Rockpool Bar & Grill

Image courtesy Rockpool

It’s after 11:30 pm and I haven’t eaten. In Spain, this is normal. In Melbourne, however, options dwindle quickly.  As fortune has it, Partner and I are at Crown Casino. As fortune also has it, we have both been freshly eliminated from a seven hour poker tournament and we need a feed. A franchise burger ain’t going to cut it.

We’re not in a gambling mood; but we have to play dinner lotto nonetheless.

There are plenty of dining options at Crown, more than 40 eateries in fact, but few of them offer a full menu close to midnight.

After what seemed like a 10 km trek from the poker room we ambled into Rockpool Bar & Grill, arriving at the maître d‘s desk looking faint and dishevelled. Were they still serving dinner?

No.

If we promised to order just steak and not dawdle over our food, were they still serving dinner?

Yes.

I don’t normally beg, but it turned out to be my first winning move of the day. I’m not sure whether it was our desperation or our disappointment that got us over the line into the dining room. Whatever the case, seconds later we were seated and given time and space to review the menu.

Not that we needed much time. We were here for the celebrated steak, so it was a matter of choosing between the different cuts and varying qualities. The menu delineates between the all lower-case ‘david blackmore full blood wagyu’ (the priciest), ‘cape grim dry aged 36 month old grass fed’ (I ordered the T-bone, medium rare), and ‘rangers valley dry aged 300 day grain fed’ (partner ordered the fillet, rare). Most of the steaks here cost around $50, with prime cuts of the wagyu creeping above the $100 mark.

There are plenty of other enticing looking options on the menu, like steamed live Tasmanian clams with Joselito Iberico ham, chili, tomato and chickpeas, but here the wood fire grill is King, with quail, pork sausages, lamb, chicken and seafood all getting a lick of it’s complex charry goodness.

It’s my second visit, so I have a vague idea of what to expect. In fact, I’m not sure if my first visit actually counts because I was little bit too high on beer and poker to notice anything but the perfect steak and substandard “mac-and-cheese”. The home-style dish was grainy; a mac-and-cheese no-no.

It’s late and I want a fat-and-carb side dish so I’m tempted to order it again.  But, I figure if my drunk brain was critical, my sober one would be even more unimpressed.

We order a modestly priced half bottle of 2005 Château Bernadotte Haut Médoc from an encyclopaedic, wonderful, steak-friendly list. I can barely make out its brick red meniscus. It’s dark in here, but it is almost midnight. I’m a bit nervous about finding my way to the bathroom and back again without running into something or getting lost.

The steak-friendly sides like potato puree and creamed silverbeet hover at around the $10 mark, likewise the salads. We opt for the chopped cos calad and tomato, olive, and basil salad. They’re good. The steak is perfect. The wine is invisible but wonderful.  The service was efficiently cheerful. I wished we’d been here earlier so we could dawdle. Here, the atmosphere is of the lingering kind.

Rockpool Bar & Grill

Crown Casino Complex

8 Whiteman St, Southbank
Ph: 8648 1900

Tea Garden

Fried crispy noodles with vegetables & mushroom

When bargaining on a new postcode, we all have a few non-negotiable demands.  These might include anything from a skilled beauty therapist within waxing distance, a Pilates studio or, as is the case with an older male acquaintance of mine, the assurance of viewing Aussie Rules practice at least bi-weekly.

Personally, I won’t settle on a new address without guarantee of adequate public transport, a decent pizzeria and a 24 hour convenience store.  At the top of my priority list, however, is proximity to a cracking Chinese restaurant.

It doesn’t have to be Sichuan. It doesn’t have to shun MSG. In fact, the more evocative it is of eighties Australian-Chinese cooking it is, the better.  For those of us raised on the honey prawns or sweet and sour fish of the Women’s Weekly Cookbook, this particular local take on Cantonese cooking says nothing short of comfort.

In later years, we Australians have opened our mouths and demanded authenticity to fill them.  This, of course, is a wonderful thing.  These days, we need only travel to Box Hill, Springvale or Chinatown to experience a first-rate version of provincial Chinese cooking.  But, every now and then, I crave nothing more than the traditions of 20^th Century Australian-Chinese cooking.

Those restaurants exist, of course.  Aussie-Chinese chefs have, after all, been evolving these flavours since the gold rush.  But, to be frank, they’re often fairly ordinary.

There is, however, a chef who is maintaining the tradition of Aussie-Chinese.

Shannon Chan has brought his solid nothing-experimental-just-great food from Tea House at Chinatown to an area that desperately needed it: mine. Since Tea Garden Oakleigh opened on the corner of Dandenong Road and Warrigal Road, partner and I whizzed past numerous times in the car, wary yet hopeful that the dearth had finally being addressed.

After dining in, and days later taking away, I can confirm: this place rocks.

Here we have clean lines, minimal decor, linen and the sort of attentive silver service rarely seen outside of places like Vue de Monde.  But, frankly, they could hurl dishes like the sautéd King prawns in home made xo chilli sauce at me and I’d still beg for more.  These are a big ticket item at $28.90. But the taste, oh the taste, immediately takes the sting out of the cost.

Deep fried shredded beef in Peking sauce is tasty but a little one-dimensional. The Peking sauce is a not dissimilar to a hoisin or sweet and sour sauce, it glazes the lightly battered beef strips beautifully. It’s not complex but I did eat it in three seconds flat.

Fried crispy noodles with vegetables & mushroom is something I’ve put in my mouth again and again. It’s a generous serve of pak choi and shitake mushrooms with not-so-crispy noodles. Any disappointment about a lack of crunch is eclipsed by perfectly balanced flavours and expertly cooked greens.

For locals, there’s extraordinary value to be had from the take away menu, where prices drop dramatically. The sublime sautéed king prawns we had are only $19.80 if you take them home to scoff in private. And, the way we eat them, it’s probably for the best.

All hail the return of the Women’s Weekly aesthetic.  Every now and then, it’s the only way to eat.

Tea Garden Oakleigh

1384 Dandenong Road, Oakleigh, Tel: 9563 1238

www.teagardenoakleigh.com.au

River Kwai

There is a terrible man of my acquaintance called Bob the Food Snob. A few years back, I told you about the friendly food rivalry Bob and I enjoyed.  The bad news is, it continues.

Our competition still revolves around a teenage drive to be hipper-than-thou. We maintain a schoolyard race to be first at discovering anything delicious. Like a pair of enemy truffle pigs, our snouts are always down trying to unearth a treasure.   We get extra points for finding truly exotic cuisine. First there was the annoying Armenian Incident, followed by the intense southern African mêlée and the too-close-to-call Afghan dispute. Damn you, Bob, I found that pilaf first. Now, the battle lines have been drawn over Burma.

The race is on to find the best Burmese food in Melbourne, and although I have three more places yet to visit, I’m feeling fairly smug about striking a vein of the good stuff at my first outing.

I approached River Kwai Thai & Burmese restaurant expecting to find a cheap Asian suburban eatery; a busy hive packed with students from neighbouring Monash. Not so. From the plush carpeting, warm red walls and quality fittings to the friendly and gracious welcome, River Kwai makes a great, non-studenty first impression.

River Kwai Tofu

Here, Thai dishes dominate the entrees and soups. Partner and I opted to start with one of the items from the vegetarian section of the menu, River Kwai Tofu. Deep fried and served with tamarind sauce, it points to Burma’s proximity to China. The sour punch of the tamarind relocates the compass to South-east Asia.  It’s this sort of spinning, I will later tell Bob, that we can expect from Burmese cuisine.  Thanks to history and geography, the food of the nation has been heavily influenced by Chinese, Indian and Thai technique.

Nonetheless, the menu delineates clearly between Thai and Burmese curries. We order the Burmese Kyak Thar Arloo Hin, a chicken curry. With a tip of the hat to India, ground coriander and cumin make their way into the mix. The overall flavour is more akin to Malaysian curries and the comparison is buoyed by the inclusion of potato. It has a sweet, slightly sour and persistent full flavour without too much heat. We’re not in Thailand anymore.

Kyak Thar Arloo Hin

I resist a sending a smug SMS to Bob and get stuck into the next dish.

Nir Gratiem takes us back in the direction of the Thai border. But, we travel by way of China. This stir fry is extraordinary.  The beef has the silkiness often found in good Chinese cooking; probably the result of some chemical treatment and definitely a secret no cook will divulge to me no matter how I beg. The meat is dressed with garlic and pickled peppercorns and carries a clinging gravy based on oyster sauce, fish sauce and palm sugar.

Nir Gratiem

Actually, it tastes like a South East Asian peace treaty.  So, I ordered extra and dropped it off to Bob. I think he’s annoyed that I found it first; he’s declared a cease fire in order to regroup.

River Kwai

3/1310 Centre Road, Clayton South P: 9545 5688

Open Monday-Sunday 5.30pm-10pm

The Bitter End

If there’s a bottle of Angostura Bitters gathering dust in your larder, take it out and cradle it. Then, immediately hide it again. There has been a rash of worldwide burglaries perpetrated by desperate bartenders as supplies of the concoction dry up.

OK, that’s not entirely accurate. But if the stuff doesn’t start shipping again soon, well: just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

There’s an Angostura drought, and no one seems to really know why. Reports about The Great Angostura Crisis of 2010 have appeared in publications from The Guardian to the Washington Post. It seems that the House of Angostura had some sort of dispute with the company that supplies its bottles. Just what stopped the bitter flow is uncertain.  It’s a mystery. Just like the recipe itself.

The exact Angostura formula is reputedly known by only eleven people. It’s made of gentian root, alcohol and goodness’ knows what else. The heady secret has been protected since 1824, when it was developed by Dr. Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, a doctor in Simon Bolivar’s army in Venezuela. The drink may not have played as key a role as Bolivar in Latin America’s liberation from Spain. But it did have a pivotal impact on cocktail creation. This is the stuff that levels a Pisco Sour, gives a Mai Tai its complexity and makes a Manhattan cocktail sting.

Today, the oversized label on the bottle is packed with information on a variety of applications, from adding zest to soups and salads to plum puddings and stewed prunes. The most civic-minded use for the drink is, of course, in Lemon, Lime and Bitters. The designated driver would be lost without this grown-up soft-cocktail. For, even though Angostura has a 44% concentration of alcohol, it is always used as a condiment and never as a solo drink.

The magic, mysterious liquid still holds the Royal Warrant of Appointment to Queen Elizabeth II.

For the moment, however, it is bartenders who are tackling the crisis head on.

Happily, there is help at hand. To tide us over, or, perhaps, to convert us, a new line of bitters from Germany have landed in Australia. The Bitter Truth line features Old Time Aromatic Bitters, which are the closest match for the Angostura drink.

Launched in 2006 by Munich bartenders Stephan Berg and Alexander Hauck, the range also includes bitters enhanced by lemon, orange, grapefruit, celery and the truly exotic Bitterman’s Xocolatl Mole. The varieties available will bring a new kick to old favourites. They may well inspire a new generation of pungent, peculiar cocktails.

That’s the wonderful thing about cocktails, of course. They can help you see a silver lining in even the darkest cloud. But, when the mists of alcohol clear, the sad fact remains: Trinidad’s most famous export is currently on hold.

I’ll report back when the shortage is resolved. In the meantime, I think we should all keep an eye on Buckingham Palace. IF ER’s supplies run out, there might be a constitutional crisis.

MoVida Aqui

Anchoa, Cantabrian anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet

I do get a little bit twitchy when a great restaurant expands. As a business spills into an adjacent shop front, I bite my nails as an appetizer. Sometimes, I can move happily on to the next course. St Kilda mainstay Ciccolina extended some years ago with great success. We habitués now ride out the no-bookings policy at the bar, noshing on the same glorious antipasto plate served in the restaurant.

Up the food chain a little, there are restaurants that replicate themselves. A visit to Nobu, for example, proves that cloning can be a very risky business.  Recipes can suffer and a TGI Fridays franchise feel is what passes for a “vibe” in some of the high end chains.

It’s impossible to reproduce the chemistry of an original restaurant. The best we can hope for is a really good translation.  When I heard that Frank Comorra had parlayed the back-lane MoVida into a huge Bourke Street locale, I started biting my nails again.

Out of the test-lab come new restaurants, MoVida Aqui and the adjacent outdoor Terraza. The original MoVida appeal is found not only in sensational food and wine, but in its cloak-and-dagger location.  There’s a particular romance to the Hosier Lane joint.  Tiny and tucked away, this place always made me feel very Boho. Seated with my small plates and rioja at the bar, I was a subversive diner.

At Aqui, one feels more upright. The place is large, bright and a million airy miles away from it’s forebear in terms of ambience. Massive windows afford views of the Supreme Court. Here, the legitimate city, and not the back alley, is part of the experience.

Perhaps the shift from cobblestone to avenue is not yet complete.  There are some mild kinks in the service. I was offered a choice between sparkling or “Melbourne” water.  When offered “Melbourne” water, all I could think of was muck from the Yarra. So confused and embarrassed, I asked for tap water specifically. Odd.

For the most part, Comorra sensibly offers a distinct experience. But he has been unable to resist a little decorative tribute to his original. The light fittings housed in milk crates are a design misstep. It’s as though the feel of a laneway has been transposed into an airline club lounge.

There’s no hint of airport in the food, though.  Many old favourites have made the transition intact. The Anchoa, Cantabrian anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet, has survived the trip up the Bourke Street Hill without melting. The braised beef cheek, however, didn’t seem to like its new surrounds so well.  It was a little dry and unappetizing.

New offerings include Bocadillo de calamares.  It’s a little like a calamari mini-burger, served with Basque guindilla and mayonnaise. It’s super-garlicky, the calamari was perfectly tender, and I could have eaten two. Codorniz, charcoal grilled quail served with housemade morcilla and chickpeas, hits all the right sour BBQ notes. An octopus salad appears that is OK but forgettable.

Paella del Marisco, Bomba rice cooked with seafood and saffron, is generous and flavoursome. I’d like say that it was spiked with a little too much rosemary; but I’ll concede the possibility that my membership in the original MoVida cult is clouding my judgement.

This new MoVida-for-the-masses ticks enough boxes for a return visit and a further education in some of the best Spanish cuisine in the country.

MoVida Aqui & MoVida Terraza, 500 Bourke St. (entry via Little Bourke Street)  Ph: 9663 3038.

Nacional

Kingfish tataki

In our town, we revel in our Food Capital status. And so we should. At any hour, we can partake of the great multi-culti banquet that built our reputation. We can taste the authentic stuff or sup on elite spins of every folk cuisine from Cambodia to Kabul.

But there’s one continent that’s a little under-represented. God, how I miss the Americas on a plate.

My homesick stomach led me to Nacional in Albert Park. Here, Chef Leena Monson is quietly playing with broad American flavours as any hip New York chef from the West Village to Williamsburg might. But the American undercurrents of this menu have been overlooked since a 2009 debut. These undercurrents are easy to miss. On the face of it, Nacional could pass for another chic, inner-suburban joint. The interior and ambience screech Melbourne, from the artfully designed lighting to the impeccable row of tea canisters from T2. At breakfast and lunch, Nacional balances the cafe-restaurant divide with grace. At dinner time, Monson lets loose with the remarkable American flavours about which she is clearly passionate. Meat matched with fruit, like a daily special on the board of pork chops and peach, is a quintessentially American marriage. From there, her unions go South in the best way. From New Orleans, we have BBQ prawns and grilled corn bread. A south-west and Central American influence creates blue corn-crusted soft-shell crab with mashed avocado and lime. Then, we really cross the border with ingredients and condiments like annatto, chipotle and chimichurri.

Prepared for our Tex-Mex, Cajun, mid-west and Central American fusion, we order from a list that comprises 38 beers. The wine list is hardly underdone. But, tonight, it’s time for a Corona.

Eager to sample Monson’s talents broadly, we order from the printed menu. Here the focus is on small plates designed for sharing at around the $18 mark.

Four pieces of complimentary warm grilled flat bread arrive unadorned shortly after our beers. A good start.

Spiced gazpacho with crab salsa, served in an oversized shot glass was a great appetiser. The tomato base was nicely spiced and avoided the chunkiness of clumsier gazpachos. Smoked paprika cured kingfish tataki (pictured), annatto oil and lemon thyme was less successful. The just-cooked thin slices of fish were light on the smoky flavour suggested by the inclusion of the paprika. Likewise, the influence of annatto was negligible. This colour and flavour enhancer derived from the achiote tree is the South American equivalent of turmeric. It was somewhat lost. A squeeze of lime across the plate before it hit the pass would really bring it out and balance a dish that deserves to shine.

The roast pork belly with pickled watermelon rind again suffers from a lack of execution. But, the concept is wonderful. On our visit the pork arrives overcooked and dry, adorned with chunks of superbly flavoured watermelon rind. The chicken escabeche with black garlic had Partner giving me that “Why don’t you cook this?” look. It was near perfect. A real stand out, however, is the beef pincho with chimichurri. It’s not often a girl has something of such quality in her mouth. The chimichurri, a South American salsa verde, is spot on, the perfect counterpoint to nicely cooked skewers of quality beef.

Nacional has all the right ducks in a row, but the pistol’s just not always firing. With a little daring and a touch more care, this new gunslinger could command a fan base of Modern American foodies.

Nacional, 36 Mills Street, Albert Park Ph: (03) 9645 0977

$110 for two, including two beers each.

Lim’s Nyonya Hut

Vegetable achar, prawn sambal and roti

There’s something about laminex. It’s the surface upon which some of the best Melbourne meals I’ve enjoyed have been served: a som tum Thai in Springvale, an Armenian dumpling in Caulfield South and, recently, a pungent, complex achar in less-than-glamorous Syndal.

Lim’s Nyonya Hut is visually unimpressive, a little shop-worn and hardly known for its service. Here, you’ll find no superstar chef or coterie of fashionable eaters. You will find laminex, however, and some of the most challenging, compelling flavours this side of KL.

A good portion of the menu is devoted to hawker food. These Malaysian staples are quick, nutritious and often hang on a noodle. Dive into these street eats and try to navigate past the laksas, of which there are three.

All three are great, of course. The ubiquitous curry laksa isn’t given any fancy makeover here. It’s a straightforward version with both egg noodles and rice vermicelli vying for space in the mild broth alongside generous pieces of chicken thigh and fried beancurd. Added authenticity comes in the shape of plump little meatballs made from fish. The more atypical Assam and Siam laksas centre on fish, the latter being the coconut version. They are pungent and heady, and you need to watch for bones, but they’ll have you travelling for miles just to get your mouth around it.

Likewise, the Char Koay Teow consistently hits the table with that moreish char-flavour that can’t be added but must be loved into existence. This is ‘wok hei’ and it means ‘breath of wok’ in Cantonese, and it takes a fiery vessel and a deft hand to achieve. Chef Beng Lai Lim has such a hand. This guy deserves a coffee table book every bit as much as the CBD’s celebrated superstars – if only for his Char Koay Teow. With nice proportions of flat rice noodles to prawn, egg, Chinese sausage and bean sprouts, you will be jostling for a lunch time table with Malaysian students who know the real deal.

Despite the draw of these reasonably priced ($8.50) hawker dishes, on a recent visit I ventured further into the dinner menu and was glad I did.

The vegetable achar is a mix of lightly pickled carrots, cucumber, cauliflower and onion topped with crushed peanuts and fried shallots. Its fabulous textures underpin a satisfyingly tangy punch: robust and refreshing at the same time. There are few dishes that can pull off such a double act.

The piquant smell of the sambal prawns is like a drug. It’s a generous serve, and the prawns are perfectly cooked, delivering that satisfying ‘pop’ when bitten. The just-cooked onions provide crunchy counterpoint and the sauce is sour and spicy without being too hot. The chicken curry likewise packs a flavour punch without extreme heat. Chicken pieces with flavour all the way to the bone had me pondering how on earth I could replicate this at home. Luckily they actually sell their curry pastes for at-home experimentation…

The take-home version actually works very well. But there is no doubt I’ll be returning to eat at the laminex soon.

Lim’s Nyonya Hut, 240 Blackburn Rd, Syndal. Ph: (03) 9802 3763. BYO.

The Buffet at Melba

Every year at about this time, I exhume an ongoing hope. To wit: the daydream of the perfect all-you-can-eat buffet. In my mind, a dozen Escoffiers stand behind their gleaming stations and serve exquisite tastes to refined patrons. In my experience, three scary mothers from Wantirna claw each other for the last prawn.

It was time to take the buffet crusade up a notch.

The $89 price tag gave me high hopes for Melba. There are few all-you-can-cram establishments that can exact such a fee. Had I found my gourmand’s nirvana?

Well, yes and no.

Dining at Melba involves passage through the brassy lobby of The Langham. Things become more muted once in the restaurant, but the feeling is still more cruise ship than elegant dining space.

The rules of buffet eating are as simple and inflexible as the rules of Fight Club. First rule of buffet: don’t talk about carbohydrates. Avoid bread, noodles, pasta or rice, and just chow down on premium produce. Here, the seafood station is an obvious target. Crabs, Moreton Bay bugs, yabbies and prawns are all in abundance, and crustacean fans could probably just gorge on this and get their money’s worth. I loaded up my plate with half a dozen oysters. I had planned on taking the full dozen, but felt death rays burning my back as others waited for the tongs. I succumbed to the buffet-pressure to move along. Which I did. To the prawns which, happily, had not been entirely annexed by Wantirna. The seafood sauce is nicely tangy with a sharp horseradish bite, and the oysters are superbly fresh.

The second rule of successful buffet navigation is to never approach them hungry. You’ll either be completely sated by one small plate or make straight for filling things that are fatty; it’s a classic newbie mistake.

The third rule is to keep your courses and dishes focused and appealing. Wedding oysters to curry and pork crackling may seem like a good idea. But, it looks like the world’s least attractive three way. Resist the panic-buying mentality that grips you as you approach the islands of food. Do a reconnaissance first, and plan your courses based on their attractiveness.

And the islands of food at Melba look mighty appealing. The Asian stir-fry station is manned by a team of cooks who will throw your choice of ingredients into a hot wok while you wait. It’s certainly more visually appealing than the bain-maries of Indian curries and overcooked veg in the carvery.

Electing to stick to my plan of consuming only premium produce, I bypassed the stir-fry station and made for the counter where excellent sashimi is expertly cut to order.

There is value to be had at Melba, if you choose wisely. There is no lack of premium ingredients; nor is there a lack of supremely average fare.

Nothing here is quite so average as the service. Of course, at a buffet one primarily serves one’s self. However, for eighty-nine bucks, I expect my napkin to be refolded when I return to table. And I gave the young, uninterested staff plenty of long absences to think about replenishing my flatware. They seemed as interested in this as they were in taking my drink order. Which is to say: not at all.

As my dinner companion, Frank from Fairfield, has it, this is the Bunnings of cuisine. Variety, occasional great value, and no one in an apron around when you need ’em.

Melba, The Langham, 1 Southgate Ave, Southbank, 1800 641 107. melbarestaurant.com.au

Gigibaba

Mercifully, in our town, the risk of being dealt poor food is pretty low. In Melbourne, the buzz about a new kitchen is most often generated by fussy bees. Certainly, food is what drives the year-old hot hive, Gigibaba. Chef Ismail Tosun’s food is inspired, singular and exceptional. It’s a resolute heads-up here for Turkish small-plate dining. It’s thumbs down, however, for service.

When I moved as a teenager from the leafy suburbs to the bare inner city, I became familiar with the rudeness endemic to certain of Melbourne’s eateries. I never particularly enjoyed watching a hungover VCA student hurl rigatoni in my approximate direction; but, for the single figure price tag, I tolerated it. It was a fair deal: she was working out her frustrations at not being born in the East Village – I was getting fed for virtually nothing. Moreover, I was confident that one day, I’d afford myself the luxury of dining in places not entirely staffed by a sneering Second Year Drama class.

But then, a funny thing happened. The down-at-heel aesthetic of inner-city life went upscale in the late nineties. Even Starbucks successfully corporatised the dodgy student experience. Communal dining tables, mismatched flatware and other signifiers of “cool” became standard not only at shitty yet dependable St Kilda cafes, but in the high end of the CBD. Nonchalant or just plain terrible service was all part of this let’s-pretend-we’re-poor mini boom.

The bubble has not burst at Gigibaba. It’s not so much that the staff here is rude; they’re just affectedly casual, preferring loud conversation with each-other to interaction with diners. This, I suspect, is not actually a mistake but, rather, part of a pre-GFC master plan.

In true faux-poverty style, the place does not take bookings. Further, as we are proudly told by a waiter who has taken time out from grooming his beard in the bar mirror, the place does not have a sign or a website. Naturally, food is served on floral thrift-store Nanna-ware. Most ascetic of all, wine is served by the millilitre in beakers. This science lab chic might have been cute before the market crashed. Now, as I look at the small volume of decent plonk I can afford, I’m reminded how much money I lost in 2008.

Almost everything at Gigibaba screams “Slumming it!”. Everything, except the food that is. Shopworn irony might abound in this new Smith Street hub but it’s found nowhere on Tosun’s near perfect small plates. The former Perth superstar and Gourmet Traveller’s Best New Talent award winner is not just an extraordinary cook, he’s an innovator. Here is modern Turkish cuisine as you’re unlikely to experience outside Istanbul. There is nothing playful or ironic about the pickled octopus salad; the lamb cutlet; the exquisite quail. There’s no mocking nod evident in the must-order cauliflower or the dessert plate. In his menu, Tosun does not so much defy convention as advance it. Great skill and an abiding respect for Turkish cuisine leads this chef to some stunning conclusions. One of them, surprisingly, being the bill. Two of us drained a 500ml beaker and crammed some of Melbourne’s best food into our pie holes for under a hundred bucks.

There’s no doubt Tosun will shortly rank among the country’s most influential chefs. He belongs in our omnivorous city which will forgive him his fashionable foibles for such wonderful food.

David Thompson

David Thompson inspects the produce in Springvale

‘Please, please have him back by 2pm.”

Martin Boetz, executive chef at Longrain, sounds exactly like a troubled father. He looks at me like I’m a bikie about to take his wayward 16-year-old out on a date.

Not a problem, I assure him. We’ll be back by two.

“He has a tendency to wander,” says Boetz, unconvinced and with genuine fear in his eyes. I wonder exactly how much wandering havoc a chef with a Michelin star can wreak.

A couple of years back, as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, David Thompson presented a series of dinners at Boetz’s Longrain restaurant. For devotees of Thai cuisine, it was an obligatory event.

Thompson is acclaimed as an authority on Thai culinary technique. His book on the subject, Thai Food, is regarded as a Bible by cooks eager to dish up something more genuine than a tepid green curry.

Since leaving Australia and opening Nahm at London’s Halkin Hotel in July 2001, he has become the world’s sole purveyor of Thai food to win a Michelin star.

I was slavering at the thought of Thompson’s salted chicken wafers with longans and Thai basil, Murray cod with apple eggplants and, most of all, his taste for authenticity.

First, though, I was taking David Thompson shopping.

After an elaborate exchange of emails and promises, I had a tentative “yes”. Chef would join me for an afternoon of shopping and eating in Melbourne’s little Thailand, Springvale.

Thompson darts around Springvale’s produce markets like a fastidious bee. Amid the glorious hodgepodge, he never settles on one ingredient for long and he covers every inch. He’s full of culinary counsel and I’m paying careful attention. “Lemongrass must be thin and young,” Thompson says, hovering near some thick, dried-out stalks. “Galangal must be pink and vibrant.” I’m taking it all down. I nod.

“Fish sauce isn’t simply fish sauce,” he says, before launching into a sermon on the lesser brands.

“Bad fish sauce tastes like a decomposed cat has fallen into a vat,” he says. While my palate has never detected anything cat-like, I have often felt disappointed by the quality of this salty elixir. Thompson recommends Squid brand as a dependable and widely available cat-less stand-by.

I nod. I buy some Squid.

Thompson, as his protege Boetz will affirm, is an eager teacher. Ask a question and he will respond with warm, encyclopedic force. Ask him about fusion cuisine, however, and he turns hotter than a habanero.

“I hate fusion food. Hate it with a passion,” he has been quoted as saying. For Thompson, the marriage of, for example, teriyaki with chilli shows a poverty of skill and imagination.

This chef is not a fusionista. Nor is he inclined to tag along with food trends. The popularity of molecular gastronomy among young chefs has him a little concerned. “It was interesting, and the understanding of chemistry was helpful, but I fear it’s gone too far,” he says of kitchens conjuring airs and foams.

Thompson prefers authenticity to fusion and fashion. This was evident in the presentation and flavours of his astonishing food at Longrain. I’d never devoured his creations before and had, perhaps, expected gravity-defying stacks of Thai by way of France, by way of a science lab.

Instead, each dish was an accomplished but earthy conversation of sweet, salty, hot and sour. Served in communal bowls, harmonising dishes are eaten together for the full score to emerge.

Although critics of Nahm have been aghast at this style, Thompson is resolute in maintaining the presentation. He is also a determined student of traditional Thai techniques.

Trained as a chef in Sydney, Thompson went to Thailand in 1986 and fell immediately in love. “I went for a holiday and was seduced by the place,” he says. Some years later, he emerged from his lemongrass haze, returning to Sydney to open his first restaurant, the acclaimed Darley Street Thai “in the back of a bloodbath of a hotel” in St Peters.

It was in Thailand that he encountered “an old woman who cooked the most delectable of foods. A depth of palate, seasoning, and textures that was just fantastic. Her cooking transformed my understanding of what Thai food was, from being quite pleasant, photographically delightful street food into something else”.

With partner Tanongsak Yordwai, whom he met on that first trip to Thailand, Thompson has collected and translated a substantial assortment of Thai “memorial books”. It is the custom in Thailand to publish a booklet when someone dies. It documents the deceased’s life; their habits, hobbies and often their favourite recipes. Some in Thompson’s collection are more than a century old. He calls this collection of about 600 books “a delicious treasure trove” and uses many of the recipes on his menu at Nahm.

With the spectre of 2pm looming, I whisk Thompson and Yordwai into Pa Wan for lunch. They pore over the menu, which offers arresting departures from the standard Australian neighbourhood Thai joint, and point out that many of the dishes are Cambodian or Laotian.

Thai restaurants in the West are commonly a mishmash, they tell me. Natives of neighbouring countries frequently man the stoves at your local takeaway.

It’s something of a modern miracle that Thailand remains almost singularly unconquered, its cuisine untempered by foreign influence and its citizens blase about defection to the West.

“There are no Thai refugees,” says Yordwai. Consequently, an undiluted version of Thai cuisine can be hard to find.

At Pa Wan, we select sai oung, a northern Thai pork sausage made with curry paste, coriander and lime leaves; nam kra khoa phod, pork ribs deep fried then cured in garlic and sticky rice; yum nhun plar grob, a crisp fish-skin salad; larb gai, the minced chicken salad popular on Australian Thai menus; and gang pa moo, a “jungle-style” curry of pork, baby eggplants, and bamboo.

Each dish inspired a lesson from the master of Thai cuisine. Each market stop was an education.

It was easy to lose my way in this afternoon of higher learning. I may have been a little lost in the extraordinary world of David Thompson but he didn’t go missing for a moment.

In fact, I had him back to Longrain and a grateful Martin Boetz by 10 minutes after two.