The region of Enmore

The boom in extremely local food/coffee plus the Sunday market has taken Enmore off the frequently visited list; it's shifted to the outskirts of Andrewsville while I was away. And I don't eat pizza, which eliminates the two Italian, two Turkish & one Lebanese pizza place. Although, in point of fact, I have been at war with one of the Italian places over their half-and-half pricing policy (which fluctuates randomly) for about five years & the other one is ordinary. I only ever ate pizza at one of the two Turkish places, because it was there first and I felt sorry for them when a bright shiny competitor opened next door. It (the competitor) is very good for all non-Turkish-pizza Turkish food, and that's where I would take you for lunch, so my pity hasn't really helped the original place that much. The Lebanese pizza is post my retiring from pizza eating, so I can only comment that it smells less offensive than pizza places generally do. And it's quite cheap.

I don't eat Thai food any more. It doesn't really bear repetition. Thai restaurants generally remind me of the 1960's Cantonese-Australian Chinese restaurant - still readily found in country towns, serving a kind of compromised, standardised hotchpotch. When I had Thai students they never stopped complaining how bad Australian Thai food was, and I had no trouble agreeing. There are good places, of course, but they are increasingly hard to find. Compromised standard hotchpotch is so popular that there is really no incentive to one-up it.

Years ago the first of the Enmore breakfast/coffee places was run by a couple of Greek guys & their mother cooking. It was next to the laundromat & newsagent so made itself compulsory during the prolonged renovation & on rainy weekends (we don't have a dryer). Those guys have moved on, there are four (five?) competitors within 400 metres, all of them failing to create a compelling space. Also the laundromat has been converted into a bakery, and the other laundromat is now a locksmith.

There is one Chinese-owned patisserie & coffee place that if I am having a stop in Enmore will be where you find me. They do great doughnuts (which I no longer eat) and their French pastry range is perfectly OK. Sadly the coffee isn't great, but they hang original art on the walls & conduct extremely loud Mandarin conversations in the kitchen so I can practice eavesdropping.

There's a new bakery but it's pretty expensive. None of the boutique bakers, apart from Bourke St, come even vaguely close to the Marrickville downmarket bakers, at least not for value & traditional French/Italian breads.

Enmore has my bank; there's a fair chance that if that closed I wouldn't come here at all.

Enmore Theater has a coffee shop/cafe that drips unrenovated-for-50-years atmosphere. It's only open at night (early evening, more precisely) though & we're generally too busy to go. And I don't eat muffins/cakes/tiramisu/strudel any more. Nor can I sensibly drink coffee and sleep within a 6 hour timeframe. Still, it's a pleasure to be able to be nostalgic about it. I love high-ceilinged places where, when empty, all the noise seems to disappear into the ceiling space making the booths unnaturally silent. The silence is strong enough to create privacy - words don't move sideways through it. When the place is crowded, the high space captures all the noise and blends it into accoustic padding; everything you say is muffled and your conversation never gets close to the next table.

Faheem's Fast Food ought to be more legendary that it is; they have a particular mastery over the Tandoor oven, and they do some dahl combinations that I have never seen anywhere else. Being a twelve year plus regular give me the peculiar privilege of fractionally less surly service than everyone else. They won't have enjoyed the last cricket season, being as they are, a Pakistani,rather than Indian, restaurant. This place used to be legendary with the subcontinental taxi-driving community & we were frequently to only Anglo's there; that was when they were on the downhill side of the Warrenview pub & there was plenty of parking. When they moved into the Newtown side of Enmore they lost the parking and a fair whack of their taxi trade, but they put their prices up by a couple of dollars (still cheap) and they are packed with low rent cool people (Enmore residents). A Bangladeshi restaurant opened next door - made absolutely zero impact & now FFF has taken over that space as well. To give you a vague idea of how good this place is, I have Melbourne friends who insist on being taken there when they come to visit.