Courting Miss Jackson

Miss Jackson

2/19 Grey St

(enter from Jackson St)

St Kilda 3182

Telephone: 03 9534 8415

Opening Hours: Tue-Sun 7am-4pm

Miss Jackson is the kind of lady that will make all your troubles go away.

Not a difficult feat to begin with: the sand and sea are a block away and while she’s a shy beauty on the outside (finding the entrance took some hunting)…

…the interior gives off a unique combination of vibes: minimalistic with a hint of Mamma Mia! (the Meryl Streep version). Certainly, Miss Jackson has distinguished herself, having won the accolade of Best Food Café as per The Age Good Café Guide Awards 2011.

My sister is starving and orders the corn fritters with bacon, avocado and vine tomatoes — adding poached eggs as a ‘side’.

The corn fritters are crisp, sizeable, and embedded with juicy golden kernels, the avocado slices are fresh and fleshy, and the eggs are poached perfectly. Interestingly, the presentation of the dish appears to have evolved quite a bit since its inception.

I can never say no to eggs prepared with goat’s cheese and this omelette proved impressive — in taste and size.

It was massive! And more importantly: moist, thick, and generous with the cheese. There was a bountiful lot of bacon to match that was a little burnt around the edges but still very good. My only niggle was the bread. This might be a point of personal preference, especially given it didn’t look at all burnt, but it was so crisp and hard that it wouldn’t have been out of place spun across the room in an old Bruce Lee film. Perhaps if it had been sold to me as biscotti.

Unfortunately, the pan fried gnocchi with sausage didn’t fare as well. Which was disappointing, as it was aesthetically amazing.

The portion was pretty small (next to the omelette, minuscule) and the gnocchi itself a tad bland and mushy. Given the glowing reviews I’ve read elsewhere, I suspect this might just have been a kitchen miss on the day.

Too full from my enormous omelette, I opted to take away a brownie (a huge hunk), which was deceptively innocuous in appearance.

After an initial nibble in the car, I finished it before we’d even reached the city. It was exemplary: fudgy, nutty, and heaving with chocolate.

I’m not sure it’s got the best food in Melbourne but Miss Jackson’s certainly bringing all the boys to the beach, and they're like, it’s better than yours. Definitely worth a revisit as the days heat up!

What kind of food do you think goes best with a sea-nic day out?

Demi-Tasse

Demi-Tasse

550 Lonsdale St

Melbourne 3000

Telephone: 03 9642 3571

Opening Hours: Mon-Fri Breakfast and Lunch

My favourite South Australian is in town and confined to the legal district for the duration of her stay. Lawyer jokes aside, this is actually a pretty terrific outcome on the feeding front. As the number of eager eagles on Masterchef would suggest (most in fact originating from this very block of bricks in Melbourne), the legal community takes its eating very seriously.

The edible (and other) delights of King St are just a block away. But it’s easy to get distracted with closer café heavyweights like Earl Canteen (luxe, lush sandwiches that have been blogged about extensively – go for the Otway pork belly), SMXL (try a ‘moave’ with your excellent cuppa), and Le Traiteur (a long lunch experience, start with the tomato consommé). If you prefer to go down the road less taken, however, you can’t go past Demi-Tasse. Which is funny, because it is very, very easy to go past Demi-Tasse. This dame’s not much to look at from the outside.

But she’s a Hepburn beauty within, with similar style. Dark wooden panellings with matching furniture, bottled beauties up top, a literally angelic mural, and lush red leather booths.

Though I question whether Hepburn could have maintained her slim physique if she’d frequented a place like this very often. The food here is hearty, homemade, and addictive. And the service is just as warm and lovely.

We make with the meatballs.

A very traditional mix of pork and veal served with tomato sugo and crusty bread ($10.50). I couldn’t think of a better dish for a cold Melbourne day, and even though it’s spring, it’s clear we won’t be in shortage of those anytime soon. The meatballs had great bite, they came apart in juicy chunks and we mopped them up with the bread and sugo.

And I never say no to a house-made pie.

Beef Bourguignon with tomato relish and green salad ($7.50)

It’s always a pleasant surprise to receive a ‘gourmet’ pie in a city café that isn’t manufactured by Boscastle. This was very sizeable, and a bargain for the price. The pastry was delicately layered, and I especially enjoyed the tomato relish, which had a very unusual sweetness and tang reminiscent of chutney. The filling itself was more than decent, though a little dry. If you like your meat meaty, i.e. not indiscernibly minced, it’s definitely the pie for you. Other pie options include vegetable or a very interesting-sounding chicken fricassée.

Or pick something else from its extensive and extensively tempting menu.

Demi-Tasse: petite with plenty of pizzazz. And particularly important if you work in this area: its coffee packs a punch as well.

Cupcake Showdown: Bleeding Red Velvet (Part 2) - Cupcake Central

Cupcake Central

Level 2, Dining Hall

Melbourne Central (City)

(Also in Hawthorn)

Opening Hours (City): Mon - Thurs 10am - 7pm; Fri 10am - 9pm; Sat & Sun 10am - 6pm

The ‘Red Velvet’ showdown continues.

I ‘found’ Cupcake Central via a Christopher Columbus moment:

1. I had no idea what I was looking at;

2. I definitely had no idea it had already been ‘found’ (many, many times); and

3. I foolishly felt self-important in ‘my’ discovery.

It happened some months ago as I was having a Grill’d burger with long-suffering friend MS.

Peering out the window, I announced “I see cupcakes.”

Burger mid-way to mouth, MS lowered it slowly. Unfortunately, the row of cupcakes I had spotted on the floor below was not visible from where he sat. As far as he could tell, I was staring at a deserted Hoyts and some very bored teenagers. “What?”

“I definitely see cupcakes. Strange!” At the time I was sure there was no direct competition for that awful The Cupcake Bakery in Melbourne Central.

“Are they...talking to you, these cupcakes?”

It took some heated discussion and fervent Googling to establish that

(a) Cupcake Central had indeed put up sticks in the shopping centre; and

(b) I was not having schizophrenic visions of confectionary.

Please. I would so much more likely take instructions from some dancing rare steaks.

But I’ll admit these cupcakes might have world domination in their sights yet.

Tastings are scored according to an appropriate Thank-Cake-It’s-Almost-Friday! structure: T for texture, C for Cost, I for Icing, A for Appearance and F for Flavour.

Texture: So moist it’s almost as fudgy as a brownie, but with a pleasing smooth crumb.

Cost: $4 per regular cupcake; $2 per babycake (vegan and gluten-free available).

Icing: Like great date dialogue: lightly (cream) cheesy, and lighter still on the sweet.

Appearance: Simple as pie.

Flavour: Full of it. And I liked it that way.

Overall Score: 9/10: out of this world.

Due to absence of forethought, there is no allocated category for wonderment of flavours available. If there were, Cupcake Central would certainly take the cake:

Peanut Butter & Jelly

Jam Donut

Choc Malt Milkshake

Vanilla Vanilla

And of course I couldn’t begrudge the new reigning ‘Red Velvet’ queen a chance to prove herself in some other ways:

Note: A takeaway box will set you back an additional 50 cents!

Bonus for hauling it home: no forks or plates if you're eating in.

Two bad boys for the road: Devils Food Chocolate & Salted Caramel

As we leave Little Cupcakes bleeding in our wake, any suggestions on where I should take this battleground next?

Cupcake Showdown: Bleeding Red Velvet (Part 1) - Little Cupcakes

Little Cupcakes

Shop 7 Degraves St; 03 9077 0413

TG06 181 William St; 03 9600 1690

Shop 4 118 Queen St; 03 9602 3884

Opening Hours: Varies, see here

It's been a goodly amount of time since this blog featured an old-fashioned showdown!

Little Cupcakes, William St

Cupcakes are a real religion in Melbourne. Worshipping types run the gamut from daily zealots to occasional visitors and even the prodigal (those who flock in during troubled times).

Cupcakes at a crossroads.

Blasphemy unfortunately is rife, especially in the CBD, where artificially-coloured and synthetically-flavoured idols are hawked aplenty.

It is for this reason I turned my back on the faith some time ago, having tasted too many ‘cupcakes’ better employed as neon decorations than eaten by any man or beast.

My return to the fold therefore is with a very particular mission in mind: a search for a contender worthy of claiming the Red Velvet throne.

A more callous person might observe a comparison between the Red Velvet cake and the Holy Grail: mystical construction (oddly tasty combination of beetroot with buttermilk, cocoa and cream cheese), scarlet contents, Hollywood endorsements, and a passionate following.

It is in fact because of one such passionate follower, L, that I became hooked while looking for a version befitting the occasion of her birth.

As far as Melbourne is concerned, Little Cupcakes is the goldie oldie shop for fundamentalist cupcakesians. L swears on her stack of recipes that these are still the best in town but I’m not sure I agree!

Tastings will be scored according to a badly-conceived Thank-Cake-It’s-Almost-Friday! matrix: T for texture, C for Cost, I for Icing, A for Appearance and F for Flavour.

Texture: As with other cupcakes I’ve had from here, this is a pleasantly light cake, with a very small crumb. In the spongy to fudgy spectrum, it is much closer to the former than the latter, but retains an adequate level of moistness.

Cost: $4.00 per regular cupcake ($4.50 for gluten-free) and $2.20 for a mini size.

Icing: Is there a dentist in the house? Prohibitively sugary (grainy even!), with the sweetness overpowering any of the cream cheese tang required for a red velvet.

Appearance: Adorable! Evokes thoughts of all things girly-curly like pastels, pinks and polka prints. And the shops are just as sweet, spice and everything nice.

Flavour: Not bad. Errs on the side of too subtle perhaps, bordering on bland with a tinge of baking soda. If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t have thought it contained any cocoa.

Overall Score: 7/10. I would add, however, that in the consistency and ‘all-rounder’ stakes, Little Cupcakes is always a great bet and has certainly stood its own through the waxing and waning of the popularity of the cupcake faith!

Despite my red velvet resolve, I couldn’t resist disloyally taking home a Belgian Chocolate cupcake as well.

In my next post I visit a contender that I believe controversially displaces Little Cupcakes as the incumbent queen of Red Velvets.

Care to hazard a guess or provide a suggestion?