COVID Reminiscing

[LP]

It is interesting what this COVID situation does to you, in regards to returning to basics.

I had the opportunity to drop into a local traditional Italian deli late last week, and I thought or felt I should give them a bit more business than just a takeaway coffee. So I purchased some cheese, few hundred grams of cured meat, peppered mortadella, etc., etc, some crusty bread rolls. It took me straight back to my youth in the years I spent working in and around the CBD. Back then I spent most of my time in Flinders Street, but I would look to occasions to get up around Queen Vic market and the RMIT area, perhaps as an excuse to head towards Lygon Street. But often Lygon Street was too busy, bustling as a hive of activity, and it was tough to get fast service with limited time for lunch. So frequently I head up past Queen Vic to the North Melbourne area, the traditional Lebanese and Italia Coffee shops for lunch. My frequent fare of choice, a simple crusty roll, some peppered mortadella, a slice of some real cheese, sun dried tomato and some nice relish or olive tapenade as a spread, all washed down with some serious serious coffee occasionally with a small "correction fluid" chaser. Long before Subway existed! I can't recall what they called it, modern cuisine labels it a muffaletta but it's not something invented in New Orleans.

It's still a winner!

[Gointocarlton]

Bloody yum. I used to work just around the corner from Vic Market and we used to go there often for lunch. USed to do the same thing, pasta dura roll, mortadella and cheese. That wine shop just inside used to sell plastic glasses of wine sealed like the old aeroplane water cups were. We used to sit in the lane just beside it near Eliz St and enjoy. The simple things huh?

[ElwoodBlues1]

Not quite as cultured as LP and GTC...
$5 Lunch at the old Glenferrie pub in Hawthorn, Plate of Bratwurst snags with gravy along with real Mash and Peas washed down with a glass of ale. Dingy, Dark and less than salubrious...just the way we liked it.

[LP]

Not quite as cultured as LP and GTC...
$5 Lunch at the old Glenferrie pub in Hawthorn, Plate of Bratwurst snags with gravy along with real Mash and Peas washed down with a glass of ale. Dingy, Dark and less than salubrious...just the way we liked it.

[member=57]ElwoodBlues1[/member]‍  Shizen when did you frequent the Glenferrie?

For about half a decade in the 80s it was my goto location for lunch and "occasionally" after work, when I was working out of a Herald & Weekly Times site just a couple of hundred metres down the road. Small world isn't it! Can't say solids were big on the agenda, often it was nine pots in a round of three in the front bar!

Did you ever go to the Hawthorn Club just around the corner in Glenferrie Road, we would go there to play Snooker. Even more woefully after work was to end up at Chasers, one of Brereton's old haunts. Many of the Dawks players preferred the trendy pub up past Swinburne, I can't recall the name but it was popular. Of course if we were heading into town it was often via the Whitehorse on the way.

Is the Glenferrie even still there?

[capcom]

Adored the continental cheeses and meats on offer AND the breads at the VIC market.  Can still smell it today!!

Used to go with a good mate to Perc and Gag's pub every Friday for their mixed grill.  Two middle loin lamb chops, three thick snags, four slices of bacon, chips galore, fried eggs, ladle of peas ... $2.50.  Seriously good grub.

[LP]

Bloody yum. I used to work just around the corner from Vic Market and we used to go there often for lunch. USed to do the same thing, pasta dura roll, mortadella and cheese. That wine shop just inside used to sell plastic glasses of wine sealed like the old aeroplane water cups were. We used to sit in the lane just beside it near Eliz St and enjoy. The simple things huh?

I was lucky back in the day, I was friends with Alec Prosser, who owned Prosser Seafood at Vic Market. Use to get some serious stuff at terrific prices, and some significant freebies as well. His drinking mate was the pilot on the King Island airline that ferried crays and all sorts of good back and forth between there and Moorabin. When Alec retired his boys inherited the business, but they had a fall-out and split it in two so there were two Prosser Seafood stores in Queen Vic for decades.

In his later days a long time ago, Alec was a notorious aged drunk driver, never really had an accident, didn't have a brake, indicator or any inclination to stop at lights or rail crossings either, once he was on a roll it was rolling all the way home express! I realise that is nothing to boast about in modern times, and it's not something anyone thinks is funny or proud of, it's just the way things were back then.

[LP]

Adored the continental cheeses and meats on offer AND the breads at the VIC market.  Can still smell it today!!

Used to go with a good mate to Perc and Gag's pub every Friday for their mixed grill.  Two middle loin lamb chops, three thick snags, four slices of bacon, chips galore, fried eggs, ladle of peas ... $2.50.  Seriously good grub.

Mixed grill, there's a throw back, can you even find one in a pub these days that isn't probably $45 a main? As a menu item it's been replaced by the Parma, not that Parma isn't good, just that I'd go a mixed grill any day ahead of a chicken fillet.

In the old days the mixed grills nearly always had a little bit of kidney or liver hidden in there somewhere that you either loved or hated!

[capcom]

Perc always assumed I wanted the "parma and a pot" for 2 smackers.  After a month or so he got to know me and would shout out the order to the kitchen as I walked to the bar ... "mixed grills for two"

[LP]

Perc always assumed I wanted the "parma and a pot" for 2 smackers.  After a month or so he got to know me and would shout out the order to the kitchen as I walked to the bar ... "mixed grills for two"

FMD, if they put a sausage on a mixed grill these days the customer would probably report the chef to the health department! :o

It probably has to be a vegan mixed grill with a sausage stuffed with humanly dispatched spinach!

On the way to "The G", let's face it probably Carlton's real home, we would sneak in via a few of the back roads to some of the smaller pubs around that Richmond / Cremorne area. I recall one pub back in the 80s that used to make their own pies, seriously good pies with cubes of steak and proper chips, all with a pot for about $5 ~ 7. It may have been the London Tavern, but I can't be sure my memory of those days seems somewhat foggy for some unknown reason! :

[Gointocarlton]

Not quite as cultured as LP and GTC...
$5 Lunch at the old Glenferrie pub in Hawthorn, Plate of Bratwurst snags with gravy along with real Mash and Peas washed down with a glass of ale. Dingy, Dark and less than salubrious...just the way we liked it.

EB what can I say, I'ma food snob. I'm of strong Italian heritage and our type of food and wine is everything. We make our own salsa, salamis, prosciutto, pancetta, capocollo, wine (although I follow the science in proper wine making as opposed to the "wog" methods my ancestors used). Don't wanna brag but my Garage Hermitage is award winning.