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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