Handsome Steve's House of Refreshments

Another reminder of just how far we are behind with the blog .... This amazing place that we were lucky enough to be shown on our trip to Melbourne which was just over a year ago now, has sadly closed.  Hansome Steve and his house of refreshments sadly served his last drink this May, and he has departed the building, or the convent as it was.

We caught up with Kim's brother Brent and his partner Alicia while we were back in Melbourne. They have since welcomed a new addition to the family, a little girl named Marita - which we are all very excited about! A big congratulations to them, and we can't wait to get back there and meet her. When we were there back in June last year, afternoon refreshments were still okay, so after a late brunch Brent suggested we head to Handsome Steve's for a beer. We arrived at this beautiful, old stone convent a little way out of the city.

 

This is definitely the kind of place you need to get taken too, because even if you found the right convent I think knowing which door to go in is also key. We enter from the ground floor, take some stairs and find ourselves wandering to the end of a long, narrow corridor. Then, Brent takes the door for us. A small sign that announces "Handsome Steve's House of Refreshments" and of course a red rocket is all that marks this little place.

 

 The menu was small, offering beer, coffee, sandwiches, juice and a few spirits. At the bottom of the menu board he also noted "No skinny, No soy, No tea, No lite beer" nice! We have a few beers, and also a coffee. The beer was cold and the coffee was made well.

 But this place was really all about the cosy atmosphere. The walls are covered in every piece of Geelong football memorabilia you could imagine, which really add to Steve's kooky personality. He was very happy to smile and pose for a photo, with a couple of trophy cups which just appeared from somewhere....

 

 We are very pleased we made it to this place before it sadly closed, and will keep an eye out for what Handsome Steve gets up to on his next venture.

 

Soup, Cookie and baked beans.

We had worked with our friend Stevie in the Caribbean, now he was back and rehoused in Melbourne so a catch up was in order. When you with a local taking the no-questions-asked-tour is the only way - and so it was that we found ourselves walking through Chinatown in the evening rain. The destination turned out to be Hu Tong dumpling house, where according to the whole world of Melbourne the soup dumplings are "the business". Hu Tong is wickedly popular but the wait for a table was a far better option than facing the rain again. Soon enough we were led to the funky bricked tea house decorated third floor and seated.



The xiao long bao obviously were first up (and maybe third and fifth), the little soup bombs requiring a little special eating technique but worth every patient nibble, the gingery soup fragrant and rich within the tender dumpling skins.



Wontons in chilli sauce deliver with a plate of slippery morsels in a puddle of chilli oil flecked with szechwan pepper.



The steamed pork was something we couldn't go past on the menu, so soft it fell apart as it was lifted from the plate, and smothered with anonymous red sauce. Awesome.



We were a little disappointed by the fried squid. Chewy and thickly battered. We drowned our sorrows in more soup buns.



After a few too many buns we made our way out into the night and further into the Melbourne night. A little while later Stevie convinced us that the fairly lacklustre bouncer clad entrance to Cookie is somewhere we want to go. Upstairs though we were given the "I told you so" with a cavernous bar offering an interesting range of drinks such as Dirty Granny Mature Apple cider. And the bar snacks....well.... who would of thought we'd have so quickly forgotten the soup buns of earlier that night to try as much of the great Thai snacks on offer.


Little tapioca pearl skin dumpling witha peppery sweet filling.


Sour fermented pork ribs with peanuts, ginger and chilli.


Northern Thai sausage, a little dry but flavour wise bang on.


Roasted nuts with chilli and Kaffir lime. Cookie was a nice surprise, a nice bar with great snackage.

The night progressed in this fashion until we ended up in a bar unknown drinking savagely blue cocktails and other creations out of baked bean cans and pretty much all the rest of the photos and the night ended up like this.



Good times.

Hu Tong Dumpling House
14-16 Market Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
T: +81 (0)3 9650 8128

Cookie
First Floor, 252 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
T: +81 (0)3 9663 7660

St Ali, South Melbourne

We head out on foot, in search of the tram stop no. 26 located out front of the Alfred Hospital. We then have to remember to get off at the little South Melbourne street side station. We are not headed out looking for the usual kind of tourist landmark, we are looking for St Ali for our morning breakfast... After just a few minutes stroll, we spot Yarra Place. We make a turn and feel we are transported into a little haven in the South of the city - warehouses, graffiti walls, people pedaling their bicycles and even some guys in lab coats?!



As we expected, they are quite busy. We approach the friendly looking lady with the clipboard, and she scribbles our name on the list and tells us it will be about 20 minutes. We are happy to wander this little alley, and find some cool galleries and a place selling clothes and jewellery. We head back just as our stomachs start rumbling, and our timing is perfect. We are ushered into a cosy little corner table in the front of the Cafe and order our coffees as we are seated.



Oh, Melbourne, how I love you and your culture and understanding of great coffee! Our morning Cappuccino hit the spot. Little pots of very raw brown sugar sit on the table, I don't add any to my coffee but cannot resist just trying a small spoonful - great texture, toasted and caramel flavors - yum! I also have a The Winter 3 Juice which is fresh squeezed pear strawberry and mint.



We also love that the water bottles are up-cycled Hitachino beer bottles, tres cute. The menu here reads so well, with catchy titles like from Chickens with Love, Hook Line & Sinker and the one that I choose for breakfast, My Mexican Cousin.



My Cousin is a plate full of Secret Recipe corn fritters, fresh baby spinach, haloumi and kasundi with a poached egg. I also add some bacon, for no reason other than loving bacon! The corn cakes are fluffy and full of flavor, the poached egg cooked to perfection and the spinach and haloumi round out the dish nicely. I find the spiced tomato kasundi way too sweet, and mostly push it to the side.

Kim has gone for the Corny Baby; creamed corn with poached eggs, green chilli relish, pinenuts & witloof/witloaf/wotlof whatever salad on light square tin loaf. Always throwing in a bit of character with their menu descriptions, I love that! This was also delicious, but also quite sweet - the little red dressing on the witloof/witloaf whatever was like a sticky syrup, lucky Kim also ordered a side of bacon to balance the dish out with some smoke & salty flavours.



We continue this lazy morning with a couple of bloody Mary's before vacating our table for the next waiting customers ....



St Ali
12-18 Yarra Place
South Melbourne VIC 3205, Australia
T +61 (0)3 9686 2990
stali.com.au


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Little Creatures, in Melbourne

We were wandering around Fitzroy, enjoying the midday sun, and were ready for a little .... a little something! And then, just as if it was meant to be, we spot of the Little Creatures Dining Hall. We perch ourselves by the bar, I am dying to try the Pipsquek Cider on tap and Kim has a Bright Ale.



Little Creatures Pale Ale has always been one of our all-time favorite beers! And the other 2 don't disappoint. The cider is full of fresh fruit flavors. I can't actually remember if I had the pear, or the apple, but I do remember it was delicious! Kim has the Bright Ale, which is smooth and full flavored.

We also re-fuel with a plate of fried onions rings. The onion slices are fat, coated with of course a beer batter;) and then sprinkled with paprika salt.



The Dining Hall is big and industrial, but still manages to feel intimate and warm. Would definitely come back here for a lunch or meal, and of course to try more of the beers, next time we are in the 'hood.



Little Creatures Dining Hall
222 Brunswick St
Fitzroy
Melbourne, Victoria

T: +81 (0)3 9417 5500

Open: 7 days, 11am till late

MoMo Restaurant, Melbourne Australia

We know and love all of the Greg Malouf cookbooks, each one taking you on a journey to places as far away as Turkey, Pursia, Marrakech, Lebanon & Syria. When we were making our way down to Melbourne last year, it was one of the first places on our list. We managed to get a booking at 9pm for the second sitting, which of course meant time to try a Rockpool Bar & Grill burger as a little pre-dinner snack. We rush back to the hotel after our burgers, shower & freshen up and then bust a taxi over to Momo. When we made the booking, they explain the restaurant in located within the Grand Hyatt hotel, and that we should enter on the Collins street side, take an escalator up, then the one lift on the right, which will take us to the Restaurant. As soon as we enter the lift it's quite special, nice dim lighting & Arabian music, really setting the mood of what's to come. The elevator door opens, and we are greeted by a friendly staff member at the entrance who escorts us to our table.



Some delicious cocktails kick off round 2 for the evening. We have chosen the Arabesque sharing menu at $130 pp, which includes 2 entrees, 2 main course, 2 accompanying side dishes, dessert mezze, fresh fruit & sorbet. We then just have to select which items we want for each course from the al a carte menu. This takes only a few minutes, then the menus are whisked away and a little copper coffee pot of fresh vegetables is placed before us, with olive oil & some hot sumac bread.



Our first entree arrives and is a thing of beauty - Kifta Nayee, Middle Eastern style beef tartare with basil, marjoram, smoky chili and garlic bread. The raw beef was hand chopped, with a decent texture and depth of flavors. The smoky chilli was prominent, but the herbs really balanced it all out. Warm garlic bread was the perfect vessel for scooping up all of the flavours.



We really wanted to try the Quail entree, but unfortunately they were already sold out when we ordered. The waiter recommended the Duck, so we just rolled with it ... The Duck breast was roasted on the bone, with creamy lentil burghal pilav and baby beets . The soft baby beets were also highlighted by the crispy beet leaves, which added a really nice dimension to the whole dish.



Our first main to arrive was the Veal shank 'Laban Immor', smoked veal tongue and silverbeet 'manti' dumplings. This was amazing! Soft, succulent veal shank, delicate smoked tongue and plump little silverbeet dumplings sitting in a yoghurt and lemon sauce. Wow!



Our 2nd main was the Kurobuta pork rib eye, spinach gozleme creamy freekeh with pumpkin & pearl onions. The rib eye was cooked beautifully, still a blush of pink in the centre and moist throughout. The little baby gozleme was divine, I could have eaten a whole plate of this, and the freekeh with pumpkin and pearl onions freshened the whole dish up.



The sides we selected to accompany our mains was also a hard choice, they all sounded divine. We ended up choosing the goats milk haloumi fritters with almonds & leatherwood honey as well as whipped Dutch cream potatoes, French butter, pinenuts. A very good choice, both were quite rich but accompanied our main selection perfectly.

We are both getting quite full at this stage, but are presented with a beautiful selection of fruit to cleanse the palate. We grab some of Greg's books, which are all available to purchase, and also available to browse through, and take a little break to enjoy the fresh fruits, and let our dinner settle.



We feel revived, and my eyes beam when I see the Dessert Mezze. It is beautiful, even looks a little magical. The Persian saffron tart is light with a very faint hint of saffron and the beautiful orange color - a little tuille biscuit shaped of Aladin's lantern sticks out the top, with a little gold handle. Then there is a hot chocolate and Kahlua cake with whipped medjool date. The date is a luscious paste in the middle of the tart, a very nice surprise. And then a little Moroccan tea cup of lemon & orange flower ice-cream with rose. A very nicely balanced dessert plate.



Of course we finish the evening with a little pot of Turkish coffee, which comes with a plate of petit fors. As a little digestif, we also choose a Walnut & Date liqueur. Thick & rich, with a nice sweetness, it reminded me of a Pedro Ximenez.



Momo Restaurant
Lower Plaza Level
Grand Hyatt Hotel
123 Collins Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000