G'day. If you're new here, and you are interested in the Melbourne food and drink scene you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or the email newsletter below. Thanks for visiting and enjoy eating and drinking in Melbourne. Cheers.

There are three types of people.There are those who buy expensive d’object like gold-plated Philippe Starck AK47 lampstands and will spend well into five or six figures on interior design.
There are the kind of people who read Ready Made who buy a plastic $30 toy AK47 on ebay, spray it gold and make it into a lamp stand (although unfortunately it illuminates itself to be anything but the original when switched on).
The there are the people who go: “Sod Philippe Starck. Somebody gave me his beautiful and iconic orange juicer (the one that looks like a Tintin rocket) but as it turned out to be useless . It’s about time he retired from designing and I’m very glad he has. Fuck him. I’m not going to follow anyone. I’ll do my own thing. It will cost bugger all and look brilliant. Fuck Philippe Starck”
People with restaurants in Crown fall into the first category (although I note the AK47 is a poor example as there are none in any of the new restaurants that I have seen yet). It’s difficult to go wrong with that kind of budget although some do.
I’m in the second category as anyone who has visited my home will testify (although I’ve yet to locate a cheap toy AK47 in Australia).
And in the third category are the people who run The Panama Dining Room and the very new, very cool and very stylish St Jude’s Cellars, a welcome addition to Brunswick St.
I always thought the clever thing about Panama was how they had made it look so good on the cheap and the value offered by the food. (Although when The Gobbler was in town he wondered if I was tongue in cheek; I wasn’t)
Tonight at St Judes’ I was with James, a builder who will only work for people who have the correct references, went to the right school and have a matching bank account. And even then he’ll probably will go trout fishing anyway.
James reckon St Jude’s looks great and what’s more it’s been done cheaply. It’s clever use of basic materials. And surely it will blossom, sorry about the pun, as vines grow up toward the central skylight.
The wine list is a homage to the current fashionable reign of Spain and Europe in general with a sprinkling of locals. And bottles from the shop can be drunk inside for $15 extra. Some are pricy but if you are into wine it is not completely overt the top.
The only trouble with St Jude’s and The Panama is the consistency of the food. On my first visit to The Panama where a bread salad was like soggy card and some of the food was under seasoned. A subsequent visit with a couple of neighbourly and enterprising lesbians was better, much much better.
And I suspect the kitchen may be the same at St Jude’s. It’s good - I’ve already gone on record about the rabbit cottage pie and the cauliflower cheese making me think “mummy” - but with the odd blooper. In this instance a watery concoction of some not particularly good squid, spinach and chickpeas. James was reasonably pleased with eel and his crock of slow cooked lamb leg and leeks.
Everything was delivered on an attractive wooden board.

I did find the explanation about sharing a bit weird as it seems you order conventional starters and mains and then some extra veg. Needless to say, we didn’t share.
And then there was the trip home. We were rumbled by Jak’s cousin David who fitted out both these joints.
James, a nuggety bloke with a knife scar across one side of his face, is nervous at the best of times at being seen at an out of the way place drinking white wine with another man. I think that may have been what caused him to have a hot flush on the way home and later a run for the loo.
That and the memory of a reviewing trip to Geelong. James was telling me a story about finding, in an out of the way restaurant, a mate with a young Asian guy and exclaiming “gay”.
It dawned on us both what anybody would think stumbling upon us in this pub in what appeared to be a romantic tête à tête. Not only was it an hours drive outside our normal turf, but it was hidden deep in the backstreets of Geelong. It was a quiet and nervous drive home.
As I leave a particularly worried looking James to his favourite porcelain, my mind rewinds back to the point at which we left St Judes. I’m sure I saw a lank haired chef with what I think was a young Asian guy. And yes I did think the wrong thing.

Food Fascist
- Am I and my friends really all homophobic?
- Do I really have to be so picky?
- In addition to the designer I should declare I’m friends with the wine list person?
- Er, that’s it.

Popularity: 21% [?]