Ume Nomiya, Gertrude Street’s Japanese drinking house

Miss K, renascent party girl, took me on a bar crawl of Gertrude St on Friday. We checked out Little Rebel (don’t share my barber man’s enthusiasm), Radio, and Gertrude’s (more anon). It involved dinner at Ume Nomiya (ume: Japanese plum, usually pickled — pictured, thanks to Matt Helminski; nomiya: drinking house) the tiny 37-seat Japanese place next to our regular haunt, Tandoori Times. Indolent Andy said it was his favourite Japanese restaurant, and that was enough to pull me out of some inertia and get in there. Mind you I think lingering first impressions when the place was but a bar and was not all that busy were preying on my inertia. Then, it was a bit too cool for school, weird even, though that was back in 2001. We loved every minute of our relatively quick dinner and warm sake slurp there. Continue reading “Ume Nomiya, Gertrude Street’s Japanese drinking house”

Jesuit Social Services’ Abbotsford Biscuits

Now I thought up this story before The Age did. I thought I’d give the Jesuits a plug, but they declined my kind offer, saying they would shortly depart Abbotsford. Apparently The Age is still a more credible journal than this organ of citizen mediacrity. There’s Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen then there’s Loretta Sartori’s work at Abbotsford’s Jesuit Social Services teaching hospitality industry skills to youths visited by the troubles. Part of what they do is make Abbotsford biscuits, which are very good, and should be regarded as a very pleasant way to donate to charity rather than as being very expensive. Sartori’s quite a renowned pastry chef. Of course there’s also Know One Teach One (KOTO) in Hanoi, and Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden project which has just won an NAB Volunteer Award (website here).)