Kumo Izakaya isn’t known for strictly Japanese food with a menu that has clear Italian, Korean and Turkish influences.
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.
A traditional pad krapow is made with Thai basil but Pinch of This, Pinch of That uses sweet basil here, preferring the peppery clove-like aftertaste compared to the spicy anise-like notes of Thai basil.
Euro Kitchen’s plant-based menu was perfect for the vegan Sand Pirate Penguin, the vegetarian Feminist Film Fatale and the omnivorous me who is forever trying to reduce my meat consumption.
When she first made it for us, I couldn’t help going for seconds and thirds – the roasted pumpkin skin was the highlight for me (I love roasting pumpkins and potatoes with their skin retained), as was the wonderfully tangy yet light dressing she concocted out of olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and seeded mustard.
In this melting pot of a café, the owners are Cypriot, the chef Turkish.
Sinangag (garlic rice) is a Filipino staple and Rameniac has it every morning for breakfast. He says you can pair it with any random meat from sausages and bacon to ham, spam or tuna but for the purposes of this blog, I made a classic Spamsilog with, you guessed it, Spam and a fried egg.
I’d visited tranquil cornerside Carlton café Le Miel Et La Lune for the first time years ago and loved it, promising myself that it’d become a regular stop on my brunch circuit, but then before I knew it four years had passed and I hadn’t been back!
Pesce-pork-tarian was inspired by Masterchef contestant Marion Grasby who made, what Pesce-pork-tarian dubs, a ‘fusion Asian tuna pasta’.
Chumanchu’s menu is largely Vietnamese with a few Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian flourishes. Interestingly, I found out its owner Marten Chu is the brother of Nahji Chu, founder of the popular Misschu chain.
The Better Cher is a professional chef, which makes it unsurprising that she came up with this wonder of a recipe while trying to use what was in her pantry and fridge – a skill I could afford to get better at in this age of social isolation.
