YOU’LL NEVER BE HUNGRY IN THE ‘BURBS
Sophie Benjamin
Melbourne may be known for its cold-brew small-batch hipster-made coffee, but it’s in the suburbs that you’ll find the true hidden treasures—traditional Taiwanese jelly desserts, delicate Ethiopian injera, crispy Vietnamese bánh cuón, slippery steamed eel. The outer ‘burbs may not be as sexy as the city, but for a food connoisseur, there’s no better place to be.
FOOTSCRAY
Where once the western suburbs were known for their industrial zones, just this year Time Out Magazine named Footscray the thirteenth coolest neighbourhood in the world! This is in no small part thanks to the melting pot of cultures that have made this part of Melbourne their home—Greece, Italy, Vietnam, Ethiopia. If you don’t have the time to explore the whole suburb, simply alight the train at Footscray Station and head no further than Footscray Market. An indoor multi-level fresh produce market with over sixty stalls, you’ll get a taste of everything here.
Just across from the market you can’t miss Nhu Lan Bakery; the giveaway is the crowds of people jostling out the front. This is Vietnamese fare at its finest—fresh, bursting with bright coriander and red-hot chilli, affordable and easy. For lunch, it’s hard to go past a classic bánh mì (their crusty-soft baguettes are baked on site) and for dessert I always reach for the bánh tiêu. A sesame-studded, lightly sweetened hollow donut, a fresh-out-of-the-fryer bánh tiêu can’t be beaten.
Down the road is Café Lalibela, an understated Ethiopian restaurant where the focus is on the food. Lalibela isn’t catering to western sensibilities—the menu is primarily share plates and, in place of cutlery, they ask that you embrace eating with your hands using injera, a large sour pancake used for scooping food and soaking up the juices. Slow-cooked meat stews, wats, are the showcase here, but for the vegetarian minded, the lentil dishes are brimming with cardamom-scented goodness. They also have a selection of imported Ethiopian beers, perfect for tempering the cayenne pepper heat.
For dessert, head to T. Cavallaro & Sons, a Sicilian bakery in the same spot that it has called home since 1956. There is plenty to choose from here, but their specialty is cannoli—hollow, deep-fried crispy pastry filled with cream or ricotta. The kids may choose the chocolate cream-filled ones, but for a more sophisticated palette, the cloudlike whipped ricotta scented with sweet marsala is to die for.
NHU LAN BAKERY
116 Hopkins Street, Footscray
CAFÉ LALIBELA
91 Irving Street, Footscray
T. CAVALLARO & SONS
98 Hopkins Street, Footscray
BOX HILL
Every time I feel like I want my tongue, stomach and all other taste-oriented organs caressed by a world of flavour, I head to Box Hill. Not only does this suburb have one of the best scents (you can always smell onions and garlic being fried at any point in time) and widest range of Asian marts, its train station (Box Hill Central) is a cornucopia of all things delicious. It’s seriously overwhelming, so here is a selection of some of my favourite food experiences.
If you have never tried a jianbing, it’s a must! Seriously—if I had a time machine, I would travel back to the first time that I ate one and relive that unrivalled sensory bliss all over again. Head to Pancake Village in Box Hill Central for jianbing, which is basically a stick of fried dough wrapped with a delicate egg crepe, accompanied by toppings of your choice (I recommend pickled mustard vegetables, chilli sauce and peanuts). In my humble opinion, there is little that rivals the blessed union of multiple fried doughs.
A noodle dish worth mentioning can be found at Colourful Yunnan, the Cross Bridge Rice Noodles dish or guoqiao mixian. The name comes from a story about a scholar’s wife who would bring separate components of a soup noodle dish over a bridge in order to keep the soup warm as he would be too busy studying to eat. Noodles are accompanied by sliced raw vegetables and toppings (which are added to the chicken broth to be cooked). Interactive AND delicious.
Because life is short and you have to seize every opportunity of joy as it floats your way, Meet Fresh is the logical way to end one’s Box Hill pilgrimage. It has a wealth of Taiwanese desserts—from tofu pudding to shaved ice to mochi! My personal favourite is their signature Icy Grass Jelly, a refreshing dish of herbal jelly topped with taro and sweet potato balls and shaved ice. I always leave this dessert parlour on clouds, ready to roll home from Box Hill to happily nurse my food baby in horizontal resting mode.
PANCAKE VILLAGE
Box Hill Central 1 Main Street Box Hill
COLOURFUL YUNNAN
Box Hill Central 1 Main Street Box Hill
MEET FRESH 鲜芋仙
932 Whitehorse Road Box Hill
DANDENONG
Right out east, in the heart of Melbourne suburbia, is Dandenong. An under-the-radar food destination, this unassuming neighbourhood is brimming with the earth-sweet scents of peppery paprika, cumin seeds, golden turmeric and ginger zest. The inner suburbs may have Chinatown and Little Saigon, but Dandenong boasts the Afghan Bazaar Cultural Precinct and Little India!
In the heart of Little India, Bikaner Sweets & Curry Café is a veritable institution. Go for the lunchtime special and sit down to a traditional thali, a set meal served in a large metal platter with a range of dishes—a pickle, curry, salad, rice, roti and something sweet. And on your way out, don’t forget to grab something from the bright jewel-like selection of Indian treats—my pick is the gulab jamun, a milky ball soaking in rose water syrup.
For dinner, you can’t go past Pamir Restaurant, a family-owned Afghan-Uzbeki restaurant with authentic food and live music on weekend nights. Run by a husband–and–wife team—she’s out front and he’s the chef—in just over a decade they’ve established themselves as central to the life of the precinct. Up a nondescript wooden staircase, the dining room is full of personal touches, including vintage photos on the walls and traditional-style cross-legged mats you can sit on for your banquets. Their specialty is Afghan dumplings, maantu, stuffed with spicy lamb and served with cooling yoghurt, or opt for the meat skewers cooked over smoky charcoal.
A more hidden gem in Dandenong is actually one of my favourites—Fiji Café & Sweets. The only Fijian café in Melbourne, think: bright printed fabric tablecloths, blaring music, welcoming staff and Indian food with a taste of the islands. Their roti is hands-down one of the best in the city—flaky, buttery, fresh, big! Best eaten wrapped around their delicious curries, from spicy chicken, goat on-the-bone to creamy chickpea. And an endless selection of sweets for after.
FIJI CAFÉ & SWEETS
90 Thomas Street, Dandenong
PAMIR RESTAURANT
195 Lonsdale Street, Dandenong
BIKANER SWEETS & CURRY CAFÉ
5/52B-C Foster Street, Dandenong
SUNSHINE
Out past Footscray lies Sunshine, a former manufacturing hub with a working-class history, among which lies a vibrant and eclectic array of restaurants, cafés, delis and food marts showcasing the area’s increasingly diverse population. You’re not coming to Sunshine for fine dining and wine lists—but what you will get are inviting store owners, proud residents and some of the most delicious dishes that Melbourne has to offer.
Undoubtedly, the most well-known restaurant in the neighbourhood is Xuân Bánh Cuôn. Serving traditional northern Vietnamese food, at first glance it looks much like your standard Melbourne Vietnamese restaurant—plastic tables topped with thermoses of jasmine tea and trays of chopsticks, sriracha and soy sauce. The menu here though goes well beyond phó. The two signature dishes you must try are the bánh da cua, a tangy crab paste soup made with red noodles that the owner sources from her hometown in Vietnam, served with chilli kumquats on the side. The other is bánh cuôn, thin pancake-like rice sheets stuffed with pork belly and mushrooms and topped with crispy shallots and pork floss. I don’t want to be dramatic, but they may change your life.
Whenever my brother visits Melbourne, he takes me to Gold Leaf Restaurant for Sunday morning yum cha. With its temple-like visage, red walls and large round tables, coming here always feels festive. The best thing about yum cha, of course, is that you don’t have to choose just one dish but instead can have small tastes of everything on offer. Some family favourites for us include soft spring rolls with fresh prawns, crispy fried squid legs, steamed eel and wobbly coconut jellies for dessert, which make me feel like a child all over again.
Sunshine’s pride in its food offerings is evident in the local festival they run each year—Sunshine FOOD Fever. Held in partnership with Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, FOOD Fever takes you on a three-course progressive dinner through Sunshine. Each course involves a different cultural cuisine—Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Indian—and aside from getting to feast on a variety of dishes, you get to meet the chefs and owners who will take you behind the scenes of their restaurants and share their stories.