Five must-try eats at Moonhouse Balaclava: Hainanese chicken club sandwich, Chinese five spice doughnut
The club sandwich and Chinese doughnut get a tasty makeover at the new restaurant by the Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Tina team.
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The team behind Hanoi Hannah, New Quarter and Tokyo Tina is opening a sixth restaurant, Moonhouse, in Balaclava on Wednesday.
Head chef Shirley Summakwan and pastry chef Enza Soto share their top-five, must-order plates from the Commune Group’s modern take on Chinese cuisine.
1. Hainanese chicken club sandwich, chicken skin, cucumber
Melbourne loves a sanger and this riffs off the wholesome Chinese classic, jamming Hainan-seasoned chicken and cucumber between two fluffy white bread discs. There’s Vegemite, chicken fat and shatter-fine chicken skin also thrown in for good measure.
2. Prawn toast, prawn bisque dip
Amp up the seafood flavours by dunking your sesame-studded, flaky pastry concealing sweet prawn meat in a rich prawn bisque. Delish.
3. Duck ceremony
All hail the duck. The bird is cooked two ways, roasted and confit, alongside a sweet house-made plum hoisin and cucumber pickles for zingy crunch.
4. Five-spice doughnut
This Chinese doughnut and churro hybrid messes with our perception of what’s sweet and savoury or hot and cold. Golden-fried curls are rustled in a sweet, five-spice sugar blend served alongside a black pepper ice cream with a kick of heat.
5. Fruit and jelly
A playful ode to token fruit dessert platters served after dinner at Chinese restaurants. Enza takes the orange flesh, makes a jelly from the juices and resets it in the skin. The fruit will change seasonally.
Moonhouse, 282 Carlisle St, Balaclava
Open season
Fresh truffles, wood fire, a casserole bubbling away in the oven.
Some smells remind us of winter, and so does Truffle Melbourne.
The largest truffle festival outside of Europe is back in 2022, with the city’s king of Italian eats Guy Grossi kicking offa bumper line up of events.
This Sunday he’ll take over South Melbourne’s Half Acre for a truffle-loaded lunch tumbling Western Australia’s robust Manjimup variety through tortellini, rice stuffed quail and cheese and honey desserts.
But you don’t need to eat like a king to enjoy the season.
“I’m a simple man, I love a beautiful cacio e pepe pasta or even a bianco risotto and putting the truffles through at the last minute,” Grossi said.
“The simplest way could be on crusty bread that’s been toasted, slathered in butter and covered in truffles.”
Truffle Melbourne founder Nigel Wood said the home cooking resurgence continued to work in the festival’s favour.
“Demand for fresh truffle continues to outpace previous years. More people have learned to cook in the last two years and are keen to try new dishes and experiment with the joys of seasonal black and white truffle,” he said.
Chef Jesse Gerner is also part of the lunch and dinner series, taking us to Spain with his truffle feast at Bomba.
Truffle Melbourne’s signature Queen Victoria Market event will be held on June 18-19.
Truffle Melbourne’s Half Acre and Bomba lunch and dinner series costs $235 per person, and includes premium Italian prosecco and wine from Dalrymple Vineyards. www.trufflemelbourne.com
Bye Zymurgy
West Footscray’s Zymurgy (rhymes with ‘I’m a guy’) is taking a beat.
The love child of Navi’s Julian Hills and Hop Nation Brewery’s Duncan Gibson and Sam Hambour has been slinging fermented brews and chews on Barkly St since 2020.
But after a raft of Covid curveballs and staff shortages, the trio is taking a short break and will reopen on June 9 with a new menu and reduced capacity.
“We weren’t running it as well as we wanted to, so we thought we’d pull the plug and reset,” Hills said.
“After lockdown we reopened to staff shortages and a string of Covid outbreaks.”
Zymurgy will serve dinner, from Thursday to Saturday, with a short snack and small plate offering inside the main dining room. The outdoor beer garden will close for now, with the hope of returning in spring.
Hills said takeaway would make a comeback, including Zymurgy’s lockdown-famous chargrill chicken with black garlic, chips and house pickles.
Zymurgy, 561 Barkly St, West Footscray
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