SAUCEPAN
ONE QUEEN’S ROAD
MELBOURNE

A current, almost daily, personal ritual in Queen’s Road, Melbourne, brings back memories of Sunday nights in thousands of Aussie households in cities and towns across the country in the Fifties and Sixties.

The Sunday night Saucepan Saga!

Dads and kids would go to the local Chinese restaurant – cryptically, insensitively, called ‘ the Chows” – armed with several saucepans.

The weekly order was the same:

Sweet and Sour Pork, Chop Suey, Chicken Chow Mien, Fried Rice.

For millions of Australians that Sunday night tucker was their first experience ever with “ foreign” food.

And from those weekend nocturnal experiences Aussies started actually dining out in towns and cities. We even got past the ubiquitous Nasi Goreng – which wasn’t even Chinese. Full of egg and peas and noodles and nuts.

I have been thinking of the Saucepan Saga a lot lately because recently my media company moved into new offices at the ritzy new tower at One Queen’s Road, Melbourne. At the junction of King’s Way and St Kilda Road and Toorak Road on the outskirts of the CBD.

The obvious benefits are the stunning views over Albert Park Lake and Port Philip Bay and my office windows (and the building rooftop) will be in huge demand for next year’s Grand Prix.

But there is another benefit which takes me back to the Saucepan Saga. The ground floor has a sprawling, modern, gleaming, Food Court. A bulging sandwich bar, another featuring huge Turkish Bread doorstoppers, a high quality coffee oasis, a juice bar, a display of Chinese dishes and a Japanese soup and noodle bar.

At least three or four times a week a deft eye can see the following tableau. Sir Hinchalot – who has been known to spend up to $800- $1000 a week on lunch – makes the trek from apartment or new office with shiny saucepan in hand..

Get there just before noon to avoid the rush and from the Tower Sushi counter order an idiosyncratic lunch.

The favourite: A chicken-based soup. The ingredients include a double order of sliced roast pork, Chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, snow peas, sliced mushrooms, sliced capsicum and a few slim egg noodles. It costs $6.90 or $7.90.

My lunch bill has dropped from $800 a week to less than forty bucks.

The food is so clean and so healthy.

Unselfconsciously, I carry the saucepan back to the office or across the road to my apartment block. Apart from daily walks and a couple of days a week for half-hour sessions at the gym (including kick-boxing) these breadless soupy lunches must be helping the waistline.

Must be part of the reason for the loss of 12-kilograms in the past ten months.

Makes sense. There aren’t that many fat Japanese. Except the ones that moved to California and started eating fast-food hamburgers, French fries and American-sized sandwiches.

My favourite style of food is Japanese. I could eat Shabu Shabu four times a week. I love sashimi and sushi and miso soup is the best, most soothing, stomach-settler in the world.

For now, saucepan in hand, I am happy to trundle off to One Queens Road and replicate an old Sunday night ritual around noon.