It is against this backdrop of what I hope for would be authentic Greek food that led me to crave for it ever since I had arrived in Melbourne. And coupled with the pleasant experience I had on my birthday at Blu Kouzina, I was definitely looking forward to the clean, elegant flavours of this Mediterranean-style cuisine.
It sucks not to have a job yet in Melbourne, and not to have [foodie] friends like Dominic, Vernon, and some others that I can go out with to explore the city and its food offerings. [So far I had eaten at some place in Chinatown called Shark Fin Inn/House and a Korean place Han Guk Gwan – sorry no photos – wasn’t in the photography, blogging mood] that offers Yum Cha So I was glad to meet an acquaintance, James, through Jack’d, who is from Hong Kong. He has been in Melbourne for about two years and seems really knowledgeable [as well as critical] about some of the food establishments in Melbourne.
I was thinking of hotpot, but I think James doesn’t feel Chinese food is worth the while in Melbourne. So he suggested Greek instead, which was kind of to my liking.
So off we were to Hellenic Republic in Lygon Street, East Brunswick. To be honest, it’s such a drag to get there. And fortunately James drove so it wasn’t too bad after all.
After getting parking along the road relatively easily, we headed to Hellenic Republic and the place was full except for the counter seats. Note: always make reservations.
HR is ranked #12 on TripAdvisor and has an 85% like rating on Urbanspoon. It is not so much offering classic homey Greek cuisine, but rather a modern take on Greek cuisine by Australian TV chef George Calombaris who is a judge on Masterchef Australia.
To be honest, we weren’t sure what to order. I know that it is probably essential to order one of the dips with pita. So my dining partner – who might or might not be foreign to Greek cuisine – started scouring Urbanspoon reviews for recommendations. The wait staff did offer some recommendations. In the end he decided to order the lamb Ami Sto Fourno – slow roasted lamb shoulder on the bone. His reasoning – Australia rarely does wrong with lamb. Anyway, this dish is probably not traditional Greek, but I enjoyed it.
Lamb meat has a rather overpowering smell which some may not like. Personally, I don’t like it. But there is nothing a squeeze of lemon won’t work wonders for. And to be honest, the smell wasn’t really bad. I had a bad experience of having lamb shank at a particular restaurant in Singapore – fatty meat and the usual smell. But this one was different – the skin had a nice crisp to it. The meat was tender fell of the bone easily and easily pulled to shreds. Even the fats under the skin weren’t off-putting and yummy.
Meanwhile for starters, I ordered a Taramosalata or Taramasalata [the first picture], a traditional dish/spread/dip made from fish roe. Hellenic Republic’s advertises theirs as a white cod roe dip. According to research, it is made from bread crumbs/mashed potato, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil. It was rather savoury and creamy and went well with the rather charred and smoky flavour of the pita bread.
Meanwhile James decided on the Kipriaki Salata Dimitriakon – a Cypriot salad of grains, pulses, nuts and yoghurt. The salad was refreshing and rather earthly and herby – it reminded me of the Burmese tea leaves salad I had in Inle a few months back except that this wasn’t as spicy as Inle’s salad.
We declined dessert. Overall, we spent about $59, that works out to about $30 per person which I felt was well spent.
No comments:
Post a Comment