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

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna opened earlier this year in a space on Bourke Street that used to hold a Chinese restaurant. The interior is decked out with booths shaped like caravans and Winnebagos, along with a bunch of picnic benches in the middle of the room.

The focus of the menu is burgers, with 8 different types on offer. They also have an extensive list of alcoholic drinks, including spiked milkshakes. Since Kat, Zoran and I were there for lunch and had to go back to work we didn't partake in the drinks menu, but did each try one of the burgers.

As Kat is a vegetarian she had the Cynthia Benson burger, which contains a mushroom patty, American cheddar cheese, tomato, butter lettuce, special burger sauce and American mustard on a lightly toasted brioche bun. Mushroom patties can be very hit or miss, but Kat was impressed with this burger.

Zoran had the KSA burger, which is their signature dish and contains a premium Australian beef patty, American cheddar cheese, tomato, butter lettuce, special burger sauce and American mustard on a lightly toasted brioche bun. He thought it tasted good, although it had a bit too much sauce on it.

I went with the Francis Underwood burger, which is the same as the KSA burger with the added bonus of a mac and cheese croquette in it (if you are a House of Cards viewer we did question why BBQ ribs weren't the additional ingredient). The burger tasted good, but it was a bit overwhelming to have the mac and cheese within the burger itself.

We also ordered the beer battered chips to share, which were very tasty. And after having a large, juicy burger, we were very impressed that they supplied moist towelettes at the table so you could clean your hands after eating.

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna
87 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Open Tuesday-Sunday from 11:30 am-late

Trailer Park Melbourne- North America

Food trucks are hugely popular in the States, and Melbourne's stable is slowly growing with a range of trucks serving food from all over the world. Trailer Park Melbourne is back with a cuisine of origin battle going on each weekend in August. This week's food was themed around North America, so we had to make the trip down to Village Melbourne to check it out.

Our first food truck was Smokin' Barrys with their slow cooked BBQ. We tried the chili cheese fries, nachos with pulled pork, and pork ribs with coleslaw. Of the three dishes the nachos were our favorite, and while the ribs were good they could have used some more BBQ sauce.

Our next truck was Mr Burger, who serve my favorite burgers in Melbourne. You can't go wrong with the classic Mr Burger cheeseburger and fries. Yummy as usual.

Our favorite dish of the day came from the Toasta food truck. You wouldn't have thought that a grilled sandwich would grab your imagination, but you've never had the Mack, which contains pulled pork, mac and cheese, and BBQ sauce. It was decadent and really delicious.

After a bit of a break we were ready for some dessert, which we got from Jay's Yogurt. The guys in the truck were super friendly, and you get to choose your flavors and they will blend them into the frozen yogurt for you. We tried out two of the specials from their winter menu. The Hot Apple Cup contained hot apple crumble, a frozen yogurt blend with rose water and pistachio, and was topped with Persian fairy floss. It was like a Middle Eastern apple pie. We also had the Coffee & Cookie with frozen yogurt blended with cold brew coffee and Charlies cookies. Both provided a refreshing end to our afternoon at Trailer Park Melbourne.

Trailer Park Melbourne at Village Melbourne
557 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Open from 12-8 pm each weekend in August