zimari, prahran/windsor: a cretan restaurant

Warm pita bread at Zimari.

Another catch-up meal, this one from late July. By then, Simon had arrived in Melbourne, and my friend June happened to have an unshakeable craving for Greek food, specifically saganaki cheese, so I suggested the three of us make our way to Zimari (268 High St, Prahran/Windsor) for lunch.

Zimari's Facebook page describes themselves as "a modern Greek Restaurant with clean, simple flavours influenced from the Greek Island of Crete."

The decor is clean and simple, too; there is an airy feeling with the space and lots of natural light during the day.

The waitress who served us suggested that we try their assortment of dips with warm pita bread. We didn't end up ordering this, however they gave us a complimentary little sample plate anyway, which was lovely, in more ways than one. The pita was gratifyingly warm, dusted with spices and dotted with olive oil. The dips - a pretty purple beetroot dip, and a pale pink taramasalata dip (made with cured fish roe) - tasted fresh, and we happily mopped it all up.

Beetroot dip and taramasalata dip, served with warm pita.

Of course we also started with saganaki. Here, they fry it with graviera cheese, which is a specialty of Crete. It had a nice crust, texture, and the expected saltiness without being too over-the-top salty, which I appreciated.

Saganaki - grilled graviera cheese with lemon and oregano. ($12)

Their spanakopita - which boasts a homemade pastry and a filling of spinach and mizithra cheese, another famous Cretan cheese - is also delectable. 

Spanakopita - homemade pastry filled with spinach and mizithra cheese. ($9)

For something green and healthy we had the marouli salad with mixed greens, pear, dried figs and walnuts. Nothing remarkable, but fresh and pleasant.

Marouli salad - mixed greens, pear, dried figs and walnuts. ($13)

This stifado from their specials menu that day was homely and comforting - a braised beef stew cooked in red wine, tomato and shallots, served with potatoes on the side.

Stifado - beef braised in red wine and tomato salsa, shallots and oven potatoes. ($19)

We really enjoyed the tigania - pork fillets in a honeyed, herbaceous lemon-mustard-oregano glaze, so charmingly sweet and tender.

Tigania - pork fillet in a lemon, mustard and oregano glaze. ($14)

For desserts, we wandered over to the counter, where the options were explained to us. We were drawn towards the portokalopita, an orange yoghurt filo cake - something different and interesting to us. I had always associated filo pastry with crispy baked goods, but here it is soft, syrupy, and unexpectedly luscious. We went at the cake again and again with our spoons, which quickly disappeared. So glad we tried this.

Portokalopita - yoghurt, filo and orange syrup cake. ($7 by itself, $9 with ice cream)

As we paid for our food, we had a chat with the guy behind the counter, who I think is the owner. He tells us he came here from the island of Crete, Greece, and has now lived in Melbourne for about five years. I tell him that this was my first time to Zimari, and that I wished I had discovered it sooner. Next time I'm in Melbourne and craving Greek food, I know where to go.




Click here to read the rest of the post!

haruaki, windsor

Haruaki on the 145 Chapel St, Windsor is a cheap and cheerful little Korean restaurant with a Japanese touch, perhaps not the type of place that the hip and the glitzy would go for, but certainly one that has its share of fans and regulars.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my parents are visiting at the moment. The last time they came over I treated them to lunch at Movida, and the food was fantastic, but mum and dad, used to the inexpensive delights in Malaysia, were nevertheless perturbed by how much I was shelling out for the meal, and insisted that they would be just as happy with good cheap food. So this time I took them to Haruaki.

I haven't been there for months, and apparently in that time they had changed hands. They also had a lunch special, which I immediately pointed out to my parents: "$5.90 for those dishes! See, that's cheap!"

Unsurprisingly, they opted for the $5.90 specials. The servings were small by Australian standards, but it was perfectly adequate as far as my parents were concerned, and they even offered me a little bit of theirs to taste.

Mum got the bulgogi beef don. The meat was tender and savoury, and mum kept commenting on how nicely cooked the rice was: fluffy, well-separated grains which had just the right levels of softness and moisture.

beef bulgogi on rice

Dad went for the spicy pork don. Hot, saucy and succulent. Yum!

spicy pork on rice

I splashed out on a non-special just under the 10-dollar mark and got the vegetable bibimbap. I just always find it so difficult to go past bibimbap when I have Korean food, and I like Haruaki's - delicious and done dolsot-style, which gave it that lovely crunchy golden crust at the bottom of the stone bowl.

vegetable dolsot bibimbap

It was a warm day and I really felt like a cool dessert, so I went for a goma ice cream to finish things off. Despite the generic-looking chocolate sauce and flaked almonds on top, and knowing it wasn't house-made (I asked - though admittedly I had some trouble communicating with our waitress, as her English wasn't very good, so who knows!), I really liked this, and so did my parents - it was luscious, creamy, and packed with the flavour of black sesame seeds. Just writing about it makes me want one right this moment.

goma (black sesame) ice cream

We didn't get any banchan (Korean side dishes) with our lunch, but for the prices I don't see that as an issue. I was happy with the meal and so were my parents. The food was still as satisfying as I remembered, even with the change in management and staff.

Haruaki's not too far away from where I am, but if it was just that bit closer, I would likely be bombarding it with takeaway orders every so often. With an abundance of Korean eateries in Melbourne, this may not be a place many would travel out of their way for, but it's definitely a place that most would love as their local.



Click here to read the rest of the post!