Cheap Eats Finds Pearl Fits The Bill
The Age
Monday March 22, 2004
It sounds like a mad contradiction: one of the city's swankiest restaurants picking up the top gong in The Age Cheap Eats 2004. But the bar menu at Pearl offers some of the best budget eating around.
You won't find beer nuts or crisps at this Richmond bar-within-a-restaurant. Crafted dishes such as crumbled feta atop glittering cubes of watermelon co-exist with cafe standards like pumpkin soup, steak sandwich and hedgehog slice.
The latest edition of The Age Cheap Eats, published today, names Pearl its 2004 Cheap Eats champ. The award is presented to the restaurant that best illustrates the annual food guide's maxim: high quality at low prices. That means two courses for $25.
In its three-and-a-half years' existence, Pearl has picked up more than 18 prizes, but this is the first given to the bar in its own right.
Meanwhile, in a back alley in Chinatown, Supper Inn is quietly celebrating its induction into the Cheap Eats Hall of Fame. The late-opening restaurant has been fuelling families, theatregoers, off-duty chefs and clubbers into the wee hours since platform shoes and flares were around the first time.
What's the reason for the restaurant's 27-year run of success? ``Our genuine Cantonese cooking and very fair prices," says Supper Inn co-owner John Lau.
The guide, now in its 18th year, features more than 500 modestly priced restaurants, food stores, bars and pubs.
Roslyn Grundy is the editor of The Age Cheap Eats 2004, available from newsagents and bookshops, $19.95, or from The Age Shop, $15.95 (subscribers $13).
AND THE WINNERS ARE
2004 CHEAP EATS CHAMP
Pearl, Richmond
2004 COUNTRY CHEAP EATS CHAMP
Ripe - Australian Produce, Sassafras
CHEAP EATS HALL OF FAME AWARD
Supper Inn, city
PIZZA OF THE YEAR
Eggplant, olives, provolone, tomato and anchovies at Ladro, Fitzroy
VEGETARIAN OF THE YEAR
Chickpea bake. Moroccan Soup Bar, Fitzroy N
BREAKFAST DISH OF THE YEAR
Stewed tomatoes on ciabatta with crisp pancetta, spinach, poached egg and lemon-pressed olive oil at Cafe Fidama, Yarraville
WORLD FOOD DISH OF THE YEAR
Ful (Ethiopian bean mash with green chilli, onion, tomato, ricotta), Cafe Lalibela, Footscray
BAR OF THE YEAR
Cookie, city
© 2004 The Age