I’ll even admit that over the past week, as we have welcomed Spring (goddammit!) with 6 or so days at or over 30 degrees C, I have been craving an Espresso Frappacino from Starbucks. But not enough to walk to one of the two surviving stores on Swanston Street to indulge. Moccona have released a new range of little or no milk cold coffees in a bottle, but I haven’t seen them close to work as yet. What do you do for a caffeine hit in the hot weather? I can’t deal with the usual iced coffee we Aussies get – too milky, not enough caffeine. I’ll have a lovely Liaison coffee in the morning, but what to do for my mid-morning hit? at 30+ degrees?

So … that’s the long story, I was looking for a decent coffee this morning to make up for it. I detoured to Seven Seeds to buy one, and thought I would have some breakfast as well.

I grab a spot on the communal table and check out the menu:-

• Bircher Muesli? nope. C’mon it’s Sunday!
• French Toast with banana, butterscotch sauce and peanut brittle? Sounds lovely but .. it’s breakfast! Even I can’t stomach anything that sweet for breakfast
• Pastries? ho hum
• Fruit Toast (ho-er hum .. ho-ho hum? Greater Hum)
• Sour Dough bread served with bits…salmon? don’t eat it; hummous tomato, olive oil and dukkah? sounds like lunch; African nutella and molasses, sounds like a diabetic coma
• Toasties – already written about them; not my idea of nice, way too much bread

No-one has come to take my order yet – I’m still not even sure after 5 or 6 visits if they do – no one has ever approached me before I’ve walked up to the counter to order. Can someone tell me if they do table service?

I approach the counter and order two lattes to take away – both for me as they only have a regular size.

*sigh*

The coffee is really lovely, deep and rich and satisfying, but the food? I just don’t get it. What am i missing out on? Dench bread is OK – but it is my local so it’s not “exotic” for me. But the slices are way too thick in my opinion and I just don’t want anything that carbo loaded ever really.

So tell me what I’m missing….

It was my birthday and it had been a pretty tough week. I really wasn’t looking forward to dining out, and probably would have been happy to cancel and stay in.

But I’d been wanting to go to Attica for a long time, and well, it was my birthday. Can we put the crap week behind us and enjoy ourselves? OK – it was a tough ask for the guys ‘n gals at Attica (if they had known what they were up against!) but I’m happy to say that from the moment we walked through the unassuming door in a slightly saggy strip of shops in Ripponlea, our minds were nowhere else but on the food experience.

I’ve had to think a lot about what I would say about Attica, I took no photos in deference to (a) my birthday and (b) the superb photos on the website. Go look > Gallery > Food images. I’ll wait.

We were seen to our table and coats taken promptly. I sat toward the kitchen so I could glimpse what was going on back there. Part way through the evening I was able to watch the cold larder move into full swing. Teeny space. It was a dance of desserts! (hah!)

We started with a glass of Jacquesson Avize Grand Cru Blanc De Blancs 2000, which true to the description was a “wine-y” variety of bubbles, rather than a yeasty one. Now I like yeasty, but this was no slouch.

We decided to go with the tasting menu (not difficult really) but we’ve had a few disappointments with matched wines (Jacques Raymond and Vue De Monde) so opted for a bottle. A quick consult with the sommelier and we were steered toward an 07 baudry les granges chinon cabernet franc.

But we were topped up with blanc de blancs to go with our first course, the snow crab. It was the matched wine and it was a nice generous touch.

So now .. the food. Seriously, I really, really enjoyed the food we ate. The dishes all push the boat out to varying degrees on presentation, flavours or both, but if you go with it – you’ll be in for a magnificent treat! I doubt I can do the food justice with my writing or vocabulary, so what follows is basically descriptive. The menu descriptions don’t do the experience justice either, so I will try to expand. If you want to know more – go! Seriously.

Starters: bread, with nibbles of Happy Fruit almonds, Mount Zero Olives, some house churned butter and carrot paste. Save some bread for later – you’ll want it to grab the last of some wonderful sauces.

Amuse Bouche: Crispy chicken thigh on parsnip puree with freeze dried balsamic. Can I have a bucket load to take away please?

1. Snow crab (or in my case cauliflower): a salad of crab, Yarra Valley trout roe, coconut, puffed rice and frozen verjuice, covered with a layer of “snow” made from horseradish mixed with egg white, and I think desiccated and shaved.

Wow – the rest of the menu has a lot to live up to. The “snow” was light, flavourful and a great textural accompaniment to the rest of the salad.

2. Smoked trout broth, crackling, basil seeds, fresh smoke. The signature dish at the moment and a bit of theatrics. JB isn’t usually taken in with these things, but he admitted that his mouth started watering at the smell of the smoke when it was released. The basil seeds looked like little frogs eggs with their mucilaginous coating (never let a scientist near an interesting food item), sitting in the gentle savoury broth which was poured over some small batons of cold smoked trout and pork crackling. The crackling “crackles” as the broth surrounds it. Smell, sight, sound and taste. Maybe we should eat it with our fingers? I’m not a real fish fan – and am allergic to crustaceans, and I found the trout a bit too much, but I loved the broth and the crackling.

3. Potato. Q: how do you make a potato taste more…potatoey? Cook it hangi style for 18 hours. I’m not sure how much difference using the “dirt it was grown in” made to the taste, but two of my favourite elements of the night were part of this dish. Smoked Goats Curd and fried saltbush leaves. Now I know why saltbush lamb tastes so lovely. There were other bits, including jerusalem artichoke dust which stained the curd black, and was it air dried tuna flakes?

4. Kingfish, chorizo, almond, squid. Right, bet you think you know what this looks like right? wrong! (unless you did as I suggested earlier and looked at the gallery of food pictures on the web site). The kingfish is smeared with a chorizo paste and topped with couscous that has been soaked in squid ink, so it’s black. This sits on a small pile of rice cooked with small rice sized grains of squid, in crab stock (or vegie in my case). They didn’t make a fuss about this at all. The rice was delightfully strange, half rice textured, half squid textured. My poor confused brain. The highlight (and one of the reason’s you will want bread) was the smoked tomato broth that surrounded everything else. So scrummy!

5. Pork Loin, morcilla, fennel pollen. At the end of the night, we thought that perhaps a little less food would have made us happier campers (that or walking home, but really, it was a bit too far back to North Yarra, and a bit too late for a walk to the tram), but agreed strenuously that this dish would not be one we would swap, or reduce in size. A simple cylinder of the most delicious pork loin sat atop some celriac puree and shared a plate with a dark brooding walnut sized sphere of black pudding sitting on some apple, a blob of distilled apple juice (god! amazing!), a ring of nashi pear filled with pickled cucumbers and carrot leaves. The loin was garnished with a sprinkling of slightly aniseed-y fennel pollen.

6. Squab, celery, licorice, bitter onion So – a few pieces of ruby pigeon, served with “compressed” celery (basically celery juice forced into celery to make it more “celery-like”) smoked beetroot (yum!), onion rings and broccolini flowers. The meat was dusted with licorice powder (Darryl Lea or liquorice root? I suspect the former actually – was delicious). The bitter onion broth was poured around the dish at the table. I was feeling pretty full by now, but the licorice was very tasty. I made me want to eat more!

So, now to fill up the “dessert stomach”.

7. Terroir was a “bridging course” – not quite sweet, moving on from savoury. We changed to a dessert wine, an 02 pichot coteau de la biche moelleux vouvray.

The “dirt” was a small scoop of fromage frais gelato covered with beetroot cake crumbs (including cloves, cinnamon and black pepper) surrounded by cubes of golden kiwi jelly – layered with bright pink frozen strawberry and raspberry juice, shaved. This was topped with some bright green sorrel granita (my favourite herb at the moment) and garnished with clover leaves. I’m sure i used to suck on the stems of clover when I was a kid (what an idyllic childhood I must have had), the grassy green-ness was tart, a food shock, and nostalgic. I loved this dish.

8. violet crumble Think you know what this looks like? Think you know what it tastes like? Wrong. Oh I love violet flavoured desserts, much like I love lavender and orange flowers and rose water. But violet flavoured is exotic, and this was a lovely play on words. Fromage sorbet, flavoured with violets, in a stem-less wine glass with butterscotch stickiness, crumbles of honeycomb and freeze dried chocolate. Freeze dried chocolate is brilliant, a taste and aroma of chocolate, but without the cloying sweetness.

9. Petit Four…grapefruit jelly.

How much would you pay for all this? $410 for two not including tram tickets.

Worth it? Every cent. We are already planning a return to the Chef’s Table on Tuesday nights.

The service was easy but professional, with our questions readily answered. They are a good team. The restaurant runs smoothly, but not like clockwork. There is room within the service for a chat about the cold larder, the smoke, Happy Fruit Almonds (get them at Slow Food Farmer’s markets) and New Zealand cooking methods.

In a word…terrific.

Tea cake bottom, rhubarb and strawberry puree (fruit from the Farmer’s Market – Di’s Rhubarb and the last of the Sunny Ridge Strawberries) crumble topping with cinnamon and hazelnuts. 25 mins in a moderate oven. Delish!

Coffee was much better today – delicious in fact, and they has keen beavers chatting to folk as they came in the door, much improved.

But 10 mins for a take away is too long … lucky it tasted darn nice.

Griff’s wine pub has been quietly feeding the faithful for almost two years under it’s latest guise (let’s all try to forget about the Purple Turtle shall we?). On the corner of Johnston and Napier streets in Fitzroy, it’s a stylish and comfy kind of place, with a front bar it can be hard to more on from, even when you’re only moving as far as the stained glass accented dining room, or the conservatory.

I love the feel of Griff’s, the smart cosy feeling, and the real beer. But mostly I love the reasonable mark-up on the wine list. And there is always an interesting bottle or two to try.

We share a charcuterie plate ($29) and a half dozen Streaky Bay oysters to start. The charcuterie was very generous with two types of terrine, duck and pork, liver parfait, salami and proscuitto along with various accompaniments including a delicious pickled cucmber and fennel.

For mains there was

Lamb’s liver was the “Offal of the Day”

“Fish of the Day” was a fish stew with saffron and shellfish.

And baked goat loin.

Griff’s hand cut chips are just that (and are fab with a beer in the front bar)

The Dessert Tasting Plate was terrific, featuring a warm frangipane tart with pears, some custard apple ice cream, a lavender creme brulee and a quince and pear crumble.

We went home very full, and very happy after a second bottle of Cab – well wouldn’t you?

Griffs Wine Pub
Cnr Johnston st and Napier St
Fitzroy
03 9416 5055
www.griffswinepub.com.au

The old corner pub looks a bit like a unassuming from the outside, and you wouldn’t be surprised to find a few oldtimers leaning against the front bar, but the side entrance to the restaurant shows a restrained deco/modern style, with dark wood, good linen and heavy cutlery.

We restricted ourselves to mains and dessert, but to give you a feel for the entrees:-
* scallops, bone marrow, goats curd, beetroot and bacon $23
* Venison Bresaola with persimmons, EVO, shallots and blood plums $18

Tasty starters are tempting, alongside terrine, a vegetarian option and a fish dish as well.

Main meals (there’s no mucking around with small plates, bigger plates and share plates here, traditional entrees, mains and desserts thanks!) move from traditional steak of the day, offal, a couple of fish dishes, Otway Pork Belly and seem quite reasonable at $27 to $35.

We ordered the twice cooked Macleay Valley Rabbit served with brussel sprouts, chestnuts and a thyme jus. Delicate rabbit rolled and roasted was moist and juicy and only very lightly ‘gamey”.

…and Duck Breast with pumpkin walnuts and hazelnuts, which was rich and a little bit on the tough side, but served with thoughtful (if not surprising) garnishes.

We had a chat to our waiter and he suggested a bottle of the Sorrenberg 2008 Gamay from Beechworth. This wine edged toward the a lighter style, but was terrifically savoury and with neither too much acid or fruit. It drank very well with both our mains.

I am a sucker for suet puddings, so I couldn’t go past the Steamed Quince and Suet Pudding – custard, brandied prunes and Earl Grey Ice Cream. The pudding was flavourful and had the texture you only get from suet. The quince was delightful and full of vanilla scent, but the Earl grey icecream wasn’t quite right. Not enough Earl Grey, and perhaps Ice cream wasn’t quite right for a winter meal? Clotted cream maybe?

The service did seem to struggle a little bit the night we were there, one waiter was on his first night, and at least one other was covering from their sister establishment, so the service didn’t hum the way it has done in the past. But the bones are still there, it’s a lovely room, a terrifically interesting wine list and decent food. May not be in line for the next chef’s hat, but it’s real and grounded and not too complicated, and sometimes that’s just what I’m in the mood for.

The Court House
86 – 90 Errol Street (cnr Queensberry)
North Melbourne
Ph (03) 9329 5394

Feels like Lamb Shank night, and it was. Some lovely (but my aren’t they expensive now!) lamb shanks, two onions, half a bottle of decent cab and water to simmer with a muslin bag including tangerine peel, peppercorns, juniper berries, a cinnamon stick and three bay leaves. After an hour I tipped in a tin of tomatoes and a tin of chickpeas. 30 more mins then I added two chopped carrots, 3 sticks celery (chopped) and a diced onion.

30 more mins and a gentle simmer then test for thickness (add a bit of flour mixed with water to thicken if desired) and seasoning. I take the bones out and shred the meat and return them to the stew. Cook some parsnips in cream, pepper and water then puree them. Serve! Delish!

We followed with Lemon Delicious pudding actually.