The Gem Bar and Dining Room: 289 Wellington Street Collingwood

For something completely different, we visited the Gem Bar and Dining Room in Collingwood. This is a grungy, rockabilly, 90s esque Newtown (Sydney) bar that serves American BBQ classics, only with better produce (in my humble opinion).

I ordered the beef brisket because the last time I had brisket in Melbourne (at Meat Mother Richmond) I was so seriously drunk I thought it was the best food ever (I may have annoyingly said that ten times over while I was devouring it). Since I was drunk that is an unreliable memory that needs to be tested (disclaimer: I have never been game to try brisket in America as I am afraid of mass produced grain fed feedlot beef, but I digress).

The Gem served me brisket that well and truly lived up to expectations. It wasn't just tender and juicy, which most places these days can master, it was also rich and smoky and just yum. If all brisket tastes like this, it is amazing (I'm totally getting Senor Gringo a smoker for xmas). Coupled with home made pickles and hand cut fries, we had food gold (although I did skip the okra, that was just a little weird).

My friends had the pork brisket (also similarly smoky with seasoning you wish was one of your family secrets), the cheese burger (suitably with the jack cheese and onion rings) and the smoked eggplant and mushroom veggie burger. All of us were happy except my vegetarian friend, who thought her burger tasted too meaty (she is not one of those vegetarians that would eat mock meat products or anything that reminds her of actual animals - no fakin' bacon here).

I loved this place and not just because it was nostalgic and reminded me of the inner west in Sydney but because the food was great and it had a fantastic vibe. With a place like this around the corner I would probably go out to pubs more. It was a perfect Sunday evening.

Orient East: 348 St Kilda Road South Melbourne

Carrying on from the theme of being transported to another place and time, we come to Orient East. It is an almost kitsch bar that somehow also manages to have a modern day expat vibe to it. I have stumbled across similar places in Vietnam and Singapore and always been overjoyed to find such an oasis.

Fittingly, Orient East serves South East Asian food, with small or large plates and lots of veggies. I got carried away eating and talking so I didn't take many pictures sorry.

We all ordered multiple small veggie dishes to snack on. The dishes were well suited to cocktails and company and weren't too westernised that they lacked spice or that lovely sourness that I like about SE Asian food.

What wasn't vegan could easily be veganised. I did really want to try the lamb ribs or the mandarin duck steamed baos but after hearing my newly vegan friend talk about animal cruelty for 30 minutes before I ordered I just couldn't bring myself to do. Sadly. With some space and time I'm headed back with some meat leaving friends to get my carmel pork on.

This restaurant is definitely a shining star in the wasteland that is St Kilda Road Melbourne (you otherwise don't reach the really good stuff until you get to St Kilda proper).

Two ticks. This is another restaurant that I'd be happy to go back to and show off to my out of town friends.

In order of appearance - the rice crusted smoked tofu with sweet potato crisps, mushrooms and pears (yum, love those enoki mushrooms with pear!) and the french beans with black olive and mustard greens (also perfect). We also had the mee goreng, the vegetarian spring rolls and something else from the specials menu.

The Last Jar: 616 Elizabeth Street Melbourne

Going to the Last Jar is like stepping back in time. Walking through that door I had thoughts of Outlander and the inhabitants of Melbourne 100+ years ago. The venue really took me away from the present as the building is a simplistically beautiful relic of the past, with unadorned walls, hard wood floors and antique fittings.

The food matches the surroundings. The Irish-Gaelic menu requires a bit of google translate action but the unfamiliar titles contribute to the feeling that you are being transported to another era. It helps that they bake the bread, churn the butter, smoke the fish and make the sausages themselves.

A group of eight of us had a Wednesday night dinner at the Last Jar. We covered quite a bit of the menu and nearly all of it was top notch, humble, farm house style food.

According to my fellow diners, the steak was beautiful, very well cooked and able to be enjoyed without sauce or gravy. The fish and chips with mushy peas and home made tartare sauce was exactly what you would want. The pot of mussels with cider, cream, dill and parsley was a lovely soup that managed to be well balanced, not too creamy and quite flavoursome. The whiskey cured salmon, cream cheese and herb salad was disappointing as it was more like a plate of fixings for a sandwich than a salad (it was served with bread) but from the specials menu the croquettes were a standout and a highlight of the meal (apparently - with egg, dairy and seafood a plenty I did not try these dishes).

I ordered the pickled fennel, kale, heirloom tomato and black barley salad (without the yoghurt), along with the battered sausage (how could I not really?). The battered sausage was a little bit of a let down. It didn't taste like anything and on the last bite I noticed it was pink in the middle, which you really don't want from a sausage. The salad however was brilliant. With barley and kale I expected it to be heavy but it was surprisingly light and filling at the same time. I haven't had anything like it before and I would probably fail trying to recreate it at home (can the chef just move in with Senor Gringo and I?). Overall, the Last Jar is a lovely, homely Irish pub, with not a bogan or bar fight in sight ;) Two ticks. Well done folks.