Tomato » Burgers http://www.tomatom.com The insiders guide to restaurants, food and drink in Melbourne. Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:40:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en Best burgers in town – now in St Kilda http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/best-burgers-in-town-%e2%80%93-now-in-st-kilda/ http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/best-burgers-in-town-%e2%80%93-now-in-st-kilda/#comments Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:41:01 +0000 Ed http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/best-burgers-in-town-%e2%80%93-now-in-st-kilda/ SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Best burgers in town – now in St Kilda", url: "http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/best-burgers-in-town-%e2%80%93-now-in-st-kilda/" });]]> DSC00018

Sure you could go to Grill’d in Acland Street for an organic burger. Or, if really hangover try the low fat burger – the worst burger I have encountered – at Maccas.
If you are in the know though, you’ll be popping round to the corner of Acland and Barkly Streets to Danny’s (164 Barkly St, St Kilda 3182 +61 9537 1453).
Yes, you heard right. Danny’s, the Fitzroy diner famous for making the best burgers in Melbourne since 1945, has opened in St Kilda.
The café previously on this corner was always a hang out for local down and outs, disenfranchised taxi drivers, alcoholics, drugs addicts and the girls who ply their trade on the local streets.
And know you’ll find food snobs like me there because the burgers at Danny’s diner are inspired. The lamb burger comes on a toasted sesame bun with chopped onion, tzatziki and a slice of cheese. for $6.50. The beef burgers – the double lot with egg, bacon tomato and egg at $7.50 – is everything you want.
And you can even phone your order in.

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]]> http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/best-burgers-in-town-%e2%80%93-now-in-st-kilda/feed/ Barney Allen’s: slimmed down Tolarno http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/barney-allens-slimmed-down-tolarno/ http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/barney-allens-slimmed-down-tolarno/#comments Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:48:10 +0000 Ed http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/barney-allens-slimmed-down-tolarno/ SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Barney Allen’s: slimmed down Tolarno", url: "http://www.tomatom.com/2006/11/barney-allens-slimmed-down-tolarno/" });]]> DSC00004More cameraphone experiments at Barney Allen’s. Back to the dark ages in photographic quality but I was able to email it directly to Flickr.For all my overseas readers I’d first like to say that when I refer to Huey that I’m am not referring to Billy Connolly’s Glaswegian yawn. No, I’m referring to Iain Hewitson, who is the 1980s was Melbourne’s top celebrity chef. Nowadays he is an avid barbequer and until recently was the chef at Tolarno which closed, after the landlord took the piss with an unreasonable rent increase.Now Huey is back with Barney Allen’s (14 Fitzroy St, St Kilda, VIC 3182 +61 3 9525 5477) the latest incarnation of his rustic cooking style. Huey himself has been reinvented having lost tens of kilos by swapping steak and chips for Asian food. He has moved from propping up the corner of the bar in Tolarna to, as you face the room in Barney Allen’s, to sitting at the back left of the bar, presumably still wearing his trade marked belt and braces.Barney Allen’s is a big space. It is a spacious bar rather than restaurant and it almost seems that its cloths are too big for it. The walls are very red, the clientele the usual suspects, and a few copies of Mirka Mora artworks (which I always found a little naive and creepy) are hidden in the back of the bar. Old fashioned St Kilda waiters with tattoos and Lemmy-style Motorhead mustaches ply Huey’s food. That includes beer in long neck bottles that is so good that it doesn’t need to be advertised. Yes, I’m talking about Melbourne Bitter.We are happy. But then the noisy comedian Mick Malloy demonstrates the full reflective qualities of concrete floors and hard-edged walls. I can’t hear my friends speak and coherent conversation stops.Two handfuls of starters serve as an introduction to a single handful of medium sized courses and another single handful of mains. The choices include rotisserie chicken, a laughably large chicken cake (whch would have impressed me if it had pink icing), meat loaf and Huey’s famous burger and chips, arguably the best burger in Melbourne.On a day that sleet and hail fell on the city I’d set my heart on a shepherds pie with buttered cabbage. I’m told that this will return as a special as will other dishes. The meat loaf was okay. The chicken cake, I guess, also okay but the bed of cabbage slightly undercooked.Knowing and enjoying the old venue we were all slightly underwhelmed. Something in the move from a few doors up has been lost. And its more that Huey’s weight.

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