Melbourne; into the excess.

The best part of a plan-less holiday is the ability to do things on a whim, like jump on a plane head to Melbourne and spend a week or two eating at all the places we had been watching from a far over the last seven years of absence. In keeping with the theme of the trip we decided on a little snack before our fast approaching dinner booking. A quick tram ride across town (trams people, always cool) a few blocks of superb street art and we're out the front of Cumulus inc.



We duck in the door and are surprised to see the place quite full, maybe this is the place for the meal between meals (later on in the week we found out its also the place for real meals as well). A seat is found and we dive into the menu. First sardines, seared and served with caramelized fennel and a sprinkle of orange powder resting on a crispy crispy wafer of toasted bread. I'm a sucker for sardines (for a lot of things when I think about it) and these babies will keep me being a sucker for them.



The next dish of slow cooked octopus with aioli and dehydrated olives is one of the highlights of whole trip. The octopus meltingly soft, the rich aioli just a dab to add a little vroom and the neato trick, the dehydrated olive sits in a puddle of olive oil at first giving the impression of the far more familiar balsamic/oil combo.



The terrine of jellied pork hock and head flecked with herbs and it's mustardy English cream dressing goes superbly with the house bread and is devoured in moments.



The duck, ahhh the duck, ummm yup sorry have a total blank on the duck. Anyone a little help??



We couldn't go past the smoked wagyu tongue (another sucker moment) on it's little toasts with the caper raisin vinaigrette it was every thing it should be. A hint of smoke, soft luxurious meat and a sharp little hit of caper to clean it all up.



By this time we were starting to clock watch, calculating the cross town trip time against further potential dishes. The answer turned out to be just one more. And what a doozy it was!

The rum baba, is it retro, iconic, cool again, ironic, never out of fashion? I don't know but I love a rum baba (I had one one the menu this year with persimmon, yuzu and Okinawan rum). This example arrived one large baba sitting in a pool of anglaise with a bottle of Havana on the side to add as little or as much as we desired. We desired a well soaked baba and soon there was naught but a few crumbs and a faint rummy air as we gathered our things and dashed for the door, our next meal only minutes away.



Cumulus Inc.
45 Flinders Lane
Melbourne

Mon- Fri 7am-11pm
Sat-Sun 8am-11pm