Signature Searches

Time Out loves showcasing unforgettable food and drink experiences around town, so in partnership with Google, we hunted down four truly one-of-a-kind Signature Search dishes that no food fan will want to miss

The City Vegemite Curry Roti at Sunda

At modern South East Asian restaurant Sunda, head chef Khanh Nguyen is incorporating cult ingredients such as Vegemite and Laughing Cow Cheese alongside natives such as finger lime, bush tomato, Geraldton wax and lemon myrtle. We’re delighted by the Wagyu rendang pie, which is more of a soft bun served with a fermented sambal; and we’re surprised with the charred cucumber and Laughing Cow Cheese northern-thai-style jungle curry fortified with lemon myrtle. But those in the know order the cult dish of Vegemite curry filled with a red curry oil served with a housemade, ultra-buttery, buttermilk roti fried in ghee and curry oil, which almost shatters at the touch. “I did hours and hours of research,” Nguyen says, “testing different recipes and watching plenty of Youtube videos to get the right technique.” Due to the intensive labour involved in making the roti – a five-hour process – there are only 25 serves available per day. If that’s not enough, in truffle season, Nguyen also offers the roti pimped up with generous shavings of the best Australian truffle he can find. Despite only offering a limited number per day of the off-menu item, Sunda has sold over 8,000 serves of their Vegemite Curry Roti. à 18 Punch Ln, Melbourne 3000.

The East Pixel Avocado on Sourdough Toast at Light Years Café

Light Years Café is nestled in an inner-suburban business district and during the week is relied upon by office workers for takeaway coffee, quick grab-and-go lunches and sandwiches. But it is the weekends when it really gets to flex its culinary muscles. The Pixel Avocado brings people from all over the city – and even from abroad. “Avocado on toast has become a world-recognised Australian breakfast, but everyone just smashes it on toast and it is all the same,” says manager Ellen Oort. “Ours looks like it has jumped out of an old video game and is served on sourdough with a perfectly poached egg. On the side, there’s edamame hummus with pieces of dehydrated, chilli-marinated cabbage and pickled radish stuck into it that you eat like chips and dip. After we won Best Café at the Time Out Food Awards last year, we’ve had so many people travelling here for this dish, and they love taking photos of it. It is super Instagrammable, and fun to eat.” Light Years has attempted to take it off the menu because it requires pristine produce and a lot of labour to prepare – to no avail. The food fans of Melbourne have spoken. à 132 Camberwell Rd, Hawthorn East 3123.

The North Campfire Chocolate at Mörk Melbourne Mörk are the independent chocolate makers on a mission to cement a specialty hot chocolate culture into a coffeeobsessed city. Located in North Melbourne’s Errol Street strip of pubs, cafés and bakeries, Mork’s brew house occupies a converted 1950s bakery, delivering an adult all-chocolate beverage menu where you can mix and match housemade chocolates to your preferred milk (cow, oat, almond, buffalo) to build your perfect hot chocolate. The cacao ranges from 50 per cent to 80 per cent, with origins from Peru or Venezuela, fancified with additions of river salt or Australian natives like lilly pilly, strawberry gum or lemon myrtle. It’s not all milkbased hot chocolates on the menu, though. For hardcore cacao-lovers, high-quality ground beans have been treated like coffee in the cold brew, where beans have been steeped in cold water for 22 hours, resulting in a beverage that is delicate and naturally sweet on the palate. Since the brewhouse opened in 2012, Mork’s Campfire Chocolate has become a viral sensation, recreating the personal memory of founder, Kiril Shaginov. An upturned glass of maplewood smoke is flipped over and filled with a 70 per cent cacao drinking chocolate, balanced with a pinch of charcoal salt, and accompanied with a torched vanilla bean marshmallow. “Hot chocolate is for all ages and all people, and we wanted to inspire other cafés to be creative with it through our Campfire Chocolate,” says Shaginov. “We’ve treated chocolate like coffee by focusing on the quality of the cacao that goes into it, so people understand it is an incredible and complex ingredient when treated correctly.” à 150 Errol St, North Melbourne 3051. The South Schnitty Bao at Mr Miyagi The Windsor end of Chapel Street is better known for its cool, young and impossibly beautiful crowd frequenting the hippest and trendiest bars and eateries such as Mr Miyagi. This Japanese-influenced, tongue-in-cheek diner burst onto the scene in 2013 and attracted lines of perfectly coiffed, off-duty young professionals looking to wind down over one of Mr Miyagi’s fun-inducing ‘Cocky-ts’. They included a lychee-spiked Hello Kitty Sour, Frosé and Cold Drip Martini – a take on the Espresso Martini combining shochu, vodka and sake. Unlike other restaurants on the street, Mr Miyagi offers dishes for under $10, so it’s the ideal place for people to catch up weekly without breaking the bank. The paredback, minimalist room is a reference to alleyway eateries in Tokyo, but the use of concrete and stone finishes is undeniably Melbourne. While edamame, tempura broccoli and Miyagi Fried Chicken line every table, it’s the Schnitty Bao that people come here for. It was developed by chef Kyle Doody to be a reflection of the restaurant as a whole. “People love bao buns and chicken schnitties, so we combined the two, crumbed it in Japanese ramen noodles and serve it with Japanese mayo and a kimchi tartare,” Doody says. “We’ve sold over 100,000 of them since they went on the menu, so we must be doing something right.” It’s the perfect singlehanded meal, hitting sweet, savoury, soft, crunchy, creamy and high-acid notes that will satisfy alcohol-induced hunger pangs while allowing you the freedom of using your remaining free hand to drink, capturing the very essence of izakaya food. à 99 Chapel St, Windsor 3182.