangy, fresh combination of beautiful fish and vibrant flavours, the only downside being, there was just not enough of it.  The mollejas was ordered by my boyfriend, who is of Spanish decent.  I don’t usually question him when he pronounces double Ls as Ys and Js as Hs but this time was different.  He had just ordered us a plate of sweetbreads.

Some people know what sweetbreads are, some people don’t know what sweetbreads are and some people don’t know what sweetbreads are but are too afraid to ask at a fancy restaurant and end up with a plate full of char grilled beef innards.

I’m still not sure which category my boyfriend falls into.

Regardless, he came through with the goods on this occasion.  If ever you are going to try sweetbreads, Piqueos is the place to do it.

Next came the larger dishes.  2 x Pollito – Peruvian spiced baby chicken (not one word you can fault there), 2 x Tira de asado - 48 hr slow cooked beef short rib with chimmichurri (hello gorgeous) and 1 x “Poon Boon” lamb rump (how could we not?).

Pollito

Ribs that make you say OMG

Each of these three dishes was outstanding.  Their unbelievably powerful flavour caused a stir.  I think I might forever compare restaurant dishes to these in the future; I’ve already found myself saying “this is way more bland than Piqueos”.

After a bottle of Malbec (unfortunately there was no Peruvian wine on offer but it is sinister to complain about the fact that we had to drink Argentinian wine) and a couple of beers for each of the boys, the bill clocked in at $75 a head (note that ordering a la carte worked out cheaper than if we had have done the degustation).

In summary, I couldn’t rave enough about the quality of the food at Piqueos.  It was absolutely delicious.  Also, I am a person that understands and enjoys the fact that nice restaurants serve small portions (as opposed to some of the quantity haters on Urbanspoon); however, I feel a menu designed to share has to be a little more lenient.  My only criticism would be that the portion sizes for me just weren’t quite enough for the price.  Perhaps the menu is better suited to sharing between 2 or maybe 4, not 6 as we were.  Having said that, I would definitely go back, I have been dreaming about that cebiche…and the ribs, oh those ribs.

If you are the type that goes for quantity over quality, this may not be for you.  If you appreciate good food, no matter what the size, put it on your to do list.  Be prepared to try a few new things, expect that it will be a bit pricey and you will be very very pleased.  Just be careful of the bathrooms –  I can’t tell you which one is for the men and which is for the women but you’ll make new friends outside trying to figure it out.

I’d love to see South American cuisine take off the way Mexican has and if it does, this restaurant is my piq of the bunch.

8.5/10

O is for Canadian (Ottawa)

O Canada

I know, I know.  Canadian? O? I feel like we’ve broken some rules, not rules like “thou shalt not steal”, more along the lines of slipping through a red arrow when there’s no traffic around.

Let me explain.  Oman was our only option for O and Melbourne, as multicultural as it is, could not offer us Omani cuisine.  We toyed with the idea of just doing generic Middle Eastern or perhaps going to a restaurant starting with O before settling on the idea of Ottawa and then realising that Canada’s national anthem supported our choice.

We headed to the Kodiak Club in Fitzroy.  And sure, you’ll go on their website now and in the very first sentence read “that define America’s bar culture” – we’re doing our best, ok? Canada is famous for a dish called Poutine, a calorific combination of chips, gravy and cheese.  So like all the 18 year old boys I once knew, we were simply after a bar where we could get ourselves some poutine.  And the Kodiak Club gave us just that.

They made it difficult for us to book in the lead up to our dinner date but eventually we secured a table for nine people.  The Kodiak Club, we soon realised, was more a bar with food, than a restaurant with a bar.  Order and pay at the counter and all that jazz.

I started by asking the bartender if they had any Canadian beers, to which he replied “just what’s in the fridge”.  Thanks mate.  There’s a reason it’s called ‘hospitality’.
I thought perhaps he’d just had a bad start to his shift or maybe I reminded him of an ex-girlfriend who left him for a much more helpful barman but it seemed he was just a bit too cool and remained so for the duration of the evening.  The rest of the bar staff were, however, lovely.

We started with two serves of poutine, which can basically be described as a delicious heart attack in a bowl.  (We later discovered, when ordering round two of poutine, that it is only delicious if eaten on an empty stomach.  Without your judgement clouded by your hunger, this dish becomes a gluggy guilt ridden mess).

The poutine was followed by some onion shards (would you like some onion with your fried stuff?), deviled eggs (what the? these things are strangely tasty!) and two dozen buffalo wings.

Although others will argue for the burger, the wings were the highlight of the night for me.  Doused in what I can only assume is Frank’s hot sauce (if you haven’t tried this stuff, do yourself a favour, I believe you can buy it at USA foods in Melbourne), served with blue cheese sauce to dip in and some token celery, these feisty morsels of artificial flavour are quite a hit.

The aftermath

Up until this point, with the exception of the great wings, the food was just ok.  Unfortunately for the Kodiak Club, this is where it took a turn downhill.

We ordered some cocktails.  Two from the menu and one which we simply requested the use of Canadian liquor.  I took a sip of the latter and, had I been complaining of sore insides this would have been the perfect solution; however, as that was not the case, a cocktail tasting uncannily like deep heat wasn’t quite what I had in mind.  My friend’s cocktail appeared: a tiny glass I thought, for $18 a pop but as it more or less resembled straight ethanol with an orange peel residing in the mix, you wouldn’t have wanted a bigger one.  The third cocktail I was not brave enough to try.  However, we did manage to have our mandatory shot of local liquor – Canadian Club.

Following this, out came our jalapeño bottlecaps.  Jalapeño, cream cheese, honey and of course, batter, a combination which strangely works.  When these were put down on the table, served in a bowl of lettuce leaves, I wondered if the deep heat cocktail was kicking in or if the lettuce leaves were really moving.  One by one the rest of the table noticed the little green caterpillar wiggling it’s way around our bowl.

See if you can spot the little guy

Our waiter, of course, was mortified and promptly replaced the dish (or perhaps just the lettuce leaves).  Although the damage was done, at least it was a caterpillar.  After all, they do belong on lettuce leaves.

Finally, after our numerous tasters, we each shared a burger between two, with one diner opting for the Seattle street dog instead.  Reports of the dog were good and the burger was very nice.  A small in diameter but tall burger in height including two patties (cooked well, not overdone), various sauces, some cucumber, onion and a side of crinkle cut chips, this was the other success of the night.

Overall, I won’t be rushing back to the Kodiak Club.  Sure, if I found myself on Brunswick St, a few cocktails to the wind with a hankering for some fried food at least I’d know where to get some decent wings.  Unfortunately though, with the combination of the deep heat cocktail, the menu which may as well have been deep fried itself and the bartender who didn’t seem to like bar tending, Canadian was not, for us, as glorious as its national anthem might suggest.

5/10

N is for Nepalese

A little momolvern gem 

Nepalese restaurants are becoming increasingly common around Melbourne; there is of course the Gurkahs chain, as well as Himalayan Sherpa in Richmond and a hidden little gem, Kathmandu Kitchen, in Malvern, to name a few. I can understand why the cuisine is so popular, it has the flavours and tender meats of Indian cuisine but feels much lighter.  Kathmandu Kitchen was no exception.

Fuse box artistically covered in postcards of the Himalayas

It’s always embarrassing when you make a booking for a restaurant and then arrive at your reserved time to find the entire restaurant is empty (and remains so for the duration of your stay), nevertheless I feel the waitress was flattered by my assumptive call ahead and hey, no one was there to judge.  Literally… no one. I also often worry that restaurants are empty for a reason; however, in the case of Kathmandu Kitchen I would guess it’s more a case of poor location and little advertising as opposed to poor food or service.

For entree we had the selection of chef’s favourites.  This included:

• momo – a popular Nepalese dumpling which looks similar to gyoza but is quite different to any dumpling I’ve tried in other Asian cuisines
• Nepalese somosa – very similar to the Indian samosa
• chicken sekuwa – tender and delicious pieces of marinated chicken
• pakuda – sweet potato fritters served with an overpowering tamarind sauce.

Being a week night and a restaurant with limited alcohol choices, we instead opted for some of the more interesting non-alcoholic options, including the homemade lemon squash, the mango lassi (creamy and very mango-y) and the mohie (delicious and refreshing but only if you like natural yoghurt). Next came the mains, we ordered a total of 4 dishes (between the 4 of us) which was more than sufficient.  In keeping with ordering the ‘traditional’ or ‘national’ dishes where possible, we tried the ‘traditional and very popular goat curry’, the kukhurakao masu (juicy chicken curry) which the waitress patiently wrote down while we attempted to order it by its Nepalese name, the masuarako tarkari (sun dried lentil balls) and a slightly easier dish to pronounce, chicken chow chow.

The goat curry was tasty and tender, as was the chicken curry.  The lentil ball dish was flavoursome but seemed to be missing the star of the show (the lentil balls).
Finally, the chicken chow chow was full of great flavours and the chicken was succulent, unfortunately the noodles melted in your mouth in a ‘how-did-they-manage-to-overcook-that-so-much’ kind of way.  All of the dishes could have done with a little more spice but perhaps that’s not the nature of the Nepalese cuisine.

We finished with another mango lassi (yep, they were that good) and a bill which didn’t break the bank.

Would I go back? Much like I imagine a trip to Nepal itself to be, you’d want to know what to expect and not count on many luxuries but with those things in mind it’s certainly enjoyable and a bit different.

6.5/10

M is for Mongolian

Mongolian Khan’t remember a worse meal

Mongolian, Malaysian, Mauritian – these were some of our choices for M.  I’m not sure why we went with The Khan Mongolian BBQ in the end; maybe it was the alluring mystery of what (the eff) was really up those stairs, maybe it was the rumour of all you can eat, maybe it was the fact that their phone number still hadn’t up been updated from the  7 digit-days and we thought perhaps our business could buy them a measly 9 in front.

Whatever it was, I hope for your sake, the same reason doesn’t get you there.

Upon entering The Khan, each diner’s presence was announced with a loud “bing bong” from the automatic sensor, the kind you’d hear in a cheap retail shop, only more annoying.  The worst and perhaps most hilarious part being, the sensor was located in between the dining room and the toilets, meaning not only was the whole restaurant aware of your presence, but also the frequency of your bowel movements.

Shortly after being handed the menu, we settled on the $26.95 all you can eat option (yes it’s true), cracked open our BYO bottle of red and made our way over to the entree table.

Prawn crackers, fried rice and noodles, chicken drumsticks and various other dishes were available to load up into your bowl.  However, our appetite for entree quickly came to a halt when one chicken drumstick was red inside.  Perhaps this is how all you can eat businesses make money…

Main course epitomised the many quotes which tell you to enjoy the journey, not the destination.

The process of constructing your own main meal was novel and somewhat enjoyable.  However, I would probably suggest that it would have been in their  best interests (and perhaps ours) to hide the fact that the meat was completely frozen.  Nevertheless, into our bowls we piled in our various frozen meats, variety of vegetables and the the sauces.

Oh the sauces.

There are 11 different sauces available for you to choose from.  Or so we thought the choice was ours.  After loading up her chosen sauces, the first of our brave diners proceeded to the “in” window, behind which stood the chef and a hotplate the size of the roof on a mini cooper.  The chef took one look at the contents of the bowl and, as if with an innate sauce radar, sent her back to the sauces station, she had not got all 11.

When your sauce combo is acceptable, the chef accepts your bowl from the “in” window and throws it on to the mini cooper roof.  A couple of magical minutes pass and, literally with a puff of smoke, there at the “out” window, appears your bowl of cooked stir fry.  You then have the choice of adding 3 or 4 more sauces and finally it is time to eat.

Now without ruining the end of the story or your enjoyment of food altogether, I will say that Mongolian had it’s repercussions.  Maybe it was the shot of vodka from the Hawaiian style bar (unsurprisingly they did not offer a local liqueur)  or maybe it was the fact that I went back for a second bowl (why?).

The only redeeming feature of our night at The Khan was that the whole thing was hilarious.  Hilarious like a hilarious joke, or farting, or falling over…not the way you might describe a restaurant.

So if you’re wondering what is up those stairs, wonder no more.  The answer is: some frozen meat, a sizzling mini cooper, 11 different sauces and a high chance of a stomach upset.

2/10

L is for Lebanese

Lebanese? Leba-yes-please!

Abla’s Lebanese Kitchen.  Wow.

I’d heard good things, but I wasn’t prepared to get my hopes up before (a) getting a booking and (b) seeing for myself what all the fuss was about.

We managed to get a booking only a week in advance, which I hear is rare, so we were off to a good start.  When we got there it was busy, especially for a Tuesday night.  We were seated upstairs and given menus and water straight away; there were olives, bright pink pickled things and bread on the table already.  So far so good.

First up on our order was the mixed dips and a generous serving of bread.  Each of the dips was accompanied by a pool of olive oil and all three were excellent.  The labnee was thick, creamy and delicious, the hummous didn’t stand a chance and the baba gannouj, oh the baba gannouj…

My opinion of baba gannouj is, if I wanted to smoke, I would have taken it up at 16 when being rebellious was more important than avoiding lung cancer.  But since I passed up that opportunity 9 years ago, nowadays I don’t fancy ringing up the quit helpline as the result of too much baba gannouj.  It’s every bit as awful as I imagine smoking an eggplant flavoured cigarette to be. However… Abla’s baba gannouj was something different.  It certainly hasn’t changed my opinion of the dip forever, but it was much more eggplant, lemon and garlic than it was high risk emphysema.

After finishing the dips at a leisurely pace, next came the ladies’ fingers. The best way I can describe these is a sort of lamb-y Lebanese-y spring roll.  It felt like they needed some sauce to dip them in, which they didn’t have, but they were tasty nonetheless.  Far better than the tiny banana with which they share their name.

Following these entrees was our bravest order of the night,after all, this alphabet experience is all about trying new things.

Kibbee Nayeh, described on the menu as raw lamb blended with burghul and accompanied with olive oil and mint.  When we ordered it, the waitress was kind enough to double check we knew it was raw and when it arrived, it was certainly that.  She also took the time to go through how to eat kibbee nayeh:
Take a piece of pita bread, put some of the raw lamb mixture in it, a piece of raw onion, some mint and drizzle some olive oil on top.   Roll up and eat.

Truly delicious!!! Kibbee Nayeh is definitely a dish that should come with a “don’t try this at home” warning as this wasn’t just any minced lamb straight from the Coles meat section, but I highly recommend giving this a shot in the safe surroundings of Abla’s.  Just don’t get cocky with the amount of lamb you put in… start slowly, the texture is quite a mouthful.  Abla herself, whether impressed with our order or just genuinely friendly, even came over to see if we liked it and was glowing with pride when we told her how great it was.

Following our wonderful entrees and raw lamb experience, out came the kafta mishwee – lamb skewers served with tabouleh – a classic and irresistible choice at a Lebanese restaurant and then came the chicken and rice.

Chicken and rice is a dish that fools you in many ways.  Firstly, it has the most boring name of all the dishes on the menu.  It sounds like a diet that celebrities might go on, eating only poached chicken and steamed rice for months on end.  It is anything but boring.
Secondly, the name chicken and rice should actually read ‘Chicken, lamb, delicious stuff and rice’.

Chicken and rice is one of the most popular dishes on Abla’s menu and I finally know why.  The chicken is the most flavoursome, moist chicken you’ve ever tasted (and I thought I’d mastered moist chicken), the rice has minced lamb mixed throughout it, giving it a wonderful, slightly salty flavour and when the menu describes the dish as ‘exquisitely flavoured’ it is not an overstatement.  Perfectly finished off with the crunch of slivered almonds and pinenuts; if this dish could sell tickets to Lebanon, I would have bought one.

During the meal we had a couple of Almaza Pilsners and a bottle of Lebanese red, all of which were impressive and I would happily have again.  To finish, we had a Lebanese coffee (sweet/strong warning) and a mandatory arak which was quite nice compared to some of the spirits we’ve come across on our journey.

Overall, the food was fantastic and I could not have faulted a single aspect of the service (attentive and professional with out being snooty and annoying).  Two ladies’ thumbs up.

9/10

K is for Korean

All up in my BBQ grill

Believe it or not, I had never had Korean BBQ before.  Yup, Melbourne born and bred but no, no Korean BBQ.

We stayed away from the inner city and found a great little North Melbourne gem called Toodouri.

We were greeted at Toodouri by a lovely but slightly reluctant waitress.  Reluctant in the sense that when we asked her just to “feed us” (see: we have no idea what to get) she was truly confused.  Getting the waiter to choose what you’re about to eat is a phenomenon as ever present as “dishes designed to share” in Melbourne restaurants at the moment, so her confusion was actually kind of refreshing.  It made it hard to convey our lack of knowledge in the Korean BBQ arena and that fact that we actually needed her help, but she came round to the idea and lit up the barbie.

As soon as the barbeque was firing, she brought out the many tiny side dishes, the Korean beers (delicious) and the pork belly.  The pork and veges started sizzling away, but it wasn’t long before the waitress knocked over one of the beers.  It spilled all over the barbeque and the meat………YUM! The beer was also promptly replaced so overall the spill was a bonus.  I wonder if she did it on purpose.

The many tiny side dishes were continuously refilled and followed by prawns on the barbeque, bibimbap (an amazing korean concoction of who-knows-what) and a salad that would appeal to any non-vegetable eater.  The ingredients? Lettuce, mayonaise and tomato sauce. A memorable dish among the men.

We followed dinner with shots of soju, a korean liquor strong enough to kill a small animal or the weeds in your garden and were then given strange sweet coconut jelly drinks.

We paid about $40 a head, were pleasantly full and throughout the course of the evening and our waitress, much like the barbeque in front of us, really warmed up throughout the night.

One of the alphabest.

8.5/10

J is for Jamaican

Jamaican me wish I went somewhere else…

There were only a handful of Jamaican restaurants to choose from around Melbourne and we chose Sassy’s Jamaican Kitchen.  Its reviews boasted the best jerk chicken in town and a super cool atmosphere.

I don’t know how to put it lightly… it was a huge let down.

Our first order was a corn cob each.  With the corn that’s getting about Melbourne these days, such as the mex’d up varieties from Mamasita and Fonda Mexican (both sensational), I thought Sassy might deliver some great corn, seasoned with the flavours of Jamaica.  I didn’t expect fancy, but I certainly didn’t expect just plain old over-steamed corn.

We also shared a salad to start which was a far cry from the adjectives used to describe it on the menu.

Following the disappointing entree, I was ready for some jerk chicken more than ever.

When I was 18, I had a penchant for jerks.  They seemed infinitely more attractive than The Nice Guy.  Meanwhile, I have always been fond of chicken.  So combining the two into a national dish seemed impossibly awesome.

The jerk chicken arrived and it was merely two small pieces of chicken with barely-mild, indistinguishable spice.  It came with a small portion of an unmemorable side accompaniment.   Once again, I had got my hopes up too high and the jerk had let me down.

Other dishes aren’t particularly worth going into, but most of them arrived with a bowl of rice topped with pickled vegetables in the typically Jamaican colours, a nice touch.

Sassy himself came and spoke to us at the end, which certainly took the pang of disappointment away from the whole meal, but it was too late for the $30 a head we were about to hand over.

Unfortunately the kitchen could have done with a lot more Sass and the chicken could have done with a lot more jerk.

3.5/10

I is for Iraqi

Sleazy, greasy, beautiful Babylon.    

Iraqi was one of the most interesting cuisines to date.  Never in my life have I eaten Iraqi food, nor had I even imagined what it might be like.

We arrived at Babylon in Footscray at about 7:30 on a Monday night.  It was obviously not the busiest night of the week, but I didn’t expect that we’d be the only ones there.

After 5 minutes of trying to work out if we had accidentally chosen a takeaway joint, we were given the menu.  This only made us more confused.  Babylon is a simple kebab joint on the outside and an incredible insight into Iraqi cuisine if you’re brave enough to delve a little deeper.

Thanks to the Footscray food blog we knew there was more.  I asked the man that seemed to be in charge if they served traditional Iraqi food and although I didn’t exactly catch all of his reply, he seemed positive and we settled on the fact that he would just feed us.  The words “animal” “foot” and “head” were used, but I think my reaction to them made him realise we weren’t feeling tooooo adventurous.

Soon after this conversation, the plates started arriving.  Plate. After plate. After plate.  When we asked the waitress what each of the dips that she’d just brought us were, she said one was carrot, one was chilli and the other 4 she didn’t know.  Hilarious.  It didn’t matter at all as it just added more character to the place.  Mind you she could have done us the decency of mentioning that the orange one was basically just liquid turmeric.

Our table fit for 8 was quickly filled up with dishes (there were 3 of us); far better than average rice, huge rounds of Iraqi bread, lamb curry(ish) which also could not be explained,  baked chicken with some great herbs and spices and a whole baked fish on a bed of saffron rice – perfectly cooked and incredibly tasty.  Unfortunately I can’t give much more detail about what each of the dishes actually was, as we didn’t get much detail ourselves.

Whilst we worked our way through the mountain of food, the waitress clocked off for the night (it was obviously home time) and the guy who we presumed was the owner went outside to fix something.

But when it came time to pay, he returned to the cash register and politely asked for a nice round $50.  In total.  $17 each.

Would I return to Babylon? If I was in the area and needed a cheap feed, definitely!  Sure, the place lacked a little atmosphere (except for the strange and quite humorous pirate/underwater theme) but it made up for it with an interesting, tasty and generous sized meal.

If you don’t just want a kebab, be sure to speak up and ask for more.  They’ll happily serve you some wonderful dishes and keep you guessing as to what they actually are.

6/10

H is for Hungarian

My good friend is Hung

I have a good friend who is Hungarian, or affectionately and yes, immaturely ‘Hung’.

Needless to say, she was keen to join us for H and help us choose a restaurant.  Her original suggestion was to go to Korona, not only for the authenticity of the food but also the added bonus of Hungarian entertainment.  But considering its opening hours and location (weekends and Wantirna respectively), it was easier to go elsewhere.

We decided on Budapest in Elsternwick.

Whilst we settled in with a jug of cold beer, we noticed that the meals weren’t just regular sized meals.  They were the food equivalent of Arnie in the 80s… and given how The Terminator turned out, we decided it was best to skip the entree.

I luckily sat next to my in-the-know friend and shared with her; we had a super-schnitzel stuffed with Hungarian sausage as well as a plate of cabbage rolls – a sort of huge eastern European stuffed cabbage spring roll type thing.  The schnitzel was unnaturally enormous and essentially one animal stuffed with another animal, so no complaints there.  The cabbage rolls were quite different, sweeter than I expected and ultimately very filling.  The ‘your choice of 2 side dishes’ is a welcome feature of all the mains and I’m glad we chose the nokedli, best described as light fluffy carbohydrate delights.

The meal finished with a variety of flavours of palinka, a liquor of which it would be physically impossible to have more than a shot.  I think mine was plum, but my burning throat made it difficult to distinguish.

The food was good, but I wouldn’t be heading back there in any rush.  To be fair, it may be because we’ve been in a particularly European part of the alphabet for a while now, but it just didn’t blow me away.

The most memorable part of the meal was the size of it. I can assure you if you go, you will not leave Budapest, hungry.

Jo étvágyat (or “have a nice meal” – I believe the pronunciation changes depending on where you’re from…or who you’re eating with).

 

7/10

G is for German

I know what happened to the three little pigs…

Whenever I tell people about our alphabet experience to date, their first question is “so what’s next?” They can’t help but work their way through the alphabet and suggest different cuisines and restaurants for the upcoming letters; I love hearing them because inevitably there are some I hadn’t thought of myself.  Please feel free to post your recommendations here too.  I also remind these people that the invite is always genuinely open to join us on as much of the alphabet adventure as they wish; an offer which was taken up by a grand total of 16 people for German.

We always knew German was going to be a big one, both in participant numbers and overall consumption.  So when I made a booking at The German Club Tivoli  for a table of 17, I had grave fears for my diet and my liver…and rightly so.

It was a Friday night in Melbourne, The Age had been tweeting all day about severe weather warnings (and tweets don’t lie), we had umbrellas, winter coats, cold noses and a hankering for some pork.

Tivoli is basically a German RSL.  You have to sign in at the door and the drinks are cheap.  Before even looking at the menu or greeting the people at the end of our 4m long table who I’d never met, we were at the bar for some $4 sour apple schnapps shots.  Lecker!

Our party then proceeded to order 3 and a half pigs worth of roast pork hock, served with red cabbage and a potato dumpling.  We also got a side of sauerkraut and a big cold Schofferhofe.  All of a sudden, it seemed like all the problems of the world no longer mattered.

Problem solving pork

The service was consistently friendly and they dealt easily with our large group.  They also managed to convince us (it didn’t take much) to have a “German Flag” – a 3 layer shot of honey vodka, strawberry liqueur and jagermeister, which ultimately ends up looking like, you guessed it, the German flag.  At that moment, we were officially tourists on Dandenong Rd.

We finished off with the apple strudel and black forest cake, both sweet and yum, before we got finished off by a tiny novelty bottle of underberg each.

“Can we please have 17 of the things that come with the cool glasses”

Underberg is a bitter herby digestif which comes served in an awesome glass (the real reason we ordered it) and it is strong enough, I believe, to fulfill its purpose of helping me digest the embarrassing amount of pork I ate.

Thanks must go to Michael, the elderly German man with an accordian and a long list of traditional songs, who was our entertainer and soundtrack for the evening.

The food perhaps wasn’t the highest quality, but with the prices, the service and the novelty factor combined, the overall experience was very enjoyable.  7.5/10