Mankoushe back in 2012
It's here - probably the last 2025 retrospective you'll see circulated! The blog has experienced lags before, though none of this length. Chalk it up to some minor health hiccups, some other interests to pursue, and - probably most of all - some very screen-heavy times during my job that put me off ever opening a laptop in my off-hours.
This lapse has enabled us to report a resurrection! Our local all-you-can-eat Sri Lankan restaurant, Maalu Maalu, closed mid-2025 and has reopened in 2026! We'll have to get back in and report any changes we've noticed. The incredible Vola Foods closed around the same time, but it's worth keeping a sharp eye on their social media for pop-ups. This Borderland gave us a generous 8 month warning of their planned closure, enabling us to enjoy one more meal. There've been the more usual briefly or unannounced closures - Milkwood, Small Axe Kitchen, Banh Mi Nights, Ge'ez Ethiopean Restaurant, Big Esso, Madame K, Girls & Boys. The one that's hit hardest is Mankoushe - in the 15 years that they operated, we blogged them 11 times and visited many more besides.
Just one way to enjoy Tofu Shoten
Happily, there are plenty of new and new-to-us eateries to celebrate. For 2025, the where's the best? page welcomes Beautiful Jim Key, Beit Siti, Lunar, Short Round, Sleepys and Walrus to our inner north brunch listings. The Sporting Club Hotel is back and bougier than ever; there are also good dinners to be had at Biang! Biang!, Chanhouse, Miss Moses and My Asian Neighbour. Perhaps the best of all is Tofu Shoten, a takeaway that is an entire category unto itself.
2025 was the first time in six years that I crossed the Australian border. We had some really memorable times and meals in Japan and Taiwan (captured in one, two, three, four posts.).
Miyo sensei and Naoko guide us through vegan Japanese cooking at Idées Kamakura
Browsing through the two past years of cooking turned up recipes that have earned repetition and where's the best? status. Michael, more than me, has logged hit after hit from Hetty Lui McKinnon and Meera Sodha: charred cauliflower & crispy tofu with sweet peanut sauce, sesame noodles with charred broccoli & chilli oil, celery-cashew stir-fry with a food court omelette, caramelised garlic, zucchini & butter beans, tahini & soya mince noodles with pickled radishes, blistered beans with gnocchi Trapanese, kale dumplings with brothy butter beans, omelette roll sushi rice bowl. Dinner has been transformed!
My kitchen wins have skewed cosy: porridge in our relatively new microwave, cheesy scone wedges to accompany soup, and vegan chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream, just for the sake of testing out my op-shopped silicon moulds. We've had a lot of fun with friends getting back into vegan potlucking, usually with a feature ingredient in mind. It's inspired me to sneak odd fruits into crumble and potato chips into biscuits, try making sesame toast at home and even buy an ice shaver off facebook marketplace. Michael and Lui McKinnon teamed up once again for some show-stopping salt'n'pepper gems.
2026 is already a quarter done, so I've got a head-start on forecasting what's ahead for the blog. This is the year that where's the beef? will turn twenty years old. It marks the anniversary of Michael's and my move to Melbourne, when we walked down to Carlton Readings and bought a Cheap Eats 2006 guide. We've held onto that guide and we'll be returning and reviewing a bunch of stalwarts throughout the year. I hope you'll join us!
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