Buying Low

June 1998

Eating well in Melbourne for less than $10 is not restricted to certain cuisines or areas. You can find quality dishes in an interesting range of cuisine styles in many areas. In researching Mietta's Eating and Drinking Guide, we've found more than 70 places some of which are listed here and others which will be listed in another article next month. Their prices are low because the setting is simple, there are not tablecloths or linen napkins, they are often family run with few staff and are in low rent premises. But given all that, the value they provide is exceptional.

Footscray is home to a lot of good value eating. A good place to start is at Bi-Lo centre on Nicholson Street where there are several good cafes with dishes ranging from $4 - 8.

There are also shops in the centre where you can buy the fruit, vegetables and exotic groceries to allow you to cook all sorts of dishes yourself at home. If you would like to find out more about this, contact Vietnam on a Plate ph 9689 1186. Mei Ling Perry conducts tours of the Footscray Market and Bi Lo centre. She will show you the best places to buy Vietnamese ingredients and direct you to the places to eat there.

Amongst those recommended are Mai Thi, Shop 2 BiLo, Nicholson Street; Modern Asia, 68 Hopkins Street, Thien An 59 Irving Street and Phu Tho at 63 or Thanh Phu at 73 Nicholson Street, - all in Footscray.

Also in the Footscray area are a number of low cost Ethopian cafes, popular amongst the newly arrived immigrants in the area. Amongst them, Blue Nile at 217 Nicholson Street with traditional stews served with flat bread for $5 and Cafe d'Afrique at no. 137 has soups and stews from $3-6.

For a very different and certainly, more elegant, experience at eating below $10 try Cafe Doppio at the top of the Australia Centre on Collins Centre. Here you can have the daily soup served with crusty baguette for $5.50, good focaccias and pastries for around $5. It's an interesting place to sit, have Illy coffee ($2.20) and admire the coffee cup collection on display.

Sydney Road, Brunswick has good Middle Eastern eateries with very low prices, A1 Middle Eastern Food Store at 643 and Tabet's Bakery, 607 have delicious pizzas and pastries from $1.50-$4.50.

There is also D&M's, a cheery shopfront at 312 where you can get home made beef pies for $ 3, large curry laksa for $7.50, a range of large pastas and Thai curry for $10. Dishes such as Scotch fillet, pork loin and fish will cost up to $15. This is friendly local place often filled with prams and where everyone seems to know each other.

Also in Brunswick, Thaila Thai, 82 Lygon Street, has noodles, stir fry and curries all at $7. This place is so popular for take away that you need to get there early before the queues start at 6pm. At 128, Kake di hatti, there is usually a line of taxis waiting for the excellent home style Indian dishes. Prices here are $3-7.

In the city, Ong Food Court, provides a range of Asian dishes in a basement off 265 Little Bourke Street. There are several.food counters with photographs of dishes from most Asian cusiines for you to select from and have cooked to order. There is also usually a buffet with Halal meats from which you can select as much as you want for $7.

If you like dumplings in the Shanghai style, there are two places off Little Bourke Street that you must try. Camy Shanghai Dumpling 25 Tattersalls Lane, sells a huge plate of dumplings for $4.50. You serve your own tea, pick up the cutlery and chopsticks and pay in advance. Service is continuous from 11am-9pm seven days a week. At Tai Shanghai, 11 Heffernan Lane, the lunch specials are $5. There are more expensive dishes here too, particularly the live seafood.

At Chinatown Happy Inn, 238 Little Bourke Street, you are expected to eat with knife and fork and the tea that is offered is Twinings. The lunch set menu $9 could be soup to start with a choice of mixed grill with gravy or a pastry case filled with seafood sauce or individual dishes such as stir fried satay beef with spaghetti $6, braised ox tongue with tomato sauce $5.50 oir chicken schnitzel for $5.50.The dishes here are true Hong Kong style, a rather off beat mixture of cuisines with all the Western additives you can think of. From commercial mayonnaise and sauces to boosters and dried herbs. Chefs here are very properly toqued and the food is carefully cooked and served. There is an espresso machine in the ktichen and herb bread is on offer. A quite different Chinatown experience.

Just up Little Bourke Street at no. 178, the display of barbecued meat and poultry hanging in the window identifies Hills Barbecue. From 11am until midnight you can get delicious roast meats chopped and put with noodles into soup for $5.50. .

At 235 Russell Street, China Bar, has the roast meats hanging too. Quality is not so consistent and the prices are a dollar or so higher. It's much trendier, open much later and the staff are younger and hipper.The atmosphere here makes if popular with students and young city dwellers.

Just opposite at no. 234 Pho Dzung serves up bowls of reliable pho for $5.

City students also like the Nelayan Indonesian Restaurant at 265 Swanston Street. Like its sister restaurant in Hawthorn, the $5 buffet here gives you a choice of three dishes from the bain marie.

Another very popular $5 buffet in the city is at the Curry Bowl at Shop 41, Myer House on Elizabeth Street . Delicious, clean Sri Lankan food is availabe here duirng the day Monday to Friday and on Saturday morning.

Sheni's at Shop 16, 161 Little Collins (entrance on Russell Street ) sells lots of curries to the nearby city workers from $5-6

Victoria Street, Richmond, is one area where you really don't need street numbers. Look inside any one of dozens along this strip between Hoddle and Church Streets. Heaps of dishes available for less than $10.

Non-Asian noodles, of the Italian variety, can be found below $10 all over Melbourne. In Moonee Ponds at the end of the arcade at 39 Puckle Street, Bruno's Coffee Lounge serves up pastas from $5-6, at Piazza Navona 23 Toorak Road, South Yarra, spaghettis are from $6-9.50 and the pizzas from $5.80-$12.90 for the Super Special. Pelligrini's at Bourke Street in the City has been serving a daily pasta for more than 30 years. On Fridays the gnocchi is $9.50

Super star chef Iain Hewitson created a Bar Burger for Tolarno, 42 Fitzroy Street, several years ago. It quickly became and remains a hit amongst the trendy and the hungry. Served with chips it costs $9 in one of Melbourne's more atmospheric bistros in St. Kilda. His old fashioned Shepherd's pie comes in at $12.50

At 157 Fitzroy Street, cafe a taglio usually has a few pasta dishes at less than $10. Their menu changes every two weeks but always includes a huge range of pizzas which are from $3-4.50 per slice.

Further out of town, at Shop 25,796 Pascoe Vale Road, you can get a huge serve of meat in a doner kebab weighing 750 grams for $3.80 at Glenroy Kebab House. There's not much variety on the menu here but value for weight is hard to beat and the flavour is good too.

The Palms, 215 Blackburn Road, Syndal , offers excellent variety and quality in a really pleasant setting. The airy spacious room has glass doors onto a lawn with large trees. You take a tray to the counter to select and take your own food back to the tables. Noodles are from $2.50 to $8.50; a large range of meat and rice dishes from $5.80-7; Mongolian sliced beef $7, Beef rendang $9, Mee goreng $ 5.50.

In Box Hill, there are a lot of bargains. Dumpling King has some of Melbourne's best food at 572 Station Street. Here you really need to spend more than $10 to enjoy the full range of Sze Kwok Keung's delicious Northern Chinese cuisine but you can get some very substantial dumplings here for $5-7, some chicken and meat dishes for less than $10 and the exceptional Beijing style egg plant for $8. This shopfront restaurant has become deservedly very popular and you should ring first on 9890 3719.

At no. 556, Sunny Court Vietnamese & Chinese Restaurant, provides lots of families with big bowls of noodles in soup for $5-7.