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Thursday May 17, 2012

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Moors Head has Ela craving more

Posted by: Ela Carte | 30 December, 2011 - 1:02 PM
Moorshead

The Moors Head – Rear 774 High Street Thornbury – www.themoorshead.com

Some restaurants just have a great feel. Sitting down at The Moors Head on a Sunday evening, there was nowhere else I’d rather be. It seems to be built for relaxed evening dining, those nights when you don’t feel like cooking, but you don’t want to spend a fortune on dinner either.

Interestingly, the owners refer to their cuisine as “inauthentic pizza” and yet there’s some impressive attention to the Turkish and Lebanese heritage throughout the menu, things like the Turkish sujuk sausage and air dried cured beef; Turkish Cola and orange soft drink; Lebanese wines, and beers from each country.

There’s a definite warehouse feel, and I shuddered when on booking I was told we’d be sitting on the “high tables”. There’s nothing worse than spending an evening perched precariously on an uncomfortable stool, so imagine my glee when I saw the Moors Head’s offerings had a back – it’s the small things that count.

Dips and pickles and other smaller offerings aside, it’s all about the pizza at The Moors Head – or in this case, the Manoushe and the Pide. Manoushe are closer to your traditional round pizzas, and you can expect toppings like Za’tar, labne, and Ashawan (a hard sheeps milk cheese) with pizza names like Fred the Deaf and Emir Bashir.

Pides are those more traditional looking boat-type pastries, and here they come with fabulous, fresh ingredients atop. The Bosphorous is the standout - tomato, garlic, chilli, coriander and fat juicy prawns. The Golden Terrace tastes like the Middle East, beef minced with spices as a base, topped with fresh tomato slices, chilli, almond and a squeeze of lemon.

The DIY aspect adds a bit of fun, pizzas are delivered with a slicer for the table, and creativity is encouraged.

Salads are simple and inexpensive, including the cabbage, mint, onion and caraway – a subtle, healthy accompaniment for the more guilt-inducing mains.

Dough is the order of the day for dessert – Fatayers are chunky triangles filled with goodies like Halva and banana or ricotta and honey. If you haven’t tried it before, don’t go past the Turkish fairy floss – decadently sweet and infinitely fun to make into moustaches.

Definitely good value – between four we shared dip and bread, three pizzas, a salad, shared three desserts and enjoyed a drink or two each and the total bill came to $120.

All this (something) would be nothing without the super-efficient, super-friendly service that the Moors Head proffers. There really is an inherent laidback-ness to the place that makes it feel like you might have just dropped in at a mate’s for a quick bite, only your mate is a great cook and doesn’t make you do the dishes afterwards – we all need more of those.

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3AW Food 3AW is Food: Melburnians love to eat so it's fortunate we live in the culinary capital of Australia. On this dedicated food page you will find the latest recipes by Bob Hart as well as Tony Leonard's Pub of the Week reviews. La Luna head chef Adrian Richardson also serves up a dish from his own cook book and food reviewer Ela Carte visits one of Melbourne's hottest eateries weekly.

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