No Name Lane
Elizabeth Ave
Broadbeach QLD 4218
+61 7 5538 5521
As much as I love my second home Gold Coast, even with its inherent tackiness, it’s often hard to find good cafes there. While I don’t fly all the way to Goldie for the sole purpose of finding good coffee, sometimes there will be days when all I need is a cup of DECENT coffee and some delicious breakfast fare to boot. While I have come across decent cafés in the land of sun, surf and bolt-ons, there are times when I chide myself for taking Melbourne’s café culture for granted; good cafés in Goldie are, by large, hard to find. Thankfully, however, Gold Coastitutes are starting to appreciate a good brew and consequently, places such as Starbucks no longer have a monopoly over coffee in trendy Broadbeach.
A place that’s definitely worth trying is No Name Lane, a newish café that’s situated in a lane which actually has a name – Elizabeth Avenue, for those interested. The space isn’t very big with only a dozen of spots inside and wooden stools outside, which means that snagging a table during the peak period can be difficult. Luckily, it was raining the morning we went so only a handful of brave souls made the Saturday morning rush. It was still packed inside but fortunately, there was a wooden crate and two stools outside for the taking. After telling Marty to stay outside, I order our stuff at the counter, reading off the little chalkboard menu.
Our lattes ($3.50) arrived pretty quickly. In a city where things move at a slow pace (if it’s not the idiot motorists, then it’s the council workers who take YEARS to complete a single road project), this was a pleasant surprise. What was also pleasant about this coffee was the taste. The organic beans, which come from local coffee roasters, Black Sheep, were full of flavour which meant that no sugar was needed. Not only that, our lattes were beautifully textured and had more body than Aishwarya Rai’s post-baby body. Definitely up there with the best coffees on the ‘Coast.
Marty ordered the New York rare roast beef sandwich ($9.50), which wrapped prettily in paper and twine. It came with a dollop of horseradish cream, baby rocket leaves and Roma tomatoes. While we both gave it props for its gorgeous presentation, Marty did say that it wasn’t the best sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fresh and tasty but it just lacked a little something (extra horseradish cream for more kick? crunchier bread? more twine?). Marty thought that, at $.950, one would expect a sanga that was better than anything that he could whip up at home…
Forgoing the banana bread with vanilla bean espresso butter, I went for the free range truffled eggs and Bangalow ham on toasted brioche ($10.50). Truffled anything went out of food fashion quite some time ago so goodness knows why I decided to go with that. Regardless, my breakfast wasn’t too bad. They run out of brioche, which was a bummer, so I made do with sourdough instead. They were certainly generous with the portion size which meant that I was able to go light at lunchtime. The ham, made with Bangalow sweet pork was delicious and admittedly didn’t pair up too badly with the earthy truffled eggs. I did, however, feel that there was too much mayonnaise and truffle (and the artificial kind) mixed in with the eggs, thus making my breakfast unnecessarily rich.
We loved our coffees and will definitely stop by for takeaway lattes next time – maybe on our way to Mme Grenouille where we’ll be getting some French pastries. And although the food certainly wasn’t bad, there are better places in Goldie to have breakfast in.
The place was dead quiet when we rocked up just before 10pm. Understandable, because it was a weeknight and Gold Coastitutes tend to have early ones but on the other hand, it was Australia Day Eve so I did expect to see more people there. Oh well, more room on the communal table for us, I thought to myself as I sipped on the margarita which was refreshing and delicious, though the alcohol content negligible. As much as I like to diss Taco Bill, they do make the most awesome frozen margaritas – and they put plenty of alcohol in them.
Gotta love the really funky bottle – the beer didn’t taste bad, either.
We shared some soft shell tacos (three for $10.50). Given that places such as Paco’s Tacos in Melbourne charge $6.50 for arguably substandard tacos that fall into a limp, soggy mess as soon as you touch them, I thought the price tag was extremely reasonable. I’m not normally a soft-shell taco person (I go hard all the way – wahaha, that sounds duuurty) but I was glad that each taco shell managed to retain their shape. While Marty enjoyed his spicy pork chipotle and his spicy chicken guerrero tacos, both of which he thought were very good, I attacked my beef guerrero taco with intense ferocity. Packed with slow-roasted marinated tender beef, black beans with a healthy lashing of pico de gallo, it was a taco that I would happily hand over $6.50 in Melbourne.
We were both still a bit hungry after that so I ordered a serving of GYG’s famous nachos ($10.50), with beef guerrero topping. The guys at GYG use a gluten-free corn tortilla so don’t expect tasty Doritos-style corn chips, but rather something that’s a little more bland on the tongue. Doesn’t matter though, the chips soaked up the flavours of the black beans, beef, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo and guacamole brilliantly. It was a dish that could have stood on its own as a main and in fact, we couldn’t finish the whole thing so we took it home … and had it the very next day for breakfast. Strangely enough, the nachos tasted a LOT better after sitting in the fridge overnight before being heated in the oven for several minutes, as opposed to being served fresh from the store. Yum.
Located in the heart of Broadbeach, within walking distance of various nightclubs, Ming Palace has been serving Gold Coastitutes for a number of decades. This is evident in the outdated decor, the tired walls and carpet and the extremely full dining room of punters who looked like they had been coming to this joint for many years. As quasi-regulars, Marty and our friend, Amiee, often come here for late-night bitch fests over steamers of hot dim sum. On my visit here, I instinctively thought of Supper Inn back home – one, because it’s open until late and two, you have to actually climb up a long flight of stairs to get there. The climb at Supper Inn, however, is worth it but here at Ming Palace? Not really.
We played it safe by ordering har gow (prawn dumplings, 4 for $5.80). They weren’t the biggest and they had ridiculously thick skins to boot (good thing? bad thing? I say ‘bad’), with a decent-tasting filling that was generous on the prawns. This was probably the only ‘good’ thing I ate here, though.
Marty normally rates the siu mai (pork dumplings, 4 for $4.80) and I have to say that they were of decent size. Again, they were generous with the filling – the pork seemed to be on the verge of bursting. I didn’t like them as much as the har gow, though. The pork meat and pork fat ratio was off – they put too much of the fat in – so the filling emitted a bit of a nasty smell when you bit into it.
I made the mistake of ordering the next two dishes. In hindsight, I didn’t even know why because they’re not normally dishes I would order – I think it was because the yum cha menu was so limited and I felt pressured to order them. I don’t know. But anyway. First up, the deep-fried prawns (4 for $5.80). Oh man, they were awful. They obviously used the frozen stuff as was obvious by the lack of taste, and how dry the meat was (obviously from having nuked it in the microwave after they had fished them out of the freezer – and left them in the microwave for too long). I don’t understand the need to use frozen stuff when one, Queensland’s famous for its abundance of fresh, good quality seafood and two, they used fresh prawns in the har gows. Meanwhile, the batter was limp and tired – and not the least bit crunchy – and given the amount of oil that was left on the paper doily, the kitchen dudes had forgotten all about draining.
Our deep-fried scallops (4 for $5.80) fared much worse. Again, the frozen stuff was used and again, the whole thing – soggy batter and all – was just nasty, nasty, nasty. Yuck.
Thus, I wasn’t surprised when I paid $4.90 each for a hot chai latte and an iced chai latte late one night. I can’t say much for Marty’s iced chai latte, but mine was sweet beyond recognition and the milk, cooler than the night’s air temperature of 21 degrees. Forget proper chai leaves, honey and all that jazz – all the flavouring came from a bottle. I hate to say this, but I would have been happier at Starbucks.
We started off with a serving of prawn rice paper rolls, or ‘summer rolls’ as they call them here (they come in fours for $5.90, but we requested six so we paid $8.85). Marty once brought a Vietnamese friend from Melbourne here who declared that the skins on these rolls were too thick, thus rendering them inauthentic and bad. Marty and I, however, actually preferred the thicker skins which encased a generous smearing of cooked prawns married with a strip of pork, vermicelli and mint. They weren’t the best I’ve ever had, but they were better than most I’ve had as of late.
My Vietnamese beef salad ($16.90). Again, this isn’t ‘authentic’ – who the hell serves beef salad with prawn crackers and what’s with the sweet as Vitamin Water dressing?! It was a shame the dressing was so sweet for it could have been an amazing salad. Thinly-sliced beef strips were mixed in with paper-thin slices of red onion, fresh vegetables and accentuated by red chillies and roasted peanuts. If they had added a bit more fish sauce or even more citrus juice or vinegar in the dressing, it would have been perfect. As for the prawn crackers, I guess I spoke too soon. I might have initially scoffed when I saw them, but they did go a long way in diffusing some of the sweetness.
Marty ordered the decidedly un-Vietnamese crispy chicken with vegetables and sweet chilli sauce ($14.90). On that note, I was surprised to see a lot of non-Vietnamese dishes on the menu – chicken ragout and garlic prawns, for example. Sure, you get non-Vietnamese dishes in a lot of Vietnamese restaurants around Melbourne but such restaurants often advertise themselves as offering both ‘Chinese and Vietnamese’ cuisine whereas New O-Me-Ly is purely (and supposedly) Vietnamese.
