Nightlife and Vegemite (Slightly NSFW)

My best friend in elementary school lunched on Vegemite sandwiches daily. He used, as I recall, some sort of oval-shaped bread — French, perhaps, or sourdough. Two thick slices of bread concealed a veneer of brown, sticky substance between them. He never tired of Vegemite. His mother hailed from Australia, and his father once beat Bobby Fischer in chess. The chess part probably had no influence on the contents of Andrew’s brown bags, but the Australian part certainly did.

Here we are, my friend Andrew and I, circa 1979. Striking a pose on the left, I model a bowl cut, Bee Gees T-shirt, and neck chain. Andrew, the Viscount of Vegemite, stands less assertively on the right. Andrew holds a Coleco Electronic Quarterback, which (as he and I both knew) blew the LED lights off Mattel’s contemporary offering.

One year, for my birthday, Andrew gave me my own jar of Vegemite. He’d created such an allure, an exclusivity, that I jumped up and down when I unwrapped his gift. I squealed. I had my own jar of Vegemite! I’d joined the club! Why we never figured out to take me through a trial run before he made this investment escapes me. He could have spared a bite of one of his lunch sandwiches or slid me a spoonful during one of my numerous playdates at his home. Anything to secure the cost of importing this jar through mail order — they didn’t sell Vegemite in Bloomington, Indiana, in the 1970s.

The day after the party, alone and stoked, I snatched two slices of Wonder Bread. Using a butter knife, I painted a layer of Vegemite on one slice, slapped the slices together, and took a bite. Then I pantomimed a cat hacking up a hairball. That birthday jar may have broken my Vegemite virginity, but I immediately took a vow of Vegemite celibacy. I tossed the sammy in the trash, marveled that Andrew could eat that stuff, and vowed never to touch Vegemite again. I apologized to peanut butter for straying. That jar of Vegemite sat, untouched, until we moved to Oklahoma during my fourth-grade year.

After I moved, Andrew and I exchanged letters for a couple years, probably prompted by our mothers. The letters petered out as we tackled middle school, high school, college, and adulthood on separate paths. Had eggheads not invented the Internet, our story would likely have ended. I don’t remember who first reached out, but somehow we casually reconnected over email. He lived in New York City. I lived in Jacksonville, Florida. I learned he was the wag behind the NSFW Parents magazine cover. We caught up on our mutual acquaintances. I told him a little about my children. And we settled into a roughly annual exchange of birthday greetings. We share a birthday month.

In May 2022, Sherry and I traveled to New York City for our 30th wedding anniversary. We strolled through Central Park, watched a couple Broadway musicals, and bought squid ink pasta from Eataly. We planned to eat Sunday brunch with our niece, who lived in NYC, but those plans fell through the Thursday before. Remembering that Andrew lived in Brooklyn, I reached out on a whim to see if he could fill our Sunday brunch schedule gap. He could, and we made plans to meet.

Sunday morning, Sherry and I visited the World Trade Center Memorial:

Sobered, we then walked to TriBeCa for brunch. We met Andrew and his girlfriend Xina, pronounced “ZEE-nuh” and short for Christina, at a Laotian restuarant called Khe-Yo. Sadly, they closed last June. Pity — the food was delicious. We ate outdoors, under covered awnings along Duane Street near West Broadway. The awnings still exist, according to Google Street View:

Andrew and Xina introduced us to sticky rice, which we dipped in various sauces and ate with our fingers. We filled our bellies and felt culturally enriched. We reminisced about growing up Hoosiers, caught each other up on our lives, and discussed current events. We learned that his father had passed away four years before, and that his mother had returned to live in Melbourne, Australia. We jabbered away, the conversation less about years peeling back to expose a childhood friendship and more about discovering a grownup bond. The shared experiences of our youth made the introductions, but an adult friendship emerged. We had a delightful time, and talked so much that Sherry and I almost missed curtain-up for Hamilton. We said our goodbyes, vowed to stay in touch, and said we’d block more time the next time we were in NYC.

Here we are, with far less hair than in 1979, outside the restaurant. I’ll let you guess who is who.

Fast-forward to August, 2024. Our first morning in Australia, we went for brekky at The Coffee Club by Russ and Jhett’s place. Sherry ordered Vegemite on gluten-free toast. Realizing my adult taste buds had yet to try Vegemite, and deciding my monkish vow had likely expired, I took a small bite of her toast. The bite was so small that I could hardly taste the Vegemite, but large enough that I technically had eaten some. I texted Andrew to tell him I was sitting in a cafe in Melbourne with my son, eating Vegemite, and I sent this picture as evidence:

I should have also sent him a picture of the actual toast! Here it is, in Sherry’s grip:

Andrew replied that he’d been in Melbourne the previous month! I’d just missed him! He offered to share some restaurant recommendations, if I would like, and I responded with an unqualified yes. He sent the following list:

If you can’t read the image, here’s the list, with links to the restaurants’ websites:

• Madame Brussels
• Amarillo
• Tamura Sake Bar
• Naked For Satan
• Serai
• Tonka
• Supernormal
• Lucy Liu Kitchen and Bar

I started reading the list to myself. “Madame Brussels … sounds like sprouts … Amarillo … Texas-themed? Boots, spurs, and a T-bone? … Tamura Sake Bar … sake sounds good … Naked for What the hell???” Is he serious? He’s putting me on, right? Nobody names a restaurant “Naked For Satan”! I mean, when you’re talking food, you might see a “Naked” every here and there to declare fresh, unadulterated food. I’m thinking of Naked Juice: “Without artificial flavors or added sugars.” You can even subscribe to a magazine that focuses on whole-food, plant-based nutrition called Naked Food. When referring to food, “naked” connotes health, purity, wholesomeness. But then you pair it with “Satan”? That’s not wholesome. Now you’re talking about some sort of hedonic, orgiastic, demonic sex club. “He’s just trying to see if I’m paying attention!” I thought. You already know, from the Parents magazine cover, that Andrew has a wicked sense of humor. I decided that he was pulling my leg.

I noticed that he’d added a note to his Naked For Satan recommendation: “good food, drinks, and vibe, excellent rooftop.” “He’s really selling this gag,” I thought. Playing it straight, I texted him back and thanked him for the list. Then we started figuring out which restaurants we could mesh into our plans.

If you’ve read my other Australia trip posts, you know that we got Covid, which cut our nightlife opportunities in half. Russ had also put together some must-do activities, and those ate up some other nights. Also, at our age, we wear out early. After a day of adventure, we’re often ready for a night in. We had only a few nights to go out, and our dance card had mostly filled up. Still, we managed to find an empty night after we’d shrugged off Covid, and we actually had energy, so we decided to go out. Russ still had Covid, so he didn’t join us. Sherry and I decided to visit one of Andrew’s recommendations. Which one? I figured I had a choice: when people ask me about my Australian vacation, I could have one of the following stories to tell:

1. “My irreverent friend tried to trick us into going to a restaurant with a scary name. We didn’t fall for it. Instead, we went to a restaurant called ‘Madame Brussels’ and ate sprouts. Wholesome and nutritious.”
2. “Our friend gave us the skinny, and we dipped into a restaurant called Naked For Satan. Great call! It was amazing! Great food and drinks! We loved the vibe! And the rooftop views were amazing! Yes, Naked For Satan. Like it sounds. S-A-T-A-N. No, we kept our clothes on. What a night!”

Easy decision. We called Andrew’s bluff and Ubered to Naked For Satan. It sits in Fitzroy, a hipster area known for street art and live music. This article about Fitzroy uses words like “eclectic” and “bohemian.” You know, those code words that mean lots of LGTBQ+ people live there, so it oozes creativity, beauty, diversity, and kindness. If you were going to open a restaurant called Naked For Satan somewhere in Melbourne, you’d put it in Fitzroy. For reference, here are some shots we took in Fitzroy on a previous day, including one of Russ and Jhett walking hand-in-hand in broad daylight, feeling safe in a way they’d never feel in Florida:

We eased into the restaurant, cautious and ready to bolt at any sign of sex-crazed cult. Everything looked pretty normal, though — bohemian, yes, but no whips and chains, no blood-streaked walls, no cackling demons approaching with outstretched pens and contracts for our souls. Not that the place was entirely innocent — one of the first things you see when you walk through the door are pictures of naked people plastering the walls. The pictures come from another era, and some of them from the era before that. Yellowed pinups you can imagine soldiers passing around in Vietnam. Black-and-whites of pants-less strongmen. Women in beehives and men with sideburns. You knew everyone pictured had either died or were taking their grandchildren to the zoo on weekday mornings. Who could lust after a grandparent, much less a dead person? You can see a picture that Sherry took. Look or don’t look, but your pulse won’t quicken either way.

We shunned the open tables on the ground floor — we’d come for the rooftop views — and ascended to the top floor. The indoor seating area was shaped in a rectangle, and the outdoor seating ran along two of its sides. Heaters roared by the outside tables to ward off the winter’s night chill. One row of outside tables faced the dingy wall of the adjacent building. Those tables sat empty. Another row of tables, perpendicular to the first, faced the Melbourne skyline. Those tables brimmed with patrons. We settled on a table inside. The layout looked like this:

As with many Australian restaurants, no waiters came to our table to take our order. Instead, we walked to the bar to choose both food and drink. A sign hanging from the front of the bar announced a couple drink specials:

“The Dark Spritz” caught my eye. Though I’ve never had Montenegro, I’d discovered the delight of a pre-dinner Aperol Spritz when we visited Italy in 2022. I assumed The Dark Spritz would taste similar. I read its list of ingredients, wondering if “dark soda” meant Coca-Cola or some nefarious concoction. Sherry interrupted my musing by saying, “Oh, look! Frankenstein’s Pizza!” She’d just plopped a huge dilemma on my lap. The marriage contract stipulates that you alert your spouse to anything that might embarrass them in public: a scrap of spinach caught between teeth, a shred of toilet paper stuck to a shoe, a nonsensical drink order launched confidently, joyfully, at a bartender. Should I breach this contract? How could I deprive the bartender of the opportunity to field an order for a “Frankenstein’s Pizza”? How could I cheat myself from witnessing the look that would certainly flood his face? As I quickly weighed my options, I realized what I had to do. I had no choice, really. No point in a breach — Sherry wasn’t going to order that drink anyway. She’s no fan of Aperol. Might as well share a laugh. I leaned toward her, as if to divulge a secret, and said, “If you order that drink, might as well call it ‘Frankenstein’s Fizz.’” She looked at me, looked at the sign, and we laughed and had our moment. Maybe not as sweet as what the bartender would have said had she ordered the Frankenstein’s Pizza, but I also didn’t have to sleep on the rooftop, without heaters, that night.

I, on the other hand, did order the Frankenstein’s Fizz, though I didn’t get creative with the name. How else could I find out what “wonderfoam” is? Sherry got the Brokeback Mountain: Naked’s peach vodka, apple juice, and lime. The straw and the sprig made mine look Christmasy. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t green, but at least it contained no pepperoni.

After scanning the food menu, we opted for tapas. We ordered the Baked Camembert (with gluten-free toast) and the Grilled Beef Eye Fillet Skewers. The camembert arrived nestled on a Naked For Satan plate, and the skewers on a wooden cutting board.

Clearly, one of us jumped the gun on the skewers. The dish had arrived with one more beef eye than shown above, and the sauce hadn’t been traipsed through. Someone couldn’t wait for the photo.

We dug in. Any baked cheese is going to be delicious, and the camembert was no exception. The beef skewers, however, would make Gordon Ramsay swoon in ecstasy, and promise to never swear again. Tender, moist, and flavorful, the filets melted in our mouths. The sauce provided the perfect tang to enhance the overall flavor. As we finished the beef, we knew we’d be ordering one more cutting board before the night ended.

We looked around the restaurant, soaking in the vibe. It was definitely cool. Cooler than we are. Younger than we are. We might have been too old for this place, but we were also too old to care whether we fit in. A cackle of twenty-something women took the table beside us, loud and unabashed. We struggled not to overhear their conversations, and somewhat succeeded. They didn’t care how broadly their conversations wafted. I couldn’t tell if this was a bachelorette party or just a girls’ night out. They clearly felt a sisterhood, though, comfortable with each other and with themselves. They broke out a deck of cards and started dealing hands of Crazy Eights — a game, coincidentally, that I played long ago with my friend Andrew before Uno came along, commercialized the game, and made a zillion bucks. When we clocked that we were tempted to ask them to deal us in, we walked outside and discovered an now-empty table with a good view. We knew we weren’t cool enough for their table or their game. Or maybe we just realized how much our ears hurt.

Once outside, we ordered another round and another plate of skewers. We enjoyed both as we took in the lights of the Melbourne downtown skyline. To commemorate the evening, I took a picture of my salad plate with the Naked For Satan logo. I later learned that Andrew, on his visit, asked if he could purchase a salad plate. They enthusiastically sold him one. I’m jealous I didn’t think of that.

We finished our drinks and skewers and wound down our night as everyone else wound theirs up. They were young, we were old. We’d had our fun, and theirs was starting. We’d downed our drinks and tapas, and were ready to head back to our rental and go to bed. Before we left, though, we had someone take our picture with the skyline in the background:

Andrew was right. Excellent rooftop.

A few days later, we stood in front of a pastry case deciding on brekky. Those round, swirled pastries that we in the U.S. call “rolls,” as in “cinnamon rolls,” Australians call “scrolls.” The Australian name is superior, frankly. Not only more descriptive, it also describes an entire category of baked good. You can pair the unambiguous “scroll” with any number of flavors, and everyone knows you’re talking about the confection in the shape of a snail’s shell. I decided to get a scroll. I’d already eaten too many sweets, as one does on vacation, so I went savory and ordered the Vegemite and cheese scroll. I paid, sat at a table, braced myself, and took a bite. “Not bad,” I thought. Another bite had me thinking, “This is actually pretty good.” I ended up eating, and enjoying, the whole scroll. “Maybe I could even start eating Vegemite sandwiches for lunch,” I thought. But only if served on a Naked For Satan salad plate. I’ll have to plan a trip to NYC to borrow Andrew’s.