South Melbourne Market has become my favourite market in Melbourne. The produce- whether fruits, veg, meat or seafood- is reasonably priced and the free parking for 2 hours on market days doesn't hurt one bit as well. There's nothing better than doing one's shopping and then heading to Clement's or Padre for a latte.
Everything is just calling out to be bought and brought home
But I digress. The whole intention of this post is to talk about one of the most amazing food experiences I had in Melbourne, where the focus was just on the food and enjoying the time alone. Claypots Evening Star is a seafood place at the corner of the market just under the red sign (see below) that I had wanted to try for some time, and when I had a Saturday afternoon to myself, I just did it. Alone.
The menu looked something like this.
I had a bar seat right in front of the seafood display. It was quite exciting to see what was available.
The prawns looked super fresh
The clams, scallops and mussels looked all right too, but I knew I couldn't eat everything.
The skewers looked exciting too - or as I found out, they're called pintxos.
The view from my seat - it was pretty crowded for a late afternoon.
I had a glass of wine since it was happy hour - $5 for the house sauv blanc. Pretty tasty too.
The first dish to come out was the spaghetti with white anchovies. This was awesome. It was tasty, well mixed and done al dente.
I also ordered a grilled prawn with sambal and because the prawn was so fresh, it didn't really matter that the sambal wasn't hot. Licked up every last drop of sauce.
The first two dishes at my bar counter...I couldn't eat fast enough for the plates to be cleared.
Possibly the yummiest simplest pasta I can recall in a long time.
I also had the grilled cuttlefish which came with squid ink sauce. Very tasty.
The fish ceviche taco was not as exciting as the other dishes, so probably wouldn't order this again.
That late lunch came up to $38 altogether including wine - quite good value I thought. It was such a memorable meal that I dragged the husband there for another dinner shortly after that.
The menu for that night.
We had a glass of wine each - I realised the house wine was $8 a glass at non happy hour prices. The husband had a Hunky Dory and I had the same sauv blanc.
We were seated in the corridor this time.
We had a serve of garlic clams, which was nice but rather tiny.
It was 3 clams per person. Tasty but really expensive.
The cuttlefish pintxo again. This was as good as I remembered.
We also ordered a grilled John Dory with sambal. This was pretty good, but expensive at $35.
Fish was fresh though.
And this was the dish I had been waiting for - I saw the chef cook this that afternoon but couldn't order it since it was meant for two.
It arrived not quite as steaming hot as the anchovy pasta, and somehow it looked more tomato-ey than the version I saw that Saturday. Tasty nonetheless.
And this was the damage.
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