Up a discreet flight of stairs on to the 1st floor on Bourke Street, we found The Grand Trailer Park Taverna. A homage to the vintage American diner, you will find Milkshakes, Fries and Burgers of all varieties here. We braved a wintry a Melbourne night to try its fare.


While not terribly extensive, the burger list has decent variety and comes complete with names that generate a smirk to slight bewilderment. Personally, we opted for the The Chunk - Double Double ($16.50) and a large bucket of Beer Battered Chips ($5.50). The atmosphere was quite dinerish with a great mix of families, the after work crowd and couples.


Packed with two beef patties, cheese, onion, pickles, jalapenos, pickles, mustard & tomato sauce in between a brioche bun, the Chunk seemed messy and overloaded at times. Despite being of decent size, the Chunk failed to hit the nail on the head conclusively.  It left us satisfied but was not the knockout blow we were looking for.

The jalapenos were a welcome kick of spice and the patties were cooked well but the sweetness of the brioche bun combined with the sauce failed to close the deal. On a side note, the chips were good in their crunchy batter without being too thick.

While batting above average, The Grand Trailer Park can't claim the crown of Melbourne's best this time around. We'll certainly be back though if we are craving burgers around the Parliament end of Bourke Street.

 

From humble beginnings in Sydney, Pie Face scaled the fast food franchise ladder all the way to Japan, United States and Singapore and then came crashing down into administration in 2014. Having secured financing to continue however there are still franchises dotted around the country to deliver the famous variety of mass produced pies. But how does the Pie Face pie stack up to the mum and pop variety? We found out.


One of Pie Face's CBD outlets is located at Southern Cross Station close to the entrance on the corner of Spencer and Collins Street. Given the range of pies on offer was dwindling as were the crowds as it ticked past 6 PM on a rainy Thursday, we opted for the classic Steak and Peppercorn pie. Service was abrupt and disengaged (expected of most chain/franchises) but the pie was delivered warm nevertheless.


Biting into the pie, the pastry held up decently and was sufficiently flaky. The meat as well was chunky with legitimate pieces opposed to the minced mess that we typically steer away from (Four N' Twenty we are looking at you) and the peppercorn delivered a nice punch amidst the salty gravy.

Red Spice Road can often be perceived as a fine dining venue but when it comes to the express lunch banquet menu priced at $29.50 for an appetiser and three main courses to be shared among your guests, we found unlikely value.

Lauded for its Pork Belly, Red Spice Road in McKillop Street has been delivering Asian Fusion food to the masses since 2007.

The express banquet menu here (it is also available for early dinner between 5 and 6 excluding Saturdays) is changed fortnightly so there is nearly always something new to try.



During our visit, two of the three dishes delivered brilliantly on flavour with the beef a particular highlight. The appetiser was a beetle leaf concoction that could be gobbled in a single bite and was nothing special but a nice touch before entering the main courses.

The porkbelly was appropriately tangy but had a nice punch as well while the chicken yellow curry worked nicely with its coconut base.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised with the value and taste of Red Spice Road's express banquet. We'll be back soon.

True vegan options in Melbourne can be sparse outside of the traditional Indian options scattered around the CBD so when our vegan friends came to visit, it was the perfect excuse to pay a visit to vegan outlet Supercharger amidst Emporium Melbourne's ever expanding dining options.

The menu itself is fairly varied with plenty of options for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as the, to be expected, array of organic juices and some good looking desserts.

You can opt for pre-made combinations but we decided to let our creative juices flow on the recycled paper ordering form trialling our own combination with 4 items and 2 super bases for $13.80.


Serving itself took only a few minutes and we were quickly at our tables.

While the food itself was of a decent size, our own flavour combination choices were bland at best and each component itself just seemed to lack a little punch. In general, some of the choices looked to lacked the sizzle to lift the individual parts above their dreary stalemate.

Perhaps it was a case of our ridiculous pairing, so we'll back to try our hand at one of Supercharger's own pre-configured bowls. For now, we'll reserve ultimate judgement.

It is incredibly rare to find restaurants in Melbourne hover well over the 4.0 mark on Zomato on a consistent basis so when Laneway Greens appeared in our search for 'Healthy Lunch Spots' in the CBD, the 4.5 rating at the time was too good to refuse.

Tucked away on Flinders Lane, Laneway Greens would be quite easy to miss if not for the line of lunch customers piling out the door. For one thing, Laneway Greens may be the most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing minimalist casual dining spot to the end that food emerges (almost George Orwell 1984 style) from a little hole in the wall in the corner.



Given the line out the door and high rating, we understandably had high expectations so our tolerance level was slightly higher to the price of the Beef Bulgogi Style Salad ($16.50) (see the rest of the menu here) we chose and the wait time of nearly 20 minutes for food.

Eventually our buzzer went off and we collected our salad from the hole in the wall and we were off given the tight squeeze, during lunchtime peak hour, inside the store wasn't ideal for sitting around.




The packaging was elegant and we were just super excited to open this bundle of green goodness with Cauliflower Rice, Pickled Mushrooms, Kimchi and a Tamari Dressing. 




Sadly, looks did not live up to expectation with our salad. The sauce quickly became overpowering and the beef seemed drenched in fat rather than the lean variety we prefer in a healthy salad. Towards the bottom of the salad, the vinegar in the sauce was making the greens nearly inedible while the accompanying dressing only added insult to injury. And frankly, the quantity was frugal for a male and left us hungry soon after.

Our salad wasn't shocking but it did little to live up to the widely popular consensus that seemed to surround Laneway Greens.

We, more than anyone else, want healthy dining to succeed in Melbourne but at $16.50 and in this form of an overpowering combination, we won't be returning to Laneway Greens anytime soon.

Shopping centres are traditionally home to exhausted consumers and an array of common place fast food outlets but Emporium Melbourne in the heart of the city's CBD attempted to turn this notion on its head. Filled with premium casual dining franchises and restaurant pop ups, Emporium quickly gained traction as just as much a destination for food as it is for shopping.

We regularly pop in to shopping centre so you'll see more of these reviews soon but first off the block is I Love Pho Express.

For us, Vietnamese is a tried and tested favorite so Rice Paper Rolls are one of our favourite snacks on the go and hence we couldn't go past the 4 Chicken Rice Paper Rolls ($9) at I Love Pho Express.


The ordering system was typical of many up-market food courts with a buzzer system in place. The wait time was reasonable which I assume meant the rolls were being made fresh for our consumption.

4 Chicken Rice Paper Rolls ($9)

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Capitalising on the rising trend of Korean food in Melbourne, Suda presents a quirky mix of Korean fusion that seems to be spreading its tentacles across the city. Nestled in the confines of Healeys Lane in the heart of the city's legal district, Suda serves a steady stream of office workers during the busy lunch hours and a more select crowd for dinner.

Given it was lunch time and we were on the hunt for an interesting take on Korean, Suda was a perfect match. The restaurant itself was fairly busy but the waiter was eager to please and the service was quite good overall and we appreciated the fact that they were hasty to meet all our needs.

We didn't have much time on our hands with just under 25 minutes till our next meeting so we opted for the Bulgogi K-School Lunch Tray ($10.00). 

Bulgogi K-School Lunch Tray ($10.00)

The food came out at a reasonable speed and we were quick to tuck in. Overall, the food seemed a little underwhelming and nothing special really. The bulgogi was nothing to rave about and same could be said about the rice and the accompaniments. Perhaps, we didn't have a go at the true stars of the fusion menu, but for now, Suda just seemed to miss the mark slightly which doesn't bode well given the wealth of Korean and Asian options around it.

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Gazi was the first feather in George Calombaris' now giant Greek casual dining empire that encompasses the Hellenic Republic chain and Jimmy Grants souvlaki outlets. Taking over the prime position of the Press Club on Exhibition Street, Gazi was certainly a bold move at the time.

Now, Gazi is entrenched as a go-to-destination for casual Greek dining in the CBD and we had to check it out for ourselves.


Arriving in the midst of peak time on a Wednesday night, we were lucky enough to snag a seat at the bar and we wasted no time getting down to ordering from the reasonably curated menu (the menu changes often so unfortunately we couldn't recall the exact names of all the dishes we tasted after some research online). The spit roasting meat situated on the wall of the open kitchen was too hard to resist so we had to grab the Chicken with White Beans, Tyrokafteri and Walnut Dressing ($28.00) and Beef. Additionally, we ordered two salads to accompany our meal as well as the Fish with Walnut Dressing ($23.50) and not forgetting the popular Chicken Souvlakakia with Chips, Parsley, Onion and Mustard Mayo ($9.50). 

Chicken with White Beans, Tyrokafteri and Walnut Dressing ($28.00)

Fish with Walnut Dressing ($23.50)

Chicken Souvlakakia with Chips, Parsley, Onion and Mustard Mayo ($9.50)

Despite being in the mid-range tier when it comes to price, all the dishes did not disappoint and the flavours managed to beautifully complement each other in traditional hearty Greek fashion. With pleasant service to boot and a beautifully quirky interior, Gazi may be a trailblazer but it's certainly here to stay.

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