The Best Dishes Everyone Should Try in Melbourne Best Dishes Everyone Should Try in Melbourne | Page 10

are based on the curry laksa. I like a laksa myself, but I prefer other hawker dishes, so I usually have one
of those, or perhaps a Malaysian curry. Out of all the curries from around the world this is my favourite.
I think I may have eaten at the first hawker style restaurant in Melbourne, it was in Russell Street in the
city. Ipoh's was the name, and they served hokien noodles, teo joo bee hoon (I hope I've spelt that
correctly), a kind of vermicelli dish like Singapore noodles, mee goreng and a host of other dishes.
The hawker style food, originated in Malaysia I believe, and means they more or less cook it on the side
of the road, or at least in a market place outdoors on some sort of methylated spirit fuelled burner. If you
wanted to sell food from a van in Melbourne, you get a hawkers license, so I guess that is a similar thing,
hawking that is. Why don't we do it in the road (to coin a Beatles song) here I wonder?
I was in Singapore a while back, and went to some of these hawker food areas, and they are like a little
market, only it's mostly food they sell, with all the lovely smells of the orient. You can order all sorts of
Hawker dishes. They also have juice stalls, where they make you any sort of juice with all sorts of exotic
fruits. It makes my mouth water just thinking of it.
Well, without further ado, coming in at number one is a dead heat, she can't separate them, both
consistently good;
Blue Chillies Restaurant
My Mum, used to go, when something she ate was lovely, it kind of made you feel good. My partner does
the same, this is a good guide as to how much she is enjoying something. It's a bit embarrassing at Blue
Chillies, it's like that scene out of 'When Harry met Sally', in which Meg Ryan is having what everyone else
wished they'd ordered. Anyway, my partner is always ummmming and ahhing while she eats her laksa,
and I have to keep my hands up like a gangster, as everyone is looking.
I can see with my own eyes what a mother of all laksas, this one is. It's rich in colour, and full of all the
surprises that can pop up in a laksa. Before long, it's all around my plate, on the table cloth and on the
outside of my glasses, and I'm not even eating it. Pro Hart's got nothing on this dish.