Vons Chicken Restaurant and Cafe Gelato Photo Lab, Victoria Park
Vons Chicken Restaurant
Vons Chicken Restaurant is a Korean franchise that quietly opened a store in Victoria Park last year. The poster in the shop window features happy Korean boys brandishing Vons Chicken drumsticks. They look like they’re just seconds away from breaking into song using the chicken as microphones.
Apparently, Korean boys love Vons Chicken
This is a chicken restaurant, all right – on every table there’s a bone bucket. The menu is all chicken, roasted or fried, which you can have with rice or salad or simply more chicken.
On our first visit we note that the clientele is mostly Asian, vigorously and unselfconsciously sucking on chicken bones and saucy fingers. I instantly feel right at home. I think my brother, who had the childhood nickname of Chicken Boy, would love this place.
Jac and I share 5 pieces of roast barbecue-flavoured chicken (AU$13.95) with rice and salad. You can choose your heat level when ordering the barbecue chicken (we choose mild). The chicken pieces are on the small side but smell great and look enticingly shiny and saucy.
Roast barbecue flavoured chicken from Vons Chicken, bone bucket in the background
The “mild” barbecue sauce has a sweet chilli bite. I imagine “hot” and “extra hot” will be quite spicy. The chicken is succulent, each piece coated generously in the syrupy barbecue sauce. This is chicken you have to eat using your fingers for maximum pleasure, although it’s almost too hot to pick up when it first arrives. I need multiple napkins to keep my sauce moustache under control as I eat. I’m thankful for the supplied baby wipes for my final mop-up.
Roast barbecue flavoured chicken from Vons Chicken
Our salad is mostly lettuce and heavy on the dressing. There are two creamy dressings drizzled criss-cross over the salad. The combined effect is like sweet chilli mayo with a pineapple bubblegum twist, which I find too sweet and overpowering as a salad dressing.
Salad at Vons Chicken
Vons Chicken isn’t cheap (or is that “isn’t cheep”?) – which may prevent it from becoming super-popular with the student crowd – but I hope to return to try the other varieties. The roast garlic chicken and black vinegar and soy sauce chicken are next on my list (I’ll pass on the salad).
Vons Chicken, Victoria Park
Vons Chicken opening hours
Lunch 12 to 2.30pm Tuesday to Saturday
Dinner 5.30 to 9.30pm Monday to Sunday
After our chicken dinner we cross the road to get dessert. After the salty-sweet chicken, some cold creamy gelato is exactly what we crave.
Cafe Gelato Photo Lab
Cafe Gelato Photo Lab used to be an ordinary photo processing shop until the owner added a cafe to the photo lab. Customers can now enjoy coffee, cake and gelato (I also spy macarons) as well as process their snapshots on the self-service photo print machines. Right now, I only have eyes for gelato, which is by Il Gelato.
That’s my lemon sorbet! Cafe Gelato Photo Lab, Victoria Park
Jac gets wildberry yoghurt, I get lemon sorbet. The cups are filled generously and we battle to eat quickly before it all melts into a sloppy mess.
Barbecue chicken and gelato, a great summer dinner combo! It’s been an evening of sticky but satisfying eating.
Wildberry yoghurt and lemon sorbet, Cafe Gelato Photo Lab, Victoria Park
Cafe Gelato Photo Lab opening hours
Monday to Friday 7am to 10pm
Saturday 8am to 10pm
Sunday 12pm to 10pm
My all-time favourite gelato is the durian gelato at Amore Gelato on James Street in Northbridge. The durian gelato is stored out the back, so as not to taint the other gelato flavours nor offend the majority of customers with its pungent aroma. It’s made with real durian and satisfies all my cravings. Much to Jac’s horror, it’s my favourite dessert to get whenever we’re in Northbridge.
What’s your favourite gelato?
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