Not just the chocolates

BY CAM O’KEEFE

If you haven’t had a chance to notice yet this Easter, the price of chocolate is insane.

Those once cheap, fluffy chocolate bunnies are now inflated with numbers that make their very price tags blush. So let’s not talk about these things, and instead about some different alternatives to expensive chocolate this Easter.

Replacing chocolate with wine should be an easy decision. Well, maybe not for the kids (although I don’t think they read this column) but there are bargains aplenty at Curlewis, a local Bellarine winery, who have in the last couple of weeks launched a cellar sale on some of their museum and back vintage stock. Great quality pinot noir, chardonnay and shiraz at a seriously discounted rate: yes please. I spoke with winemaker Stefano Marasco recently and he said the response had been huge so far, so probably won’t be longest of sales, but certainly one to feast on: swing by the winery’s cellar door over Easter Saturday and Sunday to taste what’s on offer or jump on their website if you can’t get there.

Highlighting a breakfast experience I had this past week (a local fave of a friend of mine) is a weekday only, breakfast/lunch café found along Ryrie Street near the foot of the Geelong Hospital. Florence and Me Café do a proper job at getting the small details right: not over seasoning scrambled eggs; coffee hits your table as soon as the milk is frothed; a simple menu that excels at catering for any kind of dietary you can think of; a hands-on, customer focussed owner. The place just seems to nail the brief of being a quick and good café.

Anyone headed Torquay way this Easter should seriously consider a quick pit stop in Connewarre for some of the freshest and best seafood found anywhere along the coast. No, I’m not taking about at Moonah (although that is another good idea) but rather A&J Seafoods, whose small shopfront can be found at the Barwon Heads Airstrip (Barwon Heads Road). The airport is used by some Tasmanian fisheries and suppliers to receive fresh sea bounty (usually then shipped to Melbourne or elsewhere in the state) so it makes sense a fish market was to be set up for the hungry coastal public. Add in all the other usual local seafood suspects amongst those fresh Tasmanian delights and you can expect one hell of a selection. As they say, nothing like fresh off the… err, plane?

If seafood’s not your thing, perhaps chicken is? Staying in Torquay, Pollo has opened a new outlet in the busy Gilbert Street precinct. As it has been for many other small, Geelong based eateries (eg Sober Ramen, Pholklore, Augustus Gelatery etc) Torquay was probably an obvious choice to open a second space, being far away enough from their original Pakington Street version to not risk any self-harm. Their rotisserie chickens are now the stuff of local take-away legend, and their warm and cold sides – truffle mac and cheese and harissa roast pumpkin, for example – round out a fairly convincing reason to avoid cooking dinner at home… I’ll confess, it’s almost always my first choice when it comes a midweek takeout choice! Plus, three doors down for their Torquay shop you’ll find local bottle shop stewards, Corkscrew Cellars: ideal if you need a beverage or two to help wash down this take-away chicken treat.

Heading back to the CBD and 10 James Street has now closed. The short lived, colourfully pink café that set up shop in the former James Street Bakery, offered a solid alternative to many of the grab-and-go breakfast places about, focusing on quality produce and lovely baked goods over cheap and cheerful. The building has been an institution over the years, having once been the home to Irrewarra Sourdough in the early noughties, and before that Wholefoods Kitchen (who went onto establish Zeally Bay Sourdough). If only the bread ovens (still) there could talk! And its latest incarnation? Unknown, but the owners of Afghan Kebab Village around the corner of Moorabool Street have purchased the space, so my guess is as good as yours.

Funnily enough, just around the corner from the above mentioned shop, I had a small Uncle Roger HAIYAA moment this past week when I saw a local Asian-fusion restaurant offering wasabi cheesecake. Now, I’m not against kitchens having a crack at modernising some dishes, but this was bordering on delusions of grandeur. Fusion cooking gone too far…? Perhaps, although I must admit I did not try the dish in question, maybe that’s content for another day? And Happy Easter, all!