The Last Appetite

Category: Melbourne

  • Footscray Market Opening Hours – Christmas 2011

    Footscray Market Opening Hours – Christmas 2011

    Another year down, another year where my local market, [tag]Footscray Market[/tag], fails to build a website. Opening hours for the market over the Christmas/New Year’s period are:

    Saturday 24 December (Christmas Eve): 7:00am-5:00pm
    25-27 December: Closed
    Wednesday 28 December: 7:00am – 4:00pm
    Thursday 29 December: 7:00am – 6:00pm
    Friday 30 December: 7:00am – 7:00pm
    Saturday 31 December: 7:00am – 5:00pm
    1-2 January 2012: Closed
    Tuesday 3 January: 7:00am – 4:00pm

    The regular opening hours for Footscray Market continue to be:

    Tuesday and Wednesday – 7:00am-4:00pm
    Thursday – 7:00am-6:00pm
    Friday – 7:00am-8:00pm
    Saturday – 7:00am-4:00pm

  • May contain traces of glutton.

    May contain traces of glutton

    Spotted on a packet of pork and cabbage dumplings, [tag]Footscray[/tag]

  • Nectarine Blossoms

    Nectarine Blossoms

  • Melbourne Restaurant Name Generator

    Not sure what to name that new cafe or restaurant that you’ve lovingly crafted from rotting couches in a Melbourne laneway? Can’t find an fitting piece of pornocracy or Italian horror film to print on your disposable coffee cups?

    All you need to do is combine an honorific of some kind with the name of a character on Mad Men, or parts of a spaghetti Western with a radio call sign. Or do all four at once and then follow whatever food trend is hot right now.

    I think you should name it:

    Press reload for more random free advice.

    There is a one in nine hundred chance that you’ll get the exact name of a real restaurant. Sorry.

  • Footscray Market Christmas Opening Hours 2010

    As my local market still doesn’t seem to have a website, the posted opening hours for the Footscray Market this Christmas are:

    Tuesday 21 December: 7:00am-4:00pm
    Wednesday 22 December: 7:00am-6:00pm
    Thursday 23 December: 7:00am-6:00pm
    Friday 24 December (Christmas Eve): 7:00am-8:00pm
    Saturday 25 December (Christmas Day): Closed

    The market will remain closed until Wednesday 29 December. Consider my public service duties for the year fulfilled.

  • Phở Tam, Footscray

    Cafe sua da

    I’ve been a bit down on the phở scene in [tag]Footscray[/tag] over the last few months.

    One of my regular go-to joints, Phở Tam on the corner of Leeds and Ryan streets has been hugely inconsistent on the soup front. They do a great bún riêu and have the hardish-to-find street food bánh bột lọc on the menu. Their phở bộ đặc biệt is above average: always packed with sizeable chunks of tendon, a thick slice of peppery sausage and toothsome strips of tripe.

    The broth however ranges from sweet and watery to dense, beefy and rich depending on which day you hit it. I’m convinced that the broth gets watered down on a busy day, especially weekends; an undeniable conspiracy against the nine-to-five working man. The consolation is the above cà phê sữa đá – condensed milk sweet, rich and as predictable as a metronome.

    Location: Corner of Leeds and Ryan Street, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia.

  • Alfajores in Maidstone

    Alfajores in Maidstone

    Melbourne’s west never ceases to dumbfound me when it comes to food. Maidstone is one of Melbourne’s least remarkable suburbs and thanks to the housing boom is making the direct transition from unremarkable council flats to unremarkable McMansions; rusting Camrys in the front yard making way for houses that touch three of the four boundaries of a property. The shopping strip on Mitchell St however is possibly the only place in Australia where a Sichuan takeaway joint is next door to a South American cake shop. It’s a veritable barrio chino.

    Marciano’s Cakes in Maidstone specialises in South American sweets of which the above alfajor is representative. It’s a biscuit filled with dulche de leche and probably about ten times my daily intake of glucose in a single hit. I have no idea if this is a good one: it’s the first that I’ve ever seen.

  • Food bloggers prove that they can pull punters

    Food bloggers prove that they can pull punters

    Huge congratulations to Penny, Ed, Billy, Jess and Matt for pulling this together: five [tag]Melbourne[/tag] food bloggers stepping into a commercial kitchen to offer the general public a chance to critique their food. They hardly need my plaudits considering the event has sold out, which finally and affirmatively answers the question about whether food bloggers can influence restaurant attendance.

    Steve from The View from My Porch is considering putting together some Tasmanian bloggers for a similar performance.