jerk | The Cafe Jerk

Pope Joan, Brunswick East

photo taken from http://gosstronomy.wordpress.com

photo from brunchaddict.com

As the war-cry of the controversial Wu Tang clan of the northern Scottish highlands once rang out:

“Wu Tang clan ain’t nuthin to fuck with”.

Unfortunately, their decidedly non-kilted attire and fondness for big booty hoes were but 2 examples of the cultural differences that ultimately led to them being run out of Scotland by the kilted majority.

Ol Dirty Bastard felt kilts hid his figure

Their legacy lives on, however, in the many local variants of this war-cry that have surfaced throughout the highlands in recent years. One such variant favoured by the well-educated but vicious Kilmarnock clan is:

“Morning routines aren’t something with which one should tamper”.

This fear-inducing battle cry has become somewhat of a mantra for me of late, as I am a strong advocate of a regular morning routine. The first thing I usually do upon waking is crawl over Norah Jones without waking her and open up my laptop to see what is happening in the world. Like most of you, the first place I check is The Australasian Sandwich Association’s website (sandwich.org.au/au). So here I was, just trawling through the site and catching up on the latest sandwich-related news when I see this incredibly lame headline:

“Hardly a Vegemite sandwich in sight as foodies toast Australia’s tastiest morsels”

Now I don’t need to tell you that the headline of course refers to the 2011 Australasian Sandwich Association’s World Sandwichship. In the sandwich world it just doesn’t get any bigger or better.

To save you the torment of having to read this pun-filled article, the basic gist was that the guy who won the Australasian Sandwich Association’s World Sandwichship is the same guy who started Pope Joan in East Brunswick, a young man by the name of Matt ‘Matty’ Wilkinson. Funny story about that nickname actually. When introducing himself to competitors he said “Hi, I’m Matt but you can call me Matty if you like”. And so they did.

Obviously, if the world’s best sandwich man is showcasing his wares in a trendy inner-northern cafe not far from my house, you can bet your wrinkly old grandma* that the Cafe Jerk will be there.

*NB: Don’t bet your grandma. At best her value is sentimental (to you) and like all old people there is very little need for them except for providing us with a good laugh when they stumble on the tram.

photo from http://www.playmelbourne.com.au/

Pope Joan’s location is what us with Marketing degrees like to call ‘destinational’. In other words there ain’t nay motherfucker within 2 kilometres. It sits among semi-industrial buildings and houses on Nicholson street inhabited by old Italian widows who would sooner spit in the Pope’s face than eat anywhere with a ‘philosophy’.

There’s not a huge range of options on the menu, which is good. The menu can be found here
http://popejoan.com.au/menu

The guy is the sandwich king of the world, so you would have to be some kind of moran to come here and not order a sandwich.

The first one I ordered was the Cuban sandwich, which contains pulled pork, pickles and cheese. If there was one sandwich I would want to play me in a movie about my life as a sandwich, it would be this one. It’s just all thrown in there together and tastes amazing. And the bread is really good. Sorry I can’t think of anything better to say about it. Just picture me as a sandwich if you weren’t already.

The awesome thing about the sandwiches here (they are actually more like rolls but who the fuck cares right) is that there is no bullshit about them. It would be so easy for a world sandwich champion to try to be all fancy and treat every sandwich as a personal vanity project. You know, sitting on a bed of this, served with a side of that. But they are just really good quality rolls with about 3 ingredients that all go together.

photo taken from http://cltyw.wordpress.com/

My dining partner Eric the Discerning Llama with 90′s Hair, ordered The Cornish Sandwich, which comprises a soft roll, Milawa roast chicken, stuffing and jalapenos. Eric never had much money growing up. He used to dream of the day when he would have enough money to go to the fancy restaurants down the street that the rich people went to. His parents used to take tourists on llama rides for 360 days a year just to scrounge up enough to send Eric off to private school.

Then he invented the Merry-Go-Round and his life changed forever. Suddenly he was flying private jets to the French Riviera and sleeping with those llamas from the society pages. Now that he is loaded, he feels he shouldn’t be eating something as simple as a roast chicken roll, let alone one not sitting on a bed of anything. It didn’t help that the roll arrived looking like this:

photo provided by http://www.mailintalks.com

Here we go, I thought.

"Oh look, they served me a baked potato. I'm a regular at Vue De Monde for Pete's sake"

This is what it looked like when it was opened up.

photo provided by http://www.mailintalks.com

Eric was shocked that something so simple could taste so good. Despite his big-noting with regards to how unspicy these jalapenos are compared with the habaneros he is used to, he still thought they were a better choice than habaneros and that they really brought something to the party. And not in a lame way either.

Seriously, who brings a guitar to a party

I also tried the Rueben sandwich, which won’t surprise my loyal reader. Quick recap: beef, cheese, pickles. Anyway, it was a while ago and I am pretty sure it used some sort of non-rye bread. Which is a bit of a turn-off for me. I had eaten QUITE a lot of food just prior to it but I think I prefer the Rueben at Dexter. As Google Images is being a real bitch and won’t let me find any pictures of it, here is a picture of Rubens Barrichello holding a Rueben on a stick.

With my sandwich needs fully sated I decided to be a bit of a fancy boy and order the Spanner Crab Omelette with coriander and chili salt. If my old football mates knew that I ate things like Spanner Crab Omelettes that would probably delve deep into their underdeveloped wit and call me a ‘spanner crab eating fuckwit’, which wouldn’t be entirely untrue. Once again, when it came out it didn’t look that great. But then I was all like, “remember you spanner crab eating fuckwit, the rolls didn’t look that great but they tasted sweeet playyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. So I reserved my judgement until I tasted it.

taken from http://www.farnsy.net/

On its own the omelette was tasty, sure, but this spanner crab eating fuckwit was expecting a bit more. So I decided to get busy with the coriander and chili salt and BAM! this dish just did a U-turn and started heading up the offramp at the turnoff to Incrediblesville, USA. Something about that chili salt that just took it to a new level.

Just a quick note about the staff here. They have real moxy, spunk, dash. Whatever you choose to call it, the staff here has it (unless you choose to call it something which is the opposite of those 3 words I mentioned). It seems like they are encouraged to have a personality and actually have a bit of fun, which although it may have rankled Eric’s proper sensibilities, everyone appreciates.

Pope Joan has taught us what Craig David has been trying to teach us for the past 15 years, that it’s all about the flayva. And that’s coming from the playa who met this girl on Monday, took her for a drink on Tuesday, they were making love by Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and then they chilled on Sunday. So ignore him at your own peril.

March 2, 2012

Cibi, Collingwood

I love Japan. Everything about the place just makes me feel good. It has a well-earned global reputation for design, attention to detail, food, ceremony, friendliness and hard work. Basically, the anti-me. And seeing as they are basically the only country never to be occupied by Imperial forces, they have held onto their traditions as tightly as a Vengaboys band member holds onto his authentic outback cowboy hat.

The sellout crowd at the Oodnadatta Pub particularly appreciated the man the blue-collar act

Speaking of authentic outback cowboy hats, Cibi has very little to do with authentic outback cowboy hats.

Cibi is a Japanese cafe in the backstreets of Collingwood and is actually run by Japanese people. And I love it. It just exudes an effortless charm and is the kind of place that would appeal to Japanophile, designophile and paedophile alike. Maybe not paedophiles, who knows what kind of cafe those sick freaks are into. Actually, I rarely see kids in Cibi. And you know the old saying “If there aint no kids the pedo’s lose their lids!”, I think it was Wordsworth. What I am trying to say is that Cibi is really a charming and very adult cafe, and probably one of the least likely cafes to play host to paedophiles.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I am surrounded by Japanese things and Japanese people I tend to subconsciously adjust my personality accordingly. I feel I enter an almost-hippy state, whereby I become infinitely more polite and tend to appreciate the smaller things in life. I also think I do these little quarter bows of the head as I say thanks because I feel the Japanese appreciate a really genuine thank you more than anyone. It happens to me in Japan and it happens here – simply on a smaller scale. I think this is one of the truly great things about the Japanese culture, it’s like a refresher course on how the West has got things wrong in many ways. But I’m not at Cibi as I type this, so I will cease this hippy bullshit and go back to being a boorish suit who orders the secretary to do my bidding like the corporate big dog that I am.

Just a couple of fellow dreamers. "Is there anything softer than a cloud?". from http://www.6lumens.com

You should come to Cibi on both the weekend and weekday to get the most out of the place. On the one hand, weekdays are quieter and just an awesome place to wind down before you go back to barking at your secretary. And when there aren’t many people there you can just spread out at a table and read their copies of Monocle magazine while you watch the staff just be pleasant. Really pleasant. So pleasant that if the staff were the weather then you would walk out your front door and say “Gee this weather is really quite pleasant”, before picking up the paper and walking back inside and sleeping all day.

Did I mention it was pleasant? taken from http://www.broadsheet.com.au

On the other hand, weekends are when you get to enjoy the entire menu – including some of their more Japanese breakfast plates. These are about as authentic as it gets. Typical Japanese breakfast is basically rice with an assortment of side dishes, usually – but not limited to – fish, rolled omelette, pickles, nori, fermented soy beans and in Cibi’s case, a pickled plum. Now tell me that isn’t the healthiest breakfast you have ever seen. No wonder Japanese people aren’t fat and old and white.

I didn't know where to start so I hit the plum around with my spoon for a while

Whilst I really do enjoy this kind of breakfast and can appreciate the beauty in it, sometimes I just want something really heavy and unhealthily egg-reliant for breakfast. Nonetheless, it is one of the coolest breakfasts around. My dining partner, Eric the Discerning Llama with 90′s Hair, also thought the dish was particularly well-constructed.

Speaking of well-constructed, the building that houses Cibi seems to be fairly sturdy and structurally quite sound. The builders should be particularly proud of their efforts.

If you want a more Western-style breakfast they do a simple but incredible avocado on toast, more specifically “Avocado with lemon and Lucilla biodynamic extra virgin olive oil”. I really wasn’t prepared for how good this was.

"I mean, it's still just avocado on toast, right?"

WRONG, Eric. You dickhead.

I just realised affogato sounds like avocado, yet is not related to it in the slightest. Well, there you go.

Whenever I have heard people say what a difference ‘quality ingredients’ make to a dish, I usually dismiss them as food losers with too much money and I just throw an egg at them. But my god, for the first time in my life I could actually see what they were talking about. All the components of the meal were amazing but for some reason I think the best part was the olive oil and the seasoning. I don’t know what biodynamic means (despite our family history in the edible oils business) but I assume it involves farmers massaging the little olives and reading them stories. Probably some sort of Popeye spin-off starring Olive Oil as the main character. But I have to say that the good people at Lucilla Olive Products have really rocked my world and for that, I owe you my life.

Eric has tried – and enjoyed – the Soba Salad here before, but only because:

"You really need to GET Soba salad to get the most out of it, and I do"

In the south-east corner of the cafe they also sell a number of Japanese-crafted kitchen items from well-known (apparently) artists. If you are the type of person that buys crafty sorts of things this place would be heaven for you, and while I can appreciate the beauty in these objects, I spend my money and on ringtones that I could probably download for free.

Cibi, you are wonderful.

: Sellin’ stuff like a boss. stolen from http://www.breakfastout.com.au

February 28, 2012

Two Bob, Fitzroy North

There are a few golden rules that I believe any new cafe owner should follow when it comes to naming their cafe;

1) Never name your cafe after its street name and/or number (eg. Cafe on Lonsdale, Cafe 133, or 214 Glenferrie Road Hawthorn VIC 3122 Cafe),

2) If it is set in a historic building, never name it after its original function (eg. The Old Firestation Cafe, Stamps (if in an old post office)),

3) No zany spelling of words. This includes, but is not limited to, replacing ‘s’ with ‘z’. (eg. Puss in Bootz Cafe). Limit the zaniness to your spare time, which I imagine involves wearing a risque Mambo t-shirt with the dog farting a musical note,

4) If you wrote your business plan in Comic Sans MS and you acted upon the advice dispensed by that fucking paperclip, I highly doubt you have what it takes to name and run a successful cafe,

5) Don’t EVER name it after the business owner/s or their family (eg. Carol’s Cafe, Two Fat Ladies, Peter and Michael Johnson’s Sensibly Priced and Neatly Presented Cafe).

So you can understand my trepidation when I heard this place was called Two Bob. I automatically thought, “Oh Jesus if this place is owned by two people called Bob then I’m going to boycott this place and slide an anonymous note made from newspaper clippings under the door like the stalker in The Bodyguard”. But it turns out it is just an old bank, hence the name. Even though it technically breaks rule number 2, I can dig it because it’s pretty subtle.

Sorry Grandma, the State Bank of Victoria hasn't been here for 140 years

There is no doubt, this place is visually stunning. It has been tastefully designed with Scandinavian-inspired finishes (probably) and is really a pleasure to look at. But you try telling that to my sensitive sweat glands. I have never been so hot and sweaty in my entire life. Just to let you know, I ordered 3 apple juices during my meal.

This is what a professional photo looks like. taken by broadsheet.com

And this is what my photos look like

Granted, the temperature was on its way to mid-30′s outside and it had been high-30′s the day before. But Jesus H Christ Jnr it was stuffy inside. They had 2 Aldi-esque air conditioners in the place and they both pointed directly down into the kitchen.

Kitchen staff at Two Bob during the morning rush

Now I’m sorry but if you take a job in a kitchen then you pretty much know going in that it is one of the hottest professions around – along with any job you see on a VB ad. So you get no sympathy from me if it is hot in there.

And even if they were pointed to the main part of the cafe, what exactly do you think two little air conditioners are going to do to keep a cafe of this size cool? It would be cheaper and more effective to hire some small local children to stand next to your customers and blow on them.

To be fair though, we did go there on a really hot day and it is an old bank. Banks were designed to be hot and stuffy so that robbers in balaclavas would suffocate and die from heat exhaustion if they ever went in there. Look it up on Encarta 95 if you don’t believe me.

balaclava-clad hooligans: NOT WELCOME

My dining partner Eric the Discerning Llama with 90′s Hair was in his element in this heat. He gave a little wry smile every time I wiped my forehead with every napkin I could get hold of and was just generally being a jerk. He even ordered a hot chocolate (despite hating them) and placed it slightly closer to me so that the steam would drift into my increasingly wet face. Then he came up with this pearler:

"I haven't seen such a waste of paper since John Howard's autobiography, which I only read ironically".

Yeah nice one you pompous dickhead. I honestly don’t know why I eat with him sometimes.

Now to the food. I have only eaten one thing here, namely the Spanish-style Omelette with chorizo, truss tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. This was really, really delicious and even filled me up. And my sweat provided just the right amount of salt to bring the dish to another level.

Spanish omelette

If I hadn’t already been eating like shit that weekend I DEFINITELY would’ve ordered the following menu item: Brioche French Toast with grilled banana, honeycomb, salted caramel and marscapone. If I were to marry a breakfast item (and I pray to god the legislation will be passed someday) it would probably be the scrambled eggs I make myself every morning: uninspiring but dependable. But if I were to take a breakfast item on a dirty weekend away down the coast, it would definitely be this little french toast number. We would stay in bed all weekend, only surfacing to fetch ice buckets and check our twitter feeds.

Eric had a particularly voracious appetite on this hot February morning, and so he ordered quite a few dishes. Unfortunately, even though Eric enjoys all the meats of our cultural stew and likes to think of himself as quite the refined gent, he is still a llama and therefore still eats like an animal. So I didn’t have time to take photos of the meals. But I can tell you that he did order the “Crumbed poached eggs with grilled asparagus, smoked salmon, toasted pinenuts and toasted sourdough” and was suitably impressed.

The fried ice cream of the cafe world. photo from brunchalot.com

"When I make this dish at home I like to use artisanal French sourdough from a little bakery in Southern Marseilles, but this is still very impressive for a cafe"

He also ordered the “muesli with raspberry yoghurt, fresh fruit, multigrain toast, and avocado and feta”. He also posited that people only order muesli because they think it’s healthy, like eating at Subway. But it’s actually not. I don’t know how a creature that grew up on grass and tree shoots thinks he is any authority on diets but I was too hot to argue and he was in one of those moods.

"Even though I ordered it ironically, I thought the addition of avocado and feta brought an otherwise pedestrian dish into the realm of the acceptable".

Overall, the food and the aesthetics of Two Bob is great. Can’t fault them. But my god man, THE HEAT. I remember eating at this place on a mild day last year just after it opened and it was still stuffy then. So I would definitely go back there if they did 2 things: 1) they bought 10 more air conditioners and 2) they hang a light-hearted poster on the wall from the 80′s of a penguin wearing sunglasses and saying “Keep your cool, dudes”. I think these additions could transform the place.

7 comments

February 22, 2012

Fenix, Richmond

Despite the name of this “blog”, I don’t wish to be a jerk about cafes.

It takes guts to start a cafe and I have nothing but respect for those that do. People borrow from friends and sink their life savings into them only to see potential customers walk past time after time, picking apart the menu as if it were a foster parent application. And then you get internet heroes like me that have never had the guts to start a business just go to town on places. So I really don’t want to be a jerk about this place, but I will.

Let me just start by saying that Fenix got on my bad side about 6 weeks ago. And if you will indulge me, I intend to take you back to that fateful day in early January when the birds were chirping, the sun was shining and an apple-cheeked young man by the name of The Cafe Jerk was walking down Victoria Street looking for somewhere to pretend to read Dostoyevsky.

As the 2nd child of Mr and Mrs Cafe Jerk, little The was always picked on at school for his name – usually something along the lines of

“Hey The, at least my name isn’t an adverb, you dickhead!”

“The is actually called a ‘distinguishing adjective’, or ‘definite article’ in the northern hemisphere, you dickhead!” would be his usual comeback as he looked around his classmates for high-fives.

Whenever The rehearsed this grammatical pwning in his head he always pictured being chaired off by the class to the cheers of “THE! THE! THE!”, instead of what usually happened – ie. Stinky Taylor caving his face in with his little fist.

Annnnnyway, enough of my painful childhood. Back to that day in early January 2012. It was such a beautiful day that I thought it would be a great idea to sit by the river and read my book. And then an even better idea hit my dome, why not sit at a cafe by the river, where they can serve me both spirituous and non-spirituous beverages and perhaps some food.

It was closed. On a sunny Saturday in the middle of Summer. And did I mention it overlooks the mighty Yarra River. Excuse my French, but why the fuck would you close a riverside cafe in summer? Close it all winter as far as I care, I don’t even want to look at a body of water when it’s pouring rain. But Summer? Come on.

Sky must've been photoshopped in as Fenix doesn't open when the weather is too nice

Eric the Discerning Llama with 90s Hair was invited to join the family at my parents’ birthday brunch at Fenix recently. I had mentioned the ‘Summer Closing’ story to him and he wanted to come down and show his support for me by making a snide and possibly snooty comment under his breath to a Fenix waiter. I knew he wouldn’t go through with it though. Llamas are non-confrontational by nature and so he just ordered the Chinese Wok Omelette with char siu pork, sweet pickles & ginger and decided to let it go. Eric being Eric, I knew he couldn’t let a meal go by without some unnecessarily snooty comment.

"China is far from homogenous. I would like to know in which particular Chinese province this is considered breakfast"

I tasted some but unlike Eric, I could get past the name and found it quite tasty.

Then something awkward happened. Eric’s ex-girlfriend arrived and sat literally 2 metres from our table. He was visibly shaken as I remember him saying she had a bit of a nasty streak to her. Turns out he broke up with her because he was sick of dating llamas and she was less than impressed. Apparently called him a human-fucker at least twice. We largely ignored her, but you could see it was kind of getting to him.

You can really see what Eric saw in her. Just a classical beauty.

I made a classic error of going for the most exotic sounding thing on the menu, the Homemade Spiced Bread I think it was called. It came with some almond crumble, marscarpone and apple fucking compote. Sorry, but seasoned readers of this week-old blog know that saying compote makes me feel like John Q Foodiefuck Jnr. It was actually tea cake. Why didn’t they just say tea cake on the menu? It’s like when people call it banana bread. It is cake. Maybe they just call it bread so you don’t feel like you are eating cake for breakfast. I was picturing some sort of a damper or something. Instead it was more like a damperer! Am I right? Am I right? Wooh just the ladies this time. Yeah the ladies know it.

At the end of the day it was ok but just a bit small and not very filling. Like cake. Not like bread. And it came on a chopping board! How amazingly rustic. I felt like I had been transported to an old English kitchen in the 19th century where widowed old lady Worthington decided not to waste the crockery on me considering we both knew sooner or later it would just end up on the floor in a fit of unbridled passion.

Rustic is the culinary word for lazy

I took shocking, rushed photos of the other meals without my family noticing because even though they know I occasionally write a ‘food blog’ it still doesn’t register with them that I need to take photos of the food. Whenever the phone comes out and the click of the camera sounds they are likely to let off a little giggle, almost as if they know a way to transport an image of the food onto a computer screen without taking a photo of it. I didn’t try these dishes so you decide for yourself if you like them.

Moroccan baked eggs. From Morocca

Poached eggs on gluten free bread and the thickest hash browns this side of the Mississip

Incredible photo of eggs benedict (feat. manly blood orange smoothie)

Fenix Cafe

680 Victoria Street, Richmond, VIC, 3121

1 comment

February 14, 2012

Backstreet Cafe, Fitzroy

Friends know I’m all about airflow.

If I’m not stressing about my napkin being blown from the table then I’m just not myself. It keeps me focused and burns all the excess energy I have left over from not having a girlfriend.

Backstreet Cafe has amazing airflow, and they can control the amount of air flow they get with some sweet little door-like contraptions, which quite frankly made my heart smile.

Not a still napkin in the place

And when the napkin does eventually blow off the table I harness this state of readiness and catch it before it hits the ground, usually endearing myself to nearby strangers. And so it was to the soundtrack of ridiculously out of date compliments like ”look out Allan Border!” that I began my meal at Backstreet Cafe.

Firstly, let’s get the name out of the way now. Backstreet Cafe. It’s pretty shit. It sounds like the name of a fictional cafe you have to write a business plan for in a university business subject. Granted the name of a cafe is not that important, but just texting it to my friends makes me feel a bit dirty.

You can tell it’s by the Birdman Eating guys, right down to the menu font and its penchant for baked eggs. Not to mention various press mentioning it’s by the Birdman Eating guys. I have noticed a few more fancy dishes creep into the Birdman specials of late and I guess Backstreet must be the outlet for them to unleash their inner Fancy Boy.

Backstreet is the fancy boy Birdman

Their rolls are really pretty damn good, I have to say. I’ve had the Herring Roll twice now and I really like it. You can smell it coming from miles away, which is what you want from herring. It comes with red onion and pickled cucumber which my dining partner Eric The Discerning Llama with 90s Hair thought offset the herring delightfully.

"I find nothing offsets the saltiness of herring quite like pickled cucumber"

Then it was time for the Salty Pork Belly Roll with green olive tapenade, as they say in the classics. This roll was goddamn delicious. Pork belly is the perennial golden boy of the food world, and is invariably the most popular item on any menu. It was just a good roll. No fancy foodie bullshit, no offsetting of flavours, no food sitting on a bed of something. It was just a really good roll.

Half a pork belly roll on the right, half a herring roll on the left

Just saying the following to the waitress made me feel like one of those middle-aged foodie couples with ‘crazy’ fluoro specs: “I’ll have the Morcilla, potato and horseradish terrine with apple compote, fried egg and green leaves, thanks”. I think it was the word “compote”.

The sides stood united in the shadow of the benevolent horseradish

I’ve never been a huge fan of taking bits of every bit of food on the dish and putting them together in some sort of unholy beast of flavours. A food frankenstein, if you will. But you really have to do that to get the most out of this one. By themselves the components of the dish are ok, but when you throw some of that apple “compote” and those bitter leaves into the fray it really takes things to a higher level (according to Eric). The horseradish – as always – was trying to get its fat head into every bite but you can control him with the sides. It was pretty much like Occupy Wall Street, with the horseradish being the 1% and the other ingredients being the 99%.

And finally, I decided to laugh in the face of the Global Financial Crisis and order the Duck Livers with some sort of stewed plum arrangement. It was on special so I am just going from the photo I took. This dish was like something that Gordon Gecko would’ve ordered at a high-powered lunch on Wall street with other corporate fat cats during the heady days of the 80s. I say this because rich dummies always order the fanciest things even if they don’t think it’s going to be any good. I had my first – and only – foie gras in Osaka at a hotel and it was amazing. Just one of the best things ever created. And so it was with some (well-founded, as it turns out) trepidation that I ordered the duck livers here. Just have a look at this.

"Never order a dish containing more livers than players on a baseball team" - Ancient Chinese proverb

I shudder to think how much this dish would’ve cost to produce. There were literally about 7-10 livers in this bowl, and I couldn’t finish it. Even though I had already eaten a roll, this would probably be too rich to finish even if it was the only thing you ate. Dad once told me (with unusual passion) “Charles, never, EVER leave more than 3 duck livers on the plate at the end of a meal”, so I didn’t. He is a wise old man, but Jesus sometimes I fail to see the logic in the things he says.

Backstreet – as the kids like to call it – also has a pretty sweet food cave downstairs near the toilets. It was a nice little discovery as stumbled to the bathroom to dispose of the liver I had wrapped in my napkin. I should mention that I ate the above dishes on 2 different days.

Backstreet Cafe

152 Kerr Street, Fitzroy

3 comments

The Cafe Jerk

Tag: jerk

April 4, 2012

Pope Joan, Brunswick East

March 2, 2012

Cibi, Collingwood

February 28, 2012

Two Bob, Fitzroy North

February 22, 2012

Fenix, Richmond

February 14, 2012

Backstreet Cafe, Fitzroy

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