Night Out On (Off?) Chapel Street

Warning: this is a blog with no pictures because the circumstances did not allow for decent photographs.

It always feels strange being in the opposite direction of home on a school night.  Even stranger when your friends, who had just encountered the hazards of peak-hour outbound trains for the first time in their lives, are counting on sharp eyes in the night to look for the dinner spot...

Thanks to a tip-off (aka "a little bird told me" aka "I heard on the grapevine" aka "I read online"), we were heading to Market Lane for Coffeekids Latte Art Throwdown via Windsor station instead of the more-usual Prahran station. The purpose: to find a tapas bar off Chapel Street known as Pandora's Box.

We arrived early enough to avoid being rejected for not having a dinner booking, and soon settled in the dimly lit industrial space.  This being the first time FH was having dinner with AS, everyone was terribly polite around dish selection but we managed to settle on scotch quail egg with salt cod, braised lamb's tongue with white port & golden raisins, duck jamon with quince sauce and aged Angus steak with bone marrow & herb chips (sliced for sharing).  In our usual unintentional manner, we managed to attract the attention of the floor manager when it came to choosing a red to match the dishes.  We were recommended the Pandora's Box pinot noir, made locally and specifically for the restaurant, which did really match the dishes well.

By the time our first dish was served, the restaurant was rapidly filling up.  The scotch egg was rich and creamy, though we did have trouble adjusting to the idea of a thumbful of yolk in the otherwise regular-sized scotch egg.  FH and AS both commented that the lamb's tongue was honey-sweet and charcoal-savoury, which reminded them of char siew pork.  We all agreed it was incredibly tender and certainly not what we thought lamb's tongue would taste like. 

The duck jamon came in a chicken drumstick-like shape and the meat fell apart at the mere twist of a folk.  Its smoked rareness melted in the mouth, cut by the sour-sweet flavours of the quince sauce.  Just when we were about to agree with food critics that this did deserve being the dish of the place, the rare-going-on-medium rare Angus steak came.  Cubes of bone marrow intertwined with zucchini and a red wine jus around the meat.  Oh the tenderness and how it melts in the mouth, mmmmm the richness and the good jus that the herb chips are so happy with as well.  Blissful silent chewing.

Unfortunately we did not have the opportunity to peruse the dessert menu and almost had to run to Market Lane.  We arrived just in time to see the crowd cheer on the first throwdown, and I had to hunt down the beer section to grab the very cheap StoneandWood beers while munching on a hunk of cheddar cheese.  FH resorted to standing on a chair (with us eyeing her stability very carefully) in order to be able to see anything that was happening at the espresso machine.  Dead Man Espresso took responsibility for cheering on its representative via Twitter and its blog, providing one of the three judges and the cinematography of the night, which meant that I was very tempted to stage a hostile takeover so we could have a steady hand over the proceedings. 

Once Toshi took out Will in the second round (a 2-1 decision over the most complicated art of the night; no idea what the technical term is but to us laypeople it looked like they brought in the A-Game of the night with three rosettas), it seemed a foregone conclusion from there onwards that Market Lane was going to be in the Grand Final throwdown.  I managed to get a free cup of coffee, one untouched by the judges who started poking their fingers into the coffees in passing judgement.  Then I remembered that I was not a big fan of the Market Lane seasonal blend.  The milk was perfect though :P

For me the night was fun - it helps when you can almost identify every barista who stepped up to the challenge and your weekday baristas convince you to cheer them on which means you have licence to be as loud as possible.  AS confessed afterwards that dinner had been the highlight of his night while FH was utterly bored an hour into proceedings.  Which just goes to show, we really should explore Chapel Street more :)

Congratulations to Market Lane for the successful event that raised AUD1700 for Coffeekids and provided a fantastic networking event for Market Lane's retail customers, fellow Victorian roasters and coffee fans!

Pandora's Box

Food and Drink - 4 out of 5 stars.  It would have been fun to see how the kitchen handled dessert, especially considering the head chef's previous experience at Movida.


Atmosphere - 3.5 out of 5.  I think I would have liked to have a better visual idea of what colours my food was in, and I can only imagine the noise level around those who were sitting at the bar. Tiles, concrete, wooden tables and vinyl cushions do not absorb sound too well.


Service - 3 out of 5.  The first waitress had to refer to her notes halfway through her narration of the specials, a second waitress came to take our wine order and the floor manager ended up sharing the role of filling our glasses with the second waitress.  There was also the situation of dishes being placed on the table during conversation without so much as an Excuse Me.  Room for improvement I say!


Value For Money - Tough call on this one.  The food price-wise was similar to Movida, but we had a nasty surprise when the bill came as the house wine cost AUD71 a bottle.  I did not have a chance to investigate the wine menu and so am unable to say whether the rest of the wine offerings share such a price markup.