131 King Street
Last night was yet
another catch up with that irascible gourmet Lachlan Milne. He’d been dying to catch up for after work drinks since he now works “in the city” – and hasn’t been able to for the last fourteen years, since moving to the country and working
for councils out that way. It was
also his birthday recently, and he and I share a predilection for saturated
fats and booze. So, it was a night
for boozin’ out.
The most amazing thing
is, we made the “old school” discovery of the year… French, fatty and with
fabulous steaks. And in the least
likely place imaginable.
Now, read on!
Always happy to dine in
good company, I organised for us to meet at the Saxon, an old pub in Melbourne
that was shut for about twenty years, having been an old brawler, which is now
refitted and light, but a bit like the stairs under the clocks at Flinders St
station; i.e. it’s just a little too close to Spencer St station (newly
baptised Southern Cross), so attracts all walks of life from tourists to boguns
– for whom it caters, with Cold Chisel playing and the cricket on TV.
After a couple of
rounds, Lach asked if we weren’t going to get something to eat.
I suggested I’d seen a
sign from the tram that looked just so goddamn awful, the place would have to
be good, like some kind of Baltic BBQ or something. We walked the block and a half, and read the sign: Bergerac
Restaurant. A French restaurant on King St. Who knew?
It was, in a word,
“fantastique”. We walked though
the door and it was like my idea of heaven. All the waiting staff were female, French, under thirty, and
good looking; that kind of Asterix good looking, with little button noses. And not one of them understood my
attempts at speaking French; so thoroughly Francaise.
The décor, despite the
crappy office roof ceiling, was all mirrors and timber, like something from a
painting by Toulouse Lautrec (well, maybe not the one above... but you get the gist).
There were a few diners
there, and the bill of fare was all French; we had the chicken pistachio
terrine, gravallax (both superb), excellent steaks (Lach claiming it was the
best steak he’d ever eaten “and I’ve eaten a lot of steaks”) with a green salad
with a classic dressing, we split a really great crème caramel which we had
with coffees and Ricard (a major brand French pastis – aniseed, which came with
a side glass filled with ice and little tongs, and I put water in mine to
stretch it).
Oh yeah, and we drank
two bottles of French red, Lach opened with a champagne, me a beer. It was
formidable.
The only drawback from
such excess was the price ($130 each) and the awful feelings I had the next
day; the booze really hit me on the tram ride home, the pastis catching up with
the wine and saying: “wait a moment, this guy really wants us to get to work on
him – can’t we join forces?”
Clearly a truce was made, and they became the Axis of Evil.
I woke in the morning
not really recalling coming home, with a cracking hangover and my wife asleep
on the couch. Apparently I had
made romantic overtures on arrival (removing my pants in the downstairs
lounge room) while smelling like I was breathing spirits that would catch
alight at the slightest provocation… and how she could find that unsexy, I will
never know.
My only criticism of
Bergerac was the bread, which was – to put it bluntly– pedestrian (cheap white
baguettes from a supermarché); such a let down and the only thing in there they
didn’t make themselves. Bread is
an integral part of French food – they have laws in France about what goes into
a baguette, meaning you can get excellent bread at the worst retailers. Poor quality bread in a French
restaurant is like a French café having terrible croissants.
However, this
restaurant certainly rates as my “old school” discovery of the year – it’s
been there for nearly thirty years, and I give it seven tentacles out of eight
and cannot wait for an excuse to go back.
If the restaurant management are reading this, please change your bread
supplier, but do not lose heart and DO keep up the rest of your very
magnificent work.
p.s. Bergerac is a
region in Southwestern France (see a map here), but I
associate it with the television show from the seventies, and mostly a very
catchy tune by Spiderbait which I have not been able to find on the internet AT
ALL (damn you copyright conscious rock bands). But you can find out about Spiderbait here. http://www.spiderbait.com.au/
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