tikiwanderer (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tikiwanderer) wrote,@ 2008-06-06 18:21:00 |
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Restaurant review: 100 Miles Cafe
The 100 Miles Cafe is one of the local places on my list of green kitchens. I was intrigued with the idea. It's pretty simple - source everything you can, in their case, 99% of ingredients, from within 100 miles. They're located in Melbourne Central, up on the third floor. James and I ate there tonight before going to see a movie.
The menu is pretty straight-forward. It looks much like a normal cafe menu, the prices are about what you'd expect for a nice eaterie in a top location ($15 for a woodfired pizza, $25-30 for their top steak). Lots of interesting ingredients put together in a typically Australian-cafe style. While the wine list states the location that every wine's from, the menu makes no mention of their key point at all. It just leaves you to think about what's going to taste good. The information about the food (and why 100 miles) is actually on a map outside the cafe, showing the region they source from and giving examples of what they get from where. Cheese from Strzlecki. Chocolate from the Yarra Valley. Garlic from Ceres, a town near Geelong. Their exceptions to the hundred-mile rule are only a few, and include coffee (Australian-grown in Byron Bay) and miso (made in NSW by one of very few "official" miso makers outside of Japan). Admittedly, I note that some things are probably made locally from imported ingredients, for instance the chocolate. But they've done the best they can in that regard.
The food itself was gorgeous. We ordered scotch fillet ribbons in sesame and miso with a mizuna, walnut and pear salad - actually, we kind of fought over who was going to get to order that. James surrendered and chose the duck, mushroom and pesto pizza instead. They were both pretty good, and definitely worth fighting over. I ordered dessert - a chocolate fondant with accompaniment. I thought fondant was the sticky cake icing, but it turned out to be a small cake shell filled with hot melted chocolate fondue. It was simply amazing. It was accompanied by a small scoop of what I thought was meant to be caramel icecream but tasted a little odd. I'm not sure what it was flavoured with. Came across as a little too strong on the esters, unfortunately, like it had been soaking in melted plastic fumes, but a lot of added flavours taste like that to me. The scattering of crushed pistachio nuts over the lot was nice, even if it had been optimistically labelled a "praline" on the menu, but the waiter warned us about that so it was OK. And the melty chocolate thing was liquid forgiveness for anything. Oh yeah.
The layout of the place is curious. It's got a really big wood frontage, and you have to go down a long corridor inside to find the main room. There's a balcony there, the room is spacious and airy, still decked out in lots of wood, with a big bar and counter space dividing the room. But there's not a clear flowthrough or maitre'd point - you just arrive at a big counter wall thing that blocks access to the bar and to the main seating areas. We arrived just at 5, and I think the evening front of house staff hadn't started work yet. So I stood on tiptoe to look over the counter thing and bemusedly asked the bartender if I could get a table for two though I hadn't booked. He got just as bemused at me and said "I'll have to ask the boss if that's OK" and disappeared. I looked around at the large number of empty tables, and the front of house book he'd left open in front of me with only five lines filled in, and figured he must be new to eateries. A waiter appeared from behind a big concrete pillar and asked me if I was OK, I told him the other guy had gone to find out if I could have a table, and he gave a funny look in the direction the bartender had vanished -grin-. There was no problem getting a table :-) I chatted with the waiter a bit - the cafe's quite new, they're still getting word of mouth out, business is starting to pick up now but they're still experimenting a bit and finding what works and what doesn't. So it's interesting times for them. I figure word of mouth will be generally good though - prices are moderate, food is seriously excellent, service is basically good even though staff are still a bit new too.
The only other funny thing was finding the toilets. You step off that big long corridor into a tiny space behind a black folding wall. You see three black doors, one to the east, one to the west, and a double door to the north. They are all unmarked with no handles. It's a bit dark, and the corners are filled with shadows. I started looking for the grue. But instead I did manage to find a label on one door that helped me work out by elimination which of the doors was mine. James had a similar problem, and on his first attempt to exit the corridor he missed the small dark room completely and found the fire hose instead.
Overall: worth a visit. Decor and design interesting, concept straightforward, cool without getting in the way of the food. In fact, I think it does enhance the food. One of their stated motives is that supporting local farmers means they'll grow varieties that have flavour rather than shelf life. From what we tasted, that works.
The 100 Miles Cafe is one of the local places on my list of green kitchens. I was intrigued with the idea. It's pretty simple - source everything you can, in their case, 99% of ingredients, from within 100 miles. They're located in Melbourne Central, up on the third floor. James and I ate there tonight before going to see a movie.
The menu is pretty straight-forward. It looks much like a normal cafe menu, the prices are about what you'd expect for a nice eaterie in a top location ($15 for a woodfired pizza, $25-30 for their top steak). Lots of interesting ingredients put together in a typically Australian-cafe style. While the wine list states the location that every wine's from, the menu makes no mention of their key point at all. It just leaves you to think about what's going to taste good. The information about the food (and why 100 miles) is actually on a map outside the cafe, showing the region they source from and giving examples of what they get from where. Cheese from Strzlecki. Chocolate from the Yarra Valley. Garlic from Ceres, a town near Geelong. Their exceptions to the hundred-mile rule are only a few, and include coffee (Australian-grown in Byron Bay) and miso (made in NSW by one of very few "official" miso makers outside of Japan). Admittedly, I note that some things are probably made locally from imported ingredients, for instance the chocolate. But they've done the best they can in that regard.
The food itself was gorgeous. We ordered scotch fillet ribbons in sesame and miso with a mizuna, walnut and pear salad - actually, we kind of fought over who was going to get to order that. James surrendered and chose the duck, mushroom and pesto pizza instead. They were both pretty good, and definitely worth fighting over. I ordered dessert - a chocolate fondant with accompaniment. I thought fondant was the sticky cake icing, but it turned out to be a small cake shell filled with hot melted chocolate fondue. It was simply amazing. It was accompanied by a small scoop of what I thought was meant to be caramel icecream but tasted a little odd. I'm not sure what it was flavoured with. Came across as a little too strong on the esters, unfortunately, like it had been soaking in melted plastic fumes, but a lot of added flavours taste like that to me. The scattering of crushed pistachio nuts over the lot was nice, even if it had been optimistically labelled a "praline" on the menu, but the waiter warned us about that so it was OK. And the melty chocolate thing was liquid forgiveness for anything. Oh yeah.
The layout of the place is curious. It's got a really big wood frontage, and you have to go down a long corridor inside to find the main room. There's a balcony there, the room is spacious and airy, still decked out in lots of wood, with a big bar and counter space dividing the room. But there's not a clear flowthrough or maitre'd point - you just arrive at a big counter wall thing that blocks access to the bar and to the main seating areas. We arrived just at 5, and I think the evening front of house staff hadn't started work yet. So I stood on tiptoe to look over the counter thing and bemusedly asked the bartender if I could get a table for two though I hadn't booked. He got just as bemused at me and said "I'll have to ask the boss if that's OK" and disappeared. I looked around at the large number of empty tables, and the front of house book he'd left open in front of me with only five lines filled in, and figured he must be new to eateries. A waiter appeared from behind a big concrete pillar and asked me if I was OK, I told him the other guy had gone to find out if I could have a table, and he gave a funny look in the direction the bartender had vanished -grin-. There was no problem getting a table :-) I chatted with the waiter a bit - the cafe's quite new, they're still getting word of mouth out, business is starting to pick up now but they're still experimenting a bit and finding what works and what doesn't. So it's interesting times for them. I figure word of mouth will be generally good though - prices are moderate, food is seriously excellent, service is basically good even though staff are still a bit new too.
The only other funny thing was finding the toilets. You step off that big long corridor into a tiny space behind a black folding wall. You see three black doors, one to the east, one to the west, and a double door to the north. They are all unmarked with no handles. It's a bit dark, and the corners are filled with shadows. I started looking for the grue. But instead I did manage to find a label on one door that helped me work out by elimination which of the doors was mine. James had a similar problem, and on his first attempt to exit the corridor he missed the small dark room completely and found the fire hose instead.
Overall: worth a visit. Decor and design interesting, concept straightforward, cool without getting in the way of the food. In fact, I think it does enhance the food. One of their stated motives is that supporting local farmers means they'll grow varieties that have flavour rather than shelf life. From what we tasted, that works.
