Roti Road

"May the road rise up to meet you," goes the old Irish blessing to the weary traveller.  The road I have in mind, though, isn't going to get a chance to "rise up" to meet anybody - it's about to get hit with a stampede.

Roti Road is a brand-new Malaysian-Chinese restaurant that has just opened in Footscray on the site of the old Yummie. It's had an epic makeover, complete with glossy wood, red banquettes and green-leaved potted plants dotted throughout. 

We were wandering by, perfectly content with our dinner plans at an old favourite, when we saw that it was open for business.  Wild horses etc etc.  Thus you'll have to forgive the quality of the camera phone photos on this instance - I was a bit underprepared!

House-made roti with three dipping sauces of sorts (sweet and almost smoky chicken curry sauce, a lovely dal, and jammy sambal).  This roti is unreal.  The whole plate is $5.90 (YES) and you can add a very excellent chunky lamb (or beef, or chicken) curry for an extra $4.  This roti rivals Mamak - seriously, you have to try it.

Just some good old salt-and-pepper squid in a noodle basket.  This was done well.

These chicken dumplings looked gorgeous on the menu (indeed, most things do - they're beautifully photographed) but I found them a bit lacking in flavour and juice.  A bit of soy and vinegar, though, and Bob's your uncle.  The little "webs" aren't attached to the bases but are separate, which is unusual.

We were busy gorging ourselves when suddenly, an upbeat dance track came on and the stereo got turned up.  We peered about, wondering what was going on, but the staff were all looking at the floor with knowing smiles.  Suddenly, out of the kitchen bounded a chef, twirling and flipping a tissue-thin sheet of roti pastry like pizza!

He popped and locked his way through the whole track, all the while spinning his roti in the air, while the patrons whooped and cheered.  It was so unexpected and so joyful.  Apparently this happens every evening!

Can you find the roti?

One half of Roti Road is David Tran, who is the son of Yummie head honchos John and Annie Tran.  Devotees of their dumplings can rest easy that yum cha is still on offer daily until 3pm.  I had a quick chat to David after our meal and he confirmed that their head chef is Malaysian, and everything is made here from scratch, from the roti to the laksa paste.

Speaking of which, here's what you have to look forward to!

David shouted us this Matterhorn of a dessert - roti with condensed milk and icecream.  Completely OTT fun.

Roti Road is officially opening today, Friday 2 May.  I love the decor, which feels smart but not slick.  The food is really good and I can't wait to try more.  The toilets need some TLC but I believe that was meant to be happening over the last few days, plus some more artwork going on the walls.  Oh, and it's BYO for now but a licence is in the works.

No need to divert to Flemington, Footscrazies - when it comes to Malaysian food, we can go our own way now!

Roti Road (Facebook)

189-193 Barkly Street, Footscray

Phone:  9078 8878

Golden Horse yum cha

What are the three sweetest words in the English language?

"I love you"?

"Marry me, please"?

I say they're...

"YUM CHA DAILY" !

The Golden Horse has just opened on possibly Footscray's best corner site, and is ready to feed you these sweet nothings seven days a week.

There aren't many small yum cha restaurants like this around.  Usually when a yum cha place is small, it means no trolleys, or a very small range of food.  That's not the case here.  Golden Horse have a great range of dim sum, and it's not dumbed down - I spied chicken feet, pork ribs, tendon and silken tofu with prawn.

The small space does mean it's tricky to get a table of exactly the size you require, which means you might have to share a table.  I felt pretty sorry for the couple who had to share an eight-seater with me and my three grotty kids, but luckily the first trolley hit within seconds of sitting, so I could plug them with food straight away.

Shu mai, or "the ones with the dot on top" as they're known in our family.  They're made from prawn and pork with a wonton wrapper enclosing the bottom and sides.  These were really chunky and quite awesome.  Love how you get four to a basket rather than the usual three!

An equally generous serve of har gao or prawn dumplings.  Great.

Ridiculously amazing pastry - short, flaky, feathery and totally melt-in-the-mouth.  It was curled around a jammy BBQ pork filling.  Pounce the minute you see these come out of the kitchen.

These prawn noodle rolls are one of my favourite things - big noodle sheets (like lasagne sheets) flopped around prawns.  Pro tip - attack these with an empty bowl, ie, not one full of soy sauce.  The sauce with these is really light and sweet and deserves to be enjoyed on its own.

Crisp prawn rolls, I believe wrapped in rice paper, served with a little dish of mayo.  Also try the very similar golden brown-coloured variety, where the prawn is wrapped in fried bean curd skin (those ones come with a violently coloured yet delicious sweet-and-sour sauce).

Forgo the standard jasmine and order some chrysanthemum tea.  It has a fresh taste, a little like chamomile but much more gentle.

Ham sui gok, aka "football dumplings".  These have a glutinous rice flour batter around a filling - normally pork mince and a bit of mushroom.

These ones had a pretty filling with chopped pork and a little (what I think is) Chinese chive.  With the perfect crisp exterior and warm, slightly gummy interior, they were great.  Try these with chilli sauce.

Wasn't a fan of these panfried dumps - they were not hot enough.  Honestly, I'm never a huge fan of this type of dumpling (jiao zi) at yum cha.  If you want fried dumplings, go order a whole plate for ten or so bucks at 1+1 across the road.

This squid obviously never skipped leg day.  Even though these calamari tentacles were really big, they weren't tough, and the light coating was great.

Just enough room for char siu bao - fluffy steamed buns with a warm dob of BBQ pork in the middle.

Something to keep the kids quiet while I go to pay the bill (which, for all of the above for a very greedy adult and three kids, came to $61.80)...

...and after paying, I got chatting to Barry Diep, whose family restaurant this is.  All the yum cha is made in house.  There are some serious dumpling smarts going on here - one of the chefs is the ex-head chef of a Gold Leaf restaurant, and was coaxed out of retirement to saddle up the Golden Horse.  (Barry's uncle is one of the owners of the Gold Leaf chain, which includes Sunshine's Gold Leaf - a big favourite of mine.)

Barry's dad is also a chef at the Golden Horse.  He did his formal training in Hong Kong in the 1970s with an apparently very highly regarded chef of the time, and one of his fellow students was the current head chef of Laksa King.  He has been cooking since he was eight, including up and down the length of Vietnam.  As such, Barry reports that he was exposed to French techniques and ingredients.  His signature dish is snow crab with foie gras.  CAN YOU SAY HELL YES?!

Dad's other specialty is his XO sauce.  Barry kindly gave me this little pot to take home and try, while the kids all got a mango pudding each.  The sauce is a knockout and the puds were all fantastic - they had tiny little real mango bits in them.

I really like the Golden Horse.  Eating yum cha in a big dim sum barn can feel like you're on a conveyer belt, but this is a really friendly little place.  This site is an iconic one for the suburb, and it feels so right to have a big, busy yum cha restaurant full of people right here in the guts of the 'scray.  I love that everything's made here, and afterwards the insatiable salt/MSG-induced thirst that normally attacks me after a yum cha session was nowhere to be found.  Can't wait to come back in the evening and try the a la carte stuff.

You could say Footscray is now a one-horse town, and I think it's all the better for it.

Golden Horse

Cnr Hopkins and Leeds Streets, Footscray

In case you missed Friday's post - Footscray Food Blog's next round of independent tours is now on sale!  Get the dates and details here...

Tasty tidbits, from fish and chips to duck parfait at IDES

Time for another blog amnesty post!  I wanted to share with you some westside and city dining highlights from the last couple of months.  First up:  IDES.

IDES is a pop-up dinner put together by mates and passionate chefs Peter Gunn and Lindsay Fush (second and third from the left above respectively), who met while working at the Royal Mail in Dunkeld.  Peter is now junior sous chef at Attica, while Lindsay is working at a local pub in Hamilton.  Late last year they formed their own catering business and then began to explore the idea of using their days off to host a pop-up tasting menu here in Melbourne.  You know how they say if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life?  These guys have obviously nailed it.

The menu is six courses of intricate yet playful food, a steal at $90.  It's at Tonik in Kensington, who provide drinks for purchase.  Sure, the space isn't nearly as classy as the food, but Peter and "Fushie" bring in all their own crockery and cutlery to enhance the experience of what's on the plate.

One thing I love is that with the exception of Raffaele Mastrovincenzo (front of house at Attica and wearing black in the photo above), the chefs do all the service, bringing out plates and chatting with you about their ingredients, technique and so on.

One of my faves was this exquisite duck liver parfait served with smoked salt, toasted black pepper and chervil, gorgeous heaped onto toasted bread.  I also loved a starter of an amazing, rich broth that was apparently only made with turnip, onion and mustard oil.

As of today, there are a mere 10 spots left for the next dinner on Monday, 23 September.  Book via the details above, and you can also check out the IDES Facebook page here.

Well, from the sensational to the...somewhat disappointing.  I was pretty stoked to hear that Dumplings Plus were opening a new branch at Highpoint.  If I'm stuck and starving, I'd prefer to have a choice like this rather than the usual food court suspects.

This wonton soup was spoiled, though, by absolute buckets of MSG.  Interesting exchange I had with a Chinese restaurateur recently, though - I said in my opinion restaurant X used too much MSG and he said, quite surprised, "You can taste MSG?"  I think it's like boar taint.  Some find it overpowering; others can't taste it at all.  Anyway, do try Dumplings Plus yourself - I'd go for the plain panfried dumplings next time.

What DOESN'T have a lot of MSG is this quite delicious beef pho from Green Leaf, Moonee Ponds.  We were so struck by its rich flavour yet lack of that particular "kapow" MSG denotes that we checked with the owner and there is only the tiniest pinch in a 20-litre stockpot.

Trying to convince a Footscray resident to go elsewhere for Vietnamese is like selling coal to Newcastle, but if Moonee Ponds is close to you, give Green Leaf a try.  Their prices are a bit dearer than Footscray or Sunshine but they have a lovely little story behind their business and their food is obviously made with care.  Their Facebook page is here.

Rockfish has changed owners and the word on the street is it's not the Rockfish we knew and loved.  I've been quite liking fish and chips from the very awesomely old-school Charles Street Fish and Chips in Seddon (67 Charles Street).

They have a really big range of fish, with ten choices including flathead, whiting, snapper, flounder and more.  Beer care of Seddon Wine Store.

With summer coming up, you could go and explore Point Cook Homestead.  It's quite odd to drive there, getting to the end of the glossy housing estates in Point Cook and suddenly being surrounded by fields and the odd horse, with the city hovering in the distance like a mirage.  The kids kept asking, "Are we in the country now?"  I didn't really know the answer.

You get the feeling they could do so much more with the space - there's a small but lovely old home that I think is mainly used for wedding photos, some empty stables, a herd of geese behind a gate and old farm machinery for the kids to play on.  The restaurant there is called Scrumpy Brown's and they do food that is not mindblowing but nice all the same.

Viz. this nice Caesar salad.  Lattes were pretty good too.

It's not far to scramble down to this lonely, lovely stretch of beach...

...and do some beachcombing.  (We put these back, of course.)  But do heed the warning signs of snakes - we nearly trod on a baby tiger!

1+1 Mandarin Dumpling Restaurant

"I'm going out for western Chinese tonight", I said.  "What", scoffed my friend M, sorting through his heirloom cabbage seeds.  "Sweet n' sour and black bean beef?"  "No", said I.  "Food from western China!"

That little exchange was actually over the new branch of Dolan Uyghur in the city (and M wasn't really sorting through his heirloom cabbage seeds, but I like to give him shit).  But it's not Dolan Uyghur I want to introduce you to - it's the new and improved 1+1.

First, a bit of back story.  China is about as big as the continental US, and while many tend to think of Chinese food as some kind of monolith comprising nothing but stir-fry, dumplings and rice, the country is rippled with regional variations.  In the northeast, there are hearty soups full of sauerkraut-like cabbage; in central Sichuan, they hubble and bubble with mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorns and delicate white fish.

But the Xinjiang region at China's northwestern fringe is another kettle of fish altogether.  Here, the people are Muslim, speak a Turkic language that's written in Arabic script, and it's lamb that's the star of the show.  Check out the skewers and the pilaf above - they look more Middle Eastern than Chinese!  The Xinjiang area is arguably more connected culturally to its neighbouring central Asian republics like Turkestan and Uzbekistan than to Beijing.

1+1's been serving up Xinjiang (also known as Uyghur, although the terms aren't totally interchangeable) fare in Footscray for years, but recently acquired new owners.  They inserted "Mandarin" in the title and have done some zhooshing up.

We'd no sooner plonked down and started browsing when a helpful waitress appeared.  "Would you like some suggestions?"  Yes, please, we said, and she set about giving us a crash course in western Chinese food.  Highly recommended are the cold salads, handmade noodles and dumplings, and everything lamb.

Hot spicy cucumber, $9

You can't miss this cucumber salad.  It was a standout at the old 1+1 and it's still excellent, with crunchy cucumber batons in a zingy, vinegar-based dressing that tingled with just a little chilli.

Panfried veg dumpling, $11

I'd spoken to the owner of 1+1 when researching the Footscray Food Secrets project, and she singled out her vegie dumplings as a signature dish.  The skins are made in-house, with their vibrant green colour coming from cooked spinach that's then squeezed to obtain the juice.  These were as beautiful inside as out, with a filling of shredded emerald spinach spiked with ginger and garlic.  Dunk 'em in black vinegar - just help yourself from the condiment and cutlery shelf.

Tufun lamb fried noodle, $13.50

We had fun choosing which noodles to try.  Each variety had such mellifluous names ("tufun", "dindin", "uyghun") and each had a different shape, from large squares to long skinny tubes.  This noodle stir-fry of tasty, tender lamb, veg, and al dente noodle squares might not be that much of a looker, but it tasted fantastic.

The walls at 1+1 are dotted with interesting ephemera from the region, from musical instruments that look like Greek bouzoukis to this piccie which, to me, really speaks to the Silk Road which runs through Xinjiang.  If you go to Dolan in the city, it's kind of a head trip to see Chinese characters on the menu and huge Turkish carpets on the walls!

Much as I admit I'm partial to the very occasional sneaky sweet n' sour pork, this is the western Chinese food I like best.  Highly recommended.

1+1 Mandarin Dumpling
84 Hopkins Street, Footscray
Phone: 9687 8988
Hours:  Thurs-Mon noon-10pm (closed Wednesdays)