Melbourne Patron

It's the place that was made infamous by the ' chopsticks incident ' last December, where a young Richmond Tigers AFL player drunkenly threatened to attack a woman dining nearby with his chopsticks. But of course, Mr. Miyagi had already developed a cult following well before that. LOOK OUT... CHOPSTICKS Opening in October 2013 on the ever-so-hip Windsor portion of Chapel Street , and tickling nostalgic fancies with its reference to 1984 classic  The Karate Kid , the restaurant has enjoyed a steady stream of customers since. I remember stopping by with a friend one Thursday night mid last year to enquire about a table, and we were told it would be a two-hour wait. Well! Either this place is really good, I thought, or really good at hype. Always a queue at the front desk I made a calculated plan with friends to score a table there on a Friday night recently. I rocked up nice and early, 6:45pm-ish, and put my name down for a table. They advised the wait would ...

Despite still being new-ish to the South Yarra area, I'd already walked past A25 Pizzeria (720 Chapel Street, South Yarra) multiple times before actually getting around to trying it. (I find decent Chapel Street venues a bit few and far between, so tend to dine out in other areas instead.) Over the Easter weekend, a friend from interstate stayed with me. When she landed, we were both starving - where was there wine and tasty food within walking distance, that was not likely to be too noisy or jam-packed? Hey, let's try this place I've been meaning to check out... A25 is on the northern end of Chapel Street, a few minutes' walk from Toorak Road. Named for a freeway between Rome and Pescera, it is a long, thin venue (along the street front, not perpendicular to it), with indoor and outdoor seating, amply cocooned by clear plastic shades and heated. The initial impression is clean and bold: white, black and blonde-wood hard surfaces and occasional splashes of green ...