A trip down Carnegie lane

Heading into Carnegie to visit a local Chinese restaurant icon, I had no idea that a multicultural mecca, be it of liliputian proportions, awaited.

All of the places I describe are on Koornang Road, between Princess Highway and Neerim Road.

After eating lunch at Auntie’s Dumplings, a local Chinese food icon, I headed off for a wander. The first place I ran into was Russian Tidbits (113 Koornang Road, 9572 3911). This little shop is absolutely fantastic with a wide array of both fresh and packet Eastern European gems. I picked up some kasia (roasted buckwheat) and lots of continental sausage. They also have Russian condiments, jellies, packet soups, sweets, biscuits and so on. This surprise was sweeter than continental cherry jam, because just the weekend before, the last continental butcher on Carlisle Street closed down. Sad.

A few doors up at 117 is Asian Grocery. The sign advertises Chinese and Korean groceries, but they have a reasonable Japanese section too. The staff here are actually Chinese and there is a reasonable range of Chinese groceries, including a frozen section. I bought some dried mango and grape-flavoured bubble gum and off we went.

The next stop was Mirae Mart (135 Koornang Road, 9572 2555), a mecca of Korean groceries. The range of kim chi was completely staggering. Plus, they’ve got huge vats of chilli paste – a one litre tub costs around $15. If you’re feeding a family or doing a large dinner party it’s pretty good value! I have to admit I’ve never cooked a lot of Korean before, only eaten it in restaurants, so I did creep around the aisles for quite a while, doing a full and thorugh inspection. They also stock some fresh vegetables, including some of the most impressive nashis and turnips I’ve seen this year!

Also, on the same side as Russian Tidbits, there’s a small alleyway that houses a tiny little Korean bakery. We picked up some wonderful slices of swiss roll style cakes, both lined with cream but one a butter vanilla and the other chocolate. They were light and fluffy. The overall selection of cakes and pastries looked very different to what you see at Chinese bakeries – there was a fantastic looking coconut bread and even some with red bean. There were also large, party-style cakes and tiny little ones to feed around four people that would be great for the last-minute birthday panic!

Finally, there was a really nice selection of funky looking cafes, a gorgeous bakery and a beautifully designed Japanese cafe that I want to go back and try. Watch this space.