What the Haigh's

One of Adelaide's biggest landmarks is the corner of Rundle Mall and King William Street, known as Beehive Corner. If you look up you'll spot the landmark insect buzzing over Haigh's Chocolate. Almost ready for its 100th birthday, the first store appeared here in 1915 and their luxury chocolates have spread to Victoria and New South Wales.

But there's something special about getting them here at the source. Their chocolate frogs pre-date Harry Potter's sweet-tooth as they've been selling them for 67 years. Today they offer them in peppermint and dark and reckon they sell more than a million a year. But the frogs are getting pushed aside by Adelaide's Panda-monium and you can now buy large chocolate blocks in the shape of Adelaide Zoo's Wang Wang and Funi. Plus there's truffles, blocks and choc-coated fruit. But the best thing about visiting the Haigh's store is coming out with a free sample - they usually insist on giving you a taster at the cash register.

Inside the Stone Wall Lunch

Cellar doors used to have this exclusive feel of a mate letting you in the back door to sneakily try a glass. But now they've become part of the marketing plan. So Rockford Wines try to re-create that lost intimacy with their Stone Wall lunch by creating a secret dining society.

I'm let into this elite noshery in the Barossa Valley only because a friend of mine has been a member since he was 16 - even at that age he was tall enough to be mistaken for a tree so he must have eluded any ID checks. He's warned me that this lunch will take half the day but I need to get there early for the first glass. Predictably I'm late, negotiating the Krondorf Road but mostly because for a secret society it seems deceptively easy to find.

They pop the first cork in the Stone Wall tasting room, which my friend is right. It's worth arriving early for a gutsy flute of the 1993 Black Shiraz. Sparkling reds get the wrong end of the bottle when it comes to most Northern Hemisphere winos, but a red wine that goes straight to your head is better regarded in Australia. This one has inspired paragraphs calling it "legendary" and "sex in a bottle", but rich flavours are well leavened so you can call it "plummy", "bloody" or whatever is in your wanky lexicon for a full mouthful with a long aftertaste. And then we're ushered through to lunch.


Share tables can be nightmares. You're stuck at some some poky bench between someone opening a newspaper in your face and the guy who is winning the battle of decibels about a football game you haven't seen. But the Stone Wall lunch has limited numbers, spaciously seated so you soon find yourself chatting with neighbours. The bearded gents sitting across the table had flown down from Queensland just to attend the lunch and the group of old school friends had driven over from Melbourne to stay nearby so they can drink on after.

There's a short introduction from the cellar door manager. This is his chance to dig deep into the cellar and pull out some wines that you might not get to try at a cellar door and to puzzle out dishes that set off the best of the grape. According to the ever-changing menu, we'll open with with leeks and black olives accompanied with a light riesling and finish with the Cordon Cut Semillon and quince paste with cheeses.

The most obvious feature of the room is the large hearth that presents everything you're eating. Not sure what galangal is? The chef points it out on the hearth and encourages you to give it a sniff. Their secret ingredient is that most of it is grown about two miles away - on what was once Huffendorf Farm. The range of produce comes from a small garden so the menu is seasonal and fresh. Today, the hearth flows over with ears of corn, strings of drying chillies, green blooms of coriander and cabbage to give the impression of cornucopia. With most of it just a walk away, you couldn't get much more locavore.


But getting down to the grub, the pick of the courses is the snapper curried with the flavour of fenugreek to give the fish a lift, with braised beets and kohlrabi (on the hearth just by the cabbage). The wine matching means they pull out some little known drops, but their oft-praised Basket Press Shiraz is pretty much a must-do. Today it comes paired with a soy-soused mallard, an ideal matching of two big flavours and you've warmed up through a range of whites.


After six courses, dessert needs to be light so the pear and fig tart is clever cooking - flavours that slap you awake but don't overpower the Cordon Cut Semillion, their last word on booze. Though there's a further tasting in the tasting room and unsurprisingly bottles are bought after an afternoon of generous hospitality.

Most reassuringly, my request for a press pack is met with guffaws and, "Yeah, we'll have to get around to making one of them." The secret society is safe.

In Other Words: Fauxgans

Experts trace their origins back to the blokey billionaires of the 1980s. But don’t confuse Bondy or John ‘Pig’s Arse’ Elliott with the everyday fauxgan. The yobby (yobbo-yuppy) of the 1980s is an almost extinct breed. The first fauxgans appeared in the late 1990s when tradies got scarce and then fashionable. The first signs of mainstream fauxgans were the arrival of Merrick and Rosso, who groused their way into Ocker hearts across the nation. Fauxgan royalty finally hit the telly in the form of Dave ‘Hughesy’ Hughes, who out larrikin-ed larrikins and made ‘bein Stralyan’ a performance art. Today fauxgans may comb their fauxlets back so they are barely visible, but offer them a choice of beer of a cheeky imported merlot to spot them in a field.

In Other Words is a regular on the Big Issue's Ointment page. Fauxgans was the first one of the series.

Return of the Laksa King?

For the last couple weeks I've been watching - with a mix of amusement, bemusement and some hope - as one of Flemington's best loved joints re-invented itself. The new signage reminiscent of McDonald's brought a smile - is the King thinking of a dynasty of chain stores? The new location on Pin Oak Crescent is confusing because the existing location was always buzzing and bookings were theoretically possible but often bungled. And the hope? Well, I just wanted the food to be as good as when the King slummed it in a grubby arcade and you came away with change from a tenner for that steaming bowl of Malaysian soup.

We arrived late for our reservation and there was a huge crowd bubbling over into the street. It was opening week and there were floral tributes piling the windows, so I expected we'd be worshipping at the feet of the King for a while before our audience. But I was wrong. The new venue seats 200, so our reservation was honoured and we're zoomed through to meet the rest of our group. The long line gave us some sneers, but the new King favours bookers.

Inside it's nicely done out. The decor is a vast improvement on the cold tiles of the old arcade spot. The walls are muted shades and light fittings are fluid drops from the ceiling with their electricity cords looping off into wall decoration. There's even a garden feature that breaks up the hugeness of the place. We're shown to a low share bench with squat stools. It's not a comfy lounge-around feel which is a shame because unlike the old location you'd like to dawdle over dinner here. The concrete floor and lack of curtains makes it too clamourous for dinner party conversation, but you'll want to linger longer with this new monarch.

And crucially, the food. I order the usual chicken curry laksa with extra eggplant and it's reliably good - replete with two kinds of noodles, charred eggplant and shreds of chicken. Others at our table want to test the new menu. The menu re-think is a good one. They've kept the namesake dishes at the lower end the same but have a fewer higher end dishes to explore. So there's a Peking duck entree at just over twenty and 'Laksa King Selections' like a rockling fillet in sweet chilli tamarind that's just under eighteen dollars. My pescatarian companions go for the sambal fresh calamari that blends tender with a lick of spice. Straight-up vegetarian is limited and you'll find shrimp paste in the belachan veg dishes. But if you're there for their laksa it's reassuring and still a bargain.

The other constant between the two venues is the service. On a busy Friday night we waited just over 30 minutes for some pretty basic mains and roti bread. The larger premises stretch the staff thinner and on busy nights it's going to be tough to keep service consistent across the area. But that just means you have to order up a few more beers, which keeps the bill ticking over...

But these are quibbles of the King. If you're an old fan he remembers your favourites but wants to seduce you into a few new dishes. And if you've never been down with the King then the new venue makes a better first impression. He's certainly thriving in his new realm so rather than plotting revolution he remains a benevolent ruler of the Flemington's culinary kingdom though I'd be disappointed if the power went to his head and he tried to annexe other realms. The King is dead, long live the King.