Grub Food Van - - Moor Street, Fitzroy Melbourne

A unique Airstream Caravan is the centrepiece  for this eye catching espresso cafe location, not far from where Moor meets Brunswick Streets in Fitzroy, north east of the Melbourne city centre.  My top eat here is the Jerked Chicken Burger, generously graced with pineapple chutney, avocado, jack cheddar, chill lime aioli and tomato cuts.

The hipster staff of Grub Food are friendly, engaging and conversational with customers.  The core of it all is of course the coffee.  What caught my interest is the organic cola hit with an espresso shot - the Chico - but I did not have that - yet.
Beers, ciders, spirits, teas, wines and more are also offered.

The  inner garden and courtyard.  As they say, "when the weather turns sour, smart grubs head to the Hole".
Food served emphasises local food ingredients and sourcing.  The food choices are imaginative, creative and varied  - soy milk rice pudding, prawn gyoza, Spanish anchovies, smoky eggplant crostini, Dr Marty's crumpets and smashed avocado on multigrain are just some examples.   For the famished, do had straight to the various board platters - my preferences are the Charcuterie and farmhouse versions.

Sunny outlook near entrance to Moor Street on a summer's day.  Tables are neat and orderly while you are surrounded by a purposeful and easy clutter to help anyone relax, as if you were on a stop in  major road trip!

First Moon for Hayden Yeap - January 2015 Melbourne

Hayden Yeap with grand aunt at the Shark Fin's Restaurant in suburban Melbourne.  Hayden is clutching a red packet
offered by Lucy to mark his very first one month.
Photo credit: SC Yeap.

Celebratory Straits Chinese snacks, the Ang Koo, made with tortoise shaped moulds and packed with steamed fillings of mung bean and sweet potato paste.  These are usually only prepared to mark the first month of new born infants, accompanied by round red coloured balls for boys and peach shaped snacks for girl babies.

Edible red dye is poured over the shells of these hard boiled eggs.  Droplets of vinegar help to seal in a consistency of colour and eggs must be placed at room temperature to help ensure the shell does not stick to the cooked inside of the egg.

Straits Chinese cuisine combines the best of southern Chinese  dishes with those of South-east Asia for over six hundred years.  Turmeric coloured steamed glutinous rice is often served with  Indian inspired chicken curry to distribute to family and friends in signifying a new addition to a family.  The Western style cake was added with the arrival of the European colonists , opening the Portuguese, Dutch and British influence.  Red is the preferred colour to signify positive omens of brightness, wealth and good luck.

Kevin, Mackie, Hayden, Eu-Gene and Matthew on a summer's night.
Photo credit: SC Yeap.

History May Repeat Itself.... if You Choose To

AS I took the opportunity to cull my household stuff recently, my subconscious was swirling in perceptions, held truths, facts and trends. What stood out in my mind was whenever I disposed of something out of the garage door, I realised that I am also bringing in something similar, albeit new, apparently fresh, through another entrance. Is the human condition meant to collate, accumulate and hoard - not just in physical goods, but also in memories, friendships, food and more?


Logistically it is impossible to hang on to everything in tangible form and each of us have tho make decisions to let some go. Then comes cyberspace, the ICloud, Dropbox and whatever changing forms of seemingly endless ways of retaining endless things forever - and I get initially sucked in with this idea and virtual reality, till my internet mailbox has over flown more than my household postbox. Is the human mind conditioned to thrive in abundance, or has these past few decades been a unique time of wealth, comfort and rarity of lifestyle, when compared with the overall bigger picture of the history of mankind? Maybe it will get even better for Homo Sapiens as a species - maybe not.


Whatever occurs in the future to the Universe, one of the human traits - expectations and always wanting to improve as a collective community - can often show their ugly side. One huge impulse, to increase the quality of life for every individual, as the human population explodes in numbers - contrasts with another significant human instinct - to preserve the tribe (especially when other so-called tribes continue to be aggressive). This latter real driver makes me observe why we cannot end warfare - only the weapons change over the centuries and millennia of time.


 The human brain has leapt in bounds in personal and collective development. Are we getting too smart despite of ourselves? Objects invented, processes practised, concepts implemented and ideas coming alive - they spur the diversity, imagination and intensity of the possibilities in the growth of the human race. Yet societies do get real upset when something goes wrong or against the grain of expected positivity. Yet our inner logic tells us that when we have so many vehicles, phones and commercialised food out there (for example), there can be more accidents, radiation and stomach upsets following suit.



When there is too much to deal with, the human condition tends to rebel - likewise when there is scarcity, there is hunger and drive. The cycle of trying to balance, between swings of want and excess, between extremity and ecstasy, has always played out in the micro details in the lives of people, nations and villages. We are reminded of how great empires have vacillated between conservatism and innovation, between looking inwards and having a fresh air of overseas adventure, between great social injustice and over flow of personal freedoms. Underlying such apparent changes and contrasts, I observe that some things do never change.

 1. The rich sector of humanity will be in the minority of numbers but will still control and have access to most of the world's wealth. This is partly because those who want wealth will come up with anything ingenious, innovative  and effective to captivate the masses to spend for them and therefore continue the financial haul of the already wealthy.

2. Health, education, lifestyle and childcare continue to be persistently significant in varying degrees.  

3. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to the temptations of making quick bucks through customisation, automation and impersonalisation. These approaches shall continue to work for businesses which realise that turnover, margin and profits can only be sustained and increase following this simple model.

4. Fusion, inter marriage and exchange of ideas, religious thoughts and communication will jump in leaps, continuing trends and practices that last grew much when sailing and air flights became accessible to individuals.

5. The leading edge of humanity would never sit still. After making impressive discovery of the outside world, the inner world is the next frontier.

6. Human suffering is inherent. How families, individuals and societies deal with this suffering can however change.


7. The human penchant to over describe things and matters overly positive can counterwise suggest  a dark streak of the other reality. Yet an ability to over come negativity with hope and light has been a powerful essential character of the human condition.

8. Some things can be easily explained when you listen to or read the news. For example, when people are on holiday and have too much personal free time, they do things that they do not have much practice in. Examples are catching up with people they have not seen much for the rest of the year, delving in more risky sports and leisure activities, drinking more alcohol, over using their credit facility capability and have more boredom setting in.

9. Those who do not pay sufficient attention to history are bound to repeat its mistakes - just an old but true adage.

10. Those who pay enough attention to history and act upon its lessons are bound to create new improved models in living, business and humaneness.

Maybe there is a pessimist in me. On the other hand, the thought of "Why Not"? can be so powerful and enabling. That is how exactly I felt when I last threw out a box of things that I have been keeping for some purpose that has long last disappeared. That was only yesterday.

Hawker, Sydney - Penang Street Food

My best nominated dish - the tamarind laksa - so far as Hawker enters its third week of offering Penang street food to the public.

Michaeline had mentioned to me about this much awaited place - and before Christmas this year, it was all revealed. I like the location, not far with a short walk up from Darling Harbour and down from World Square in Sydney CBD.  The mostly young staff are friendly and seemingly well trained.  The menu is not overly crowded, making sense to non-Asians with a common sense classification of snacks, drinks, noodles, desserts and breads.  Apparently representing the best of Penang street food, what stands out in the Hawker menu are the ban chien kueh in Fujian dialect (here referred to as the apom balik in the menu), plus the banana  or durian filled batter options. The former is a light pancake served with flavoursome peanuts and butter inside the wrap, temptingly cooked in individual burners transparently to the walk in guests. What a marketing genius!  The owners of Hawker I reckon have already achieved a coup in the Australian market by the flapping of roti canai being prepared thorough glass visible to passer-bys in their Mamaks outlets for a few years now.  Now they have transplanted this visual delight of openness in preparing their pancakes. No deep fried ice cream here, it is a Singapore thing originally when Asian cooks thought up of pleasing their British colonial masters in the last century. Instead we have the goreng pisang (deep fried  banana batter) and the goreng durian  (the latter being a rather recent concept and not easily found on the streets of Georgetown Penang itself).

Hawker just before opening at 1130am on a holiday weekend.

A Fujian classic, the thin wrap snack (Poh Pniah) can be healthy, light on the palate and finger sized biting good.

On my first visit to Hawker, I was impressed by the quality of the tamarind laksa, particularly in the richness of the all critical soup, the abundance of fish in the gravy and in the variety of authentic garnishing (Spanish onions, julienned cucumber and fresh mint leaves). The all important fish shrimp paste brought me back true memories growing up in Penang ( The Hay Koh in Fujian dialect).  On the contrary, what was a bit short was in the serving of Poh Pniah that day, specifically with out a light gravy accompanying the version back in Georgetown (think of the version found at the Padang Brown food stalls).  The Poh Pniah at Hawker therefore tended to be on the dry side, although I give thumbs up to the quality of the freshly prepared skin.  There was perhaps too much smashed yellow bean curd and a missing ingredient in the wrap was finely simmered pork bits.

The deep fried lobak - essentially pork cubes marinated with five spice powder, then wrapped in soy skin, offering crunchiness, texture and flavour.  Here served with sides of battered yam and dried shrimp. A street food classic in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

Janice loved the chicken curry laksa - and she is an expert in this dish.   I could sense the rising aroma from her laksa bowl.  There was no overload of coconut milk as may be found in some other places.   The tau hoo pork (soya bean based ) stood up attractively in her bowl.   I informally asked a young man sitting next to our table how his serving of prawn noodles (Har mee) went with him, as I saw many around  me choosing that dish.  He was not too impressed though, saying it was just okay.  I was eyeing the wanton noodles (dry serve, soy mixed and with separate soup) and that will have to wait next time.  We avoided the cholesterol contributors of or chien ( mussels in omelette) until we could find a larger group to share this dish.  The test for Hawker perhaps can come down to the quality of the char koay teow, Penang's iconic street food icon.

There are many variations of chicken curry laksa in Australian capital cities.  The Hawker version is more clean cut and this is on my list already on a next visit.

The drinks list at Hawker, December 2014 - Cham means mix, Ping means served with ice and the mouthful of "Kat Chai Suen Mui" is Cantonese for " Kumquat Pickled Sour Plum". A summery preference is barley, definitely cooling for the inner body and I just wonder why there is no Teh Tarik, otherwise available at Mamak's (Chatswood, Melbourne and Sydney)

Peering through the window whilst lining up before opening times - 1130am and 530pm each day.

The feel of the place is spacious when compared to Mamak's.  The young man attending to payment at the counter asked how did everything go, a sign of welcoming feedback.  The washrooms are clean.   It is a suitable place to bring in mates or the clan to dabble in key Penang street food dishes without doing a stall crawl or between shopping or before attending a concert.  Black coloured chopsticks are provided with serviettes, reducing clutter on the small tables. I noticed condiments are not encouraged like in Thai cafes, but home styled prepared sambal and chili sides come along with certain dishes.  There is a choice of non-spicy dishes (like the Wat tan hor fan, or egg gooey wok stirred rice noodles) apart from the expected south-east Asian spiciness - but no mee goreng, roti canal or rendang curry.  On balance, I reckon an ex-Penangfite would feel at home here!

Cafe Opera, Intercontinental Sydney

A selection to complete a rather good afternoon.

High ceilings. Sandstone contrasting with raw red brick walls. Spacious corridors. Perhaps the best seating is in the balconies overlooking the inner sanctum.  In this modern age of glass, electronics and density, it is rewarding to be able to relax in hallowed surroundings being with crowds but not feeling hemmed in. My group of five were fortunate to obtain a reserved table outside the cafe proper, which was chock a block with guests also here for the Sunday Christmas lunch, held  but only once a year in December.   We were greeted with sparkling wine, generously topped up throughout our meal.  A hint of festivity decorated our table, where we could pull Christmas pops, wear season hats and just literally relax. No ala carte selections today, we went with the flow of Christmas goodies, with under currents of a French end of year theme, especially for dessert, but also with good old Aussie seafood offerings like fresh prawns, quality salmon cuts and lots of preserves, nuts and healthy salads.


The Cafe Opera is located upstairs from the rather compact lobby of the Intercontinental Sydney, located at the Bridge end of Macquarie Street, all within walking distance of the NSW State Parliament, NSW Art Gallery, Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House.  It is sited on the top end of town so to speak and makes most of the old State Treasury Building.  The staff attending to us that day were delightful, quick on the foot and friendly.  They happily offered alternatives of juice or soft drinks if you have to drive after the meal.  Guests are orderly, patient and quiet in waiting for their food in the queues.  The food bars are daintily decorated and suggest an Euro atmosphere, especially with the biscuits, pastries and cakes at the end of the ambient buffet.

I normally try to skip mains in a whole some buffet, but this time I found the Christmas ham and roast turkey irresistible - the cloves were still in my slices of ham and the accompanying gravy lifted the meats further.  The choice of cooked food may not be as varied as in the Sheraton by Hyde Park, but they had gems like delicately grilled barramundi and butter chicken curry.  I saw the rather chunky dim sims ( really steamed buns and pork/prawn siew mai) and did not have the heart to mention to the staff that Cantonese yum cha is really meant for petite snacks of bite size and not to be served in such huge proportions.  Dim sim literally means " touch of the heart" and not a flagging of monster sized grabs.


That little disappointment was soon wiped out by the variety of entrees, starting with Japanese sashimi, sushi and lobster bisque.  The latter was rather gratifying, flavourful, thick and with toasty croutons.  And I did revel in my dessert choices, rather up to expectations and with really too much to choose and take it all in. May be I did miss Italian, Spanish or Middle Eastern dishes but that would have been over the top. We were placed where we could hold a conversation, where the background noise was in another room, where it was reading to catch up with family and friends.  Then it was off to view the David Jones Christmas displays, the Martin Place Christmas tree and the QVB window shopping. I would recommend the Cafe Opera also on quieter months.