Review - Naked for Satan - $-$$ - V

When I visited San Sebastian in the Basque country a few years ago I was most pleased to find that a popular local activity is to go on a pinxtos crawl. Pinxtos are the Basque version of tapas and are served in most bars. Usually it's a piece of bread with some delicious little morsel on top with a toothpick jammed in the middle. The little spear isn't just for holding the food on top though. As you eat the pinxtos you keep the toothpicks and then hand them to the bartender at the end of your feasting, paying for as many pieces as you ate. This means you can just stand around helping yourself and if you're inclined to a bit of thievery you might snap a couple and discreetly drop them on the floor. This of course is terrible Kulinary Karma and will earn you nothing other than a bad sardine and wicked case of food poisoning to teach you a lesson (well that's what I think would happen anyway).

So, why am I telling you all this? Because a pinxtos bar has opened on Brunswick Street. It's got a bit of a saucy name - Naked for Satan - and lots of infused vodkas. I headed there with some friends on Cup Day and we stuffed ourselves silly and drank a fair bit of the bars own ale.
The principle at NFS is the same as the real deal; you help yourself to the cold pinxtos from the front bar and the hot ones are brought around by the waiters. There's little cups on the tables for your toothpicks so you just hand them over at the end and it's job done.
We sampled a LOT of different kinds: prawns on roasted red peppers, meatballs, chorizo croquettes, potatoes with Taleggio and aioli, rice balls with quince paste and cream cheese, eggplant chips on blue cheese, veal schnitzels, tortillas and on and on we went. It was pinxtos madness and Mr Tea had to roll me with a stick down to Labour in Vain afterwards!

The bread gets a bit much after while so we found ourselves just eating the toppings in order to be able to continue our piggery. I also found it odd that when the waiter asked if we'd visited before and we said no, she didn't bother explaining how it all works, she just assumed we knew which might be unhelpful for the uninitiated.
All in all though this is a cracker little bar, perfect for long drinking sessions fuelled by the ability to eat when you feel like it. In the evenings the pinxtos are all $2 each but at the moment there is a lunch special on weekdays from 12-4pm and they are just 50 cents per piece! Obviously at these prices there's no reason to hide your toothpicks - you'll be stuffed for under $4.

Enjoy!

Review Cruzao Arepa Bar - $$ - V

There are so many places to eat on Brunswick Street but because I work on the strip I get a little tired of being spoilt for choice and a bit bored with what's on offer. Sucks to be me with all this good food around! The newest kid on our block is Cruzao Arepa Bar and I was very curious to check out the Venezuelan food in the hope of finding a new lunch option.

The bar serves arepas which are flat breads made from corn meal and stuffed with yummy fillings and then grilled. Kind of like a quesadilla but the bread is thicker. There are also nibbles called pasapalos that are for sharing while you down a mojito or Cuba libre and try decide which arepa to choose.

A group of us went for dinner and were the only people in there on what was a pretty foul Melbourne night. It was a little chilly in the bar but nothing some white rum couldn't fix. It was also quite dark (apologies for the photos) and the music a little bit too loud; had it been a full house it wouldn't have mattered.
The waiter-cum-bartender was really friendly and gave us a run down of the menu and what an arepa is. He suggested we start with some pasapalos so we opted for the tostones which are discs of fried plantain served with aioli dipping sauce and grated cheese on top. The garlic sauce was really creamy and not overpowering and the tostones crispy and hot.

We also chose the tequenos which are bread sticks stuffed with cheese and fried (are you sensing a pattern here?). There are 10 served in a an enamel bucket and by the time I whipped the camera out there were only 3 left. These little babies are good! Crispy, salty and cheesy; I could have eaten a whole bucket on my own!

While we were enjoying our starters, a Latin version of Catweasal came bounding out of the kitchen to chat to us. Eyla is one of the owners of the bar and is obviously very excited about bringing arepas to Melbourne. Having never tried them before I asked if they were for sharing. He explained that most people would order one each but he said if we wanted to try all the different ones it was no problem and he got the chef to cut them in half for us as he reckoned it would be too messy if we tried.
There were 6 of us and 7 arepas listed on the menu so we tried all of them except the cheese and avocado one. My favourite was the slow cooked black beans with feta cheese, followed closely by the roasted pork marinated in garlic and red wine. The menu said they were served with a salad but ours just came with more tostones. Everyone was two mojitos in by this stage so the lack of vegetables didn't really matter.

The arepas are really tasty and I liked the char-grilled flavour of the bread. You eat them with your hands, much like a sandwich, and as such there is no cutlery on the tables. The food is definitely more snack-style or better suited to lunch rather than dinner, but this is a bar after all and not a restaurant.
I can definitely picture myself here with a hair-of-the-dog beer and a bowl of taquenos to get rid of a hangover; or popping in to line the stomach and get the party started for a night out in Fitzroy.

The best bit though was the price. We were full and only had to pay $12.50 each for the food - a bargain! I have a feeling arepas will be my new lunch choice on Brunswick Street.




Enjoy!

Review - Hidden Pizza - FREE - V

Melbourne hipsters, readers of the Big Paper and FB fans of this very blog already know about the "Hidden Pizza" restaurant that sprung up in a laneway almost two weeks ago.
Karl Quinn's article published on the 19th April basically blew the "restaurant's" cover, revealing it is a marketing campaign that has set out to highlight the effectiveness of advertising via non-traditional methods. Karl begged the question of how people would feel once they knew they had been "duped" into taking part of a clever campaign. This is the reason why I went to check out the restaurant. I was intrigued by the notion that advertisers would go to so much trouble.

the freeloaders

Priding myself on having my finger on the foodie pulse of Melbourne, I had of course heard of the "restaurant", but I had no interest in trying to track it down in order to score free pizza. I think I am of the wrong generation, because it all sounded too hard and I didn't for one second think about using the online phone book, which was the whole point.

Last night's visit was engineered by my friend's 19 year-old sister who found the locale, sat on hold for over 10 minutes, several times, to get the registration numbers and was excited about the prospect of the hidden restaurant. Neither her, my friend or anyone I eavesdropped chatting in the line out the front, knew anything about the marketing campaign.

hand over your card and 45 minutes of your life

It really was an epic mission to score one of the pizzas in the end. Firstly the telephone hold time: over 10 minutes. Then the security-guard-patrolled line: 20 minutes (you're not allowed to drink a cheeky beer while you wait, by the way). Then the waiver needs to be signed: by entering the restaurant you are agreeing to be filmed, photographed and broadcast.
Once the formalities are over, you are ushered into a long, virtually empty hallway, and exchange your registration number (and, in my case, fib about the pizza you ordered because I'd changed my mind) for a card with your name on it.
You're sent back outside and then go in another doorway that leads to the actual 'restaurant'. You pick up your free jam jar of homemade lemonade and are ushered toward the pizza counter. You hand over the card, which goes to the back of the pile and then you wait. And then you wait some more. And then you squeeze yourself through the crowd and have a look around. And then you wait. And then you are encouraged to do a trick in order to get your order to the front of the queue.
It was really hot in the basement space and the free-loaders did begin to get quite restless in the 45 minutes that I was there. My companions got their pizzas before me (probably my Kulinary Karma getting back at me for changing pizzas) and I ended up asking for my name to removed from the pile as I could wait no longer. This meant I got my pizza straight away.
We chose to eat our pizzas away from the restaurant so we could drink our beers and cool down. As we left I realised most people were eating their pizzas standing up, waiting for their pizzaless friends.

"recycled" walls

Overall it was an odd experience and one that I wouldn't repeat. I'm not sure that I would have cottoned on to the company behind this whole thing had it not been for the Quinn article - despite the fact there are phone books piled into makeshift walls and their logos are on the stool covers.
I know that I would have been suspect on the waiver aspect of entering the restaurant and then fact that there are camera crews everywhere you turn once you're inside.
As for the big reveal, I don't think a lot of the younger folk who have been repeatedly enjoying the free pizza will care. They seem to be really into the whole experience; making up naughty names to be called out and juggling in front of the crowd for kudos and faster service.

vegetarian pizza - potato, spinach & talegio

But the pizza. What about the pizza? It was actually pretty good. The base thin and tasty, the toppings definitely weren't stingy and the produce used was nice and fresh. It beat a Bimbo pizza in my book, but I'd rather pay $4 for theirs than go through the rigmarole of a free "Hidden Pizza".