Sunshine Pho Fever 2013

Tonight I ate dinner for the first time in Sunshine - well three dinners. As part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival - Sunshine Pho Fever. I was impressed when the invite came in the mail - complete with lanyards!  The group was split into two - the people with white writing and the people with red writing.  People were a bit confused until they saw what the other group's lanyard looked like :)

Our meeting place was the Granary Cafe in Sunshine with complimentary drinks (which ended up being soft drink and orange juice - so we got ourselves a sparkling Moscato - thanks Alison!!).  Sat out in their courtyard for a bit before we were divided into groups and off we went.

Here we are outside our first stop Sao Cafe.

They even rolled out the red carpet for us (well it was pre-rolled :))

The owner came out and spoke to us, making sure we were excited about trying his unique dish. Got a bit of an explanation of what to do with the bits and pieces in front of us.

They had very fancy looking lights - didn't photograph too well though. But here's part of the group waiting for our dish to come out.

The menu - love the neon lighting :)

One of the organisers of the event (or at least guides!), the owner and the head chef - welcoming us and inviting us to come back and enjoy a 20% discount.  Even though the meals were so cheap anyway.

And here's our dish - it was a spicy beef stew dish (no noodles) - seriously yummy!! Was just like a beef stew with awesome variety of spice and herbs.  Came with carrots and tripe, and a really tasty roll.  You apparently squeeze a bit of lemon into the Pho, add the chilli and dip the beef into the salt stuff.  This would be great on a really cold day. Bargain at its normal price of $11.  This dish was unexpected but very tasty.  Main thing being our tender the beef was has it had been left to cook for a long time.

Our next stop was Phu Vinh.  This place thankfully had airconditioning (much needed on a 33 degree day). The decor seemed a bit fancier too. The flavour of this place I think was from Southern Vietnam

We got to start off with a chicken salad, on top of what seemed like a prawn cracker type thing.  Had a nice tang to it.

Here's the restaurants promo picture.  Was interesting that they had laid out photos of their food along the table to entice us back. I think it was one of the owners who chatted to us about the Pho and how they do not keep their stock past 24 hours, and I think spend 6 hours getting their broth just right. I could be mistaken on that though.

Sprouts, Mint and Lime waiting for the Pho - with a dish of hoisin sauce and home made chilli oil.  Again very tasty - and not too spicy.

We met some really interesting people throughout the night.  This guy was from Perth and his partner Minnesota.  Both foodies - but missed out on hearing what their picks were.  Hopefully they go check out the Ribs places I mentioned :)

And here is the combination (beef and chicken) Pho.  I really enjoyed this dish. The broth was super tasty.

A bit of a closer look.

Our third stop of the evening - Pho Hien. I think everyone was pretty much full by this stage :(

Here's the promo pic.  They specialise in Pho as opposed to offering a large variety of dishes.  I think they still had vermicelli type dishes on the menu under the Phos though.

The owner was giving us a bit of an explanation. Unfortunately bit hard to hear with the other noisy people in the restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant - and the lovely couple that took a photo of us :)

And here is the chicken Pho. With the usual suspects, and some pickled onion - super tasty!!

This is my pho with the additions :)  I think I preferred the chicken from the second place - but this was still really tasty.  They also had home made chilli oil on offer - but I found this Pho a lot spicier than the last one.  I added a couple of chillis but not more than normal.

Here's Alison & I Pho-ing it up :)

This time we got a drink - this was Alison's.  Apparently was like an iced tea with lots of sugar, with some noodle things and fruit things.  A lot of people who tried it found it too sweet.

I got the three colour drink with I think red bean, green jelly, maybe red jelly?? and coconut milk and ice.  I really enjoyed the strong coconut flavour of this drink when mixed up - but wasn't too sold on the green noodley things.  Made the drink a bit chewy :)  Still a nice way to finish off the evening.

One lucky person got a lucky draw prize! It was a steamer.

With lots of chopsticks (thanks for giving away some of the chopsticks)

Some lotus tea, and I think she said almond cookies - but some kind of biscuit I'm sure.

No need to be sad though because we all get a bag to take home - with our own bowl and chopsticks.  Win!

Great night - I think I'm set to explode now :)

Cravin' Crepes

Cravin Crepes
33 Cumberland Drive, Maribyrnong 3032
(open 10am-10pm at time of posting this)

Walking the dogs along the Maribyrnong river from Footscray Park, found a lake area that you could walk around near the new(ish) townhouses and apartments.

There I found a little crepes place.

This is the view in the other direction from my table.

Here is the menu - it apparently does both sweet and savoury crepes - but the two times I've been there I've only had the one thing - so I can't comment on what the Savoury ones are like :)  They also serve a selection of drinks (cold, hot and stuff like milkshakes).

What could I not go past?  The Nightmare crepe.  Dark Chocolate & Strawberries.  Maybe called a nightmare as there's so much chocolate waiting to ooze out of the crepe - so when you eat the whole thing you regret it a little.  But it is sooo yummy.

This place also is dog friendly.  Last time I went it was just me and Yoshi - so they took my order from me standing to the side and saying what I wanted, and I paid when they delivered my food (sometimes its hard finding a place where you don't have to enter the building.  I'm not sure that Yoshi would cope with being tied to something or that I'd cope if someone untied him :)).  Here is Yoshi dog watching from the shade of the table.  It makes the table like gigantic!!  

There are a couple of little cafes across the courtyard that I haven't looked at.  They usually have a few dogs there too.  Although last time some girl was letting her disobedient dog run riot.  But that's not to say avoid this place if you have a dog - I've just gone on a ramble.

So it's nothing super fancy and last time I went there was a really long wait before anything appeared.  However the staff were super friendly and apologised about the delay (without me mentioning anything).  A good place for a crepe :)

Footscray milking station

Another find through footscray food blog. This is one of our breakfast choices on the weekend. Reasonably small though they do have seats out the front, inside and courtyard in the back. It's usually based on luck if we get a seat but more times than not we do.

We sat in the courtyard for the first time the other weekend - it's actually really nice! A few bees around when we ate there though.

They do a good coffee although sometimes their mochas are a bit sweet. I like that they have specials on the board and late last year they updated their menu with a lot of their specials added as standard.

Lunch options served from 11am include a soup special, a pasta special and a selection of sandwiches. Breakfast they have usually one special. They serve eggs with extras, a breakfast bun (that jase typically gets), huevos rancheros, croissant with jam and a mushroom puff pastry tart to name a few.

Pulled pork sandwich - tasty!!

The breakfast bun

Shelley's breakfast was a special last weekend (hopefully I've spelt her name right) - from memory poached egg, pancetta type meat, spinach leaves, mushrooms, olives, feta on sourdough with that herby mix on top of the poached egg (from her family recipe) - the name of it escapes me at the moment.

Staff are usually friendly with one staff member making an effort to remember what we've ordered before and last year going through the specials in great detail. They shut for Christmas without advertising when they'd be back - so I was pretty happy to see them open last weekend.

G2

Lunch time dilemma of what to eat - remembered a Korean place that had opened on the day I went to mamak. They had nice photos in their window so in we went. It's two levels apparently but only downstairs was open for lunch. Looks like an interesting place for dinner as they have a BBQ option (angus and wagyu described on the window poster) and fancy looking desserts. Noticed a wall of wine bottles so I was surprised the only wine option I noticed on the lunch menu was their house wine. Maybe a good one but didn't try it.

They have long tables with a communal feel so whilst we weren't sitting next to someone there was a guy seated at the end of a 6 person table. Nice interior and very friendly staff. Weird brass things coming out of the roof. The first was my side view from my table, the place is wider than this.

The lunch menu was pretty extensive with entrees, bulgogi, bibimbap through to lunch boxes. Twisted the arm of my lunch buddy to share some dumplings. Omg yummy!! Nice crisp dumplings, looked a little oily but didn't taste oily. It came with a soy dipping sauce and a bit of slaw with mayonnaise type sauce.

It came out really quickly, and was closely followed by my bibimbap. I paid the extra for the stone bowl. Happily the bowl was hot, my meal was super filling. Meat was good quality.

My lunch buddy had some eel and rice dish and he was happy with it. They'd added some of the marinade to the rice too which he liked. They serve a bunch of drinks including a couple of beers, soft drink and that house wine.

Here's the menu!

So for a weekday lunch it was a little pricey. $12 for my beef bulgogi stone bowl bibimbap, $7 for 6 dumplings. But was tasty and great friendly service. The lunch boxes looked good so I'd be tempted to give those a go if I head back there.