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This is, as Joe Strummer said, a public service announcement and it may “Rock the Casbah” a bit.
The idea of Very Cheap Eats (Email me as gastrotomATgmailDOTcom if you’d like to become a reviewer) is to provide a guide to the best cheap food in Australian in the sort of places you’d actually choose to go out and spend an hour or so eating in. It is about meals of at least two courses costing less than $20 (or roundabouts) excluding beverages.
It is not about takeaways and food courts. I’m happy to keep existing posts up but i just wanted to clarify this as it is important to stay true to the Very Cheap Eats vision.
The idea was bourn out of frustration of the existing guidebooks by AOF over at Confessions of Food Nazi. The Cheap Eats Guide some years ago lost the plot with even its price guide of $30 being fairly meaningless.
The Friday before the latest edition was published I ate at Cheap Eats Restaurant of the Year Rumi up at the far end of Lygon St. Aside from a couple of greasy stuffed fingers of pastry the food was pretty good. The service was excellent and they even went to the trouble of making a special iced tea for me (I was participating in the alcohol free charity event) that was off menu.
I enjoyed the meal immensely despite having ordered too much. The fit out of the restaurant is delightful and the ambiance alluring (apart from one very loud woman nearby).
But it cost about $80 for two. It was an incredibly good value meal. But it was not a Cheap Eat.
Both Cheap Eats and The Good Food Guide give a very comprehensive coverage of Melbourne. But they have incrementally added so many features and seem to want to add more restaurants to their pages to bust the magic number of 500. This is the publishers chasing the dollar rather than serving the reader. They should each focus on what really are the best cheapest and simply the best eats of all.
When AOF posted this I quickly registered a blogger account and a domain because this blog Very Cheap eats is such a good idea. As far as I am concerned it is a community project and anybody can join (we have space for 100 contributors).
But AOF and I feel there should be some strict guidelines to ensure we don’t go down the Cheap eats route and lose the plot.
I’ve also given some guidelines to what should be covered to give a comprehensive review. I know this means a bit more work and observation but it also makes Very Cheap Eats a much better resource if you<span style=”font-weight:bold;”> try and cover the items below</span>.
THE RULES AND REVIEWING GUIDELINES
1.The venue
It should be a sit down venue where you can enjoy two courses and a beverage of under $20 from ordering pretty much anything on the menu. If it’s a few dollars over that’s not too much of a problem. It could be a particular day of the week where the food is cheap. For instance, I must post about the Sunday Lunch at Madras Banyan Tree where the only option is a vegetarian banquet for about $20 plus drinks. Any other time and it would cost more to eat there but i think Sunday is within the spirit of Very Cheap Eats.
The location doesn’t matter. It can be anywhere in the world. <span style=”font-weight:bold;”>It can be anywhere in the world. Please include the name (linked to website if there is one), address and telephone number at the top of the post.</span>
2. Double posting.
Yes, you can double posts and link back to your blog as I have on Very Cheap Eats. It would also be nice to point to Very Cheap Eats to help build readership.
3. The food and ingredients
Is the food fresh and presented well? Does it taste good or inferior. Are the portions large or small? Don’t be scared to give your opinion.
4. Drinks
What did you drink? Does it serve coffee, tea, wine beer or anything else? How much do they cost?
5. Service
Is it self service or table service? Are the waiters attentive or lazy? Was service slow or quick or did they keep bringing you the wrong thing?
6. Money
How much did each thing you ate cost and do you think it was worth the money? Remember, broadly speaking you should be able to buy a meal of two courses for around $20 excluding drinks
What would be really useful for readers is to give the minimum and maximum prices for starters, mains and desserts and the price of coffee.
7. Ambience
This is important as we want to review proper cafes and restaurants that you would want to go out and eat in at night. We don’t want takeaway stores. Is it a place you’d want to spend time in or is it a horrible strip lit tiled room? The reader needs to know.
8. The best and worst of the venues
try and identify what you think is the best and the worst of the venue. Perhaps it is the horrible loos or the rude service. the reader wants to know. be ballsy and show some opinions because that’s what readers want. Don’t be frightened of opinion.
Popularity: 29% [?]
April 19th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Ed, this is a great idea. So it’s not only Melbourne now?
I have long thought the “Sydney Eats” has been out of touch and copying the Good Food Guide.
Imagine my dismay when John Newton, the founder, posted on chowhound last year out of the spirit of that board. He now also co-authors “The Foodies’ Guide To Sydney” a spin off from the good food guide which he proudly denounces, and where the market of the year is an organic market that isn’t even organic!
Good guidelines too.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Grocer, please join. Initially I kept it to Melbourne because Blogger only allows 100 members but it should be Australian perhaps global. The F–dies guides aren’t too bad but I detest the name and cronyism. John Newton I’m afrai just doesn’t engage me.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Hi Ed
This is a great idea- that is to say I wish I thought of it myself!
Regretably I think there will not be many places that fit the criteria because of the persistant increase in cost of everything.
If beverage means tea/coffee we would get a few but a glass of wine will put most places in the to expensive category.
Would you consider either $20 without the beverage or $25 with it?
Regardless I’d like to join your team.
A couple of incidental comments.
I can’t find anything in Cheapeats that makes it to the GFG which seems very strange to me
and Greg Maloufs’ book Turquoise has just won a major International award from the Int. Ass. of Culinary Professionals!!
April 20th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I’ve been reading Very Cheap Eats since Food Nazi and the rest of you guys started it and I think it’s a really great initiative. Even better opening it up to more contributions.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:04 am
Everyone, it is $20 plus beverage and I’ve changed the copy to make that clearer
April 21st, 2008 at 10:11 am
great idea… i’m going to cut and paste your guidelines and keep them in my wallet as a kind of form i can fill in, as my cheap eats outings tend to be fairly casual. i’m pretty forgetful on details so hopefully this will work!
good idea ed!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:36 am
Duncan, Juliette would you like to join?
Elliot, invitation on the way. Rumi, Supper Inn, Bar Lourhinha, Oriental Tea House are in both at a glance. There does seem to be some sort of demarcation though with some places worthy of the GFG only in Cheap Eats. Next blog to come: Very Expensive Eats!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Count me in - although I can’t guarantee that I’ll be the most conscientious contributor. I’ve got a lot on at the moment.
I’m not sure that starting out as a global guide is the best idea: $20 was about my weekly food budget in Cambodia. You’re pretty hard pressed to spend that much in a single meal anywhere in the entire country.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
The problem with many published food guides - and much of the food press - is that despite initial good intentions, they end up being written for their peers, not Joe Public. In fact, like much of the cultural elites that comprise the media, they openly detest Joe Public; and their work becomes oneupmanship rather than well-written information with an angle, which is all it should be.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:13 am
Phil, love to have you on board. That $20 was just our idea for local food and we need to add a side bar to detail costs for other countries. Got any suggestions for costs in SE Asia. An invite should be on its way.
KH, yes, it becomes one upmanship and crowing about ones superior knowledge. When I was trained I was told to write for the “man from mars” but nobody seems to do that anymore. And if I was going to add a guideline it is write for “the man/woman from Mars”.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hi Ed,
I’d love to contribute. I’ve been fairly disillusioned with Cheap Eats for the past couple of years and the most recent was the final straw. Count me in!
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Hi all
I too have been reading with interest, as trying to achieve two courses for $20 seems very tricky, appart from the obvious noodle shops. I’ve been racking my brain about my favourites and have realised that even if it fits this price point I would rarely actually eat two courses there as it is more of a easy fueling station than a leisurely night out.
The other thing that bugs me is the tiny amount of money that the chef has to spend on the food I am about to eat. Once you take out GST and all the other basic fixed costs that are usual (and a tiny profit), you are looking at about $5.50 food cost which is pathetically small to make two courses from, especially if meat/fish is involved. I worry about the quality of the ingredients, and perhaps the restricted skill of the chef to utilize the best cheap produce into a great meal.
I think we perhaps do a dis-service to the restaurant industry and ourselves in the long run to chase such unsustainable pricing, we could very well end up all eating McDonalds like junk, in the name of saving a few bucks.
I’m not saying that Cheap Eats is perfect, I just don’t know if i want to rave about what a tired ‘very cheap eats’ chef can prepare from such a pitance of food cost.
Jack
Please bring on the examples to prove me wrong!!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 am
Okay, invites have ben sent finally Johanna and Phil.
jack, there are plenty out there that meet the criteria. We probably have to watch the situation carefully to see if $20 is realistic with the current inflation. Remember the whole idea is for very cheap food , not the normal stuff. There’s nothing wrong with using under $5 worth of ingredients, the public is that is usually comes with strip lighting in Footscray. All we are trying to do is give a guide to good cheap food and be focused on our aim.