Miss Katie’s Crab Shack, Belle’s Hot Chicken, Gami Chicken & Beer, Bluebonnet BBQ, Le Bon Ton BBQ, Melbourne

So Part 1 was all about Melbourne donuts, Part 2 will be about fried chicken and barbecue 😀 First up: Miss Katie’s Crab Shack (238 Victoria St, North Melbourne) which is across the road from the Queen Victoria Markets which is where they source all their produce so everything is super fresh.

There’s fishing nets hanging from the ceiling and a giant crab that beckons you to the counter where you order and pay before claiming a newspaper lined table.

We’d arrived during happy hour, the happiest of all hours and so drinks were $5/pint and fresh oysters were $1 each woot

Katie’s Low Country Boil ($25) comes with Australian blue swimmer crab, corn, smoked kransky, Old bay and garlic butter. Noods had a lot of fun smashing the daylights out of the crab, the bib I was wearing was solely to protect myself from him and his happy go lucky thwacks. But the crab! So perfect and surprisingly so meaty! Every bit was dunked into the butter sauce and woah baby was it rich but butter makes me so happy y’know? And the corn was just loving being rolled around in all that butter seriously, so good!

I couldn’t get the bucket of school prawns because a certain someone is deathly allergic so I ordered Katie’s Fried Chicken ($17) with ranch dressing and a side of Belgian waffles with maple syrup ($5). The waffles had already been drizzled with the maple syrup which I was saddened by because I like to control the amount of syrup. But they were tasty waffles, fluffy with crispy edges. The fried chicken looked too dark so I was worried it was burnt but nay they were awesome, the batter was thick and crunchy with super tender chicken within and who doesn’t love ranch dressing?

Shark! Also side note: their book of faces say their moving to Rochester Castle Hotel in Fitzroy in 2015.

Belle’s Hot Chicken (150 Gertrude St, Fitzroy) was high up the eat list with word on the street that the fried chicken here would be Southern-style and amazing. It did not disappoint and I’ve had dreams about it ever since. First, pick your meat: wings, tenders, dark meat, fish ($16) or mushrooms ($13) and it comes with a choice of sides of old bay fries, mac and cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, Almost Arnold’s beans or mixed pickles. I’ve opted for dark meat, southern style with mac and cheese ($16) and Belle’s blue cheese sauce ($2). It was fan-fricken-tastic! The skin was amazing, almost like crackling! And the meat so ridiculously juicy and tender and just perfect! This fried chicken sits in my WANT AGAIN FOREVER category! Oh and the mac & cheese was pretty bang on, creamy and cheesy and gone in seconds.

Noods is always a sucker for pain and ordered the Wings with Really F**kin’ Hot sauce and Coleslaw ($16) with Belle’s Ranch Dressing ($2). I tried 1 tiny drop of the sauce and immediately regretted it, my mouth was on fire! Noods gamely struggled on, sweating profusely and alternating bites of the coleslaw and stuffing pieces of bread to stop the burning. He still liked it though he’ll prolly try a less hot sauce next time haha

Helen happened to arrive at the same time so I managed to nick some of her Chicken and Waffles ($18) purely for research purposes of course and it was ace. I heart waffles that are fat so that you can fill each hole with enough maple syrup to make your teeth sing!

And there was soft serve for dessert! Apple pie soft serve with salted caramel sauce ($6) oh baby oh baby!

So yeah, if you’re going to Melb this is one place that you HAVE to go to!

The next day after a crazy 5 course dessert degustation (I’ll post about it next), I managed to meet the lovely Daisy and Ricky for late night eats at Gami Fried Chicken (Shop G, 535 Lt Lonsdale St on Healeys Lane) because one can never have too much fried chicken. The Half half ($32), original and sweet soy garlic & spicy sauce was brilliant and right up there with the best korean fried chicken Sydney has to offer. I’m usually not a fan of soy because I’m a fail asian but trust me guys, it was the bomb!

We also ordered the Seafood & spring onion pancake ($13) for some nutrients. I avoided the chilli dipping sauce because I mean, LOOK AT IT. I so did not want a ring of fire!

Aaaand then there was Corn cheese ($9) which was all kinds of addictive, each kernel bound together in gooey stretchy cheese! I can definitely understand Daisy’s love for this!

Complimentary prawn chips and pickled radish! My god I have not eaten these prawn chips since I was but a child! /runs off to the asian supermarkets to buy a trillion packets

What’s the time? BBQ TIME! We rock up for lunch at Bluebonnet BBQ (187 Johnston St, Collingwood) for a PLATTER O’ MEAT. The House made sausage (½ pound $21) was beef stuffed with cheese and oh boy that was one tasty sausage! Noods had managed to eat almost the whole thing before I realised and snared an itty bitty piece (ok fine, it was more like a 1/4 of the sausage but I wanted more!). The Crispy Lamb Ribs (½ pound $19) were equally amazing, fatty and charred with the perfect layer of crisp skin. I really did not want to share this and battled for a bigger portion. The Pork Spare Ribs (½ pound $20) were gloriously smoky and I couldn’t help but pick up each rib and gnaw away at the juicy flesh. Sadly that day there wasn’t any brisket available but the dude on the next table ordered the Smoked Brisket Chilli, Cheese Grits, Coriander and Sour Cream ($18) and so I had to get it because I reeeally wanted to try the grits. They were good grits. The chilli was fine and all but I really wanted my brisket in fatty slices and not all chopped up so yeah. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Guindilla, Cheddar & Confit Garlic Cornbread ($9) because I found it to be on the dry side but we loved the Apple and Kohlrabi Slaw ($8) which helped to cut through our meat sweats and power through the platter.

I loved that each table had its own bottle of house made barbecue sauce and a whole roll of towels because eating here is a hands on affair!

Chillax outside in the courtyard and stare at the beauty of this smoker <3

When I told Noods we were also having barbecue for dinner he thought I was joking. I never joke about my food itinerary! We set off for Le Bon Ton (51 Gipps St, Collingwood) which was within a walkable distance from the station fyi but at 8pm on a weekend the area is like a ghost town. Even though we followed google maps we thought we were lost and basically headed towards the only building that had lights which happened to be it hooray!

FOODS! The Riverina grain fed Angus beef brisket (½ pound $19) was pretty amazing, mesquite-smoked for 18 hours until the brisket is meltingly soft and intensely smoky. I was keen to get the Buttermilk Fried Chicken ($16) but was sweet talked into getting Le Bon Ton signature jalapeño and sharp cheddar bratwurst ($9.50 each) instead which was super juicy and surprisingly not as hot as I’d feared. Is it possible my chili tolerance has improved?! I had a mad craving for mash so had to order the Creamy mashed taters with chives and bacon bits ($8.50) because hey, bacon bits! Noods requested the Tangy coleslaw with cabbage, carrot and onions ($8.50) basically because he needed some vegetables and I wasn’t providing him with adequate all round nutrition. Heh. Amateur.

Mega bonus points for the Jalapeño and cheddar cornbread muffins (3 pieces $8.50), my goodness these cornbread muffins were deeeeelicious! They were freshly baked and super fluffy with semi spicy and cheesy pockets of happiness that increased 10-fold with a generous slather of the honey whipped butter. I would have totally ordered more for takeaway to snack on later had I not had several donuts waiting for me at home!

But instead I settled for Pecan Pie ($12) for dessert and when I say settled I mean I was determined to fit in dessert. Packed full of pecans and brown sugar happiness, the caramelisation on this baby was just so beautiful I could weep. The pastry was super short and buttery and a scoop of vanilla ice cream just made everything right with the world.

When we arrived at Le Bon Ton without a reservation we were told to grab a drink and wait at the bar or outside in the courtyard. The bar was packed so we made our way outside and it’s so purdy outside with all the fairy lights! While I didn’t get to see the absinthe room we were pretty glad we went outside because you could actually order and eat out there and I’ve become one of those people that prefer being able to converse vs shouting over loud music lol

And that’s part 2! Stay tuned for part 3 😀