Delicious Places to Eat in Melbourne

Fiona Summerfield

There are so many great places in Melbourne to eat, it is difficult to choose but these were the three food experiences I remember most fondly from our trip in July.

The best meal would have to be at The Hungarian, 362 Bridge Road in Richmond. The food is fantastically Hungarian super filling and delicious – they do takeaways too. The menu is a great read with dishes such as “The secret of Buda, the secret is not out yet so DO NOT ASK! We make it, you eat it, full stop.” Though it did tell you at the bottom of the menu the ingredients of this dish. I ordered a noodle dish with salted cottage cheese, “violently smoked bacon”, sour cream and paprika. It had a long Hungarian name but handily had a little spot next to it to put your finger on rather than try and mispronounce the name of the dish.

The waiter warned me it was a big dish and I assured him I was very hungry. It was delicious and I very nearly ate it all. If you have spent a day walking all over Melbourne this dish is perfect to fill the appetite. Even though we had thoroughly enjoyed our mains we couldn’t leave without trying the sour cherry strudel. It was delicious, though Karl ate most of it because I was still full from my main dish.

On the Sunday morning we went to St. Kilda to do a cake shop crawl. We found this article on the internet before we left and it had sounded like fun. It was excellent because following someone else’s suggestions meant we tried different cakes than we might have chosen. The stand out favourite was Kugelhoupf from the Monarch Cake Shop and not all cakes were as we expected. The black forest cake from Le Bon Continental was completely different to what we expected. But when we put aside our preconceptions of what a black forest cake should be and just took it as a cake – it was light, creamy and delicious. The croissants from Europa were utterly different from the usual examples in New Zealand and delicious. The description of the baked cheesecake from Acland cakes was entirely accurate being “sensational”.

The other meal we really enjoyed was pastrami sandwiches from Daniel’s in the Jewish area on Carlisle street. We had gone there to get bagels from Glick’s Bakery because they are the best bagels we have ever tasted in our part of the world. We bought our bagels but were tempted by the pastrami sandwiches in the shop next door. We have watched and heard others rave about pastrami sandwiches in New York delis so we couldn’t walk past this opportunity. I was a little dubious on what it would be like with so many slices of meat in one sandwich. It was delicious. The meat is so juicy and salty, it made a very filling lunch but it wasn’t heavy. We forgot to take pictures of these sandwiches because they were so delicious we ate them.

Oh and I’ve just remembered we had the best Japanese dishes we have ever tasted at Shira Nui in Glenwaverley. Next post…