It is always exciting to find new food blogs, especially one (Hermano 1) with the same photographic eye as I, including breasts in occasional restaurant food shots.
At Dos Hermanos there is also an interesting debate on Sydney vs Melbourne. On Tomato this topic one of the most popular posts and to date has 34 comments. Hermano 1 eats with Helen from Grab your Fork and posts a short video of her.
In Melbourne he visits one of the Lambs in Prahran (respect) and Vue de Monde:
“Melbourne knocks its more braggardly neighbour (and, remember everybody needs good neighbours because that’s when good neighbours become good friends) into a cocked hat with corks on it to keep away the flies and ranks high amongst the best eating cities I have ever visited.”
He reckons Vue de Monde is underrated:
“Tetsuya is at No4 in the Restaurant Magazine’s specious listing of best restaurants in the world. Vue De Monde comes in at a lowly 70 something. I can only assume that is because most of the liggers, n’ eer do wells and hangars who vote have not been here.
So, Melbourne has it at every level over Sydney. Poor souls in NSW, what are they going to do? I guess they could always let fireworks off that bridge again.”
Looking forward to more from Hermano 1 soon.
Become a Facebook fan. Follow me on Twitter. 
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the links. It is me, H2 who was in Melbourne, H1 held the fort back in London with the preponderance towards picces of boobies.
More on Melbourne Vs Sydney on http://www.eatmyglobe.blogspot.com as soon as I can write it up. Still enjoying the after effects of your glorious national carrier after a brutal return journey
Cheers
Simon
look forward to more. Ah, I guess you weren’t travellig “Ralph” class then.
Strange, VDM review looked somewhat like a bagging, in fact, H2 seems to possess all the traits of your stereotypical whingeing Pomme! He is still whingeing even now he is back in his grey old comfort zone. Going by the list of establishments he ventured into while here, it looks like he was guided by that “Unfairfax” publication known as the “Good food Guide”
I have lived twenty years in Melbourne and Twenty years in Sydney. Without trying to sound like I’m having an each way bet, each city has its pinacles and troughs.
Reading H2’s reviews was like reading the crap in SMH every Tuesday where the review reads like it will score a -9 and then ends up with a fifteen. The next week, it’s the other way around.
Oh, and don’t get me started on bloody Bill Grainger!
Cheers Carl
Yes, bloody Bill Granger. That’s where he belongs on a tooth paste ad not on a cooking show or in a kitchen. You are right each city has its own merits and i wonder if Melbourne will offer anything near the fine dining experiences Sydney does once the new casino restaurants are finished and the new St Kilda Triangle site.
Bring it on I say Ed, the more the merrier!
Have you noticed my spelling is so much better when i post sober?
I had the opportunity to visit Vue de Monde recently and wrote about it on my blog as well.
I have to say it is definitely one of the best restaurants I have been to, and certainly is under rated seeing that there isn’t many high profile reviews/writeups.
Love your site btw Ed, keep up the good work!
Well since we’re all posting reviews, here’s mine of VDM Cafe.
On a serious note, as a whole, Melbourne’s food scene will always be superior to Sydney’s despite individual highlights. The eating culture is just different. In Melbourne you look forward to the meal. In Sydney, you look forward to what happens after the meal.
This is so tedious! I am amazed that you subscribe to this old rubbish. Gross generalization, I know (but then all you negative posters are doing the same anyway…) but you’d find most, if not all; you lot who subscribe to this tosh are Melburnians. I am willing to bet almost anything that people like ‘kitchenhand’ are the type to whinge to high heavens about the Melbourne dining scene whilst safely in the company of fellow Melburnians. If you don’t wish to be accused of an inferiority complex or insularity, then stop being so parochial and enjoy what the 2 cities have to offer.
It seems that even the Sydney restaurant reviewers are now joining in. Yesterday’s Good Living (the Sydney Morning Herald’s weekly food supplement) included reviews of four Melbourne restaurants (Flower Drum, Stokehouse, Verge and Three, One, Two) in the normal space reserved for Sydney reviews.
The article isn’t up on their website yet, but it gives Melbourne in general a great rap “Melbourne meals seem much more relaxed and, in general, affordable. Down south, the waiters are your best mate instead of better than you and the wine lists are more about drinking than showing off”. Ouch!
I ate at Tetsuya’s and Vue back-to-back last week (not my first time at either by any stretch) and though there were some great dishes, Vue also served multiple duds – something I’ve never experienced at Tetsuya’s. And what’s with the attitude? I thought Sydney was supposed to have the monopoly on arrogance. I wanted to punch the waiter in the back of the head (and kick the sommelier in the nuts, hard).
Contrast this with the humility, grace and ease of the floor at Tets. No contest.
And FYI, it’s only really Melbourne people who seem to get hung up on the Sydney versus Melbourne thing. Quite telling, I reckon.
(There again, I’d trade five Bathers’ Pavilions for half a Rockpool Bar & Grill.)
Snacker, I’ve heard the same a few time about Vue. i was a a lunch with a couple of fairly senior local food writers who were moaning about Vue. I thught I should try it my self but if it is hit and miss don’t want to waste my money.
i couldn’t help it but i ran across this website and had to place my 2 cents in.
i have never heard of this sydney v melb rivalry, it seems to me that victorians are way too hung up on this argumentative sights maybe its complexity that exist in their cold blooded nature.
im starting to see the true side of melb people and they are actually outshining sydney with arrogance with a hint of snottiness on their side.
never heard of the rivalry until i went down to melbourne, and yes when it comes to arrogance-melbourne takes the cake.
i couldnt help but comment on this site …. i’ve never heard of this rivalry between syd-melb … wow i went to melb and all they talked about is how better they are to everyone! funny that the melburnians are the ones labelling sydnesiders “arrogant” ??? but its actually the melburnians who show arrogance.
Why do these, bleeding sites always originate from Melbourne? It seems the people on these sites have an unhealthy complex! Melbourne doesnt make the top 50 world resturants. http://www.theworlds50best.com. Its also not the cultural capital nor more European…. inactivity during the 40s-70s saved some inner victorial building. http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2002/11/03/1036308206375.html. Yes its a dry place but its not always sunny days, but a roller coaster of extreme heat and blusting cold (often in the same day) no real rain to speak off but an irritating drizzl. With kms medioca cafe/resturants full off people spending little to get out off the nothing to do outside doldrums. after driving into the city from the majority flat featureless dry yellow plains called suburbs spending far more on football beanies and scalfs and a wide screen TV. Brisbane locals spend more on food and cultural events then Melbourne and doesnt have the underworld that seems to plague Melbourne. Australias most liverable capital…. Cheap! then Adelaide (sorry Adelaide). These (not the first) bloggs are getting old and not are not friendly. Bring on Brisbane!!! we can eat good food and have fun afterwards!!! our people are far more relaxed then both Sydney and Melbourne. Lets face it a bunch of people wearing black wearing red lipstick doesnt constitute fashion! hey even most of the fashion industry travels south for fashion week. I call the real Melbourne the meat and three veg capital. do a survey on the other 99.5% of Melbourne then write a blog.