It’s a perennially hard task finding a quick place to eat at before a cheap Monday night movie at Nova. Enter Leyalina, a quaint Egyptian restaurant near the corner of Grattan and Lygon.
Author: Sonia Nair
Sonia Nair is a Melbourne-based food writer who persists with her love of everything deep fried and spicy, despite being diagnosed with a histamine intolerance and lactose intolerance after incorrectly thinking she was fructose-intolerant for several years.
Despite the plethora of restaurants that exist in the city, I always struggle to think of a mid-tier dining option – somewhere not so fancy that I internally wince when the bill arrives, but with a warm and inviting décor. Dao Noodle nails the brief.
Chibog’s menu is a constantly changing one and for the purposes of this review, I’ll be detailing two visits – one last week and the other a year ago, with many of the dishes from my first visit (sadly) no longer on the menu.
A Thai café serving pies, toast and jaffles with fillings and toppings ranging from massaman curry chicken and Thai tea kaya to chilli paste and pork floss, Udom House catapulted to the top of my list after I spied someone in my Instagram stories having chicken liver and sticky rice (!!!) there.
Gray and Gray is a restaurant established in 2021 by three-Michelin-star pastry chef Boris Portnoy and winemaker Mitch Sokolin in a space that was formerly a solicitor’s office.
Each dish at Big Esso contains three to five native ingredients – they’re not an afterthought or an adjunct, they are the dish.
Warmly lit but bright enough that you can read your menu, filled with a pleasant din instead of the raucous cacophony of noisy diners, Bincho Boss strikes the perfect balance for a dinner out.
I loved my visit to Karlaylisi and would order a spicy noodle next time, watch out for any tomatoey repetitions – tomatoes are a central ingredient in many Uyghur sauces – and order the manti or gosh nan to sample Uyghurs’ unique take on dumplings and pastries.
Terry’s Kitchen is a no-frills Malaysian restaurant situated within a church complex in Wantirna South in a cafeteria-style setting. We’ve been twice, and each time has made it into my top 10 Malaysian food experiences in Melbourne.
I loved our time at Sleepy’s so much – the food menu was small but lovingly curated to showcase an interesting take on familiar east Asian ingredients, the drinks were bomb, our waiter was the best and the cosy interiors were perfect to spend a drizzly Wednesday night in.
Whatever Floats Your Bloat 