Journal Canteen

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING the bells rings! It’s lunchtime boys and girls at Journal Canteen (Primary). There’s a touch of nostalgia about the place, and a sense of fear that accompanies a potential spanking from the headmaster’s cane. Though that may be pleasure for some. What is pleasurable for the mouth is the food, so scramble for a seat at the tables that look like they had been plucked out of a prestigious educational institution from the early 1900s. No Krusty endorsed gruel served in wanky boarding schools, simple, rustic Italian food cooked with the love of a nonna makes me wish I was born into a non-Asian Euro family.

An antipasto plate is a light and easy way to ease into the meal, appetising thinly sliced salami, marinated charred eggplant, zucchini, olive and a delightfully healthy oat and capsicum salad. Pasta the way it should be done, el dente spaghetti dressed in a green Sicilian pesto. Nothing fancy in the mains either, a slice of roast pork comes with radicchio and fennel salad, a delicious herb crumbed chicken cotoletta has a side of tomato and cucumber salad, a rich butter sauce pools around the veal saltimbocca pan fried with sage and prosciutto. Finish it off with a creamy ricotta cannoli. It’s the lunchtime tuck shop for big kiddies at prices that will buy you at least 70 bags of Fizz Wizz in the olden days. The bell rings at 12, so go and get it.

3 / 5 yums!
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Where? 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, VIC
What? Mains $18