Moon Mart – Introduction

Some of our favourite meals ever were long Sunday lunches on the 1st floor verandah at Redfern’s Moon Park.

They became hazier as the afternoon wore on, thanks to a wine list with too many good choices, but never enough to forget how good the food was. The venue was a favourite of Sydney’s hospitality identities who were not known for going home early!

So we lined up early for breakfast the first chance we had to visit @moon_mart_, a new venture by Moon Park’s Eun Hee An @eun.hee.an and her business partner Mei Onsamlee @meionsamlee. The restaurant is in North Melbourne quite near the railway station (however see below – they have now moved to South Melbourne).

It was wise to be early and in hindsight even wiser to choose breakfast as our first visit. It was calm and relaxed, at least for the customers! And the tamago roll was quite perfect.

Our second visit was lunch the same day. We thought we were early again but we weren’t. Most dishes were already sold out so what you see here is just a hint of what’s potentially available. It was intense in the tiny kitchen, where Eun and @bensearsishere were more than under the pump but delivering beautifully-cooked and presented dishes.

What was lovely though was the civility of the crowd queuing and wondering what would be left when they finally got to order, or standing in the shade under trees waiting with anticipation for what they had ordered (possibly feeling smug).

Over the ensuing weeks and months we made many visits for breakfast and lunch and always had wonderful food and coffee.

Since we wrote this story they have moved to new premises in South Melbourne (look for the yellow door), so we have to drive a little bit further to reach them.

However a recent visit to the new Moon Mart showed us that the food in the new location is still amazingly good. For breakfast they serve dishes such as tamago roll, char sui bacon roll with fried egg and cheese, bulgogi sausage muffin and kimchi jaffle to name just a few of the temptations.

For lunch the Moon Mart menu changes to more substantial dishes such as sandwiches or rice and noodle sets. We ordered an unagi eel katsu which was delicious as was a dish of beautiful chilled somen noodles with seaweed, nashi pear and shiso served with a plate of wagyu bulgogi on the side.

Above is the unagi (Japanese freshwater eel) sandwich accompanied with some potato chips (very trendy at present) and the moorish white bread.

The yellow tray displays the dish of delicious chilled somen noodles accompanied by various vegetables and a plate of thinly sliced wagyu hiding behind.

You can read a little more on their Web site here.

We have included Moon Mart in our story about where we eat in Melbourne called Melbourne – Great places to eat and drink.

Some terms from the menu explained:

Tomago or tomagoyaki is a Japanese omelette.

Bulgogi is a Korean-style grilled or roasted dish made of thin, marinated slices of meat.

Bonito are a tribe of medium-sized, ray-finned predatory fish in the family Scombridae which are similar in flavour to mackerel or tuna.

Kombu is edible kelp mostly from the family Laminariaceae which is widely eaten in East Asia including Korea and Japan.

Kimchi is a traditional Korean side dish consisting of salted and fermented vegetables, most often napa cabbage or Korean radish.

Shokupan is Japanese white milk bread.

Chicken katsu also known as panko chicken or tori katsu is a Japanese dish of fried chicken made with panko bread crumbs.

Panko is a breadcrumb coating for meats such as chicken or, alterately, vegetables if a vegan meal is being prepared.

Unagi is the Japanese word for freshwater eel, particularly the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica.