Trunk Diner

Trunk has a few different venues on its site in the Melbourne CBD, including a cute little American Diner next to the beer garden out front of the main restaurant. The Diner serves a range of food items on its lunch and dinner menu, including hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches and salads. It also has a variety of different appetizers, which is where Belinda and I started out our dinner.

We sampled three different appetizers between us. The crumbed pepperjack cheese sticks were quite tasty on their own, and even better with the maple BBQ sauce. The buffalo wings came with either original or Franks hot sauce (depending on how spicy you wanted them to be) and a blue cheese dressing. There were also mini corn dogs on the menu with American mustard. They tasted good, but needed a thicker layer of cornmeal on them.

For my main dish I had the waygu burger with tomato, cos baby lettuce and house-made pickles on a brioche bun. Even though it was medium-rare, the outside of the burger was a bit charred, which affected the taste of the burger a bit.

Trunk Diner does have a lot of the choices you would expect to find on an American diner menu. It would be good to go back and try their hot dogs and deli sandwiches, as well as sample some desserts.

Trunk Diner
275 Exhibition Street, Melbourne
Open weekdays 7:30am - late and weekends 8:00am - late

Burger Project

Proving that Melbourne hasn't reached its burger saturation point yet, celebrity chef Neil Perry recently opened Burger Project in the new retail complex St Collins Lane. It's the first tenant to open in this upscale food court, and there are plenty of places to sit and eat once you've placed your order at the counter.

Burger Project has many different burger options on offer, with eight different beef burgers, three chicken burgers, and one mushroom burger on the menu. You can also order fries with different flavored salts, milkshakes (yes, even thick ones), alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and assorted ice cream desserts.

For my lunch I went with the Cheese Burger, which contains grass fed beef, cheese, onion, pickles, tomato, lettuce and secret sauce. It was surprisingly good and cooked to perfection - definitely up there with the top burger places in Melbourne. I also had to try out their chocolate thick shake as it is so hard to find them here. While it tasted really good, it wasn't quite as frozen as I would have liked.

Kat had the Magic Mushroom Burger, which contains a crumbed confit mushroom, cheese, onion, pickles, tomato, lettuce and secret sauce. She thought it tasted great, especially as mushroom burgers can be hit or miss. We shared a large serving of the fries with the chipotle chili salt on them, which gave the fries a bit of a kick.

For our first trip we were quite impressed with Burger Project and look forward to returning to try out some more of their burgers.

Burger Project
St Collins Lane
Level 2, 260 Collins Street, Melbourne
Open daily 11am - 9pm

Pistol Pete's Food N Blues

The American food trend has even made it to Geelong, and tonight while in town for a gig at The Workers Club Belinda and I tried out Pistol Pete's Food N Blues. Its focus is on Southern and New Orleans style dishes and also has live music on Thursday-Sunday nights. It is an intimate space and we were able to get a seat along the wall near the kitchen despite not having a reservation.

There are a range of options on the menu, including burgers, po'boys, southern fried chicken, gumbo and different plates of meat with your choice of sides. I decided to have the vegetarian jambalaya with okra (also available with chicken and andouille sausage). The dish was full of flavor and tasted good, and was the perfect amount of food to fill you up.

Belinda chose the pulled pork plate, which featured 200g of their low and slow roasted pulled Australian free range pork with a great barbecue sauce. For sides she had the coleslaw, Cajun fries and a salad. The coleslaw was on point, but I didn't really taste the Cajun flavor on the fries.

If you are around this part of town Pistol Pete's Food N Blues is a good solid choice for a meal, and then you can stick around for some live music.

Pistol Pete's Food N Blues
93A Little Malop Street, Geelong
Open Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday 12-9pm, Thursday 12-11:30pm, Friday and Saturday 12pm-12:30am

Doughboys Doughnuts

Doughnuts have become a big trend in Melbourne, with many new places opening around town that are going beyond the classic hot jam doughnut with their own unique flavor combinations. One of the best though is Doughboy Doughnuts, who keep an element of the classic with their yeast and cake doughnut creations.

Their flagship store on the corner of Bourke and William Streets in Melbourne produces a rotating range of five different flavors to choose from on any given day. I have been there a couple of times and never been disappointed by the choices I have made. They have your traditional yeast doughnuts with sugar or glaze, cream or jam filled doughnuts, and my favorite - old fashioned doughnuts, which were impossible to find in Australia until now.

Apple Cider, Mint Slice, Walnut Rock, Bullseye and Mulled Wine doughnuts

I like that their flavors are not over the top but more of a complement to the different style of doughnuts they are making. You will never be able to go back to having subpar doughnuts again after trying Doughboys' creations.

Doughboys Doughnuts
535 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Open Monday - Friday 7:00am - 4:30pm

Haagen-Dazs Melbourne Pop-Up House

Pop-up restaurants have been popular in Melbourne for a while now. Following on from the success of the In-N-Out burger pop-up events in Australia, American ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs has set up a little house in Federation Square to serve their ice cream from 11 March - 16 April.

The house is situated on Flinders Street next to ACMI and has both indoor and outdoor seating. There are 12 different flavors to choose from, which you can get as one scoop ($6), two scoops ($9) or three scoops ($12).

I decided to sample two different scoops. The mint leaves and chocolate contained spearmint ice cream with chocolate fudge chunks and tasted light and yummy. The salted caramel was rich and indulgent with its caramel ice cream that also included golden caramel nuggets. So delicious.

Belinda also tried out two scoops but went with lighter flavors. The raspberry sorbet, which was served on a bed of cotton candy, had a smooth and consistent texture with a refreshing pop of raspberry. The green tea ice cream had a strong green tea flavor with its use of matcha, and if you like green tea it won't disappoint.

If you are in Melbourne be sure to get down to Federation Square before 16 April to try out some flavors. The house will then move on to Sydney next.

Haagen-Dazs House
Federation Square, Melbourne
Open Tues-Thurs 5-10pm, Fri 5-11pm, Sat 2-11pm and Sun 2-9pm until 16 April 2016

Po' Boy Quarter

Emanating from the success of the Gumbo Kitchen food truck is the permanent restaurant Po' Boy Quarter on Smith Street (or as we like to call it, Little America). Serving up authentic New Orleans food to the people of Melbourne, their menu features an assortment of Cajun specialties including gumbo, oysters, catfish, and po' boys.

It was a warm evening so we grabbed a table outside on the sidewalk. Of course we had to order a po' boy, and Danny got the deep fried shrimp one with tomato, lettuce, pickles, mayo and hot sauce. He thought it had a nice fiery sauce, was generous with the shrimp and tasted good. We also shared a side of shoestring fries topped with Cajun mayo, which were cooked perfectly.

Nicole had the red beans and rice, which you can add pork or andouille sausage to if you are looking for a non-vegan option. It tasted good and had a subtle bit of spice to it.

The food here is reasonably priced, and if you are after some drinks and cocktails you can hang out in the bar Huey Long's which is located out the back.

Po' Boy Quarter
295 Smith Street, Fitzroy
Open seven days a week from 11:30am - 11:00pm

Fancy Hank's BBQ Joint

One of the benefits of visiting a place with a large group of people is that you get the opportunity to sample a wide variety of dishes. I was fortunate enough to have my work Christmas lunch at Fancy Hank's BBQ Joint by the Queen Victoria Market. The upstairs eating area is spacious and bright, although with the warm temperatures in Melbourne having a table with sunlight streaming in over us meant it did get a bit hot (even with the fans overhead).

The place uses traditional pit smokers to cook all their meats, which really results in some great tasting selections. As we were a large group we ate off of the set menu ($38 per person), with dishes brought out to the table on large trays to share. Our meat selections were the Angus beef brisket, Carolina style chopped hog, beer can chicken and sausage. All of them tasted absolutely amazing. Our vegetarian friends were served red bell pepper stuffed with vegan beans, which they also enjoyed.

There were also a number of sides with the menu, including burnt end beans, mac & cheese, dill pickles, cornbread, potato salad, coleslaw and farro salad. Once again all of these dishes were delicious and complemented the smoked meats. We even got a few orders of French fries for the table, which were also tasty. 

Overall this was one of the best barbecue places I have been to in Melbourne. Every dish tasted great, and we were all very full by the end of the meal. I'll definitely be back for another visit in the future.

Fancy Hank's BBQ Joint
456 Queen Street, Melbourne
Open seven days a week from 12-3pm and 6-9pm