14 dishes, foods and drinks you must try in 2019
Some are dishes, some are beverages, others are food products, but they all have one thing in common — they should definitely be on your must-try list this year.
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Some are dishes, some are beverages, others are food products or places, but they all have one thing in common - they should be on your must-try list this year.
As part of Herald Sun Weekend’s Hot 100 and in the lead-up to the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, we’ve rounded up the latest foodie items to put on your plate or in your shopping basket.
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DISHES
GREEK YUM CHA
Chopsticks at a Greek restaurant? Do it at Gazi for its new Sunday yum cha.
Tuck into 10 fab fusion dishes, including spanakopita gyoza, feta spring rolls, and pumpkin and kefalograviera cheese wontons.
GAZI, 2 Exhibition Street, Melbourne
BEEF RENDANG AT MAKAN
Sisters Tasia and Gracia Seger — My Kitchen Rules’ 2016 champs — are showing they’re no flash in the pan with their first fully fledged restaurant, Collins St’s Makan.
Aiming to shine a spotlight on Indonesian cuisine, their large menu is filled with rarely seen dishes — chicken betutu, fish satelilit, cendol panna cotta — but classics are also rendered with class.
The beef rendang uses a recipe passed down from their grandmother.
Brisket cooked until perfectly soft and pink comes in a rich gravy that, along with coconut cream, has toasted coconut folded through the lemongrass fragrant paste. It’s spectacular.
Makan, 360 Collins Street, Melbourne
SEAFOOD AT CAPTAIN BAXTER
At Captain Baxter’s new digs on the St Kilda foreshore, the “taste of the sea” platter is perfect while taking in the bay views.
You’ll find huge, sweet and tender prawns, freshly shucked oysters that taste of the sea until you give them a shake of the tiny Tabasco bottle, clams and mussels, and whole yabbies and swimmer crab claws to crack into.
Team with bubbles or rose.
Captain Baxter, 18 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda
BREAKFAST BAO AT GOLDIE
Goldie Asian Canteen — part of the new Novotel in the city — serves up boozy bubble teas and Peking duck toasties. But the brekkie bao is a brilliant way to start the day.
An East-West mash-up of scrambled egg topped with slivers of golden-skinned roast duck, hoi sin and spring onion, all squished in a fluffy snow-white bun.
Bao wow indeed.
Goldie Asian Canteen, 399 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne
MEAT PLATTER AT SUPER LING
Be brave.
That’s the message at Carlton’s Hakka Chinese canteen Super Ling, for fortune favours those who put caution aside and get stuck into the meat platter that’s filled with true nose-to-tail tastes.
There are pig’s ears thinly sliced and drizzled with chilli oil, squares of honeycomb tripe braised silken in masterstock, and thick cubes of tongue.
There are slices of fatty brisket and slivers of shin slow cooked so soft they fall apart.
It’s a plate of protein borne of centuries-old culture that looks completely at home on a Melbourne table today.
Super Ling, 138 Queensberry Street, Carlton
DRINKS
DAGUET CIDER
Banish memories of sickly sweet fizzy pop.
True cider is having a moment and Andrew Rush is sharing his love of French-style,bone-dry cider through newly released Daguet.
Armed with cider-making experience gained while living in southwest France, Rush uses Mornington Peninsula apples and ferments with zero added sugar, which results in a super-crisp and refreshing drink.
Made in Melbourne in small batches, Daguet redefines cider for good.
BROGAN’S WAY
Medical labratory scientist Brogan Carr has ditched her white coat but her approach to her new calling as a distiller is just as clinical and precise.
From her Richmond back street distillery, Carr and father Simon make a range of gins from a custom still they’ve called Gilly.
There’s a new-age Australian named Evening Light, a navy-strength Royal Blood, and an Australian dry dubbed Everyday Salvation.
Try the range in martini or tasting flight form — along with antipasto and cheese boards or a toastie — at the bar that’s open from Wednesday to Sunday.
Brogan’s Way, 61 North St, Richmond
JILUNGIN DREAMING HEMP GIN
Melbourne-based The Cannabis Co. made headlines globally when it released the world’s first cannabis-infused hemp gin last year.
Now the team is back with their second gin.
Teaming native botanicals, including gubinge (a bush fruit) and wild lemongrass, the Jilungin is a fresh and complex gin that’s exotic and calming.
Half of the profits from its first release (available to pre-order now) will go towards indigenous fire and land management projects in the Kimberley.
FOODS
CURIOUSLY CAULI
Created by ex-AFL player Farren Ray and partner Bianca Luscombe, Curiously Cauli is a range of cauliflower-based dips and crackers.
Dips include roasted pepperonata and cashew, cashew and turmeric, and hummus that swaps chickpeas for cauliflower, while the gluten-free crackers, ranging from plain to garlic, rosemary and thyme, are high in flavour and low in carbs.
Stocked in more than 30 stores around Victoria, Curiously Cauli has transformed the humble brassica into brilliant.
SMOKED EGGS
Geelong free-range egg farmer Julie Kos had a smokin’ hot idea — and has secured the world patent on the process of cold-smoking raw eggs.
She has recently opened an export-grade smoking facility, with hopes the eggs will be found on supermarket shelves by mid-year.
The cold-smoking process kills bacteria, and thus stops the ageing process — 18-week eggs are as fresh as the day they were laid — but it’s the layered flavours smoking imparts that makes using the raw eggs a culinary game-changer.
The eggs are available at selected delis including Maria’s in Carlton North, The Eggporium at Queen Vic Market and Toscano’s.
PIERO’S MEAT MERCHANT
He’s our bonefide sausage king.
Butcher Piero Mastromanno from Piero’s Meat Merchant in Highett recently took home the trophy for Australia’s best gourmet sausage at the 2019 National Sausage King Competiton. Mastromanno won top spot this year for his wagyu chorizo sausage, and now with three national titles under his belt, he’ll be inducted into the Australian Meat Industry Council’s Hall of Fame.
Snag some award-winning sausos for your next barbie.
Piero’s Meat Merchant, 16 Railway Parade, Highett
O.MY SOURDOUGH
In what might be the best thing since, er, sliced bread, you now don’t need a booking at Beaconsfield’s no-waste hero O.My to enjoy its sensational sourdough.
On Thursdays, the restaurant — No. 15 in the delicious.100 — is selling 50 of its hand-folded organic sourdough loaves from 10am until sold out.
First in best dressed, and no pre-orders.
And it’s all with the view to opening a bakery one day soon.
O.MY, 23 Woods St, Beaconsfield
TOM COOPER FISH
Tom Cooper’s smoked salmon was the namechecked fish that adorned many Melbourne menus in the early-to-mid 2000s.
Cooper no longer wholesales, focusing instead on selling his best-in-class smoked salmon — hailed by chefs as Australia’s best — direct from his Camberwell Market stall.
Along with the signature salmon that’s sold by the slice or on a bagel, Cooper also smokes a different fish every week.
Recent creations include blue eye with mirin and vanilla, tuna cured with orange zest and cinnamon, and smoked kingfish with chestnut and apple liqueur.
Tom Cooper Fish, Camberwell Fresh Food Market
GLUTEN-FREE VEGEMITE
Vegemite is now spreading the love to its gluten-free fans.
With up to a quarter of Aussies avoiding gluten in their diet, the coeliac-friendly version of the nation’s favourite toast topper was released last month following requests from thousands of consumers.