COMING SOON - Nuevo Latino, West Footscray + Barkly Village Showcase

Remember Besito?  For newer WeFolk, this was a Colombian cafe that was open for about a year a year or so ago, and brought beautiful white corn arepas and Five Senses coffee to Barkly Street.  Sadly it closed (for family reasons, I believe).  But we are going to get another chance to bring some South American sunshine into our lives (and bellies) - Nuevo Latino is opening soon!

So, here's the goss.  Nuevo Latino will be opening soon in the old Cafe Bianco premises.  The folks behind it are the Rodriguez family, namely brothers Salvador (aka Sal) and Juan, plus their mum.  They are originally from El Salvador and have run a successful Latin American catering business in Melbourne for a number of years.  Sal tells me they are the official caterer for a number of Melbourne's central and south American consulates.  That's a pretty big endorsement!

Sal tells me they are really excited to take up residence at Bianco Cafe.  "We loved the vibe of Phil, the previous owner, who would feed the poor by giving soup," he tells me.  In the same spirit, Nuevo Latino will have a suspended coffee scheme (a voluntary system where you can pay in advance for someone in need's coffee - read more here).  "We still want to keep that community feel," says Sal.  In terms of decor, a graffiti artist is coming from Colombia to decorate the beer garden with "an Aztec or a Mayan feel".

And the menu?  It's not locked down yet, but Sal told me of inspiration from "Nuevo Latino"-style cooking from Miami, which embraces a modern spin on traditional central- and south-American recipes.  His partner is Japanese, so there might be some Japanese-El Salvadorean fusion going on!

Neuvo Latino's big launch is on November 6th, but if you can't wait till then, you should check out the Barkly Village Showcase, happening on Wednesday October 29th.  This has been put together by Col Cameron, local resident, comedian and MC.  He runs the Barkly Village Facebook page and says, "I created the page because I live close to the short strip and felt that it could be so much livelier.  My dream is to have all the restaurants regularly posting their specials for locals each week.  I also want the restaurants to work together on events to liven up the area."

Tickets are $60 and include:

*  A three-course dinner, with each course at a different Barkly Village restaurant.  It's a lucky dip, with punters learning the location of their first restaurant two days before the event, and then being guided "to their second mystery restaurant and the same for dessert".  Participating restaurants include 540 on Barkly, Thai Angels, Hyderabad Inn, Akshaya Sweets and Chat, Magic Momo Kafe, Gusto at Barkly and Nuevo Latino.

*  A donation to Soulhouse Men's Cooking Program, a cooking program run by the West Footscray Neighbourhood House which "responds to a keen interest among local rooming house men in coming together each week to develop their skills in the kitchen in order to provide nourishing meals, both for themselves and others". 

PLUS

*  All restaurants will be hosting live entertainment...

*  Nuevo Latino will serve savoury and sweet tapas throughout the night to all patrons as they move between restaurants and courses...

*  Non-restaurants on the strip will be contributing prizes and gift bags to be won throughout the night...

*  Two Birds in Spotswood will bring their "mobile brewing station" !

To purchase tickets, head to TryBooking.  I have no financial association with this event - I just think it's a great idea.

Also make sure to like Barkly Village on Facebook to stay up to date with the strip.  You can also get all the news and updates from Nuevo Latino right here.

La Tortilleria - real tacos in Kensington

I have just returned from Mexico.  It took me 15 minutes to get home.  Let me explain.

La Tortilleria is a tiny, authentic tortilla factory in an industrial part of Kensington.  It's owned and run by the lovely Gerardo and Diana, who are passionate about the real way to make tortillas - from wholegrain corn rather than corn flour.  Diana knows what she's doing - she's previously worked in a tortilleria in Mexico.

The way to make real tortillas is called nixtamal and, save for the machinery involved, hasn't changed since Aztec times.  Most modern tortillerias (and according to Diana, all other tortillerias in Melbourne) use processed flour, which is kind of like using instant coffee powder to make coffee.  At La Tortilleria, the process starts the night before with non-GMO Australian corn that's soaked in a calcium solution.  This helps the corn to release nutrients such as niacin (vitamin B3) and become more digestible.

The next morning it's ground in a stone grinder to create the masa or dough.  Other tortillerias start here, by mixing the prepared corn flour with water.  As I understood it, that's like instant coffee made with coffee powder...versus using freshly-ground beans and the resultant shot that's just streets ahead.  It also means that La Tortilleria's tortillas are 100% preservative and additive free.

The masa is fed into a tortilla press which rumbles and jiggles before plopping heavenly, warm, real Mexican tortillas onto a conveyer belt...into your heart.  You can buy them fresh, vacuum sealed (if you want to cook with them, say, in a few days' time) or best of all - eat them in house with some Mexican street-style toppings!

Gerardo and Diana are really proud that they have the support of Melbourne's Mexican community who have been coming in droves to have Mexican that's just like back home.  They have a disarmingly simple menu of tacos, taquitos (rolled and deep-fried filled tortillas), sopes (hand-pressed, fat tortillas) and more.  This behemoth platter for two (four goodies each, plus guacamole) was $40.  Guess what - La Tortilleria use only free range meat and eggs!

I've eaten a lot of great tacos in Chicago, which has a large Mexican community.  My fave is tacos al pastor - you can read a bit about them in Chi-town in this old post of mine.  La Tortilleria's were delicious, with the meat carved from the spit (like a souvlaki) and spiked with spiced pineapple.  I thought they needed a dash of salt, but apart from that, holy tamales!

La Tortilleria have a fantastic self-serve sauce "bench" where you can load up with amazing chipotle sauce, Gerardo's special sweet mango salsa, pico de gallo and real corn chips, made by deep-frying actual tortillas.

Adored this Mexican spiced coffee, black and sweet with cinnamon and more.  I was so excited about the food I forgot to ask how it's made, but it's delicious.  La Tortilleria also have a fantastic selection of Mexican ingredients for sale - tomatillos, achiote paste and more.

La Tortilleria are open for lunch and dinner Thursday through Sunday.  The business is only five weeks old, but I predict it's about to go absolutely gangbusters.  This is the sort of thing Melbourne loves - uncompromisingly authentic food, made with skill and passion.  And how many times can you say you've eaten food made by someone who's climbed Mount Everest?  Gerardo has!

La Tortilleria (Facebook page)

72 Stubbs Street, Kensington

Phone:  9376 5577

Hours:  Thurs-Fri noon-2.30pm, 6pm-late; Sat-Sun 11.30am-3.30pm, 6pm-late

Besito - Colombia comes to West Footscray

I saw a hashtag on Twitter recently - #WeFo, as in West Footscray.  This prompted much undignified snorting at the time.  SoHo and TriBeCa, watch out, WeFo is burning up - bringing velour blankets and split peas to all the hipsters!  A new opening, however, is making me eat my words, and with pleasure, too.

Besito is just three days old today, a cafe that serves Five Senses coffee and a really exciting Colombian-informed menu.  The colours blossom like a tropical flower inside, with joyous, rustic  rainbow tables and an effervescent mural on the walls bursting with colourful silhouettes of rainforest birds.

Uncompromisingly great coffee, coaxed from a Synesso machine.  They use Five Senses' Dark Horse blend never more than 6 to 12 days post roasting.  The sugar is panela, evaporated cane juice, ie, totally unrefined sugar.  It actually has healthy qualities such as trace minerals compared to regular sugar.  The lovely Colombian waiter explained that back home, a Colombian version of Gatorade is panela and lemon juice mixed with water.

Arepas, $6.50

These are arepas which are a Colombian staple.  They are thick pancakes made from low-processed whole white corn.  They're not made from a flour as are tortillas and pupusas but more of a meal, similar to polenta I believe.  The right way to eat these is to nick with your knife all over and then smoosh with heaps of butter, letting it meld with the soft middle.  They were delish, perfect with the great quality butter and salt flakes that melted like snowflakes on the tongue.

"Plate of everything", $24.50

There is so much to try on the menu, from intriguing breakfast dishes such as changua, free range eggs poached in coriander-infused milk, to lots of little bites like smashed chickpeas or things with manchego cheese.  This tasting plate seemed a good place to start.  The jamon (similar to prosciutto) was divine, with multidimensional saltiness and savoury umami hum.  Gorgeous creamy guacamole melted in the mouth while the fat little potato-stuffed empanadas were great with the zesty coriander salsa dressing. The Spanish tortilla (egg and potato omelette) was excellent while light queso cheese-filled peppers were slippery and delicious.

Sweets, $2.50 each

That shot of happiness is arequipe, fudgy Colombian caramel sauce made from fresh milk, served here with a raft of chocolate ganache.  Mini salted caramel cakes are next.  We loved the swirl of luscious caramel on top but the cake was slightly on the dry side - it's hard to get these tiny cakes still moist.  As well as espresso, they serve filter coffee with regularly-changing single origins (currently Colombian, of course!)  I'm really getting into filter.  It's like a tea, and taken without sugar and milk, so many more floral notes come out in the coffee and you can relax languidly into a cup or two in a way you can't with a punch-in-the-face short black.

This is probably funny from me who photobombed them on their second day, but GO SLOW - they are very new and still getting settled.  Be neighbourly and just be patient.  A liquor licence is coming soon and then they will be opening for WINE and NIBBLY THINGS in the EVENINGS.

WeFo, I'm sorry I doubted you.  ¡Bienvenido to the neighbourhood, Besito!

Besito (Facebook) - www.besito.net.au

590A Barkly Street, West Footscray

Phone:  9689 0586

Hours (updated Aug 2012):  Wed 9am-4pm, Thu-Fri 9am-11pm, Sun 9am-4pm


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Chilean empanadas at La Morenita

I love backstreet suburban shopping strips.  Like little rockpools, they foster small, unique shops.  On unremarkable, semi-industrial Berkshire Road in North Sunshine, La Morenita is definitely the pearl in the oyster.

The sign on the windows still points to the old occupants, but inside La Morenita remains a hub of the Chilean and wider South American community.  A range of Latin American grocery products are on offer, from yerba mate, a herbal infusion beloved in Uruguay, real paprika-rich chorizo sausages and other smallgoods, and bundles of thick dried seaweed or cochayuyo used to make very rustic Chilean dishes.

Stop in for a surprisingly decent coffee and a caramel-stuffed sweetie or loosen the belt for some homestyle Chilean sandwiches.  Order at the counter and then settle down while your meal is whipped up out the back.

Empanadas can be a light meal or entree.  Their edges lovingly folded up, they can be baked and filled with beef mince, olive and hardboiled egg or mildly-spiced chicken and tomato.  Alternately my favourite are their fried cousins, melty with cheese, the pastry golden, crisp and bubbly.

Chorizo and cheese empanada, $3

Hello sailor!  Gorgeous little morsels of rich, smoky chorizo sausage with golden stringy cheese in a crackly pastry shell.

Sandwich #9, $5 ($5!!!!)

This sandwich was unreal - great bread filled with wafer-thin, tasty steak, lightly-cooked emerald-green beans, gooey cheese, tomato, mayo and extra green chilli relish.  The mayo mixed with the meaty juice, soaking into the tender bun, while the chilli gave a tangy, delicious kick.

If you can bargain with your stomach to find some room, try the fabulous house-made sweets.  The alfajores are shortbread biscuits sandwiched together with deep brown caramel sauce then rolled in coconut.  Or try the ones filled with more caramel and spread all over with glossy white meringue.

Viva La Morenita!

La Morenita Latin Cuisine (Facebook)

67 Berkshire Road, North Sunshine

Phone:  9311 2911

Hours:  Tues-Wed 11am-5pm, Thurs-Fri 8am-5.30pm, Sat 8am-5pm, Sun 8am-3pm

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South American Bakery

In the fabric of our wonderful multicultural Melbourne, the South American community may be a less immediately-obvious thread, but it is no less lustrous than others.  Indeed, the South American bakery in North Sunshine is a real sparkler.

There's something about tiny, tucked-away shopping strips that seems to attract South American places here in the western suburbs.  Panaderia Sud Americana is nestled in North Sunshine on a quiet backstreet and fills up with members of the Chilean, Argentinian and neighbouring communities getting their sweet fix.

There's a good range of bread that's somewhat reminiscent of French, with stubby baguette-style bread, as well as round, hamburger-like rolls with rustic fork marks on top.

The real drawcard for me, though, are the sweets.  They feature lots of pearlescent meringue, whether crisply coating biscuits that in turn sandwich intense caramel sauce or spread gently to enclose huge sponge cakes.

A huge part of the pantheon of Chilean sweets is manjar (known in Mexcio as dulce de leche), a home-made, heavenly, thick caramel sauce.  Here it comes swirled in tiny homemade donuts, piped into horns and wedged between shortbread biscuits.  Don't try to snaffle these in the car on the way home - you will be covered in crumbs and icing sugar and it will be a dead giveaway!

They make all their own pastry here, including puff pastry that features in some seriously impressive mini danishes.  Custard features in sweets too, but I prefer the caramel.  Sweet tooths are not the only lucky ones with a small range of empanadas, pastie-like turnovers filled with cheese and/or ham.

DO YOU NEED ANY MORE CONVINCING?

South American Bakery

76 Warwick Road, Sunshine North

Phone:  9364 8302

Hours:  Tues-Sat 8am-6pm, Sun 8am-2pm

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Los Latinos

 

I love the old-school neighbourhood shopping strip - you know the one - set back just a little from the main road, 45-degree angle parking set into the kerb in front.  There is usually a fish & chip shop, a hot bread shop and always something random like a bulk nappy outlet or "Yvonne's Yooniverse of Yarn".  More and more, though, there are empty, shuttered shops.  Such would be the case for this little strip in Mitchell Street, Maidstone, if not for Los Latinos - a little ray of Latin American sunshine!

I was lucky enough to have dinner with Deb of Bear Head Soup who, aside from being an absolute sweetheart, is a fellow Mesoamerican food tragic.  We thought we would duck the crowds by meeting at 6.30 pm on a Wednesday but even then the little place was packed.  Service is slow but don't hold that against them - they are absolutely snowed under!

 



Los Latinos serves food from across Central and South America with drinks to match.  We chose Guava and Grape ("uva", related the Latin for eggs, from whence comes "ovary" - sorry, frustrated linguist here) varieties of Jarritos soft drink which is served in all good Mexian taquerias in the States.  They were teeth-achingly sweet but good.

Arepas

We waited and waited and were just planning our escape to plan B (Hung Vuong) when the food finally began to arrive.  First we had one of the specials of the day, arepas, a Columbian version of El Salvadorean pupusas.  These stuffed pancake-like snacks differ in that they are made with different sorts of flour.  Both snacks use corn flour but the masa (flour) for arepas is not treated with lime as is masa harina (sounds scary, is actually totally natural - lime is an alkaline mineral substance that encourages the skins to separate from the kernels.).  The flour or masarepa for these had a slightly coarser texture, not unlike a thick-grained polenta.  They were stuffed with a stretchy white cheese and were absolutely delicious.  The sauce on the side was a tangy green tomatillo salsa that complemented the rich yet simple cheese perfectly.

Chorizo, $6

This was so incredibly yummy.  Little disks of authentic chorizo, fried so their edges began to curl up, in a rich tomato, capsicum and onion sauce.  This is the best chorizo I have had since first having it in London many years ago.  It came with two home-made tortillas which I have to say I found somewhat thick and stodgy, but I think they were meant to be thick like that for dipping.

Chicken tacos, $10.50

We went for the chicken tacos too, three tacos a steal at $10.50.  These were good with tender chopped chicken, a simple tomato and onion salsa and a spoonful of benign guacamole in a home-made tortilla (thankfully much thinner than those served with the chorizo).  They came with a mild chilli sauce and a very smoky chipotle BBQ-style sauce.  The tacos were good but I think Los Latinos has more exciting things on the menu.

Pupusas, $10

My friend K with whom I had travelled in the States had eaten pupusas the night after I left and she had raved about them.  I had sighed and thought there was no chance I could try these little babies until I was next in the States, and then as if by magic the review appeared in Age revealing that there was a pupuseria not just in Melbourne but right near me!  These are so, so yummy.  They are stuffed pancakes similar to the arepas but made with masa harina, the same dough used to make tortillas and tamales.  These were stuffed with a little mashed beans and tangy cheese.  They came with a super-tangy slaw and a little pot of mild chilli sauce.  Fantastic!!

I can't wait to back there with the family; kids would love the arepas and pupusas in particular.  Be patient with the service if they are busy.  They are applying for a liquor licence.  It is so great to see the bright little shopfront among all the other "dead" shops in the strip and I can only hope this trend will continue across Melbourne, that niche restaurants can find a foothold in these dying strips where there must be cheaper rent, simultaneously revitalising them.

Thank you Anonymous (commenter on Pho Tam) for suggesting Los Latinos!  I love getting all your tips and suggestions for reviews or dishes to try.  Keep them coming!

Los Latinos

128 Mitchell St, Maidstone (map)

Phone:  9318 5289

Hours:  Wed-Thurs 5pm-9pm, Fri 5pm-10pm, Sat noon-10pm, Sun noon-9pm

Wheelchair Accessibility

Door:  Moderate-sized "lip"/small step to enter.

Layout:  Small but could accommodate if not a busy time.