RESTAURANT: EARL Canteen

What up Melbourne? (please don't answer all at once because it will be loud)

The two days spent back at home in Sydney, post Singapore, were certainly nice and filled with awkward weather. My time was spent recovering from a top case of food poisoning that hit me pre-flight during my last night in Singapore, as well as washing things (clothes, money) and having a totally killer meal at Momofuku Seiobo, which seems to just keep on getting better (great use of smoked, sour and bitter flavours).

But all good things must come to an end, in order to experience more good things. Such a Melbourne. Melbourne is a good thing.

I managed to make my flight with a good 2 minutes to spare (after a week in Singapore, I forgot how useless CityRail can be), which had the added benefit of jumping all queues and taking my checked baggage on as carry-on luggage (I SMUGGLED SO MANY LIQUIDS!). Luckily, I'm not ethnic so security didn't stop me at any stage.

But I digress quite significantly. This is a food blog.


As per my usual strategy, I took a midday flight which got me to Melbourne at the exact time I needed to be able to check into my hotel and then hit a slightly late lunch which would be late enough to make me miss the normal lunchtime rush.

As this trip is planned around places that I haven't been to down here before, I hit up EARL Canteen, which escaped my grasp last time I was here.

Hungry (what's new) I go for two of their rolls: corned wagyu beef and duck confit. Unfortunately, their famed pork belly was sold out.

The wagyu beef roll is a legit corned beef roll, with a tops creamy horseradish sauce, pickled carrot and of course delicious corned beef.

The duck too is nicely eaten. Confit duck is a thing of beauty, so I wholeheartedly agree to it appearing in roll form. Here, with some sultanas, nuts, figs and lettuce, it's one of those delicious sweet, savoury combos.

Prices are pretty reasonably too, compared to Sydney CBD prices.