Lomond Hotel

225 Nicholson St, Brunswick East; 03 9380 1752

It's amazing what can hide behind the walls of a corner pub. You might wonder on occasion if the Lomond Hotel is still open - it doesn't flaunt itself and neither does the clientele.

When you do step inside, however, there's something of a tardis effect. To one side is a linen-and-silver-cutlery restaurant with a high-end menu. Through another door is a room with bar at one end and stage at the other, the latter occupied several times a week with bands of the blues, roots or Celtic variety.

Round the back is a gaming room and further round again is a lighter space that could be a living room with the added advantage of delivered food.

It's good food, too, and shows the same diversity as the venue. A small blackboard spruiks pub snacks like a toasted sandwich for a fiver (spot on mid-afternoon with a pot of Fat Yak). The larger blackboard stretches through starters, vegetarian options, mains and pub favourites. So there's fish and chips, but also sweet potato fritters; Thai curry as well as bangers and mash.

SG and I both went the red meat option. For him, scotch fillet with herbed butter, chips and salad. For me, beef fillet on mash with quince jus and rocket and parmesan salad. Not at all what I'd expected from a unpretentious pub at the end of a tram route and across from a burger joint. The meat on both dishes was cared for - juicy, pink, succulent. The quince jus was the perfect complement, the peppery, lightly dressed salad providing contrast.

Staff were friendly and the patrons look so comfortable they may well have bar stools and frequent visits from performing bands in their own homes. If you ever find yourself at the end of the 96 tram route, at least there's a good way to pass some time while waiting for the next southbound.

Provincial Hotel: $10 pie and pot

299 Brunswick St, Fitzroy; 03 9810 0042

I love a mid-week deal. We headed to the Provincial Hotel for the inaugural run of their $10 pie and pot. The pie options cater to the red-, white- and non-meaters: there's steak, chicken and mushroom, or pumpkin (and feta?). The pot of choice is Boags Draught (beats Carlton at least).

The Provincial is one of those shabby-chic places - all distressed concrete outside, and a brooding, quirky interior of dark wood, with a sloping crimson bar fronted by wrought-iron stools. The sign advertising the pie and pot also spruiked an open fire, which coupled well with visions of splitting open a pastry case to reveal a steaming interior of meat and veg in thick gravy.

Well, not quite. Here's the steak pie:
The casing is in fact puff pastry rather than shortcrust. They've missed a trick there: it seems so obvious me to match a pot with a pot pie. The sign didn't say puff pastry parcel and pot (though, with that much alliteration, it might have got me in regardless). The steak filling was a little wanting, but the chicken and mushroom filling was lovely, though not lovely enough to make up for the lack of shortcrust.

You may notice two things about the piccie above: a) the chips on the plate and b) it's not the sexiest plate of food ever presented. The chips come via the pot and pie upgrade: for $3 you get mashed potatoes, chips or salad on the side. I'm always a bit put off by the mid-week deal that then offers you a bit more for a bit more, because I immediately feel like I'm getting less. See, if I go for a $10 deal that's all I'm going to spend, there's no upgrading. But the optional, paid extra just highlights that you and the restaurant are doing something a bit on the cheap. And when it comes out on the plate looking that ordinary, it doesn't help.

I understand the establishment is offering a special deal, but their purpose presumably is to increase bums on seats on the quiet nights. If I got a great plate of food - pie plus chips or a simple salad, I'd have a fuzzy feeling indeed about the pub, and make a mental note for the next Wednesday night I was looking for somewhere to go. If the side orders aren't doable for a tenner, why not make it an $11 or $12 pie and pot, meet your margins and get people back in for a second go?

The evening ended, however, with inspiration. I'd heard gushing reports of the Provincial's tiramisu, which is only available from the cafe area, rather than the bar. Turns out, they do their desserts to takeaway, and with 'Spicks and Specks' time looming, we decided to make a dash for home with dessert stashed for some decent couch time.

'Huge' doesn't come close to telling the story of this tiramisu. And even in foil rather than ceramic, it tastes a treat.

Pubs not so grubby: Union Hotel and Prince Patrick

Prince Patrick: 135 Victoria St, Collingwood; 03 9416 1455
Union Hotel: 109 Union St, Brunswick; 03 9388 2235

Pubs are known for re-inventing themselves. It seems the desire to drink in a particular locality is fairly constant, but our taste for the surroundings in which we drink needs to be regularly updated. As a rule, these re-inventions shift the pub away from the seedy end of the scale and towards the classy end. Sometimes a few clues as to the pub's lewder past are left behind, something for the refined, classier crowd to chuckle about as they congratulate themselves on picking out the diamond in the rough.

Collingwood's Prince Patrick Hotel has retained its distressed concrete interior, but contrasted it against the plush banquettes and soft carpeting of the interior. A large, well-lit bar divides the 'pub' area - with big screen - from the 'dining' area - with tables, booths and cosy stool and table arrangements. The resulting atmosphere is more Sydney chic than Melbourne grunge. This is a pub that offers a $25 steak sandwich on their menu, and doesn't baulk at charging $7.50 for a pot of beer. Having said that, the bar staff are friendly, the food is well prepared and the portions generous. As always, however, I would vastly prefer to have $5-10 knocked off the price of a plate and receive half as much food, so that it's a serving size I could actually finish. But cheap pub food isn't the look we're going for here.

A calamari and chorizo salad promises a protein charge. It's enormous, littered with curled and scored pieces of calamari, no dearth of moist chorizo, and, just when you thought it was filling enough, thinly-sliced potato. I've no issue with the execution, but I prefer a salad to be under $20, and I don't feel good leaving that kind of decent produce behind after I've eaten more than my fill.

The chicken parma perhaps presents a better ratioed serving - certainly in the photo above it almost looks wee. In reality it was a good-sized serve, but at least one doesn't have to feel as bad leaving fried, sliced potato behind. Avoiding the oily decadence of the salad's chorizo, or the Union's pasta (see below), the parma is straightforward; better than de Biers' $5 version (don't go there), but not particularly imaginative.

The Union Hotel in Brunswick West has taken a running leap up the class scale, leaving behind its repuation as one of the last gentlemen's pubs, replete with strippers, to be reborn as a bright, airy, diverse, family-friendly establishment with a long list of restaurant winners on the menu.

They've done astonishingly well revamping the space: there's a small section of pubby bar in view of the television, demur tables around a small stage, an even more refined dining room at the back of the building, and outside a partially covered beer garden big enough for the non-smokers and smokers to still have their own space.

The main menu starts down the path of list of pub staples - parmas, steak sandwich, pie and veg, pasta - then veers off into interesting territory: duck lasagne, anyone? The specials board is almost as long as the menu again, and shows similar adventurism, drawing on cuisines from the Mediterranean - zucchini fritters - to the Oriental - duck featuring again, this time wrapped in wontons.

Their pasta is aptly handled. A pasta special with prawns, asparagus and eggplant would be at home in a well-heeled Italian restaurant - plump, juicy butterflied prawns perch jauntily between a generous serve of fettucine and chargrilled eggplant. The dish was quite oily; richness perhaps being a trait common to their pasta dishes: at Where's the Beef they also review the pumpkin ravioli, along with several other worthwhile vegetarian dishes.

Their steak sandwich is suitably ample and flanked by thick-cut chips. Plenty of meat nestles between the toasted turkish bread, smeared with a quality aioli and decent Swiss cheese. The steak sarnie sits on the specials board rather than the main menu (and is about half the price of the Prince Patricks'), but the main menu does feature a beef burger, distinguished with pickle and tomato relish.

The Union also has a commitment to local beers, with Mountain Goat on tap, and an imaginative wine list, also with plenty of local options.

Hungary in the suburbs; North Fitzroy Arms & 'Prague' - Arthur Phillips

296 Rae St, North Fitzroy; 03 9489 8519

Recently, I've been working through a novel called Prague, set thus far entirely in Budapest. I felt a similar, though far more rewarding, disconnection with expectations this week when I ate a fine goulash at a pub with the distinctly local name of the North Fitzroy Arms. Perhaps both the novel and the pub are living in another time: the former in the tumult of 1989, when capitalism flooded the Danube, and the latter when Fitzroy Lions + Brisbane Bears did not equal one team north of the border.

(A third, related disconnect cropped up coincidentally this afternoon, when I spotted a white Mercedes M-class with the number plate PRAGUE.)

Goulash is Hungary's version of the slow-cooked dish every nation worth its sea salt lays claim to as a national cuisine. The Hungarian offering - a stew of beef and onions in a rich gravy sometimes thick enough to submerge optional dumplings - has a vermillion vibrancy thanks to the addition of paprika. In this North Fitzroy interpretation, the meat, almost melted in its slow cooking, is cuddled around a wodge of creamy mash flecked with spring onion. It was simply divine. The pub's proprietors are named on its website as Volbi and Zorka and they've clearly brought home-learnt skills to spoil those in the inner north lucky enough to stumble upon them.

SG stuck with something a bit more nationalistic, the kangaroo fillets with mushroom risotto and beetroot. The pub is also known as Haskins Restaurant and the folk behind the stove certainly know how to treat their meat, serving up several slabs of pink, seared, juicy roo fillets. The food and wine prices are generous; customers are welcome to order from both bar and restaurant menu in either area of the pub; and they offer a varied, non-Fosters list of wines by the glass.

Arthur Phillips, Prague's author, is an American who lived in Budapest for two years immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The novel features five North American characters, each of whom has found themselves in Budapest for different reasons, although all are unified in feeling it's a place of opportunity thanks to the monumental economic and political changes underway. The perspective, however, is one of an outsider, although it does attempt to engage with locals and deliver, through character histories, an extensive history of Hungary through two World Wars and multiple revolutions. However, with all but one of the protagonists ignorant of Hungarian it is necessary for them to meet English-educated Hungarians in order to progress the story, which to me limits the efficacy of the native perspective (particularly as Russian was far more common as a second language than English in the eastern bloc).

To write such a story with an actual insider's perspective, however, would place it within the Hungarian canon and therefore immediately hinder its entry and acceptability to the readership of Western countries. Think of recent Nobel prize winners - such as Frenchman Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (last year's winner) and most pertinently Hungarian Imre Kertész (2002), who are virtually unknown outside Europe, despite decades of reputable work. There is, therefore, an inherent dichotomy in a foreigner trying to tell the story, no matter how vital, of a land not his own.

As for the title, it is perhaps an ironic device (the blurb explains that the five American expats 'harbour the vague suspicion that their couterparts in Prague have it better'). Perhaps naming the novel outside its setting represents the cultures that have been imposed - forcefully through war or unwittingly through the embrace of capitalism - upon these small, confused eastern European countries. A simple name is not enough of an identity in the face of such change. However, as when one of the characters questions a Serb as to why he finds it so important to insist he's not Yugoslavian, since 'they're all the same', it is a device that belies its own effectiveness by what it denies: the importance and weight of these countries' centuries of history.

Venue challenge;Tiamo 2

Tiamo 2: 305 Lygon St, Carlton; 9347 0911

I recently found myself challenged for a suitable dining location: friends from out of town, looking for somewhere in easy reach of the city, not too pricey, not too adventurous, not too loud. Does anywhere spring to your mind immediately? My additional criteria were that Hardware Lane and the bottom end of Lygon St were both out. It was for a Saturday night too, which can wipe out some suitable weekday options, and the first couple of phone calls I made to book somewhere made it clear that we'd also be in for an early dinner.

The challenge, as I see it, is that within the city, most restaurants fall into one of two categories: $10 noodle bars, or $30+ serious restaurants. That is a generalisation, but given we wanted a Sit-down Talk on a Saturday night many of Melbourne's signature venues - ie the bar-cum-restaurant and restaurant-cum-bar - were excluded from the search. I'm also always anxious to give interstaters a Melbourne Experience: preferably the restaurant should be unlike anything readily available to them in their hometown. When I don't know their tastes very well, though, it can be doubly hard to find a restaurant that serves immediately interpretable food. I'm not knocking the food scene - all the things I excluded from this search are in fact exactly what I love about eating in Melbourne.

Maybe I was making things harder for myself than they needed to be. Interestingly, after putting the challenge to a couple of friends, the three of us independently came up with the same options: Tiamo 2 (on the less-scary stretch of Lygon St, between Elgin and Faraday Sts) and the Hotel Lincoln (on Cardigan St). I haven't been back to the Lincoln since the unfortunate whiting/whitebait incident, and wasn't sure how pubby it would get on a Saturday, so Tiamo 2 it was.

It turned out to be a great choice, suiting all concerned, and having the earlier meal meant we had plenty of space and atmosphere in which to catch up on the last couple of years. Given this was also the night Melbourne decided to hit 10C in November, it was great to be cosied up inside and upstairs, with dishes like lamb shank on the specials board.

The dining and aesthetic highlight was this tiramisu, a generous serve to say the least!
Afterwards, we realised another advantage to our eventual dining location of choice: it's proximity to Percy's Bar. I've only written up a cheap pub meal on quiz night from this venue (also known as Astor Hotel), but it is a fine establishment. Beers are truly cheap, and it's a takeaway alternative to entering the bowels of the nearby shopping centre to go to Safeway. It's got a proper English pub feel of conviviality and homeliness and, without doubt, the tallest barstools in Melbourne.

A tale of two burgers; Birdie Num Nums and Northcote Social Club

Birdie Num Nums: 745 Nicholson St, Carlton North; 03 9380 1950 Northcote Social Club: 301 High St, Northcote; 03 9489 3917

Not a likely pairing, I admit, and, while I'm conceding points, I'll say up front that it's actually a tale of one burger and one steak sandwich (with an omelette thrown in).

Birdie Num Nums did not follow the Brunswick Model when it opened in 2006. Rather than opening in a former milkbar, the shop's earlier incarnation was as a butcher. Hefty, twisty, dark metal pillars still support meat hooks, under a ceiling easily high enough to give a full bovine carcass swinging space. The floor is timber, rather than concrete. There's a communal table, window and outdoor seating, and a gorgeous lounge-room nook hidden at the back, replete with recliners and fireplace.

The menu reflects Greek influences, and the gimmick here is to offer a range of pre-prepared lunch options from a display - picture meatballs, lasagne, layered savoury pastries - along with cooked-to-order breafkast dishes. There's some flair on the menu, such as the Egyptian baked eggs - poached eggs in ground coriander and cumin, served on potato, pumpkin and almonds -, but it was the olives in an omelette, along with chorizo and red capsicum that grabbed me.It just wasn't an exciting dish. The edges of the omelette, where it had stuck to the pan, had that crispy-cooked egg texture that I forgive at home but don't want plated up when I'm out. While it wasn't dry, it wasn't nearly moist enough - perhaps they hadn't sloshed in cream as plenty of places do, but then a lighter cooking touch would have retained some runny egg (and maybe avoided the crisp edges). Even the toast - a dense, mealy sourdough from nearby Natural Tucker - came unbuttered. I respect a cafe that doesn't mistake richness/oiliness for guaranteed flavour, but then at the very least offer the customer the chance to splurge or skimp on butter to their own liking!

On the other side of the table, we had a $14 steak sandwich, which defeated even SG's carnivorous longings. The photo's perspective isn't crash hot, but this thing was huge - you can see how tall it is against the pile of chips! A juicy slice of minute steak couldn't weigh down all the lettuce, tomato and cheese that came with it. Almost as incredible as SG leaving about a third on his plate, was the price comparison: $13.50 for my omelette, fifty cents more for the sandwich. With the price of free-range eggs, I have a good appreciation of what a lot of the omelette cost covered, but the sanger definitely presented better value.

The music carried a very eighties flavour - no, not the 1780s of the Dickens' novel played on in the post title - but quite defiantly 1980s. Bonnie Tyler followed by 'We Built this City' isn't everyone's cup of Giancarlo coffee, but it got my dancing feet warmed up for our afternoon engagement: a Guild League gig at the Northcote Social Club.

Meeting friends in the pub afterwards, we sampled a couple of Cricketers Arms Lagers, a fine, dry beer made all the more refreshing by some subtle fruit notes. The NSC does a crafty job of disguising itself as a seedy pub, but its menu dispels the myth. Having already seen burgers delivered, I insisted we order one between the two of us - a good call.
Again, not great photo perspective! The roo burger comes with peppered meat, lemon myrtle and wattleseed mayo, tomato, spanish onion and mixed leaves on toasted Turkish pide. The meat had been perfectly handled and oozed its own juices to mingle with the slightly-citrusy, slightly-tangy mayo. Rocket cut across all that with its sharpness and the super-fresh bread was spot-on toasted to be crisp and soft all at once. At $15, and feeding two, this was great value.

So, all three dishes within $1.50 of one another. Which would you choose?

www.northcotesocialclub.com

Hotel Lincoln II

91 Cardigan St, Carlton; 03 9347 4666

Bernard: 'What did you order?'
Manny: 'Ah, a pint of lager'
Bernard: 'I got you....creme de menthe'

Our evening at Hotel Lincoln didn't feature quite so much imbibing of alcohol as in the average episode of Black Books, but, like Manny in the extract above, we were a little surprised at what was served up.

The Lincoln has two eating options: the bar menu or a high-end restaurant menu. It has two eating locations as well - the bar and a fine-dining room - and in between the two is an extra space that accommodates diners from both. On Monday nights the bar menu is reduced to $12, and by booking you find yourself with table service, good cutlery, bread and imaginative food at a budget price.

Beef involtini - normally $18 and hence one of the better-value dishes on a Monday - comes with a buttery parmesan and polenta mash. The meat is cooked to softness but holds its rolled shape well.
My meal order was for the whole grilled silver whiting, with fennel and avocado (normally $17). When our plates arrived, the involtini was served, then the waitress turned to me, plate in hand, and said 'I'm really sorry, but we were out of the whiting, so the chef has prepared the whitebait for you.'

...

There's a pause there to represent my momentary speechlessness. I still struggle to believe that a chef just decided to whip up a completely different dish (yes, they're both seafood, and indeed even share a similar name, but a whitebait pattie with chilli jam is a long way from a whole whiting). Disappointment was added to my shock, since this was a dish I'd already eaten. I won't write it up again - it was very much the same, but this time stuck a little on the way down as I kept harrumphing with incredulity. The photo did come out rather nicely, however:
I don't discredit the Lincoln's food at all: both bar and restaurant menu offer excellent meals, the latter in particular making great use of seasonal food (how good does chestnut and mascarpone ravioli with sherry mushrooms sound?). Having eaten there twice before I know this was an aberration in service, but one I've never heard of before and still has me shaking my head, asking 'what were they thinking?'

Grace Darling II

114 Smith St, Collingwood; 03 9416 0055
Collingwood's Grace Darling may use a bit of a daggy name for their discount food night - Tightarse Tuesdays - but their meals are all class. Diners hit the jackpot when an establishment offers dishes off their regular menu at a bargain price. At the Grace the same menu services the bar and restaurant, so you can choose your level of ambience and whether you want someone to take your order (including for drinks) or you want to take it to the bar yourself. The dining area at the back of the building is hardly pretentious, and its downstairs 'atrium area', with a glass roof and decorated with ferns and straw partitions, feels more like a beer garden. The main meal prices range from $10-15.
The Grace runs a dedicated steak night on Thursdays, but a red-meat-fix is also available for $14 as part of the Tightarse Tuesday menu. Alternatively, their steak sandwich with fries is also a winner. The chicken burger with avocado, brie and hollandaise sauce is a standout.
Feeling cosy, warm, buoyed by socialising on a Tuesday and liberated by the range of great food at a good price, I went left of my usual field and ordered the corned beef, with mash, cabbage, bacon and mustard sauce. It looked a treat on the plate: several slices of meat, not too thick, positively glowing with pinkness, but looking firm and fresh; no sign of that glossy sheen on cured meat that indicates it's past its best. On reflection I was a little surprised at the inclusion of bacon with the meal: corned beef tends to be a fairly salty serve on its own. Fortunately this sample didn't taste like it had been sitting in brine since the pub's namesake rescued the survivors of a shipwreck in 1883! Each of the meal's components contributed to make a whole that was more than the sum of its parts. The mash was particularly straightforward - not overly creamy nor buttery nor herby, it tasted pretty much like, well, potatoes that had been mashed! - and the mustard sauce was more of a mayonnaise. But piled up in a forkful with with the crunchy cabbage and pliable meat it made for an enjoyable home-style meal.
SG chose the beer-battered fish and chips. How cute is the spoonful of tartare sauce? Rather than one great slab of fish with a puffy batter, the Grace serves up three smaller, firm fillets, each more dusted than dunked in the batter. I've never found fault with their fries, and these steak-cut chips were just as crunchy and irresistible as ever.
If you haven't overdone it on fries and still have room a range of desserts - such as orange bread and butter pudding ($7.50) - is available.
What is most notable about the Grace's Tightarse Tuesday is that it's only the prices that are cut back. There's still a good choice of food - the range extends beyond traditional pub grub to include restuarant-style dishes (such as prawn risotto) - and the serving sizes are generous. There is also ample seating and the service is friendly and attentive.
Click here for an earlier Grace Darling review

Percys Bar (Astor Hotel)

418 Lygon St (cnr Elgin St), Carlton; 03 9347 1715

The notion of a Carlton pub would probably make most think of a designer interior, a too-cool-for-school drinks list and clientele to match. The Astor Hotel could hardly be more central to Carlton - tram passengers certainly get ample time to look at it during the interminable wait to woggle around to/from Melbourne Uni - but it certainly doesn't fit the Carlton mould.

Inside, it's a country pub, a place where locals sit at the bar and use everyone's names as they chat to each other and the staff. (Sitting at the bar does in fact take some getting used to, since the bar stools are incredibly high). The drinks list comes in a plastic sleeve and makes no pretensions to be anything other than serviceable.

Counter meals are available, in addition to a bistro-restaurant at the back of the pub offering a commendable array of dishes in the $15-20 range. On Tuesdays the bar menu is unmissable: $10 steak and pot or, even more affordable, $6.50 for a Percy Burger.

It's great value. The pattie is solid and genuinely mincey. The tomato is fresh and holds its form. The cheese clearly comes from a cow, not a plastics factory and the bread is toasted on the inside, soft on the outside, as it should be on a burger. It's definitely a pub burger, but it's not overly-salty nor too heavy.

In the background of the shot is the answer form for Percys Trivia: if you don't have occasion to exercise your body after polishing off the chips at least give your mind a workout and take it to the Melbourne Uni academics who come as regulars!

Rathdowne Tavern

184 Rathdowne St, Carlton; 03 9348 1133

Peeling paint, faded signage, scrawled writing on chalkboards. That's the exterior of the Rathdowne Tavern. One of those chalkboards advertised the $10 Tuesday bar special - a particular dish each week plus a pot of beer. And hence we discovered the interior: fresh, bright paint, oodles of sunlight, friendly bar staff and a turnover of happy patrons.

The selected dish was roast chicken:

Half a bird in fact, squashing an ample pile of very sharp (endive?) greens, and dwarfing a handful of fries. The chicken was marinated with thyme and lemon and was impressively moist throughout, with a bit of crisp on the bits of skin closest to the cooking element. The flesh was still quite pink, perhaps inevitable if you're going to turn out a hundred or so birds in a night in quick time - given it was of ample size, juicy and had been looked after with a decent marinade, something had to be cut short, and presumably its cooking time.
For $10, including a pot, a convivial atmosphere of customers happy with quality food at a great price, and friendly bar staff, it represents excellent value.

Hotel Lincoln

91 Cardigan Street, Carlton; 03 9347 4666

The Hotel Lincoln is one of Melbourne's best value eateries. In what can at times be a slightly confusing setup, they offer both bar food and a restaurant menu, with both available, via table service, in a kind of in-between room 'twixt the bar and glossier restaurant. The bar menu is under $20 and on Mondays is extraordinary value at $10 for each dish (this Monday just gone, however, was the last such Monday for the year unfortunately). The restaurant features slightly more glamorous dishes between $20-$30.

We savoured three samples from the bar menu. I'd tossed up against the chicken risotto with asparagus, but went for the whitebait hotcake with avocado and chilli jam. The visual presentation of this dish was wondeful. 'Hotcake' undersold this burger of whitebait, cunningly perched on a layer of avocado, then showered with mung beans, red chilli and fistfuls of fresh and refreshing coriander. The dish provided an ample amount of food, but without leaving a residual heaviness. Astonishing at $10.


The salted cod fritters took third place in the looks department, but they more than made up in flavour. Wonderfully cripsy balls (which took us all by surprise after the description as 'fritters) were filled with a creamy cod mousse. As a staple pub food, one would hope the bangers and mash at a place with a kitchen as commendable as the Hotel Lincoln's would be something special. These didn't disappoint. Two incredibly meaty pork sausages, studded with fennel seeds, were served on a wodge of spot-on creamy smooth mash.

In addition to this fabulous food is an extraordinary wine list. They offer six or so reds and whites each by the glass, and they are both carefully chosen and competitively priced - a Hugel Riesling blend for $6, Innocent Bystander Pinot Gris for $6.50, a Marlborough Sav Blanc and Gewürz for around $7. They also do Te Whare Ra Gewürztraminer, which is one of my favourite wines. The staff are friendly, knowledgable and the crowd, not surprisingly given they're in a place of good food and drink, are happy.

Promontory Gate Hotel (Fishy Pub)

Old Waratah Road, Fish Creek; 03 5683 2404

Our anniversary took us to a favourite B&B in South East Gippsland, Bayview House (left). On our last trip we’d tried places in the two nearest towns, Foster and Fish Creek. Since then, the Fishy Pub had been re-done, so we thought it would be worth checking out what it had to offer.

This is a great example of a locals’ pub. The night we were there coincided with the Seachange Festival in Foster and the dining room was rammed with big family groups and noisy with cross-table conversations and exuberant chases among the kids. With no idea of the menu I had been a little worried we’d find a $30-a-main gastropub. But no, the priciest thing on this menu was the Shallow Inlet Sizzling Seafood Salad, with squid, prawns and scallops, for $32.90, which sounds worth every cent.

I was really impressed with the menu. It featured lots of fish, being so close to Western Bay, and promised that all steaks were prime cuts, grain fed and aged. The pastas and risottos showed thought too, for example the Waratah Bay Risotto – sautéed scallops, king prawns, pink peppercorns, garlic, dill, seaweed in creamy white wine sauce ($21.90). Typing that out is making me wish I’d opted for that!

Instead I went the butterfish special, cooked in a white wine napoli sauce, and SG chose the T-bone steak with mushroom sauce (both about $22). We showed our city bias by reading the sides – ‘served with chips and salad or vegetables’- as meaning chips guaranteed, salad or vegetables the options. Choosing the last option, we missed out on further feeding SG’s current obsession with deep fried potato. Instead we had garlic butter chaps, al dente broccoli and beans, and a field of very buttery corn each.

The butterfish made me think of the white cliffs of Dover, so thick-cut and pure white was the flesh. Did I mention the portion sizes? This is a pub feeding hordes of footballers after all, and they were HUGE. Although well-textured, and with a complementing rather than dominating sauce, there was way more fish than I could do justice to. The T-bone was succulent and cooked to order. Again, the accompanying sauce added balanced flavour, indicating someone was out there stirring from scratch, not packet. Similarly, the freshness of flavour of the vegetables impressed.

A range of home-cooked desserts was on offer for $7.50. The trip was worth it for the beer prices alone - $2.80 a pot – and the pub rotates a selection of local wines. Tonight was Stockyard Creek, and I went for a fine riesling. The floor staff were openly friendly and attentive, and didn’t look the least harassed by the bursting dining room, which shows they’re well-trained and that this pub is deservedly popular.

www.fishypub.com.au

Mrs Parmas

25 Little Bourke St; 03 9639 2269

I’d seen mention of Mrs Parmas in Dishlicious in the A2 – as a pub in Little Collins St specialising in parmigianas - and was reminded of it at Wicked Sunday (that delectable new feature of the Melb Food and Wine Festival), where they had a stand as part of the Microbrewery gallery.

Why did a parma restaurant have a stand amongst Victoria’s microbreweries? Because in addition to serving up Melbourne’s most gourmet version of the traditional pub treat, it is also an all-Victorian bar, selling a range of locally brewed beers on tap and by the bottle – a very commendable policy indeed.

Firstly to the food. Any couples dining on a small appetite should definitely order one to share – these parmas are HUGE. And not huge in that ‘oh my god, there is so much saturated fat and questionable meat product on my plate I’d best drink more so it becomes more appealing’ kind of way. All their parmas are made fresh, the sauces are homemade, and you know you’re consuming quality produce.

Our topping selections were the Original (ham, cheese, napoli sauce) and Matriciana (olives, chilli (undetectable), cheese, napoli sauce). While beaten thin to schnitzel thickness, the chicken was still substantial, and the ratio of meat to crumb was much better than some more questionable schnitzels I’ve eaten. The sauce had a real tomato kick, not over oiled, and the olives added a great saltiness. There are about 10 toppings to choose from, all available with either chicken ($18.50), veal ($22.50) or eggplant ($16.50). Being quality conscious as they are, Mrs Parma also offers gluten and egg free pastas. There are also a small range of steak and seafood dining options.

And now to the beers. We first sampled Gippsland Gold and Grand Ridge Pilsener, and couldn’t go past them for the second round. Both were delicious. The Gippsland Gold was an almost bright yellow, with a citrus crispness. Very refreshing to drink, but still with a full flavour. The Pilsener was darker, with a malty taste that almost made it caramelly. Both are now on our list to have in the house. The bar also serves beers from CBD breweries such as Three Ravens, plus Holgate in Woodend and others from around the state. There are half a dozen each well-priced red and white wines available, though I was surprised they didn’t go all-Victorian on those as well.

Grace Darling

114 Smith St, Collingwood; 03 9416 0055

The Grace Darling is a winner on a Tuesday night - a full-sized, quality pub grub menu with almost everything under $15. We first ventured there weeks ago for the $12 steak: with creamy garlic mash and a decent jus it is extremely good value. After a few too many heavy meals of late I had a craving this time for something Thai, which the Grace also offers from its Thai This menu. I went for the prawn stir fry with spring onion, garlic, chilli and cabbage. SG stuck to the pub mood and went with the steak sandwich.

Since the start of August the Grace has introduced trivia on a Tuesday night as well, and I did wonder how the kitchen would cope - that's a lot of $11 parma to carry upstairs. With a 20 minute or so wait the smells of heartier pub fare - fries, breads and pie pastry - left me a trifle disappointed when my stir fry arrived. I'd been hoping for a Thai taste explosion, but the first few mouthfuls were closer to (well) dressed coleslaw. The rice though was well cooked - not at all dry, and the kernels nicely separating. Despite a visual presence of red chilli I didn't detect any heat in the dish. It was saved, however, by the presence of four, fat king prawns. They had been lightly fried and I perhaps would have preferred them having some more time getting to know the marinade. The use of more delicate spring onion rather than its crunchier cousin saved the dish being over-powered, which made up somewhat for the runny, not-so-flavourful sauce.

Definitely on the plus side though, it filled me up, without a heavy feeling, which left room to polish off the remaining crispy fries on SG's plate.