Australia

Jan 26, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

“It’s a minefield even for Asians”

I had dinner on Saturday at Poon’s Chinese Restaurant in Barkly Street, Footscray. It was the worst Cantonese meal that I’ve eaten in Melbourne. The service was gracious and friendly considering that they were packed and it was dirt cheap. The meal was a mistake but not an expensive one

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Aug 31, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Cycling the Red Hill Rail Trail

Just to expand my repertoire from writing about food, an article that I wrote back in early June is up at Wall Street Journal on my bike ride across the Mornington Peninsula and the Red Hill Rail Trail, south east of Melbourne. I, of course, ate and drank my fill

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Jul 19, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 18 Comments

Phở Chu The, Footscray

I had grand plans to work my way through the phở of the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, bucket-sized bowls of beef soup every weekend, but never quite got there. There are no less than 20 phở establishments within easy walking distance but every time that I kick things off, I

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Jun 12, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

Gordon Ramsay’s Melbourne Restaurant

Unless you’ve been bound up in real news in Australia (e.g. remember Iraq? there’s still a war there), you’ve probably heard the words Gordon Ramsay Lesbian Tracy Grimshaw combined in some unholy fashion with great density. Chef Gordon Ramsay has been in town, stirring up the sort of misogyny that

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Feb 01, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 1 Comments

Guerrilla Garden Bounty

The best part of growing a garden is harvesting more than you can eat in a single sitting. It’s easy to see how harvest festivals started with a seemingly endless bounty of food in a few scant weeks of ripeness. The bucket of “Tommy Toe” heirloom tomatoes is hardly endless

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Jan 27, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 4 Comments

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Rendang

Another year, another chance for lion dancers to molest the unwary. The risk of a lion dancer catching aflame grows each year. The hanging iceberg lettuce attracts them. Welcome to the Chinese New Year. I had a vague plan to hit up some dumpling joints but was derailed by a

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Jan 03, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 10 Comments

Backyard Pizza

Happy New Year. The great Australian side effect of Baby Boomers with too much time on their hands is the backyard pizza oven. I’m certainly not complaining. For all that grief that has been caused by Gen-X being locked out of the managerial class is now being repaid in hot,

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Dec 22, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

ACA goes after faux import beer

Guess what? Blogging can change the food system. A few months back I wrote about faux import beer: the beer that looks imported but is actually brewed locally or by some third party. Yesterday, in The Age: The Australian Consumers Association is demanding clearer, more prominent labels on bottles of

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