The Bavarian, Knox Ozone

The Bavarian is a German themed pub and restaurant operated by the Rockpool group. There are many Bavarians around Melbourne and the one in Knox Ozone had been opened for at least 6 months before we decided to try it out for dinner one night. 

Across Melbourne, pubs are changing. Many of the historic buildings where they are housed have been sold to developers tearing them down to profit from building apartment buildings. Some have sold the air rights above the building to developers to extend upwards for apartments. Neither will retain the old world charm of what we used to know of pubs anymore. It is a shame that Melbourne does not do more to protect and conserve the beautiful old buildings that it has. 

One of the change I do approve is the quality of food in pubs these days. They are getting more refined, they are fresh and tasty. It's not all about drinking in pubs anymore. The food department is getting equal attention. This was a positive because I'm not a big drinker so being able to eat a decent meal while others drink is a big drawcard for me. 

Ordering in The Bavarian involves going to the counter, order and pay before settling down at your table with a buzzer with a number. The buzzer acts as a table number for the waitpersons so they can bring the plate to the table. 

I ordered the fish of the day which was barramundi with grenoble crusted potatoes, spinach and chive butter sauce ($29). The fish was cooked perfectly, the skin crispy. The potatoes, however they were cooked, were so yummy. It was crispy on the outside and soft in the inside. I think grenoble crust means dredging the potatoes in milk and flour and cooking them in butter? The sauce complements the fish and potatoes well. 

Munich Brewers Platter, designed for Two ($71). This is a meat lovers platter. It has chicken schnitzel, pork belly with crispy crackling, at least 4 types of sausages (of different meats and spiciness), sauerkraut, red cabbage, mashed potatoes. The meats were wonderfully tasty! I loved the pork belly with the delicious crackling and oh so moist meat. The chicken schnitzel was tender. The sausages were delicious except for one which tasted like hot dog sausages from a plastic packet. The red cabbage is sweet and delicious. There was an accompanying apple compote I could do without and a bier jus which tasted a little weird (Gaz described it as gravy mixed with kerosene) which I didn't like. I wished there was some real gravy to go with the heavenly array of meats.

The Famous Crispy Pork Knuckle (half - $28). It comes with sauerkraut, mash potatoes, apple compote and bier jus (remarkably, the bier jus on this plate was delicious - I'm not sure what went wrong the first time). The pork knuckle had a good crackling but like all pork knuckle the meat inside was just OK. There were lots of meat in the knuckle which was not too dry but not moist either. The joy of eating pork knuckle for me often stops at the crackling, and finding a tender piece of meat but most of the time it's about trying to get to the end when there's finally nothing left on the plate...

The Bavarian is a good place to visit if you are hungry for some hearty German food. They definitely do not skimp on the amount of food on the plate. There are a myriad selection of beer to choose from, and there is a juke box for free. There are specials for each day of the week - for example on Wednesdays there is a buy 1 get 1 schnitzel free offer. What else do you need?

Mugen Ramen, Bligh Place

The food scene has become so multicultural in Australia. There are plenty of different cuisines, different ingredients that are now available in Melbourne. People are trying out food from different cultures and talking about it. The path to world peace may some day be achieved through the shared love of food. On second thoughts, and my mind flashes back to Rendangate, maybe not. 

Rendangate refers to the incident at MasterChef UK where a judge criticised a contestant's rendang chicken dish for being inedible because the chicken skin was not crispy. It provoked the outrage of people in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei as the people who actually know what a rendang is, knows that chicken rendang is a braised dish so how can it have crispy skin? The incident certainly united the South Eastern region to talk about the food dear to their hearts. 

As I'd said, it's great to exchange ideas and recommendations about food. For without this exchange, I would not have tried out this place at a hidden laneway called Mugen Ramen. One of my non-Asian work colleagues suggested this place. It is open until 10pm so it's suitable for anyone who loves their supper. Or for drinkers. It is affiliated with Robot Bar opposite the restaurant on the same lane, which is a Japanese theme drinking bar. Mugen Ramen also has its own drinks and cocktails list but as the name suggests, it is better known for its ramen, and most interestingly Dipping Ramen. 

Because of the hours of cooking pork bones and fat until almost everything has dissolved, ramen broths are very creamy and rich. So I think it is a good idea to have a Dipping Ramen option for people who cannot stomach the richness but still want a taste of it. 

None of us on our table ordered the Dipping Ramen because we're all rich people (ahem) but it basically works like this: The broth is provided in a separate small bowl. The ramen is cooked separately with all the trimmings (like egg, bamboo shoots, chashu, seaweed) and you can then dip your ramen into the bowl to get the broth. It is up to you how much broth you want, it is all within your control unlike the conventional ramen where everything is immersed in the broth. 

I ordered the Miso Ramen which came with bamboo shoots, half egg, chashu (pork), seaweed in miso tinged broth. It came in two sizes $17 for small and $19 for large. The only difference is in the weight of the noodles: 200g for small and 350g for large size.

The broth was good but the real hero of this dish is the noodles. It has a good bite to it, and is just delicious. Now I know why they charge more for the noodles. Good as it was, I don't think I can finish the 350g portion, so the small size is good enough for me.

The place is small - a few stools at the bar at the ground floor, and a few more tables in the basement level, and very dark. They were going for the modern, minimalist industrial look so I think it succeeded. And dirt spots are less conspicuous in the dark (no problems with cleanliness here, the bowls and utensils are spotless, as far as I can see in the dark). There is a projector in the basement running old Japanese samurai movies but without sound for the modern Japanesey ambience. I think it would be perfect with a few vials of sake and small dishes.

Mugen has a wide selection of small dishes which are perfect for the late nighters, but we did not try it on this occasion.

Pondok Rempa, Elizabeth St

Pondok Rempa is an Indonesian restaurant on Elizabeth St, close to the Victoria Market end (than the Flinders St end). It does not seek to attract customers by a modern fitout, good ventilation or fancy dishware, but it is known for the good and cheap Indonesian food that it serves. Ironically, the owner of the restaurant is Cambodian. 

I asked my Indonesian friend who had been to every Indonesian restaurant in Melbourne and beyond, what she thought of the food at Pondok Rempa. She said it was OK. I have yet to get a really enthusiastic 'Great!' answer to my question. It must be difficult to rate Indonesian restaurants because she can cook the same thing in her own house, with recipes that had been in the family since the spice trade, so it's just ordinary food to her. 

I'm not a great connoisseur of Indonesian food but I enjoyed the food here. We ordered the Nasi Uduk Ayam Kresmes $11.80 - this is quite a mouthful but it translates to rice in coconut milk with fried chicken. It also comes with the fried bits, rather like the tempura batter bits for mouthfeel, fried tofu, fried tempeh and small bowl of chicken broth. Tempeh is natto, in slab form. Natto is an acquired taste because it is foul in taste, smell and texture. As you can probably guess, I am not a fan. But it does have great health benefits related to fermented foods and some people adore the stuff. Not me. 

While the tempeh gets nibbled on, the rest of the food on the plate disappeared pretty quickly. The rice was very flavourful, having been cooked in coconut cream. Fried chicken was crispy, the fried batter bits were definitely crispy. 

I also ordered Sup Buntut (ox tail soup) $14.80 which is a clear soup with pieces of ox tail bone, and carrots with rice. The soup was very flavourful and warmed us right up after a long day of walking in the rain. You might think that $15 is expensive for just soup with bones, but there were some pretty meaty bits in the bones and because it was cooked on the bone, the meat was especially tender. Ox tail bones are quite expensive - it figures because there can only be one tail per animal!

The layout of this restaurant is rather different in that the open kitchen is at the entrance. The bar area takes up another chunk of area at the back of the restaurant. The chefs do a good job in using the heavy duty rangehood while cooking and the ever swinging front door provides some extra air circulation (cold and crisp in winter) but do expect to leave with food smell lingering in your clothes. This place is good for a quick bite, but don't expect to get too comfortable.

Groove Train, Burwood

Groove Train is a chain restaurant that serves modern Australian fast food in a hip and young setting. Modern Australian fast food? I hear you scratching your head. Modern because it's a little more refined and fast food because the food is fast and lots of chips are involved.

As an aside, I think Australia is obsessed with chips. No one can bypass the bucket of hot chips at a garden show, sporting venue, birthday party, restaurant, concert hall etc. They are everywhere. They come in all sizes and shapes and sold all over the place from fancy restaurants to the petrol station-side kebab shops. 

There are eggplant chips, diamond cut chips, chips with chicken salt, shoe string fries, fat chips, sweet potato chips. They are served with salad (bah!), rice (double carb), steaks, on the side, on its own in a fatty bucket, in a bag. 

Even though it has its roots in America, I think Australia has truly laid claim on the humble chips and made it its own national food. 

In Groove Train, the chips are served with salad in this Moroccan Lamb with Cous Cous and Salad. The lamb was juicy and there was a lot on the plate. We saw tables of leftover food, mainly chips because there was too much food. But as always, we polished off our food out of respect for the chef who had laboured over the preparation of our meal.. and also because our stomach capacity is quite large (getting larger by the week)

I ordered the Spaghetti Pascatore which came with loads of seafood in a light sauce. The pasta was well cooked. The seafood was nothing special, it reminds me of marinara mix but it was fresh enough and I enjoyed the dish.

The service was good even though it is a big restaurant for the waitpersons to cover. The food was served piping hot and as I'd mentioned, in big portions. There are plenty of car parks out at the front where the Burwood 1 Shopping Centre is (although it is a little annoying because of 'reserved' car parks for the adjoining liquor shop - difficult to spot which is reserved and which is not at night).

I do think that the price is a little steep for an ordinary meal. The price range is around $25 to $30 for main dishes like the one we ordered. As newer mod Aus fast food places pop up in the burbs, Groove Train will have to up the standard and reduce the price to compete with these other joints. 

HWKR, A'Beckett St

Melbourne is such a difficult city to have a diet in. At every corner, in every alley there is a nice restaurant that you just gotta try out. Can you believe that there are even restaurants in car parks?? (see: Soi 38).

So, you get the picture.. there are restaurants and cafe everywhere you look in Melbourne. Sometimes, there are multiple restaurants in one place! HWKR is a new concept akin to food courts in Asian countries. The restaurants in HWKR would change every few months or so to make sure that there is always something new for customers to try out.

In our last visit to HWKR, Chanteen (Diana Chan, winner of Masterchef 2017's restaurant), Rice Paper Scissors, Reynald's desserts (Masterchef finalist) were among the few restaurants there.

We ordered the grilled barramundi with sambal from Rice Paper Scissors, char kuay teow from Chanteen and matcha dessert from Reynald's.

Generous portion of grilled barramundi on rice. The sauce topping was delicious. I just wish it was ikan pari or stingray grilled on charcoal, served hot on banana leaf just like how it's done in Malaysia. But in the absence of stingrays (I have not seen it sold anywhere), and charcoal fire, this dish is good enough.

Chanteen's CKT. There is chai poh (preserved turnip) in this CKT, so it's not exactly authentic (by my standards) but it tasted quite nice. There is the breath of wok in this dish and I saw Diana Chan personally cooking this plate for us. I actually didn't know who she was until my friend pointed her out to me, but don't tell her that!

Reynald's desserts - somehow they look much nicer on Masterchef?? These ones look quite ordinary, but they are expensive.

Don't leave your card at home, as only cards are accepted and I don't mean your business card. One is expected to get a place to sit, order your food at the counter and pay but the stalls will deliver the food to your table. It'll be interesting to see what the next wave of restaurants would be at HWKR.