Totally Addicted To Taste

Three Bags Full

2010-12-02T22:02:00.005+11:00

56 Nicholson St
Abbotsford, 3067
www.threebagsfullcafe.com

There's something about Three Bags Full that is just cool. Damn cool.
I thought at first that the flocks of people that come through the doors were only there because there wasn't any other decent cafe around Abbotsford. Whilst this is true, there's something more to TBF that at first I couldn't put my finger on. Then as I looked around the room and started to put all the pieces together.
There's the antique Tolix Chairs. Not the replicas that all the other cafes are using, but the real deal.. There's the bare globes dangling from the ceiling. There's the bright yellow highlights around the room. The old warehouse walls are garnished with artwork; rubbings of ladies undergarments. The big factory style windows brighten the room. Flowers on the tables bring a touch of elegance to the old factory room.

A glance down at the other end of our communal table and we spied an ex-Masterchef contestant. Another look across to the constant flow of people coming through the door- early on a Monday morning and we spot local comedian Josh Thomas. It seems that even the local celebs think highly of this place.

I ordered the smashed peas, ricotta, tomato vinaigrette with poached egg on sourdough. What an awesome warm weather breakfast. Fresh peas on toast, with runny poached eggs on top. Very Cool!

The coffee is sensational. It was strong on the morning we visited, but it's not too bitter and not too milky. There's not many coffees around town that I actually really like, but these guys make my favourite so far!

The staff, some of which I recognise from the owners other cafe in Alphington - APTE.
Despite the popularity of the cafe early on a Monday, staff are friendly and efficient, even somewhat bubbly! A hard one to pull off on a Monday!

So, what is it about this place that makes it so cool? I think it's everything. They seem to have gotten all the little details 'just right.' From the food to the service, to the decor to the Hilltop Hoods being played on the speakers. Very cool. I can see why this place is always busy. If you have to wait for a table, trust me when I say it's worth the wait.

Purple Peanuts

2010-11-25T22:00:00.005+11:00

620 Collins St
Melbourne, 3000

The Spencer St end of Collins st used to be completely void of any type of decent lunchtime eating spot, other than a couple of food courts which sold your standard 'lemon chicken' and 'tropical rice' dishes from a Bain Marie. These days it's a totally different part of town. There are creperies, fish n chip shops, fancy sandwich shops and now there is a Japanese place to tell your workmates about.

Purple Peanuts recently opened in the shop that used to house Boost Juice. But apparently not a lot of people were all that keen on Boost down that end of the city and they seemed to much prefer to line up for the Krispy Kremes Doughnuts across the road. So Boost juice lasted about a year or so to make way for a few other asian food stores that didn't seem to do much trade.

In it's most recent form, the store houses a top little Japaese joint - Purple Peanuts. It's primarily a take away place, but there are a few tables and chairs in case you would like to sit down and watch people lining up for their lunch. Purple peanuts seems to be following a very similar menu format to that of Don Don / Don Too. Basically keeping it simple with only a few menu items like Chicken Teriyaki and Chicken Curry. Also keeping it cheap is a priority too.

They also sell various forms of Inari, which all look delicious, different types of handrolls, as well as different types of Onigiri. The Onigiri they sell here is different to the type I tried in Japan. It appears to be deep fried and look more like an Arancini ball than the Japanese Rice Ball that I'm used to. I was keen to try one of these, but they were sitting right out on the counter, just at mouth height, and I'm not a fan of food that has, possibly been sneezed on or coughed on by someone waiting in line, so I passed on those. This time, anyway.

I went with the Chicken Teriyaki option ($8.50) and I got it to take away. Back at my office I opened up my container and was pleasantly surprised. The chicken looked great. Although, it didn't appear to have those little charcoalie / crispy type bits that I love so much about the Don Don version. But the chicken was tender, the sauce was a little sweet like Teriyaki should be. The salad that you get with your meal is better than the salads you would get a Don Don. I love the sesame dressing they use on it here and the nicely cooked beans. You also get a decent portion of rice with your meal.

Unfortunately, my office has moved across to Docklands now, but Purple Peanuts is still just close enough to Docklands for me to wander over now and then, for some pretty awesome Japanese Lunch treats. Considering the line out the door yesterday when I walked past, it seems that I'm not the only one who is a fan!

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VinTam's Bakery - Docklands Challenge

2010-11-24T22:23:00.005+11:00

Shop 109, 111 Merchant St

Docklands VIC

My team at work has been moved from the CBD out to Docklands. So I've gone from having amazing lunch places around me to having mostly crappy cafes, that no self respecting food lover would ever purchase anything from. However, I am determined to find some good places to eat around Docklands and I'm sure there are lots of people out there who are keen to hear about some decent places too. So, I'm going to share with you any good places that I find.

Some mates at the office had told me about a little Footscray Style Vietnamese Bakery, just around the corner from work. I wandered down today at lunchtime and discovered that they are a Pho joint!

I promptly ordered myself a bowl ($9) of Rare Beef Pho. I was very pleased to see that the big bowl was served with the traditional Thai Basil, Bean Shoots, Chilli and Lemon.
This Pho was as good as any you'd have in Footscrazy or Richmond. Only difference being that I didn't find the need to add any fish sauce. All of the ones in Richmond I find lacking any salt, so I need to add some fish sauce. Maybe these guys add a nice dash of MSG to brighten things up a bit!

VinTam also sells Vietnamese Pork and Chicken Rolls for about $5 - $6. Definitely keen to get back there and check those out. Am so rapt that I can have Pho for lunch now. Couldn't get that where I was in the CBD, either!

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The Farm Cafe ( Collingwood Children's Farm )

2010-11-24T21:53:00.002+11:00

18 St Heliers Street

Abbotsford VIC 3067
http://farmcafe.com.au/

Nestled amongst the trees, animals and alongside one of Melbourne's busiest bike trails (capital city trail) is The Farm Cafe - just next to the reception of Collingwood Children's Farm.
Looking out towards the chickens is this lovely little, mostly outdoor cafe. There's no table service, not much shelter if it's raining, but on a nice day, this awesome cafe is packed! Families stop off here before or after visiting the animals at the farm and bike riders stop off, for some breakky or lunch to fuel them on their travels.

The menu reads as you would expect a menu to read at the Children's farm. Lots of Free Range, organic, Bio-Dynamic, Sustainable ingredients make up the delicious dishes that are on offer here.

We visited on a Sunday morning about 9.30am and the place was already full of kids and their parents. Being outdoors though, the kids aren't too much of a drama as there's no walls for their yelling to bounce off.

You order at the counter and take a number. Usually that's not so cool, but here it works well.

Em orders the 'Goat's Toast'. Sourdough toast, beetroot relish, baby spinach & avocado
topped with marinated goats cheese $15 or with a poached egg $16.50. The beetroot relish was something out of the ordinary and pretty amazing. Goat's Cheese and eggs seem to just live in harmony together - well in my opinion anyway. Em also ordered bacon to go with her breakky, since it all sounded a little too healthy! She loved the breakky.

I ordered the Slow Cooked Beans, in a tomato & fennel seed sauce with marinated fetta & fresh herbs served with sourdough toast $10.50 with a poached egg $12. These beans were really good. Not quite as good as the first ones I had at Fenix, but they were up there. It was quite a big serve too, I couldn't even finish it.

So, if it's a nice day and you feel like a little venure down to The Farm Cafe, you'll be very happy with the food and you'll even be happier with the view. You wouldn't even know that you were about 4km to Melbourne's CBD.

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Jim's Greek Tavern

2010-11-22T07:27:00.004+11:00

32 Johnston St, Collingwood, Vic

So, where do you go in Melbourne if you want the best Greek food around? The famous Jim's Greek Tavern of course!
Well, that statement would have been true about 20 years ago. But these days Jim's Greek Tavern is far from the best Greek Food in Melbourne. In recent years with the addition of restaurants like George Colambares' traditional Hellenic Republic and the more modern Press Club, the standards have been raised.
When people go to restaurants like Tetsuya's, Vue De Monde, Quay, etc, you spend quite a bit of money. But it's all ok, because it's "an experience." Well if you want an experience, Jim's is one of those. I can't say it will be one that you will cherish forever, but it will be an experience.
If you've never been to Jim's, it's decor is still very much from the early 80's with apparently very little being done to it since then. The only difference to the staff from back then is less hair and what's left is a little more grey.

The staff bounce around like they're at their only daughter's wedding night. It would be good if that energy went into checking on their customers though.
Don't expect a menu when you arrive at Jim's. We got a "what would you like?" and our response was, "what have you got?" So, basically the waiter tells you what's being served that evening - there's a few choices when it comes to the type of fish and how you would like your meat cooked. It all sounds great! Be warned though, there are no visible prices anywhere and Jim's isn't all that cheap! You feel a bit stingy asking what the price of each item is, when it is offered to you, so you just go with the flow.

We started with the Saganaki. This came out far too quickly to be prepared especially for us, so it had been sitting there for at least a few minutes before it was bought to our table. You could tell because the cheese was rubbery and stodgy - the was saganaki goes if it isn't served straight from the heat. Lemon juice helps to reduce the richness of the cheese.

Next was some dips, which when you walk in, you can see come from a big bain marie style cooler on the counter. You would find better dips in the fridge at the supermarket to be honest. The bread however that is homemade, is pretty awesome. Nothing like fresh home made bread to soak up all those oils and juices!

Next up were scallops. These were actually delicious. They weren't all that much to look at and look like they are way over cooked, but they tasted nothing of the sort. They were tender, zesty with some lemon and really, really good with the bread! Definitely the highlight.

Next was the whiting. I chose the whiting out of the choices that we were offered, because whiting for some reason screams Greek to me. Not sure what it is. Maybe it's the fishermen that I used to see down at the Warmies when I was a kid, pulling the whiting in. The fish was excellent, minimal bones, not overcooked. However one piece of whiting for $32 was an absolute joke. We didn't realise the price until the bill came at the end. I saw whiting the next day for $5kg at vic market. The fish had just been seared in a pan.

Lastly came the lamb. You would think after cooking lamb for more than 20 years at this same restaurant to so many happy punters, you would think that these guys would have perfected it! Guess what? Not even close. The lamb was almost cold when it came to us. It was dry, dry, dry. And although it wasn't chewy, it was verging on unpleasant to eat. You needed a drink to help wash it down. Which wasn't helped by me having to ask the waiter 3 times for the coke that I ordered. The lamb doesn't even come with any type of garlic sauce or anything like that to help ease the dryness.

Overall, Jim's was a massive disappointment. The service is half arsed, the food is definitely not up to Melbourne's standard. If I was looking for greek food in the future, I'd definitely look elsewhere. The one thing that seems crazy though, is that this place is chockas! There wasn't a spare seat in the house and from my understanding it's like that on most weekends. No idea why, but they must have ordered different food to me. Or maybe it's the atmosphere that reminds them of home... if home has vomit on the stairs leading to the toilet.

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Coin Laundry

2010-11-15T14:53:00.005+11:00

61 A Armadale StreetArmadale, 3143

"Do you have a dollar, do you have a dollar for me?" - sung Lisa Mitchell in her song Coin Laundry. Well Lisa, I'm sorry, but if you need to scab a dollar from one of the punters at the fairly new Coin Laundry Cafe in Armadale, then you're probably eating out in the wrong area.

The customers at Coin Laundry, don't appear to be hard up for a dollar. That's probably because their modelling careers have taken off. The same could be said for the staff that work here too. The 2 male baristas look like something off the cover of Men's Health Magazine. While one of the female waitresses could easily be Australia's next 'it' girl. You would think that it would be hard to relax in a place like this, without worrying if you had a hair out of place or left some latte froth on your top lip. However, that's not the case.

Coin Laundry is suprisingly relaxed and laid back. The staff, despite their insane good looks, are very friendly and professional too. The room is sun-filled with massive windows looking out onto the swanky Armadale terraces. I reckon I can barely afford breakfast here, let alone one of those houses. But again, that's not the case! Breakfast is reasonably priced, which is why I guess the well to do, penny pinching locals love this place so much.

The menu doesn't go out of it's way to be different though, with everything on there sounding tasty, but very middle of the road. Considering the amount of amazing cafes in Melbourne at the moment, I was suprised to see a cafe of this calibre serving your standard poached eggs with bacon and rocket on top.

I ordered the Grilled Champagne Ham with Fontina Cheese on thick cut Noisette Sourdough with Roasted Roma Tomato and Torn Basil ($11.50) plus I ordered a poached egg on top ($3).

The Noisette bread was excellent as is everything I've tried of their's (especially their Olive Bread!). The fontina cheese looked a bit odd, kind of spread on the bread, looking a little like cream cheese. The poached egg, was perfectly poached and the tomato was nicely roasted. However the skin was left on. No big deal, but it would be nicer if they went to the effort of removing the skin. It was pretty tasty, but it's one of those things that you sit there and look at and go "I could have just made this at home and not driven all the way to Armadale." Which is exactly what I said.

Em ordered the Scrambled eggs with Bacon, Smashed Acovado and Rocket ($unk). Again, your standard cafe fare. Em noted that it was decent, but the scrambled eggs didn't have much flavour to them. However, I must point out that since I introduced Em to Bill's Scrambled Eggs in Sydney, nothing has quite met their standard. The 'smashed' Avocado has some lemon through it and maybe a bit of olive oil, which gave it's slightly runnier consistancy.

Em has a theory, that the better looking the barista, the better the coffee. Coin Laundry was apparently keeping up with this theory. Coin Laundry's coffee according to Em was pretty darn good! Their tea menu was fairly disappointing however, with only your stock standard Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Chai and Green. I wish cafes would show as much interest in the teas that they sell, as the coffee that they sell.

Overall, I reckon Coin Laundry would be a top local choice if you lived nearby. The staff are friendly and efficient, the food is decent, but it's not somewhere that I personally would be racing across town to re-visit. I think there are much more interesting options that I will be visiting before heading back there.

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DIY - Proud Mary's Potato Hash, Egg, Bacon, Spinach and Bagna Cauda

2010-09-27T21:29:00.006+10:00

I found this recipe in Jamie Oliver's most recent issue of his magazine. He paid a visit to Proud Mary and proclaimed that it served the best coffee he had ever tried - period!

I've eaten this breakfast many, many times at the very popular Proud Mary cafe in Collingwood. I particularly love their Bagna Cauda sauce, which they serve with the perfectly cooked eggs and crunchy, yet soft potato hash. The sauce isn't as salty as you might think. The anchovies just provide the perfect seasoning with a bit of that lovely anchovy fishyness. Boiling the 8 garlic cloves in milk, also somewhat tones down the garlic flavour.

The trick to this breakky is all about timing. You'll need to have about 4 or 5 pans on the go at the same time, so if you enjoy a bit of pressure before breakfast on a weekend, this is a fun one to have a go at! Pity I can't make coffee at home as good as the one Jamie had at Proud Mary!

Serves 4

*4 Desiree Potatoes, peeled and halves
*1/4 Bunch chives, finely chopped, plus extra to serve
*About 50g of Butter, melted, plus 30g extra for the spinach
*12 Rashers of Streaky Bacon
4 Handfuls of Baby Spinach
4 Eggs

Bagna Cauda
8 Garlic Cloves
150ml Milk
25g Anchovies in a little oil
50ml single cream
1 small sprig of rosemary

1 Boil the potatoes in salted water until almost cooked, then drain, steam dry and set aside to cool. Do not overcook - you'll be grating the potatoes and want to grate into strands, not collapse. When the potatoes are cold, frate on the thick side of a box grater, Place in a mixing bowl and combine with the chives, then season well. Shape the mixture into 4 patties.

2 Get a pan of water on the boil, ready to poach your eggs. Place the potato cakes into a hot frying pan or grill plate. Flatted them down, spoon over a little melted butter and cook for 3 - 5 minutes, until crisp and golden underneath. Flip and shape into flat squares.

3 For the bagna cauda, simmer the garlic in 100ml of milk for about 5 minutes until soft, then remove with a slotted spoon, discarding the milk. Blend the anchovies, garlic, cream and 50ml of milk with a hand blender until smooth. Transfer to a pan then simmer the sauce with the rosemary until it thickens very slightly, keep warm.

4 Cook the bacon to your liking in another pan, wilt the spinach with the 30g butter and some black pepper. Poach your eggs.

5 To serve, place a potato hash on each plate. Top with a poached egg, then bacon and spinach. Drizzle generously with the hot bagna cauda.

Written On Tea, Sandy Bay, Tasmania

2010-09-22T22:45:00.003+10:00

Nearly every Friday night here in Melbourne, Em and I head off to our favourite asian restaurant in Victoria St, Richmond. Since we were on holidays in Hobart, we obviously weren't going to be able to pop down to Victoria St. So our little Gourmet Traveller 2011 Australian Restaurant Guide came in handy once again.

We headed back to Sandy Bay, about 20 meters from another restaurant we visited earlier in the trip Shoga. The place was called Written On Tea. It was a strange little place, half of it in one room seemed like a really nice, swanky bar or restaurant and the other room, seemed like one of the cheaper unrenovated take away places on Victoria St, Richmond. Despite us making a booking, we were still seated in the dodgier looking, colder room at the front. On the positive side, at least we were getting a real Victoria St experience, in Tasmania!

We started with the Pan Fried Pork Dumplings. They were sticky little Gyoza type parcels, however somewhere along the line, somebody forgot to pan fry our pan-fried dumplings. They were as good as any I'd had in Melbourne - minus the lack of pan frying.

These little dumplings that we had next were very similar to the Shao-long Bao that you get at Hu-Tong in Melbourne. In fact, they could have been Shao-long Bao, because they had that little bit of broth in the bottom that burns your whole face when you bite into them and they explode!
They weren't quite up to the standard of Hu-Tong, but they were definately up there. After eating all the Gyoza type dumplings it was a bit of a struggle getting through these!

Finally we ordered some Duck with Basil and steamed rice. This was probably some of the best duck I've ever eaten. It was really delicious. The duck was lovely and tender. However, the basil wasn't what I was expecting. It was Italian style Basil, rather than Thai style Basil - which I found to be a bit odd, but seemed to work ok. Maybe they just read the recipe wrong? A tasty dish all the same.

The service left a lot to be desired, whilst most of the staff were friendly enough, they definitely weren't attentive and I had to get up to go to the counter to ask if I could order our food.
The room we were seated in was pretty cold, because the front door kept being opened for people coming in to get take away. We would have preferred to have been seated in the nicer room, especially since we'd make a booking. At one stage one of the waitresses came to us and said "ok, your table is ready now", so we thought we were getting moved to the good room. But the boss lady told the waitress off and we were told that the waitress made a mistake.

The food overall was above average and would fit in very nicely in Melbourne's China town. The prices were very reasonable and if you're after a cheap night out and aren't concerned about sitting in a not so sexy restaurant, then Written On Tea is a top spot.

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Choga, Sandy Bay, Tasmania

2010-09-22T21:53:00.004+10:00

1/4 Russell Crs, Sandy Bay, Tasmania (03) 6224 4570

This was my first introduction to Korean food and I’d have to say that I was a fan! We’d heard that Choga do the best Bibimbap in Tasmania. By just looking at the tiny restaurant from the inside or outside, you probably wouldn’t believe that. But then again, how much competition around Hobart can they really have?

It was a freezing cold day outside, so a Bibimbap was definitely called for. If you’ve never had Bibimbap before, I found it to be I guess like a Korean Special Fried Rice. It’s sizzling rice in a piping hot bowl. Common toppings according to Wikipedia are cucumber, zucchini, daikon, mushrooms, spinach, soybean sprouts or tofu. There will usually be some kind of meat on there too like beef, chicken or seafood. The other usual topping is either a fried egg or a raw egg yolk.

When the dish is served to you, it literally comes out sizzling. I mixed up my rice and toppings which basically left it looking just like the Special Fried Rice that most Australians would be used to. It was the perfect lunch to have, while it was freezing cold outside. It wasn’t too much warmer inside, so it was great to have a warming meal.

When you get to the bottom of the bowl, the rice that has been sizzling on the bottom of the bowl is golden and crispy and adds to the many textures already in the dish.

Since I’d never had Bibimbap before, I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but it was very, very tasty and I’d definitely head back to Choga if I was in town again and in the mood for some Bibimbap.

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Maedaya

2010-08-23T20:28:00.004+10:00

400 Bridge Road, Richmond, VIC
Phone (03) 9428 3918

After a recent trip to Japan, I couldn't get enough Japanese food. When we got back, I was making it at home, every single night. I was making it at home, rather than going out to a restaurant, because I knew that whatever I made would be more authentic than most of the Japanese you could get in a lot of the restaurants around town. I also didn't want bad Japanese food to taint my amazing memories of the beautiful food we ate in Japan.
So, before venturing out to any Japanese restaurants, I did a lot of asking around to find out where I could find the most authentic, best quality Japanese fare in town. There were lots of suggestions, but one name kept popping up. Maedaya.

Like Japan, the staff are extremely polite and friendly, always serving us with a smile. The best bit is, that just like Japan, all the staff start yelling out welcomes in Japanese as soon as you walk in the front door.

The mixed grill we ordered firstly consisted of 5 different skewers, each with different sauces and toppings. Some really excellent tastes here. However, the main thing I noticed was that the grill didnt seem to be as hot as the Yakitori bars would use in Japan. So the skewers didn't really have that smokey / charcoal flavour that gives it that extra depth. Delicious all the same.

Next up was chicken meatballs on skewers, again with different flavoured toppings.
I didn't loves these meatballs. The toppings were all very interesting, but the meatballs themselves had an odd powdery texture, which I wasn't a fan of. They weren't horrible by any means, but I probably wouldn't order them again.

Unagi! That's Japanese for Eel, of course! One of my favourites from Japan. Coated in that kind of sweet Teriyaki style sauce - excellent!

Next we ordered the Gyoza. Everyone loves a good Gyoza. These little dumplings which have been steamed and then pan fried, so that they have a crispy and also chewy texture. The Gyoza were excellent, however could have done with some more seasoning in the filling itself. I think most places seem to rely on the Soy sauce that you will add yourself as a seasoning.

One of my best eating experiences in Japan was eating authentic Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima. Whilst this Okonomiyaki, was cooked in a different style, I was still pretty impressed. It looked more like the ones you see in the crappy Bain Maries in shopping centre food courts. However, the taste and texture wouldn't compare. It was fantastic. That Japanese mayonnaise always makes anything taste better, anyway!

Even though we were stuffed beyond belief by this point, we ordered a dessert each. Here is the Mochi Ice cream. Basically a ball of ice cream which has been wrapped in Mochi dough and frozen, with a strawberry sauce drizzled over the top. So good. So Japan! I'd never seen Mochi until I went to Japan and this is the first time I'd seen it in Australia. Admittedly, I hadn't been looking.

Lastly was our Green Tea pudding with Black Sesame Ice Cream. Despite the unattractive colours of both the pudding and ice cream, this dessert was my favourite dish of the night. The pudding had that slight green tea taste and wasn't too heavy or sickly sweet - even though it looked like it might be. The Black sesame ice cream was the perfect accompaniment.

While not many places outside of Japan would ever compare to the experiences you have when you are actually over there, I'd say that Maedaya is the closest I've had to an authentic Japanese restaurant experience here in Melbourne. I'm sure there are plenty more. What are your favourites??

Cumulus Inc, Breakfast

2010-08-18T21:31:00.004+10:00

45 Flinders Ln, Melbourne Vic
(03) 9650 1445

Apparently everyone loves Cumulus Inc. I'd never been, so I thought I'd check it out for breakfast. The morning was one of Melbourne's coldest, windiest and wettest days we've had this year. For that reason, I thought we'd be a shoe in to get a table without a wait. Especially early on a Saturday morning.

At Cumulus Inc, it seemingly doesn't matter what the weather is like or what day it is. People will flock here, because it's meant to be 'that' good!
We waited about 20 minutes for a table, in the corner which is reserved for the waiting cattle. Cumulus is a big industrial room, with beautiful warehouse style windows looking out onto Flinders Lane.

We ordered the Ham and Cheese Toastie with relish and avocado ($14). I can't remember the fancy name of the cheese or the windswept location where the pig lived that the ham came from or which trendy bakery the bread came from. But as tasty as the toastie was, it was small. Not really what you'd expect for $14. You'd definitely need two to fill you up.

I'm sure the Lunches and Dinners here are better value, since the place is so popular. With so many breakfast places in Melbourne though, there's no room for places that don't provide value for money, because there are so many that do.

Fenix

2010-08-04T21:04:00.006+10:00

Gary Mehigan, Masterchef's seemingly cuddly, father-like figure has two restaurants to his name. Initially there was Fenix, which he part owned with Molecular Gastronomy wizard - Raymond Capaldi. Then came The Boat-House in Maribyrnong. A very family orientated restaurant, down by the river. Unfortunately, Gary and Raymond decided to part ways, which left Fenix at a bit of a loss, since Capaldi was a crucial element of what Fenix was famous for. After Capaldi's departure, for a number of years Fenix only ran as a functions centre. But then this year on Masterchef, we saw Gary wearing his chef whites, with the Fenix logo on the chest. Did this mean the re-opening of Fenix as a restaurant? Indeed it did!

Fenix in it's original form was loved as a cafe, just as much as it was as a restaurant. Locals would head to Fenix on a Saturday and Sunday morning and sit outside by the yarra, amongst the trees and enjoy some english style brunch.
I decided to surprise Em with a visit to Fenix, as she was a big Gary Mehigan fan whilst Masterchef was on television. She had never been to Fenix before and she definately didn't know that it had been re-opened.
We arrived at 9.30am on a wintery Melbourne Saturday morning to discover the only place to park in the vicinity is the Fenix carpark, which is part of the Victoria Gardens complex. This costs $5 for the whole day. This wasn't ideal.
At the restaurant, all of the table were free, except one. I asked the Barista behind the counter if we could just sit anywhere. He asked if we had a reservation. "umm, no, do we need one?" considering almost every single table was free, I would hope not. Someone came out from a back room and seated us at a lovely table near the window. The table cloths are crisp and white, the napkins are a natural brown and the chairs are Hans Wegner Wishbone style. The waitress is friendly, yet, like our surroundings, very, very formal. Not what I'm used to at a Saturday morning breakfast. When one of the waiters came by to top up our water (I think he was the manager) he spotted a group of people turning up at the restaurant. The people had prams and a couple of dogs. The (possible) manager muttered to us "great, my two favourite things dogs and babies!" Ok, I get the humour - but not very professional - especially considering that now I'm sitting here typing exactly what he said.

I ordered the Homemade Baked Beans, with smoked chorizo, farmhouse cheddar and baked free range egg ($16). I've eaten lots of baked beans around town and these by far were my standout favourites! Everything about them was perfect. The tomato sauce has a slight sweetness to it, which was perfect with the absolute best chorizo I have ever eaten. The chorizo was spicy and smokey. I tried to find out from the waitress where they source their chorizo, but she wasn't giving away any secrets. Served with the beans were two perfectly poached eggs and two pieces of toast. Pay attention now, because this matters later.

Em ordered the Eggs Flornetine. A simple breakfast, but she said it was some of the best eggs she's had in ages. Considering that we go out most weekends for breakfast, that's definately a compliment. The hollandaise sauce also appeared to be perfect and Em said that it didn't leave her tummy with that sickly feeling that Hollandaise sauce can sometimes give you.

So good was our breakfast at Fenix, that we recommended it to some good friends of ours. They were keen to try and we were keen to go back, so we went back the very next Sunday.
The next week, the atmosphere was the same - a little too highbrow for a Sunday morning if you ask me. It seems however, that not everything was the same in the kitchen at Fenix.

I again ordered those fantastic Baked Beans. Only this time it was like they spilt the sugar into the sauce. It was sweet, sickly sweet. It was almost so sweet that you could call it a dessert! Not cool. Also, it seems that despite the price remaining the same as last week ($16), this week, I only got one poached egg and one piece of toast! Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I do recall the judges on Masterchef rabbiting on about consistency in the kitchen.

One of our friends ordered the Fenix Breakfast (Grilled bacon, oven baked roma tomato, homemade hash brown, gourmet sausage choice of scrambled or poached eggs - $20). The sausage was cut open only to discover it was very undercooked on the inside. We had to send the sausage back to the kitchen to be cooked further.

The most shocking part of breakfast was yet to come. Em wasn't feeling too good, so she chose to only order toast with Jam, which wasn't on the menu. The kitchen was only too happy to accommodate. However, when it came time for us to pay the bill, we checked the cost of the 2 pieces of toast with jam. It came to $10! Yes, you heard correctly, $10!! I can buy 3 loaves of amazing Babka bread for that price.

So, the first week we visited we had one of the best breakfasts we've had in ages - perfectly executed. And then, the next week, the complete opposite. Undercooked, over sweetened and overpriced food! It's amazing how a bad experience can completely outweigh even the best of experiences - like the one we had the previous week. So much so, that I won't be hurrying back to Fenix again for breakfast any time soon. And given that dinners are not cheap either, I'll probably avoid those in fear of inconsistent food.

Oh, and if you don't want to pay $5, we discovered that you can park across victoria st in one of the office building car parks for free. They are closed on the weekend, so there's nobody around to get upset that you're parking in their spot.

Satiate, Bangalow

2010-07-27T21:05:00.006+10:00

www.ate.net.au

33 Byron St, Bangalow 2479 - ph. 02 6687 1010

Last year when I was in Byron Bay, I'd heard about a restaurant, just down the road in Bangalow, called Satiate. I'd heard that the chef at Satiate was trained by the famous Australian / Japanese chef Tetsuya Wakuda. Unfortunately, last time I was there, I'd ran out of time and didn't get a chance to make it to Satiate.
So, this year, Satiate was on the top of our list of places to eat and boy were we glad that we found the time to visit!
We visited right in the middle of Winter, on our way home from Japan. It seems that everything in and around Byron - including Bangalow slows down during the cooler months. Probably something to do with the fact that there are very few tourists around at that time of the year. Satiate itself was only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights during Winter. We thought because it was only open for a few nights a week we would have trouble securing a booking, when calling only the day before. But lucky for us, we scored a table on the Thursday night!
We arrived to a very, very quiet downstairs restaurant, from my understanding the downstairs restaurant is more of a casual affair than upstairs. Downstairs is named Ate, whereas upstairs is named Satiate, which is the slightly more posh part of the restaurant.
Our waitress showed us upstairs to the restaurant. As we walked up the stairs, the chef (he was literally the only person in the kitchen - no kitchen hands or anything that we saw) said G'day to us. We were seated at our table and realised we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. Whilst I've never encountered that situation before and it was slightly unusual, it did infact feel very luxurious to have the whole room just to ourselves.
The menu on offer was a 5 course tasting menu for $65. That sounded like fantastic value if you ask me.

To start was an item not listed on the menu. I can't remember the fish that was in there, but I'm pretty sure it might have been kingfish. An awesome little start to our dinner. Crispy won-ton like cones filled with tasty raw fish. There was something very familiar about this little dish. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.

Cured ocean trout and prawn with Horseradish emulsion, seaweed sand, cucumber and trout roe.

An amazingly vibrant, fresh dish. It looks all a bit of a mess on the plate, but at the same time had a certain prettiness about it. I loved the slightly spicy horseradish foam, but wasn't such a fan of the 'seaweed sand' as there was still quite a few chunky bits in it, which we couldn't eat. Great dish overall though.

Queensland Spanner Crab, Buckwheat and Shell Fish Stock

A lovely little dish, kind of like a risotto, but made with Buckwheat. Full of serious flavour and an interesting texture of the grains, especially when you're so used to the texture of risotto. Something I'd definately be keen to try making at home.

Queensland Scallops with Bangalow Pork, Kahlrabi Puree and roasted Quinoa

Wow. Perfectly cooked scallops slightly raw in the middle. Slow cooked, pulled pork, simply delicious. Amazing winter flavours.

Brined Bangalow Duck, Pickled Baby Vegetables, Organic Garlic, Soil

I'd never eaten Brined Duck before, but this meat was definately the highlight of the meal. Lovely pink duck meat, which was deliciously tangy. I really loved it. The 'soil' was a kind of biscuity ingredient, that had been crumbled. The pickled vegetables were beautiful, however the spring onion, was a little unpleasant to eat. A beautifully presented dish.

Cheese Course

Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what the cheese course consisted of. It wasn't actually part of the tasting menu and it mentioned it was an additional fee. Another bonus course, just like the first one. Win! I do remember that the dish was delicious. Two types of cheese with honey. Yum!

Hot Valrhona Chocolate Bubble, Hazlenut Croquette, Onion Crumbs

Like a freeform chocolate mousse set on the plate. The chocolate bubble, was rich, dark and so good. The crispy biscuit was a great contrast to the fluffy chocolate. It never fails to surprise me how many savory ingredients go with good dark chocolate. It seems that onion flavour is no exception. The onion crumbs were mild in onion flavour and while it sounds weird - they actually did work well in the dish.

Petit Fours

With tea or coffee you get these lovely little cakes ($6). A perfect end to an amazing meal.
We were so impressed with everything about Satiate. The food was outstanding, our waitress was absolutely fantastic.

I can't help compare our dinner to one we had at Pier in Sydney the year before. The food seemed quite similar. However, Satiate was much better value and the food was probably just as good, if not better than Pier. It's definately less stuck up and the staff are up for a chat.
And to top it all off, they use Aesop hand products in the bathrooms. My favourite!

By the end of our meal, there was only one other couple in the restaurant. It makes you think if it's worth them even opening on a Thursday night in Winter. I'm so glad they did though.

Birdie Num Nums

2010-05-24T12:35:00.003+10:00

745 Nicholson Street, Carlton North, Vic

Birdie Num Nums has been around for a while now, but I've never actually heard a great deal about it. Now I know why. BNNs is located in Carlton North, just across the road from the Empress Hotel. There's not too many cafe's around the area that I know of, so I expect this joint to be pumping! As you can tell by the photo above, it's definitely not the case. Very strange for an inner city cafe at 10am on a lovely Saturday morning.

The cafe itself, is beautiful. From what I understand it was an old butcher shop, converted into a cafe. There's still lots of old fittings in the room and it's quite a nice setup. I'd be happy with it if it was mine.

It's a pity that the food at BNNs isn't as appealing as the cafe itself. While the menu reads really well and the food sounds appetising, unfortunately, it just doesn't deliver and neither does the below average service.

The disappointment began when we all ordered coffees and they all arrived pretty much cold. I think they either forgot to heat the milk or they had just left them sitting too long before sending them over to our table. Either way, we sent them back and asked for hot coffees. Funnily enough, the coffees we got second time around were just as cold. Hopefully the food to come would be better. We waiting about 30 minutes from the time we ordered for our food to arrive.

I ordered the Baked Beans with Chorizo ($?). These arrived at my table almost stone cold. Considering we were about 4 meters from the kitchen, the food should be piping hot! The actually baked beans were really, really tasty and sweet and my poached egg on top was only slightly overcooked. It's a shame they just couldn't get it out to me hot.

As good as my breakfast was, despite the fact that it was cold - the other 3 people I was with weren't so lucky. Firstly, everybody's poached eggs were solidly cooked to the point where they were powdery. Everybody's food was luke-warm. Everybody's toast was either burnt or had patches of charcoal on it.

The eggs on the Eggs Royale ($14) were cooked solidly.

The eggs in the Egyptian eggs ($15) were also seriously overcooked.

The eggs in the big breakfast ($16) were, guess what? You got it, overcooked!
Also, the roast tomato in the big breakfast, I doubt was even roasted. Roast tomato should be soft and broken down and cooked until it's sweet. These were panfried roast tomatoes. Lazy.
And even more unforgivable than cold meals or overcooked eggs, was the fact that they were serving store bought hash browns! Do people still do that these days? How hard is it to grate some potatoes and make your own?

We called one of the waitresses over to complain about the eggs and the fact that they were overcooked. Her response was "oh....." and then walked off into the kitchen. When she came back, she asked "would you like anything else?"
Was she serious?? You couldn't get eggs right, you couldn't get coffee right, you couldn't get tomatoes or hash browns right and now you want us to order something else? Get real.

Birdie Num Nums is not somewhere I'd be heading back to in a hurry. It's a shame really, because the place has the potential to have people lining up to get in there on the weekends. This could be the perfect local hangout for Carlton North people, but instead, I'm sure they'd rather head up to Brunswick or into Fitzroy North, just down the road for some hot coffee and perfectly cooked eggs.

Mamasita

2010-05-20T19:12:00.003+10:00

Mexican is definately not one of my favourite types of food, infact I've eaten it once before at a restaurant that shall remain nameless in Richmond. Which from my understanding was until this year, the best in Mexican food that Melbourne had to offer. When I went to the Richmond Mexican nameless restaurant, we were served, boring, tasteless, overpriced crap, that didn't inspire me to ever eat Mexican again!
That was until I'd heard about a place that had recently opened in Melbourne's CBD, that was apparently going to blow my mind and completely change the way I thought about Mexican food. Introducing Mamasita!

Mamasita is a brand new Mexican restaurant that was opened at the Spring St end of Collins St in February this year. The room is on the first floor and is NOISY!! We arrived and the place was full. They don't take bookings, so first come, first served. We had to wait at the bar for about 15 minutes, but soon after that we got a table. We found it almost impossible to talk between the two of us - even across the little table - that's how loud it is. You are also seated almost shoulder to shoulder with the people at the table next to you, which is kind of annoying and intimate in completely the wrong way. When there are those brief moments of quietness in the room, you can hear everything the people next to you are talking about.
So, Mamasita is going to blow my mind, hey? Let's see how we go.

We took recommendations from our waitress as we knew next to nothing about Mexican food. So we ordered a series of different soft shell tacos, meats and stew type dishes.

We started off with some tacos. The AlPastor. Pulled pork, pineapple, white onion and coriander ($14 for 3). The meat in these was dry! The only saviour was the pineapple, which added some moisture to the dish. The dryness of the soft taco 'shell' didn't help the overall dryness along at all.

Next was de Cordero ($14 for 3). This was lamb with Pulled Lamb with shallots and basically a salsa verde. These ones didn't have much taste on their own and the lamb was very boring, however add the Mexican Salsa Verde and you've got yourself a tasty taco!

Next we tried a Qaesadilla. Basically two soft shell taco fried flat with some filling between. We went with the 'de Pollo' ($14). Again, nothing exciting here. The chicken was infact so lacking in taste or moisture that we seriously considered sending it back. We didn't though. We thought we'd see how our final two dishes were.

Our mains that we ordered were Chicken Mole ($18) - apparently one of the most popular dishes in Mexico, so our waitress tells us. As you can see by the photo, it looks boring and it's about as interesting as it tasted. There was a hint of chilli in there, but that was it.

Finally we ordered the Chipotle Glazed Pork Ribs ($18), with a side of Papas ($7).

I'm not even going to begin to tell you how disappointing this meal was. It did not blow my mind. The only thing that did, was the hot chilli sauce on the table! The meats were dry, the sauces were boring. I seriously don't know what the hype is about. But hey, maybe it's just me. When we were leaving, there was literally a line going all the way down the stairs and out the door. So, maybe this is a case of it being all about the public hype. Or maybe I was just there on a bad night. Or maybe, I really just don't like Mexican food - no matter how good it is.

Breakfast Gnocchi

2010-04-28T20:29:00.003+10:00

After our amazing Quail with Gnocchi dinner the night before, we had enough Gnocchi left to make another meal. So, I decided to use the leftover Gnocchi for breakfast.
This one is simple, simple simple. Just think of Gnocchi for breakfast like a little fluffy Italian Hash Brown.

I simply roasted some vine ripened tomatoes until they were soft.
Fried up some free range bacon and then the Gnocchi in the same pan.
Poach an egg to pop on top of it all and plate it up! Too easy!

Pan-fried Quail with Gnocchi, Roast Pumpkin, Brown Butter and Sage - Masterchef Australia Recipe

2010-04-28T19:54:00.003+10:00

Yep, it's that time of the year again, where I yell at the TV on a nightly basis. You guessed it, Masterchef is back on our screens. It's the show that I love to hate. I did apply for Masterchef last year, but failed to impress the executive producers. Apparently I wasn't enthusiastic enough about wanting to win. I think the real problem was that I didn't cry in my audition or mention the word 'cancer.' Unfortunately, I couldn't apply this year, because I had other commitments during the filming period. So, instead, I like to play Masterchef at home.
After watching the episode the other night where Matt Moran challenged a whole bunch of contestants to cooking the Gnocchi and Quail dish, I thought I'd have to give it a go. It looked seriously fantastic on the show, so I thought I'd treat Em to a special dinner and whip it up for her on the weekend, whilst she was at work.

The recipe is relatively easy as far as skill level goes, but it is a bit time consuming to get everything ready for 'service.'
I'd never boned a Quail before, which is half the reason why I wanted to make the dish, to see if I could do it. It's actually not that hard. With a nice, sharp boning knife, you can cut out the spinal cord and rib cage quite easily. It's a little fiddly, but after two or three, you start to get the hang of it.

The finished dish, really is as tasty as it looks and definitely worth a go!

The recipe makes enough for two or maybe three people for a main. I allowed for 1.5 quails per person.

The recipe below is from the Masterchef website

½ butternut pumpkin

750g royal blue potatoes, roasted
75g plain flour
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil for tossing

1 large quail, each.

quail, boned
30ml vegetable oil
salt and pepper
30g salted butter, diced
20ml olive oil
10g pecorino, grated
20g unsalted butter
chervil, to garnish
100g blanched pumpkin
½ bunch sage, leaves (reserved for garnish)
gnocchi

Method

Step 1: Prepare pumpkin
Peel and deseed the butternut pumpkin and then dice into 1cm cubes. Blanch in salted, boiling water for approximately 3 minutes, refresh in ice water and then drain.

Step 2: Prepare gnocchi
To prepare the gnocchi, scrape out the inside of the potatoes. Mash the potato and then pass through a sieve. Combine the flour, egg and salt with the potato and work into dough. Roll the dough in a sausage shape (approximately 2cm in diameter). Cut the dough into 2cm wide discs. Add the gnocchi to salted, boiling water. Cook until the gnocchi rises to the surface and then scoop out and refresh in iced water. Drain the gnocchi and then toss with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

Step 3: De-bone quail
To prepare the quail, trim winglets at the second joint. Using a boning knife, slice along the top of the neck; carefully fold back the neck skin, without tearing it, to reveal the top of the breast meat. Slice around the 'wishbone' and remove it. Insert a cook’s knife in the tail-end of the quail up to the neck and carefully cut along both sides of the back bone. Trim off the excess neck skin. Using the boning knife, carefully cut between the rib cage and breast meat, leaving the breast fillets, winglets and legs intact. Trim any excess fat and skin.

Step 4: Cook and serve
Season the quail with salt and pepper. Heat the 20ml olive oil in a fry pan and when hot add the quail skin side down. Cook on a medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown then turn over. Add in the butter then when it begins to turn to a nutty brown baste the quail for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the quail from the pan and leave to rest for 5 minutes before serving. (Please note: quail should be served pink).

Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and then add in the pumpkin and seasoning. Cook until the pumpkin is caramelised and then remove. In the same pan, add in the gnocchi and caramelise until golden. Season to taste. Stir in diced butter until it starts to turn into a nutty brown colour. Add in the sage and remove from the heat.

To serve, cut the quail in half and arrange on a plate with the gnocchi and pumpkin. Drizzle over the nutty butter and then garnish with the sage leaves, freshly grated pecorino and chervil.

Duchess Of Spotswood

2010-04-25T11:46:00.004+10:00

87 Hudsons Rd, Spotswood Ph 03 9391 6016
Twitter: @duchesscafe

Finally, the Western Suburbs has a cafe worth crossing the Westgate for! Duchess of Spotswood has been opened for a few months now in the main drag of Spotswood, on Hudson Rd. There's not too many other places along there worth visiting, other than Mies for their great coffee, which is just next door to the Duchess. The two actually opened at very much the same time, which I'm sure was a bit of a shock to the owners of both Mies and Duchess.
This was the third time that we'd visited the Duchess. The first time that we visited, they had just opened and didn't have a full time chef or full menu as yet. The next time we visited, the chef had only just begun and they were just getting into the swing of things. Lots of potential to be seen!
So, this weekend was our 3rd visit to the Duchess and it was our best visit yet!

The first time we visited, the lovely, lovely owner was chatting to us about them getting the place together and where they sourced their equipment and furnishings. The communal table at the front of the room is actually from an old Dance Hall in Yarraville. A story that makes the beautiful recycled wood table, that much more special. She also told us a story about driving all the way out to Daylesford way to pick up their amazing butcher's block, which sits in the middle of the room as their newpaper table. Duchess, is beautifully fitted out with lots of vintage pieces and some new ones that fit in perfectly with the old ones. I absolutely LOVE their yellow oven in the kitchen!

Something I love about Duchess is that they really dig seasonal ingredients and their menu really reflects that. For instance, the special of the day was fresh, foraged mushrooms from Mt Macedon. Knowing that these little beauties have only come into season not too long ago, I was keen to give these a go - fingers crossed that whoever picked them, didn't accidentally throw in a few 'magic' mushrooms for a laugh. Lucky for me they hadn't. All they had picked was damn fine, super tasty, fresh mushies. The mushies came served with bacon, a poached egg, delicious toast and an amazing little cheesy white sauce, which I think was semolina? ($15) Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to the name of the sauce, but it was great to spread on the toast and then top with the mushies, bacon and egg! I highly recommend getting down there to check out this breakky, while it's on the specials list!

Em ordered the 'simple' breakky, which consisted of Heirloom tomatoes, which due to our extended run of warm weather are still available. The tomatoes are served with goats cheese and a poached egg if you choose. These tomatoes were absolutely delightful. Full of flavour, brilliant colour and perfectly matched with the goats cheese. Such a good way to start the day.

I'm sure you're going to hear lots more about Duchess soon, especially as more and more people realise that they have an amazing cafe right in the backyard. But even if it's not in your backyard, it's definitely worth a trip across the bridge.

Hu Tong Dumplings

2010-04-23T19:58:00.006+10:00

14-16 Market Lane, Melbourne, Phone 03 9650 8128

It seems that Melbourne is dumpling crazy at the moment. Who can blame us? Who isn't a fan of those steamed little balls of seafood and meat wrapped in those sticky little skins?
I'd only had dumplings a could of times before - once at the Shanghai Dumpling House in Tattersall's Lane. I have nothing but bad memories of that place. Everything there seemed so dirty and all the Dumplings tasted the same. Not a good initiation into the world of Dumplings!

Other than that, my dumpling repertoire consisted only of Dumplings eaten whilst at Yum Cha. Some amazing dumplings are to be had at Yum Cha places around town. But I'd heard that Hu Tong was the best of them all. Only problem was that there were rumours that the service there was some of the worst that exists in Melbourne and that the staff are apparently rude and unfriendly. Considering some of the reviews that I've read
rate Hu Tong very highly, I'd decided that it was worth trying despite the poor service rumours.

So, during the week, I decided to tag along with Em' and 11 of her workmates for an evening of chilli and dumplings at Hu Tong.
The place is fairly new and very modern. It's very clean - nothing like the Shanghai Dumpling joint down the road. The ground floor is more of a casual dining area, where you can actually sit and watch the dumpling masters at work in the kitchen behind a big window. It's pretty cool to watch how they make the dumplings and how fast they are. We were seated upstairs on the third floor, which consists of huge tables with Lazy Susans in the middle.

Now I'm not going to even try to pretend that I remember or know any of the names of the dishes or dumplings that we were served. Although using www.tummyrumbles.com i can tell you that my favourite of the dumplings were the Shao-Long Bao, which are the dumplings that are filled with meat and a little bit of stock on the bottom, which is what gives them that soggy appearance. I did learn the hard way though, that the soup in these things are HOT when they arrive and will mostly burst when you're eating them all over yourself.

One of Em's friend's knew what the menu was all about, so we let her do the ordering. She ordered SO much food, that we literally couldn't fit anymore on the table. I was actually cringing at the thought of how much all this food was going to cost.

Some of the highlights of the meal were obviously - all of the dumplings. I know now why Hu Tong is widely spoken about and why people from interstate come here to try their amazing dumplings. I was a massive fan of the Prawn and Chive dumplings, also.

We also tried a whole bunch of other dishes that I never actually did find out what they were called. Some of them were great - including the simple fried rice. The raspberry red pork belly was deliciously tender too.

If you're not into hot and spicy food, then be very weary of what you're ordering, because some of the dishes here are incredibly hot and spicy (it is a Sichuan inspired restaurant, after all).

Oh, and those rude staff that I've heard so much about were completely non-existent. From the time that we walked in the door and were welcomed by the doorman, we were completely looked after. Everyone was always smiling and happy to accommodate requests. There was always a waiter close by to call on if needed and they were all very pleasant. My only gripe is that because so much of the food is spicy, you would think that they would leave bottles of water on the table for you. But they don't, even when we asked. So, instead, we had to keep calling them over, asking them to fill up our tiny little tea cups for us.

At the end of a long night of eating, I had to practically roll down the stairs, because I couldn't walk from being so full! The meal ended up costing only $30p.h, which I thought was amazing, considering the amount of food that we'd consumed and the amount of food that was left over. They did let people take doggy bags home if they wanted.

The Hardware Societe

2010-04-21T20:45:00.003+10:00

120 Hardware Lane, Melbourne, 03 9078 5992

I go out for breakfast most weekends, sometimes even twice. Living in Fitzroy, I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by amazing places to have breakfast. Yet, somehow, other than eating a McMuffin at McChucks, I've never actually ventured into the city on the weekend for a proper breakfast.

My first venture into the world of CBD breakfasts was last weekend at The Hardware Societe. I'd heard about this place simply from the constant chatter about it from fellow Twitter peeps. The guys from Hardware Societe are also Twitterers themselves.

The Hardware Societe sits amongst many other restaurants on the famous Hardware Lane strip that like to talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk. Refreshingly, The Hardware Societe can not only walk the walk, but they tap dance all over the faces of those other 'wannabe' restaurants along Hardware Lane!

The cafe is decked out with lots of Yellow, which I'm a huge fan of. If you saw my bedroom, you'd see what I mean! I'm very jealous of their bright yellow bare bulb lights. Despite being a little overused these days, the replica Eames chairs they have chosen are always a safe bet for looks and comfort.

Now, I'm not a coffee drinker, so I was very excited to see my favourite tea in prime position on the tea menu - French Earl Grey. Not enough cafes put interesting teas on their menu, so it's great to see here! Also, they use Tea Cosies on their tea pots! Em' will go to a cafe JUST because they use Tea Cosies. Very cool.

A quick look at the breakfast menu and you know that The Hardware Societe isn't your standard Bacon and poached eggs breakfast place. The menu is interesting, seasonal, different, which makes it very, very difficult to make a decision as to what to order.

What caught both my eye and Em's were our childhood favourite - Boiled eggs with Soldiers. Whilst you might find eggs with soldiers on many a cafe menu, none that I've ever seen have been served like this!

Each of the three toasts served with the boiled eggs have their own delicious little topping.
First was White Asparagus with Blue Cheese. Awesome! Everybody knows egg goes perfectly with asparagus and the Blue cheese was the perfect little seasoning to go with it.
Second was Salmon Tartare with little baby capers.
Third from memory was Roasted Tomato with crispy Pancetta. The tomato was deliciously sweet and the Pancetta perfectly salty. Wow.

Eating this baby is a bit of a challenge - well for me anyway. I wasn't exactly sure where to even start with this one. I went with taking the top off the perfectly soft boiled eggs with my knife and scooping out the insides of the eggs and adding them to the tops of the little toasted soldiers.
A little messy, but lots and lots of fun! It bought back lots of childhood memories of eggs and soldiers. At least this time most of it ended up in my mouth and not thrown across the table at my little sister when I was a kid!

This is by far the most interesting, imaginative and fun breakfast I've had in ages. I'm looking forward to heading into the city on weekends for many more breakfasts at The Hardware Societe. Hopefully I can get down there at lunchtime during the work week also, because reading their tweets, the lunches sound absolutely amazing! How many lunch places in the city have snails as a special? If you haven't been to The Hardware Societe, you should definately check it out - it's a refreshing change to all of the warehouse-esque cafes of Fitzroy and Collingwood, etc.

Best Ever Italian Meatballs with Simple Tomato Sauce

2010-04-11T11:33:00.004+10:00

Ok, I'm sure all of you Italians would argue that these aren't the best Meatballs ever at all. I'm sure you're going to tell me that the ones that your Nonna makes are a million times better. Well, this time I'm putting my foot down. I can honestly say that I have never eaten meatballs as good as these and if you have a better recipe, I would love to hear from you and I promise I'll give it a go to compare.
Since the SBS food website is focusing on Italian food over the next few weeks and I am their 'featured foodie' for that time - I thought I'd share with you this amazing recipe. It's really very easy - it doesn't take hours of simmering away on the stove and can be ready in just over an hour or so. This is perfect food for the coming cooler months!

185 ml Olive Oil
1 Onion
100g Pine Nuts
3 Garlic Cloves
40g Parsley
5g Rosemary
2 Teaspoons of Fennel Seeds
55g fresh or dried breadcrumbs (I used Panko)
300g Ricotta
40g Parmesan Cheese
Zest of 1 Large Lemon
1 Free Range Egg
500 Mince Free Range Pork (you can use beef or a mixture of both if you prefer)

Sauce 2 x 400g tins of whole peeled tomatoes
125ml Red Wine (I've used white many times when that's all I've had in the cupboard)

Heat half of the olive oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and pine nuts until onion is soft and the pine nuts are light golden brown. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for a few minutes more - making sure you don't overcook the pine nuts. They won't taste very nice if they're burnt.

Place the parsley, crushed fennel seeds, breadcrumbs, ricotta, Parmesan, lemon zest and egg in a bowl and add the mince. Add the cooled onion and pine nuts, season with salt and pepper and mix briefly until all of the ingredients are combined. Test for seasoning by frying one small meatball and tasting for flavour. Leave the mixture to rest in the fridge for at least 30 mins. This will help the meatballs hold their shape whilst cooking.

To make the meatballs, roll about 50g of mixture into a ball about the size of a golf ball and then flatten slightly to make it easier to cook both sides. 50g may seem like quite a big meatball, but I assure you that it's the perfect size. At this point you could put on your water for your pasta - to get it boiling.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the meatballs until golden brown on both sides. You will probably need to cook these in a couple of batches to avoid overcrowding the frying pan - which will lower the heat of your frypan - make them take longer to cook and harder to turn over. A non-stick frypan is best to use for this recipe as the meatballs can easily stick on a regular pan. Once browned on both sides, remove the meatballs from the pan. Don't worry about cooking them through - we'll do this later. By just searing them each side for some colour and texture, you will keep the meatballs moist inside.

To make the sauce, you just need to pour your wine into a clean frying pan or wide saucepan and simmer it for a few minutes - just to remove that strong alcohol taste. Then you can add your tins of tomatoes. Simmer this sauce for about 10 minutes. The tomatoes which were whole, should start to break down. You can help this along by using your wooden spoon.

It's at this point that you can put on your pasta, as it should only take about 10 minutes to cook.

Gently place the meatballs into the pan, sitting in the tomato sauce. Place a lid over the top and simmer for 10 mins. Give the pan a little gentle shake every so often, just to make sure that the sauce or the meatballs haven't stuck to the bottom, as this will cause them to burn. You want the sauce to be on a gentle simmer.

Your pasta should be ready after 10 mins, as should your meatballs. Drain the pasta - I like to use Calabresi pasta, but you could really use whatever pasta you like.

The pine nuts give the meatballs a bit of texture, while the ricotta keeps the balls soft. The lemon is really nice in there - as is the fennel, which really goes well with the pork (if you're using it). I often like to add even more parmesan for a really cheesy meatball.

Hellenic Republic

2010-04-10T10:04:00.003+10:00

434 LYGON STREET BRUNSWICK EAST, VICTORIA 3057

I've been to Hellenic Republic a couple of times before - for breakfast. It's safe to say they didn't win me over. However, I still hadn't been for dinner or lunch, so this week I thought I'd give it a go.

I called up during the day to make a booking for that night (a Thursday) but was told there were no tables available until 8:45pm. So, with that, I sent a message out to the Twitterverse, asking for alternate restaurant suggestions. A fellow Twitter person suggested that I just drop into Hellenic without a booking, in the hope that they could squeeze me in. So, that's just what we did. We arrived at 6:30pm and the place was choccas already. However, the waiter told us we could sit anywhere at the bar that we liked. Happy days! I don't have a problem with sitting at the bar - as long as it's comfortable. Usually it's away from the noisy people on the floor - so we were happy with that. The added bonus to our bar seats were that we could watch the barman and the kitchen operate, which is more entertaining to me than listening to other people's conversations on the main floor.

We started off with some Greek Mixed Olives (local and Hellenic) $8.50
The small olives were particularly tasty with a good texture. Some of the larger olives were a bit on the soft side, which I'm not such a fan of. I prefer the firmer olives.

Next was our kind of main courses, which at Hellenic are all made for sharing. They consisted of a plate of mixed meats, of which we chose the chicken and the lamb ($24.50). The chicken was tender and delicious - even better with lemon drizzled over the top. I'd heard much about the lamb and about how delicious, tender and juicy it is, but unfortunately, I was a little disappointed. It definately wasn't juicy and was even a little dry. I fear we may have been served a bit that had been going around on the spit for some time. The actual taste of the lamb was great though. One thing that was missing from the meat was some type of sauce. we got no aioli, no tzatziki ($8.50 extra) or anything like that to dip it in, which probably made the 'dryness' a little worse.

With the meat we ordered the most delicious little salad! Cypriot ancient grain salad, raisins and yoghurt ($10). The salad was garnished with tiny little pomegranate capsules, that perfectly topped off the salad. This salad went really well with the meat.

We also ordered the Tiganites patates - hand cut potatoes cooked in olive oil, oregano ($8.50)- these are the most delicious chips I've ever eaten. Unfortunately, they didn't arrive to us until they were just warm, but they were delicious all the same.

With our dinner we had the warm pita bread ($4.50)

The best part of the meal was yet to come - dessert!

For dessert, I ordered Rothakina - vanilla saffron roasted peaches, Greek yoghurt ($13). These were simply amazing - probably one of the most excellent desserts I have had in ages! I love fruit in dessert and this was so simple. But it was so tasty. I haven't had a good peach dessert all summer, so it looks like I had one just in time - before they go out of season.

Em ordered the Bougatsa - semolina custard, filo pastry ($12). In Em's own words 'this is like the best Vanilla Slice I've ever tasted!" And it was. The custard was thick and smooth - the pastry thin and crispy with a hint of Cinammon dusting.

Our food arrived very, very quickly, despite them being really, really busy. Which seems strange considering some of the food came out - not so hot. Despite that, we had an excellent evening, the staff were particularly polite and friendly. Would I go back? Yes, I probably would. Their dinners are far better than their breakfasts. However, if I had the choice, I would most definately choose The Press Club, over Hellenic Republic.

Cookbook Challenge, Week 6 - Donna Hay Magazine's Sage and Prosciutto Corn Cakes

2010-01-08T18:32:00.005+11:00

Ok... so it's a few weeks after christmas now, and I'm once again running really behind in my Cookbook Challenge posts, but I'm determined to catch up again! Hopefully now that the silly season is behind me, I'll be able to find some more time to get back to things like blogging!!

So, this week's recipe isn't so much from a cookbook as such, it's from the December/Jan 2010 Issue of the Donna Hay Magazine. Considering I have way more food magazines than I do cookbooks, I reckon they are fair game in the cookbook challenge.

This christmas was at my sister's house and everything was already done, so there was no real need for me to make anything for xmas lunch. But since I had to make something for the challenge, I made these corn cakes anyway.

Now before you go wondering "where is the corn in that recipe." Polenta is actually made from corn. The recipe calls for instant polenta, but I could only find real polenta that I had to cook for 20 minutes, stirring over the stove. This still works out ok, you just need to be aware when you're adding the wet ingredients like the sour cream, that you don't put too much in, otherwise it could become runny. The instant polenta would normally soak up some of the moisture from the batter. So, I cooked my Polenta and added it already cooked to the mix. It worked out just fine.

The sour cream in these little cakes makes the whole thing pretty rich, so they are good accompaniment to a turkey or something like that. Just be really careful that you grease the muffin tins quite well and leave the cooked cakes to rest for a while, because I found they tended to stick quite a bit. A flat knife helped to get them out in one piece - however quite a few still seemed to break apart.

Ingredients:
1 cup of instant Polenta
1/2 cup of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
2 tablespoons of chopped sage
sea salt and black pepper
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 eggs
12 sage leaves, extra and 12 slices of prosciutto

Preheat the oven to 180c
Place the polenta, flour. baking powder, bicarb soda, sage, salt, pepper, cream and eggs in abowl and mix well to combine.
Place extra sage in the bases of 12 lightly greased 1/2 cup capacity 125ml muffin tins. Line each tin with proscutto and fill with polenta mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked. Turn out to serve. Makes 12.

Mies, Spotswood

2010-01-05T22:48:00.003+11:00

Spotswood. There was a movie named after it once. There's a Science museum there. There's a train station. There's the beginning of the westgate bridge. Then there's Mies. The hippest little spot in Spotswood.
A small cafe on Hudson Rd, just off Williamstown Rd, which has popped up quite recently. Somewhere for the local residents to go, other than Nosh in Newport. This is a good thing.
The fitout is sparse, there's a communal table, but no kitchen as such. There's only a very small breakfast / lunch menu, with eats like muesli and toasties. Pretty good toasties too I must add.
Personally I think the guys could do a bit more in the way of food. If they checked out places like Amsterdam St Cafe in Richmond, they would see what could be done without an actual kitchen.
That said though, Mies is definately worth a visit if you're in the area and after a cup of good coffee and basic breakky, but if you're after a substantial breakfast/brunch probably best to head elsewhere.

Cookbook Challenge, Week 5 - Hellenic Republic's Homemade Yoghurt and Berries

2010-01-05T21:41:00.003+11:00

This weeks challenge was Greek. So, when looking to a cookbook for Greek recipes - who else do you turn to other than the one, the only, masterchef - George Calombaris?
I thought about making things like Souvlaki, Pan Fried Halloumi, Spanikopita, but I decided to go with something a little different, a little homely and something I've been wanted to attempt for years. More than anything, I just wanted to see if this would actually work!

My recipe this week is from Georgie's book - Greek Cooking from the Hellenic Heart. It's Homemade Yoghurt with Berries. Now, despite the title, this yoghurt isn't actually homemade from scratch. You actually have to purchase a tub of natural yoghurt with live cultures.
You basically mix milk with the tub of yoghurt and overnight the cultures change the milk into yoghurt.

The yoghurt doesn't set as thick as the original yoghurt, it's slightly runnier, but it really does turn into yoghurt! It tastes pretty delicious! I used organic milk to make this, which hopefully created a better final result.
I topped the yoghurt with summer fruits and berries with yoghurt and chopped pistachios. If I had my own cafe, a version of this would definately be on the summer menu!

Recipe - Serves 4
Ingredients:

800ml Full Cream Milk
1 Tablespoon Honey
Pinch Salt
1 Cup of Plain Greek style yoghurt with live cultures
Mixed Berries
Extra Honey

1. Bring Milk to the boil, simmer for 2 minutes and then leave to cool to blood temp (37c)
2. Whisk in honey, salt and yoghurt, then strain into sterilised glass jars and cover with cling film and leave to sit at room temperature for 12 hours.
3. Serve with mixed berries of your choice and drizzle with honey.

Cookbook Challenge, Week 4, Stephanie Alexander's Baked Beans from The Cook's Companion

2009-12-16T22:45:00.002+11:00

I'm a bit of a homemade Baked Beans fan, in case you couldn't already tell. I think this is about my fifth baked beans post!
Recently, I've eaten some bloody amazing baked beans out and about. The two most memorable were at The Little Ox in Brighton and at the Wye River General Store. Ever since then, I've wanted to attempt to recreate some beans as good as I'd had there. I knew that was going to take some slow cooking and patience. It turns out that Stephanie Alexander's Book, The Cook's Companion calls for both of those. I'd heard good things about her baked beans recipe, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The beans turned out sensationally. I think the two things that really help this dish along are making sure that you use the best bacon you can find. I honestly believe that free range bacon tastes bettter. If you don't believe me, give it a go - you'll smell the difference when you're cooking it. The other thing is to use REAL Maple Syrup. However, if you can't get a hold of real maple syrup or just don't want to spend the money on a bottle, you could really just use honey, golden syrup or treacle. All will produce a slightly different final result, but just experiment, I say. Just be warned that you need to be patient when making these beans. Best to make them the day before you want to eat them, then slowly reheat them in the morning for breakfast.
Here I've attempted to copy the Little Ox's poached egg on top. Give it a go, it's delicious to have the runny yolk mix in with the tomato sauce. Wow!

375g dried Borlotti or Red Kidney beans - soaked
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion - diced
3 cloves garlic - chopped
2 carrots - diced
2 rashers thick, streaky bacon - cut into 1cm wide strips
2 red peppers - cut into 2cm squares
1 green pepper - cut into 2cm squares
1 400g can peeled tomatoes - don't drain
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon crushed coriander seeds
salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons maple syrup, treacle, golden syrup or honey

----------------------

Preheat oven to 160 degreesC.
Rinse soaked beans, then put into saucepan & cover with cold water.
Bring to a boil, then strain & rinse with cold water.
Heat oil in a large enameled cast-iron casserole & saute onion, garlic, carrot & bacon. After 5 minutes, when onion has softened & bacon is sizzling, add red & green peppers.
Puree tomatoes & juice in a food processor & add to casserole with beans (I just used passata here) & remaining ingredients, except maple syrup.
Mix well. Add sufficient cold water to cover beans by 4 cm.
Transfer casserole, tightly sealed, into oven & bake for at least 4 hours.
Stir well after 2 hours, checking that it is still reasonably sloppy ( if too dry, add a little water & reduce oven temp).
After 4 hours, stir in maple syrup, extra salt & plenty of freshly ground pepper.
The beans should now be in a rich sauce. If too thick, add a little water; if too runny & the beans are tender, increase oven temp & continue to cook.

Be careful not to allow the bottom of the beans to burn, especially when you're reheating them.

Cookbook Challenge, Week 3, Pork Sausages from A Little Taste Of Thailand

2009-12-16T10:40:00.007+11:00

Ok, I'm still a few weeks behind in posting my dishes... but I'll get there, I promise!
I'm a big fan of the 'Little Taste' series. Lots of (to the best of my knowledge) authentic looking dishes and the recipes are always relatively easy, too. As much as I love this book, it's one I never seem to pick up because I usually go for my fancier Thai books like Longrain by Martin Boetz or Lotus by Teague Ezard. At a recent BBQ, we had a Thai theme, so I thought it was a good time to incorporate the cookbook challenge and also make something out of this little used book.

For week 3, the theme is Hor d'oeuvres. I thought these little sausages would make perfect 'little food' before we dig into the bigger salads and main courses. These are really simple to make, take little time and because of their size - they're fast to cook. No need for messy sausage casings here, you just shape them the same way you would a hamburger patty, only in a sausage shape.
They're slightly sweet and very moorish. Everyone was a big fan of these!

It's probably best to leave them in the fridge for a while once they are shaped, to help them hold their shape once their on the BBQ. If you're a fan of char-grilling, I'd recommend it for these sausages, as it adds to the flavour and I think the authenticity of them. I can imagine street vendors in Thailand selling these little beauties. However, they'd probably add a whole heap
more Chilli than I did!

Here's how you make them:

Ingredients:
3 Coriander (Cilantro) Roots
1 Lemon Grass Stalk
4 Garlic Cloves
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 Small red chilli, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
2 teaspoons of sugar (I'd use brown or palm for a slightly more caramel sweetness)
300g Minced Pork

Using a Pestle and Mortar or food processor (easiest option), pound the coriander, lemon grass, garlic and pepper to a paste.

Add the chilli, fish sauce, sugar and pork to the paste mixture and combine well. Form into sausage shapes.

Heat a BBQ or grill and cook the sausages for 4 or 5 mins on each side until cooked through.

Cookbook Challenge, Week 2 - Bill Granger's Fragrant Chicken and Spinach Curry

2009-12-09T22:51:00.003+11:00

It's week 3 of the cookbook challenge and I'm only up to posting week 2. I'm trying to catch up, I promise!
This week is Indian week, so who else would you look to for Indian recipes? None other than the world famous Bill Granger, of course!
Indian food isn't something I've ever cooked a lot of and not something that excites me all that much. Maybe I've just never eaten really well cooked Indian food.
I thought that if anyone was going to make Indian Food accessible it would be Bill Granger or Jamie Oliver. I decided to go with Billy on this occasion.

This is a simple curry, which anybody could prepare. It's probably a really good curry for kids, as there is a distinct lack of spicyness and could be compared to something like Butter Chicken.
If you're not a fan of real curries, this is probably the curry for you.

Fragrant chicken and spinach curry (serves 4)

2tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2tsp ground cumin
2tsp ground coriander
½tsp turmeric
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1tbsp freshly grated root ginger
750g (1lb 10oz) boneless chicken thighs, cubed
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
½tsp salt
2tsp soft brown sugar
1tbsp fresh lime juice
90g (3¾oz) baby spinach leaves, finely chopped
large handful fresh coriander, chopped
steamed rice, to serve

Heat the oil in a large heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring for 5 to 6 minutes until the onion is soft.

Add the spices, garlic, ginger and cook, stirring for 2 minutes more. Add the chicken and increase the heat to medium high. Cook stirring often until the chicken is browned – about 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and salt and bring to simmering point. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Add the brown sugar, lime juice and baby spinach and stir until the spinach has just wilted. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with the chopped coriander and serve with steamed rice.

Maggie Beer's Moussaka - Cookbook Challenge Week 1 - Citrus

2009-11-24T23:03:00.002+11:00

Like probably every other food blogger in the world, I love cook books. I own LOTS of cook books. If someone asks me what I want for my birthday or for Christmas, inevitably I always ask for a cook book. I sat down one day and added up how much my collection would be worth new. Let's just say that I probably should increase my contents insurance coverage! The problem with having all these amazing and expensive cook books is that, while they are all pretty to look at, some of them I have never cooked a single recipe out of them!
This is where the inspiring Rilsta from My Food Trail comes in. She has come up with the Cook book Challenge! 52 recipes in 52 weeks is the plan. Each week is a different theme. Last week's theme, which I am already late in posting is Citrus.
Ok, so you're wondering how Lamb Moussaka is going to be Citrus based? Well, firstly there's grated lemon zest in the actual filling. I know what you're thinking... that's not enough to call this a Citrus dish! Well, the reason I wanted to try this dish is because last month I got some amazing organic lemons, which I preserved in a jar with some cinammon, salt and cloves. They sat for a month and they were ready just in time for this week's recipe.
So, the other citrus in this recipe is actually preserved lemon. You only require a tablespoon, but it cuts through the richness of the lamb sauce and gives off a slightly 'lemonadey' aroma.
If you've never made your own Preserved Lemons before, definately give it a go. It's so easy, all it takes is patience.
This Moussaka recipe is the best I've ever had. Such depth of flavour and slightly different from the authentic one, which I like.
Remember how Donna Hay said on Masterchef that Brown food is hard to photograph and make look appetising? She was definately right!

This recipe is from Maggie Beer's book, Maggie's Kitchen. $59.95

Lamb Mince
3 medium eggplants
Salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
500g minced lamb
1/2 cup red wine
1 tbls tomato paste
1 cup tomato sugo
4 tbls freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
2 tbls lemon thyme
Zest of one lemon grated
1/2 inch piece of fresh cinnamon, pounded
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil to roast eggplants

Cheese Sauce
50g unsalted butter
50g plain flour
1 1/4 cup full cream milk
1cup chicken stock
Pinch of grated nutmeg
Sea salt and freshly ground white pepper
2 tbls grated parmesan

Crust
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 tbls chopped lemon thyme
1 tbls preserved lemon, skin only, finely chopped

Method:

Cut eggplant into thin 1cm slices. Brush slices with oil, season with salt and into the oven at 250C, or as hot as you can go, for 6 minutes until golden. I put mine on a griddle pan instead as I like the charcoal type flavour that you get from the bars.

Saute onion at moderate temperature for 5 minutes - add garlic and cook another 5 minutes. Put onion and garlic aside, salt and brown meat in batches at a high temperature - you don't want the mince to 'boil'. Put all meat back into the pan, add cinnamon then and onion and garlic, tomato paste, deglaze with wine at high temperature. Then add lemon zest, tomato sugo, the parsley, and lemon thyme and simmer for 20 minutes for flavours to combine.

To make the bechamel or cheese sauce, melt the butter in a pot and then sprinkle the flour over it, stirring well to combine. Continue to cook for a little while until the flour colours slightly and it loses that raw flavour. Remove from the heat and pour the milk first, then stock in slowly, at first, whisking continuously to avoid lumps. Return pot to the heat after every inclusion. Return to the stove and continue to cook until thickened - stirring often until thickly coats back of the spoon. Add the nutmeg and seasoning and lay a piece of plastic wrap or kitchen paper directly on top of the sauce so that it doesn't form a skin, set aside until needed.

To make the moussaka, spray an oven proof dish with non-stick cooking spray or a little evoo. Place a layer of eggplant on the bottom of the dish and then a layer of lamb mince over this. Continue to alternate between eggplant and lamb mince, finishing with a layer of eggplant. Pour the cheese sauce over the eggplant then mix the breadcrumbs with the grated Parmesan & preserved lemon & lemon thyme and generously sprinkle this over the top of the Bechamel. Bake in a pre-heated 200C oven for half an hour.

Chocolate and Raspberry Muffin Recipe - Bourke Street Bakery Book

2009-11-05T15:51:00.003+11:00

Admittedly, most of the time I suck at baking. But when I suck at something, I'm always determined to better myself. That is where the Bourke Street Bakery book comes in. All the times I've been to Sydney, I'd never heard of BSB until the book was released and all of my Sydney based 'tweeps' were raving about the book. So, I made my way down to the books shop and checked out the book. Turns out it's the exact Baking cook book I've been looking for, for years!
The book is loaded with great recipes on how to make PROPER bread from scratch, with detailed instructions on how to make your own white and rye starters. This is artisan baking at it's best. So many times I've tried to make bread and it has never ever, not once, turned out well. I've never been happy with a single loaf. So, at the moment I'm day 4 (out of 4 weeks) of making my own bread starter. But that's another post for later.
Along with all the amazing breads in this book, there are also lots of great pastries and cakes to make. Since I had a kilo of delicious Yarra Valley Raspberries in my Freezer, I thought it would be great to try out this recipe. Who doesn't like Raspberries and Chocolate! The recipe is really easy and the only tip you need is to just be careful not to overmix the batter. Overmixing can make the finished product toughen up and become chewy. Not what you want.
These muffins turned out perfectly. So, it looks like I'm on the way to being a star baker!!

Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins
Makes 12

• 400g (2 2/3 cups) plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 300g caster sugar
• 310g unsalted butter
• 480ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 225g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 225g raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 55g raw sugar
• Icing sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin and line with paper cases.
2. Sift the flour and baking paper into a bowl and add the sugar, mixing well to combine.
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk stir in the eggs to combine. Pour over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Use a large spoon to gently fold through the chocolate and raspberries.
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes. It may be necessary to drop the temperature about 10 minutes before the end of baking time if the muffins are starting to brown on top.
5. To test if the muffins are done, push the top gently to feel that it is firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before eating. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Jam Shortbread Spirals

2009-11-03T23:25:00.003+11:00

Whenever I visit the Yarra Valley, I pick up a jar of something made by Cunliffe & Waters. Whether it be a spicy relish, delicious real tomato sauce or one of their amazing jams. Their jam is my favourite by a mile. Better than I could ever hope to make. I especially love their Williamette Raspberry Jam, which is slightly tart, but perfectly sweet. I love this stuff on my Babka egg loaf in the mornings, I can eat the whole thing in one sitting! Ok, so Cunliffe and Waters haven't bribed me here - I just love their stuff. Just so you know, you don't have to travel all the way to the Yarra Valley to pick it up, there are a few other places you can pick up their wares.

These Jammy Shortbreads perfectly suit this raspberry jam. These are so easy to make, however the finished product looks like you put in so much more effort that what it actually takes to make these little beauties.

For mine, I chose to leave out the cinammon. You could of course choose whatever jam you like to put in here, you don't have to go with raspberry. Next time I make these I'd like to go with something like apricot, blueberry or maybe even the blood plum jam.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
125g butter, softened
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup jam
2 tsps. ground cinnamon
icing sugar to dust.

Sift flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Mix in 1 to 2 tbsps. of cold water to form a dough. Add egg and combine to form a stiff but workable dough. Roll out the dough on a sheet of greaseproog paper to form a 20-30cm. rectangle. Spread jam evenly on the dough and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Roll up the dough swiss-roll style, peeling away the greaseproof paper as you go. Wrap the roll in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 mins, Preheat oven to 180c. Remove dough from the refrigerator and cut into slices ½-in. thick. Place shortbreads on a lined baking tray and bake for 15 to 20 mins. or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Red Shed Cafe

2009-10-27T22:14:00.005+11:00

Medhurst Rd, Gruyere, www.redshedcafe.com.au

Just like in inner city Melbourne, where if you get off the beaten track, you'll find some of the coolest and best cafes and restaurant's in the back streets and laneways, the Yarra Valley is no different. Get out of the main towns and off the main roads and you'll find some amazing little places, which are still kept reasonably secret. One of those places that I have heard whispers about was Red Shed Cafe, which is located the beautiful Medhurst winery in Gruyere, 10 minutes from Coldstream.

The cafe was started by two beautiful young ladies, -(well according to their photos on their website) best friends, Maggie and Frances. Frances' family actually own the winery, where the cafe is based.

The cafe isn't a 'shed' and the only Red Shed that we saw, was a little one along the driveway, on the way in. The cafe is almost completely glass on one side, which takes advantage of the amazing views across the paddocks in front of the building. On a nice day, you can sit out on the deck and eat your lunch on the colourful tolix stools and beach style chairs. On the day we visited, it was a beautiful day in Melbourne, but unfortunately, the weather was less than perfect in the Yarra Valley. We pulled up a stool at the bar against the window and watched the rain pour down.

The cafe has that slightly industrial feel with the Tolix stools and chairs, big long communal tables, wooden panelling, which comfortably suits the beautiful winery environment.

Since the weather was very ordinary, it was definately Hot Chocolate time! Big colourful mugs, rich, sweet chocolate taste, just the way I like it.

The menu is mostly sandwiches and very basic cooked lunches. We went with the Smoked Yarra Valley Trout Sandwich, with Dill, Radish Tomato and Rocket ($14.50), which was simply delicious. It was very, very rich, however and we did struggle to finish the whole thing - especially after our equally rich Hot Choccies. I have to admit that this is the most expensive sandwich I've ever eaten and as good as it was, I'm not sure it was worth the $14.50.

Red Shed apparently does amazing breakfasts also. Something I'll definately love to go back and try, especially on a beautiful spring morning - when it's not raining!

Merricks General Store

2009-10-25T20:30:00.003+11:00

3458 Frankston Flinders Rd, Merricks VIC 3916, (03) 5989 8088

What does one do when they feel like they've been to almost every decent breakky spot in Melbourne? They drive to the country, of course! We set off early on a Saturday morning via the luxurious new Eastlink Freeway, to find a town called Merrick, down near Red Hill on the Mornington Penninsula.
The drive took about an hour and a half from Fitzroy, via Eastlink, which meant no stops until Frankston. Which is ironic really, because isn't Frankston the place where most people would prefer not to stop?
Merrick's General Store is situated on a nice little country road, just out of Red Hill and has views looking out the water. Spectacular spot. The General Store was of course once a General Store, but now has been transformed into an amazing country cafe / restaurant / cellar door.

The menu doesn't offer any particularly exciting options, or anything really out of the usual. The menu doesn't appear to be overly cheap, either. But, since we're in the country, they're probably using amazing, locally grown produce, or you would at least hope so.

After a long drive, I need sustainance, so I ordered the Merricks General Big Breakfast- two eggs, bacon, tomato, baked beans and little pork sausages ($19 - the most I've paid for breakfast in a long time). The poached eggs, were perfectly shaped little egg sacks- a shape I wish my poached eggs would turn out like. The bacon was delicious, the baked beans had potential with big chunks of what appeared to be ham hock in there. However the beans were a little watery and just may not have been cooked down quite enough. The roast tomatoes were ok, but the little sausages were nothing much different from your standard backyard BBQ snags. Nothing like the amazing Maple Sausages that you get from Harvest Cafe in Healesville.

Em' ordered the Eggs Benedict, toasted muffin, two poached eggs, hollandaise sauce & house cured ocean trout ($18). Em' was very happy with her breakky, apart from the fact that the hollandaise and poached eggs tasted quite 'vinegary'. Other than that, the House Cured Ocean Trout was particularly delicious!

Merrick's General Store is a beautiful room and would be great to check out this place for a proper lunch or dinner. However, the breakfast wasn't worth driving all that way for. Although, I would consider going back if we happened to be staying in the area.

Little Ox

2009-09-28T22:36:00.008+10:00

452 New Street Brighton, Vic

Some friends of mine had a beautiful baby this year and their nickname for him before they he was born was "Little Ox." So, when I heard about a cafe of the same name in Brighton, I had to check it out. The cafe, is straight out of Real Living magazine. Whoever put this place together knows their stuff when it comes to interior design. Clean white walls, with a colourful country vibe. Just my cuppa tea. Bright yellow ladders, replica Eames chairs, amazing yellow rimmed Bribe glassware, bright orange tea pots and milk bottles with flowers in them. This place is farmhouse cool!

We arrived the day after the AFL Grand Final and unexpectedly the place was packed at 9.30am! I was sure everyone would be in bed, still nursing hangovers. This place is fairly new from my understanding, but when something is this good, word spreads fast!
Despite a bunch of people waiting at the door, the oh so beautiful staff are not only gorgeous, (apparently the guys aren't too bad either) they are good at their jobs, despite their post Grand Final Hangovers. Instead of keeping us waiting for a table, since it was raining outside, they bought in an extra table and chairs for us - happy days.

There were so many tasty choices on the menu which made it hard to decide, but since it was a freezing Melbourne morning, we decided to go with the Baked Beans $13 with poached egg $3. This isn't your typical Baked Beans as a side to some eggs. The Baked Beans are the hero here topped with a perfectly poached egg. The beans are big, smokey and delicious! Comfort food at it's best. They're served in a bowl, not on toast. You're not even served your standard sliced 'toast' here. You're giving a big chunk of delicious proper toasted bread, which is perfect for ripping apart and dipping into your beans and egg.

Drool.... drool... drool!

Bang! I have a new favourite cafe! If only it was closer to home. However, it's only a couple of blocks away from my girlfriend's house, so it looks like she might get her way and we'll be spending more nights at her house instead of mine. That way we can get up and have breakfast at the Little Ox.

I was however, a little disappointed by the lack of tea choices. They have your standard choices and nothing too exciting on there. Admittedly their English Breakfast was top notch, however, I'd love to see some Russian Caravan or French Earl Grey on their menu.
I'm predicting that you're going to be hearing a lot more about the Little Ox, it's a fantastic little place, the food is homely, produce driven and coffee is great (well, so Em' says - i don't drink the stuff). The staff are fantastic, friendly, fast, professional and of course beautiful.
So, not only do the people of Brighton get to drive fancy cars, live in big houses and have very healthy bank accounts, but they also get to enjoy one of the best cafes I've visited in Melbourne right around the corner from their house.

Angasi, Binalong Bay, Tasmania

2009-09-17T17:57:00.007+10:00

The internet is a brilliant tool for lovers of good food, especially when on holidays. A recent holiday in Tasmania took us to a beautiful place called Binalong Bay on the North East coast. This is an area known for it's amazingly clear water and bright red/orange rocks in an area appropriately named Bay of Fires.
When searching the internet for somewhere to have dinner around Binalong Bay, the same name kept popping up, again and again- Angasi Restaurant.
Named after a type of oyster, Angasi is apparently one of the best places to eat in Tasmania. Well, so they say. A quick browse of their website, we noticed that they do breakfast as well as dinner. Considering it seemed quite pricey for dinner, we thought we'd check it out for breakfast and make sure it was up to scratch before lashing out the big bucks for dinner.

We sat out on the balcony, which has a simpy amazing view over Binalong Bay- probably one of the best views i've seen from a restaurant, ever! Even if the food is terrible, at least we had a nice view.

Em' and I both ordered the Angasi Breakky, which consists of eggs, bacon, tomato relish and sourdough - pretty standard breakfast fare. The meal itself was also very standard. The bread was toasted solid and difficult to chew, even with your back teeth! The poached eggs were stringy and average, the bacon was ok, but nothing special there. Nothing on the plate was inspiring me to come back for dinner, but we were still open minded about dinner.

That was until we heard a conversation between the waiter and a customer. There was a table of 3 girls and 3 guys, sitting just behind us. The guys all ordered fried eggs, the girls all ordered poached. The waiter served the 3 guys their scrambled eggs and 2 of the girls their poached eggs. He then spoke to the third girl who had not been served her breakfast - it went a little something like this:
Waiter: "Would you mind if your eggs were fried, instead of poached?"
Customer: "Why's that?"
Waiter: "The chef is just having trouble poaching your eggs, he keeps trying but they just won't poach. You know when the eggs JUST WON'T POACH? It's one of those days."
Customer: "Umm... Ok, I'll guess I'll just have fried eggs then.

The customer then waited another 10 minutes for her fried egg, while her other breakfast companions finished their meal. What the hell??? How can a chef not be able to poach an egg? Fair enough you might stuff up an egg or two, but you can get it right eventually. How can you just go back to a customer and tell them that the chef can't poach your eggs - yet he managed to poach the eggs for the other two customers on your table?? That is terrible!

Needless to say, after hearing that, we didn't go back for dinner. My recommendation- if you're in Binalong Bay, cook your own breakfast or head into St Helens to one of the cafes there.

Homemade Duck Bresaola

2009-09-17T11:54:00.007+10:00

I've been getting into homemade cured meats and preserves of late. I was inspired by a Duck Prosciutto I had tried at Bottega in the city. I found a recipe by local chef Tobie Puttock online and thought I'd give it a go myself.

The whole process is really easy and just takes patience more than anything else.
If you're planning on following this recipe, I would recommend getting the meatiest duck breasts you can find, this will maximise the amount of finished product you get and it will also minimise the salt that the meat absorbs.

The recipe doesn't mention it, but when it comes time to hang the breasts, I would rinse off the mix and dry it with a paper towel, before hanging. Again, this is to minimise the salt absorbed by the meat.

As you may have worked out, my final product was quite salty, but still very edible. I would suggest maybe keeping them in the salt mix for a shorter amount of time. Maybe 2 or 3 days. However, my Duck Breasts were quite small, so if you get larger ones, it might be worth keeping them the full 4 days in the mix.

I served mine with some Blue Cheese, Sour Cherry Conserve, Crackers and Quince Paste. Yum!

Nosh

2009-08-31T12:22:00.009+10:00

24 Hall Street, Newport VIC 3015, (03) 9391 6404

Apparently cafe culture has moved to the Western suburbs. Yeh, yeh, I know that places like Yarraville, Seddon and Williamstown apparently have cool little cafe's that do really great food and have done for years. But this is the first I'd heard of in Newport.

I'd known about Nosh in Newport for quite sometime, since I grew up in Newport and my parents still live there. However, for some reason I'd chosen to avoid it, despite being in Newport most weekends. Something inside me was telling me to stay away. So I did. For many a year. Until I read recently that David Azzopardi from Ezard was doing Friday night dinners at Nosh. Now Ezard is by far my favourite restaurant, so in my eyes, the fact that David was cooking there, gave this place a hell of a lot of credibility. So, this weekend, I stopped listening to that little voice inside me and thought I'd give their breakfast a go. The place is regularly packed when I drive past on a weekend, so it can't be all that bad. That is unless the people of the west have a lower standard, than us 'trendy' inner city folk. I guess it was time to find out.

We arrived on a very rainy Saturday morning, to find the place very busy indeed. There were tables outside and undercover, but everyone had chosen to sit inside, which added to the hustle and bustle. The cafe is located on a corner building, which originally was the Newport TAB and then The Pepper Tree cafe. The Pepper Tree was one of the first of it's kind in Newport. Unfortunately, Newport wasn't ready for cafe culture back then, so it wasn't long before it closed down. Nosh took over the cafe and gave it a bit of a spruce up and it is what you see today.

The guy who seated us, looked very familiar. I believe he used to be a manager at Joe's Garage in Brunswick St and is now the manager at Nosh. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

Within seconds of being seated, a very young looking waiter appeared asking for our order. We hadn't even looked at the menu yet. It was so loud in there I could barely hear him and he couldn't hear me. So when I ordered an English Breakfast tea, he wondered where on the food menu I found an 'English Breakfast." Ummm, no....When my tea did arrive, I never got any milk to go with it. That was mistake number one.

For breakfast I ordered the poached eggs, with locally handmade chevaps and smoked ham hock baked beans. When the plate arrived I saw no chevaps. It appears they were so small they were hiding under my toast. Then I took one look at my eggs and they were very, very raw, you could see clear globules of uncooked egg white, without even breaking into the eggs. I very quickly sent them back. A few minutes later the eggs arrived back at my table, as the waiter placed them down mumbling something... but again - it was so noisy, I couldn't hear him. The 'locally made chevaps' were less than average. If locally made sausages are this bad, you should be importing them. Em' and I both agreed these tasted exactly like those standard pink sausages you would get from Coles or Safeway.
The baked beans were OK. Nothing like the delicious smoky baked beans I had at the Wye River General Store recently.
Worst of all, the butter was Western Star butter in a foil wrapper! Attention to detail my friends, is what makes or breaks a place. Butter is a detail and Nosh failed to pay attention to it. Nothing screams lazy to me like a foil wrapper of butter. There are so many better options than butter in foil, at least take the foil off!
We actually also noticed a table full of girls next to us also sent their eggs back as they were undercooked.

Em' ordered the Bacon and Egg roll, with onions and relish. These fried eggs were better, the yolk was runny, however, the bacon inside was like cardboard and it was that dry crumbly sort of bacon that nobody likes. The onion was pretty overpowering and quite similar to one of those Sausages with onion you get at Bunnings on a weekend. But overall, Em' was happy with the roll.

Overall a disappointing performance from Nosh. Nothing special here and this is exactly the sort of place I would expect to find in Newport. I'm suprised though that it's made such a name for itself in the area. Is that because there's nothing else around? Possibly. Raw poached eggs, dry bacon, LOUD atmosphere and wait staff that just look like they would rather be someplace else.

So despite the fact that David Azzopardi is cooking there on the occassional Friday night - he obviously isn't cooking breakfast there. I won't be returning in a hurry, if I want Ezard, I'll go to Ezard, thanks.

Taste Of Melbourne '09

2009-08-27T22:17:00.007+10:00

Some people like the whole Taste of Melbourne concept, some don't. I'm one of the people that do. Compared to events like the Melbourne Food and Wine show, Taste is a million times better, in my opinion. The food and wine show is like a room full of those ladies that you see in the supermarket, offering you tastes of the latest Kan Tong Simmer Sauce, or Chicken Tonight.

Boring, if you ask me! And if you're against the whole mainstream foodie event, you could head to your local farmer's market or out of town to some of Melbourne's great producers.

I, however, don't mind a bit of a mainstream event like Taste. I think it's a really cool idea-being able to walk around and sample food from some of Melbourne's best restaurants. Sure there are quite a few missing and sure the quality and atmosphere is not going to be what it is in the real restaurant, but you get the idea. It can also help you decide whether or not you actually want to visit the real restaurant. Chances are, if they're going to give you a tiny, flavourless morsel at Taste, you're pretty likely going to get the same thing, when you visit in person.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of free passes from Spread My Butter (thanks!). We thought we would visit tonight (Thursday) as it was probably going to be the quietest session (well, tonight and Friday Lunch). We were right. While there was still quite a few people wandering around, it was by no means crowded and never any lines for any of the stalls (that we encountered, anyway).

You would think The Press Club if any of them would have had a queue, but the stands were well staffed and then only wait was a couple of minutes for your food, once you had ordered. Speaking of The Press Club, George Calmobares was on hand for photos and autograph signings. As was his Masterchef counterpart - Gary Mehigan. Most of the other chefs were there too, such as Frank Camora, Toby Puttock, Dallas Cuddy, etc. All of them were up the front and chatting to foodies, fans and whoever else wanted a chat.

The main difference I noticed from the last Taste of Melbourne I went to, were that the servings were much larger than before. Our first couple of plates were the Souvlaki and Saganaki dishes from The Hellenic Republic stand. After eating those, we were already half full!

Slow Roasted 'Berkshire' Pork belly, in the Style of Porchetta, with Lentil Du Puy & Salsa Verde - Fifteen
Lentils were VERY, VERY undercooked. I would have taken it back had I not have been talked out of it. The Pork was tasty, but nothing special there. No crispy crackling, which you'd expect at Fifteen, either.

Slow Cooked Cuttlefish with Chorizo and Chick Peas - Movida
I'd never had Cuttlefish before. It kind of has the texture of a thick piece of fat, except with a fishy taste. At first this dish was a bit weird on the palate, but I did warm to it. The chorizo was the highlight.

Seafood 'hotdog' with Corn Relish and Avocado - Oyster Little Bourke
This is one ugly dish! There was no recognisable fish in there, either. Based on this dish, I won't be going to Oyster in a hurry.

Lamb Souvlaki - Hellenic Republic
This was my favourite dish of the evening. Very slow cooked lamb with homemade chips in Souvlaki Bread. So nice to eat and I think there was a little horseradish in there, too. I can now never go back to the Souvlaki King.

Saganaki with Peppered Figs - Hellenic Republic
Another highlight of the evening. Stretchy, chewy Saganaki, with sweet figs, which were a little bit spicy from said Pepper. Delicious!

Pave' of Valhrona Chocolate with Burnt Orange Cream and Candied Cumquat - Botanical
This was very rich, nice Pave. The Orange Cream was so thick it wouldn't come off the plate. Stay away from that cumquat. No joy there.

Chocolate, Honeycomb & Salted Caramel Crunch, Circa- The Prince
Like a liquid cake with a weird textured chocolate at the base. Kind of a cross between a milkshake and a trifle. Worth a try.

One qualm that I did have, was that the whole night we were looking to buy a bottle of water, or some other non-alcoholic beverage. We couldn't find any at all. Might be an idea to have some soft drinks available for people that are driving or that don't drink.

Overall, we had an excellent night out - we spent $64 out of our $80 worth of crowns that we purchased. ($1 = 1 x crown). With our leftover crowns, we bought 2 cheeses from the Yarra Valley Cheese stall to take home. Thanks again to Spread My Butter for the tickets!

Wye River General Store

2009-08-19T19:46:00.006+10:00

35 Great Ocean Rd, Wye River, 03 5289 0247

Please note that this review has been removed as I have emailed the owner in relation to an issue and am awaiting their response.

French Macarons

2009-08-11T22:13:00.005+10:00

Have you noticed all those pretty little cupcake stores popping up around town over the last few years? They're very cute and very pretty, but they are SO last year! The Macaron craze has hit town and are the new big thing in town. Especially since their featuring in a few episodes of the Australian Masterchef show.

Late on Saturday night (1130pm late), I was reading up about how to make these little beauties and was surprised to find out that they're not as easy as you might think. If you are interested in learning about how to make them and how not to make them - read the most amazing guide to Macarons at Syrup and Tang. After spending an hour or so reading all the info on the page- I couldn't resist giving them a go.

I found a recipe over at Kitchen Wench's page, which is a bit easier to follow than Syrup and Tang's formula type recipes.

So by 1.30am Sunday morning and after one failed attempt, I accomplished my mission, with these pretty cool little sweet bites you see before you. The only tips I can give you, other than the ones that you will find on the links above, is that if you think your batter is too runny, add some more almond meal to the mix. Also, if you think your Macarons are stuck to the baking paper, lift them slightly at the edge and carefully slide under a palette knife. Most of mine stuck to the paper, but saved 100% of them by sliding the knife under.

I filled half of mine with Dulche De Leche and the other half with a French Earl Grey infused Chocolate Ganache. Whilst I may not be getting a phone call from Donna Hay, asking me to work as a food stylist for her magazine, I reckon they look pretty cool for a first go. And they were deliciously tasty and perfectly chewy inside. Brilliant!

Pier, Sydney

2009-08-03T19:26:00.009+10:00

594 New South Head Rd, Rose Bay NSW Australia 2029 | phone: +61 2 9327-6561

On day 2 of our 5 days of foodie inspired adventures in Sydney, led us to Pier in Rose Bay. Sydney really put on the weather for us- rain and lots of it! Quite a novelty for us Melbournians. Only problem is, it's never fun driving in Sydney, less fun when you don't know how to get where you're going and even less fun, when you're driving in the hail during peak hour!

I'd been interested in visiting Pier since Peter Doyle released his beautiful cookbook of seafood dishes. My interest was sparked again when watching the beautiful dishes that were served to the contestants on Masterchef Australia, when they visited the restaurant.

The restaurant has a very unique layout and is literally built on a pier, jutting out into Rose Bay. During the day, you would have a beautiful view through the huge windows which surround the room. However during the evening, you have a view of beautiful fairy lights bobbing up and down on the bay and in the background the lights of Sydney's well to do's houses shining onto the water. Sensational spot.

We decided to go with the 5 course Degustation menu - $139. Not cheap, considering at most Melbourne restaurants of the same calibre would offer you probably 8 courses for that price.
But the seafood here, is apparently literally the best around and is meant to taste like it has been caught to order. So hopefully it's worth bill.

To start we were offered up little Kingfish 'Ice Creams'. The cone was very similar to a wonton wrapper, which had been deep fried into a cone shape and well seasoned. The Kingfish was served raw and finely diced, mixed with capers, maybe Kaffir lime? and maybe some other little bits and bobs. So simple, yet, so tasty. Slightly too salty, but you know when it's that really good salt and it just makes it better?

Next was the Salad of Marron, with Foie Gras Mousse, Cherry Carpaccio and Banyuls reduction. Tonight was a night of firsts and I'd never had marron before. It's very much like a cross between a bug, a prawn and a yabby. A baby lobster even. Their little claw is very cute and delicate tasting. The foie gras mousse was very rich - luckily it was a tiny portion. Once again - delicious. Only I was hoping the next 3 courses were going to get somewhat bigger.

Third dish was the Pan roasted Scallops with Saute Veal Sweetbreads, Shimeji Mushrooms and Cauliflower / Madeira Tofu. 2 Scallops with a small circle of tofu in the middle. Scallops were perfectly caramelized and rare in the middle, just the way they should be. The Cauliflower tofu was like a little panna cotta and nice and wobbly. On top was a little caramelized sweetbread. This was my first ever sweetbread, so I was keen to give it a go. For those of you that don't know - a sweetbread is not a Brioche or other pastry like bread. It is in fact the thymus glands and pancreas glands of lamb, beef, or pork. Delicious, huh? Would you believe it actually was? It had the texture of very, very, tender chicken schnitzel and the taste of a mild bone marrow. I would definately eat them again. This was our third dish and still a very, very small one. At this point I was well past being appetised and was keen for a big plate of food.

Well, this wasn't to be. Our forth course, the main was another minimalist experience. Pan roasted Barramundi with Caramelised witlof, Serano ham, dutch carrots, with bitter orange sauce. The Barra fillet was small, but brilliantly cooked. Crispy skin, soft in the middle - yum! However, considering if you had to buy this dish from the a la carte menu it would cost you $52, it was tiny. My two baby carrots weren't soft, they were still hard in the middle- not sure if this was intentional. The plate was warm of course, but it was so warm/hot that it cooked the bitter orange sauce to the plate, meaning that I was unable to drag my fish through the sauce as it had been dried out by the over hot plate. This wouldn't have been helped by the fact that it was spread so thinly, either. The sauce that I did get however was delicious!

The final dessert, my last chance at filling my tummy, was a Spiced Pear Souffle'. Can you believe I'd never eaten a Souffle before? I was excited! I was served in the little copper saucepan it was cooked in and the waiter poured in the spiced pear sauce into the center of the souffle at the table for the theatrical experience. I dug my spoon into the souffle and was very disappointed. The taste was very average. It just tasted like sweetened egg whites. They were too sweet, so much so, neither of us could finish it. The egg whites didnt appear to be flavoured prior to cooking and they probably were only flavoured by the sauce that was poured inside. The egg whites inside even appeared to be undercooked. A massive let down.

Five courses later, I had that horrible feeling. I was paying $139 for dinner and I was still hungry. When eating such amazing food, you don't want to be rolling out the door, but you want to at least feel satisfied for a few hours. But at the end of the meal, I could have eaten another 5 of the same courses. That said, the flavours were amazing, the experience was sensational (let's just pretend I didn't have that souffle). The service was great, however- a little impersonal. The room is amazing and I can see why they can charge what they do for food. We had a really nice night at Pier, I would recommend it for the great cooked food and for the amazing flavours. However, I'd also suggest that you be wary, that it's one of those places where you may need to have a Kebab on the way home to fill you up.

The Auction Rooms

2009-07-09T23:20:00.005+10:00

03-107 Errol Street, North Melbourne VIC 3051 (03) 9326 7749
www.auctionroomscafe.com.au

Remember how I was saying, I enjoy going out for breakfast and finding something slightly out of the norm? Well, the Auction Rooms in North Melbourne have done it, with my favourite breakfast in quite a while!

What I had here was basically a Panzanella Salad with delicious Sardine fillets. There were large chunks of toasted torn bread to soak up juices, capers, tomato and basil.

You could argue that this is more of a lunch dish, but hey, who doesn't love sardines on toast for breakfast?! That's basically what this is, with a few cheeky additions.

Oh, and how cool are The Auction Rooms? They have a great little menu, great setup and have lots of keen followers, so make sure you get in early!

Hellenic Republic

2009-07-08T22:01:00.005+10:00

434 Lygon St Brunswick VIC 3055 - (03) 9381 1222
www.hellenicrepublic.com.au

I've eaten breakfasts all over the country, from Darwin, to Byron Bay, down to Sydney, to Melbourne, all the way down to Hobart. So, I like to think I know what makes a good breakfast. To me it's something a little out of the norm, something that is done different to the rest of the cafes around town. Living in Melbourne, every place thinks they do Melbourne's best breakfast, when infact all they are serving up is some average eggs and overcooked bacon.

This is why I was happy to see Masterchef Australia's very own judge serving up Spanikopita with poached eggs! Never seen that on a menu before and never thought that I would order it, but I'll try anything once. Apparently, however Mr George Calombares, isn't a fan of us food bloggers. Well, that's what he was telling the crowds at the Melbourne Food and Wine festival. Well George, just like you have opinions about what people cook on Masterchef, we have opinions about what you cook in your restaurants. That's only fair, isn't it?

Now, whilst I'm a huge advocate of George's other restaurant - The Press Club I'm not loving the breakfasts at his new joint - Hellenic Republic. Sure the Spanikopita with eggs is different, so too are the over cooked poached eggs that go with it. One of the poached eggs was almost over cooked and the other was WAY over cooked. The spanikopita, however, was delicious! Salty, soft inside, crunchy outside, a little slippery on the tongue from the spinach or silverbeet.

My mate had Ouzo cured Salmon with scrambled eggs - which from my side of the table, didn't appear to be over cooked and he said were fantastic!

Ok, so mistakes happen, it's an over-cooked egg - not the end of the world, so a few weeks later, I return to try something new.

On my next visit i try the smoked lamb sandwich with greek cheese and a fried egg. Yaay! Something a little different again! ...or not. My egg was cooked solid AGAIN! In this photo you can see a shiny yellow yolk, but below that - it was hard, pale and over cooked. As Darren Hinch would say - SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!

Is the first thing you learn at chef's school, not how to cook an egg? Shouldn't you already know that before you go to chef's school? I can cook a fried egg and a poached egg with my eyes closed.

I have heard from a few people though, that the lunches and dinners at Hellenic Republic are far better than their breakfasts. Do I dare visit there again and hope for third time lucky?

So George, I guess I haven't helped you and your dislike for us food bloggers, but I tell it like I see it, and the photos here prove that I could have played table tennis with those poached eggs.

Brandon Hotel, Carlton North

2009-07-08T15:07:00.007+10:00

237 Station St (Cnr Lee St), Carlton North 3054 VIC
http://www.brandonhotel.com.au

I love the idea of pub meals, especially in the depths of winter. However, usually you hear about pub meals in Melbourne which a supposedly fantastic, only to find out they are over priced italian meals or Bangers and Mash. Although, their new chef - Jane Molloy is from The Grand Hotel in Richmond - one of those over priced italian pubs.

So, when some friends of mine invited me to try out the Brandon in Carlton North, I was somewhat skeptical about what would be on offer. However, the Brandon Hotel is within walking distance from my house so I thought it would be worth a shot.

The front bar is your typical local pub, with sticky carpet and old bar stools, nothing fancy here.
However, the dining room appears to have undergone a renovation in the last few years. It's quite large with an open fire place, white table linen and vases of fresh flowers.

The menu here absolutely screams warm me up! When you get out those winter cook books, this is exactly the sort of food you look for to make on a Sunday when it's cold and rainy outside.

I had the Roast duck breast with braised red cabbage & parsnip puree $30. The duck was beautifully cooked and not too fatty. The parsnip puree was deliciously creamy and (juniper berry?) Jus, was perfect over the top.

The Bouillabaisse with char grilled ciabbata $26 looked amazing, however my friend would have probably preferred that the prawn heads were removed before serving. They're great for flavour - but not everyone likes heads on their plate.

Our other guests both had the Navarin of Lamb with glazed root vegetables & mash $28, which was fantastic. The lamb was soft and tasty, with a large serving of mash on the side.

Nothing fancy here, just good, honest pub grub, the sort of stuff Gordon Ramsay tries to get all those hopeless restaurants to make on that TV show. The food here isn't cheap, but for it's quality I would not say it's over priced either. Also, if you don't want to spend $30 each on a mid week meal, you can also eat a good old parma in the front bar and other pub standards for about half that.

We will definately be back to visit the Brandon, but I suspect by the time we get back there, the rest of Melbourne may have discovered Carlton North's little secret.

Rathdowne Street Food Store

2009-07-08T14:20:00.004+10:00

617 Rathdowne St, Carlton North VIC

I've been meaning to check out Rathdowne Street Food Store for years, but it seems that you have to make a booking most weekends and apart from very special occasions, I refuse to make a breakfast booking. However, this weekend, my friends were eager to try RSFS, so they made the booking.

It's a small cafe, which is definately busy - we can see why we need to book. However, you would think if you booked in advance, you wouldn't get the table near the door - especially on a chilly winter Melbourne morning. The room is full of people that look like off duty doctors, lawyers, and business people. This seems to be Yuppy Central. The menu is a massive breakfast menu and I'm suprised there's such a big choice.

I decide to go with the special breakfast, which is Scrambled Eggs, with Basil, fetta, Smoked Salmon and tomato. By reading the menu, I probably stupidly assumed that all the ingredients would be served seperately. However, the scrambled eggs were cooked with all these ingredients mixed in. I am not a fan of this at all. Firstly, i don't believe that you can cook the eggs properly when you have mixed through all these ingredients. Secondly, the ingredients always seem to bleed out their liquid when served like this and you end up with that puddle of juice at the bottom of the plate. You can see this in the photo below.

It was indeed a generous serve for breakfast and none of us that ordered the special, managed to finish the plate of food. The eggs were overcooked and every mouthful had too many flavours and was almost sickly. RSFS could probably do with shortening their menu and living by the mantra of 'do a few things and do them well' rather than cook everything and do a less than average job.

I'd heard rave reviews about this place for years, however maybe I missed my chance at visiting, when they were sending out good food. Or maybe we visited on a bad morning. Or maybe their special breakfast, just wasn't that special.

To top a poor breakfast off, we ordered a second round of coffees, which after 20 minutes we had to chase up. Turned out they'd forgotten about them. We told them not to bother and paid our bill and left.

Rathdowne Street Food Store - not worth making a booking.

Masterchef Australia, Audition Dish - Chinese Style Octopus Carpaccio with Chilli and Snowpea Tendrils (served with Green Nam Jim)

2009-05-14T20:59:00.009+10:00

This is a little dish is my investion. I came up with for the auditions for Australia's Masterchef. The judges loved the dish... however, it seems that the executive producers didn't love me, which is why I'm not on TV as we speak. Oh well, there is always next year.

This dish in influenced by two of my favourite chefs. Teague Ezard, who often cooks with a masterstock and loves his asian flavours. It's also influenced by an Italian octopus dish, which I had at Fifteen, Melbourne, which was handmade by the one and only Jamie Oliver. This dish is basically a fusion of both.

When you purchase your octopus, see if you can get octopus which has been in the tenderiser for a few hours. It's basically rolled around in a dryer like drum with some weights and beaten until it's tenderised.

1 Large Octopus, tentacles only.

Masterstock:
3 litres (6 pints) water
250 ml (9 fl oz) light soy sauce
500 ml (16 fl oz) Shao Xing wine (Chinese cooking wine)
200 g (7 oz) yellow rock sugar
40 g (11⁄2 oz) fresh ginger
5 cloves garlic
3 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
10 g (2 teaspoons) dried mandarin peel

Spices for bag
4 whole cloves
4 star anise
1 teaspoon sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon licorice root
1 teaspoon dried chilli
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Garnish
Finely chopped chillies
Snow pea tendrils
Finely sliced kaffir lime leaves

Place all of the spices into a piece of muslin cloth and tie into a bag. Put the spice bag along with all of the other ingredients in a large stockpot and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 10 –15 minutes to allow the spices to infuse.

Once your masterstock is ready, bring it to a simmer and place your whole octopus in the pot. Cook the octopus for 3 hours on a gentle simmer. Cooking for this time will help make the octopus as tender as possible and also help the octopus to release it's gelatine like properties. This is important later.
Allow the octopus to cool in the stock, until it's cool enough to handle. Gently take the octopus out of the stock and lay the tentacles along side each other on top of a long strip of glad wrap.
VERY tightly roll up the tentacles in the glad wrap to make a big long sausage. Once tightly wrapped up, help the octopus sausage stay tight by wrapping some elastic bands around the sausage. This will help the octopus keep it's shape when sliced. Place the sausage in the fridge to allow the octopus to set overnight.
The next day you can remove the octopus from the fridge, also removing the elastic bands and glad wrap. The Octopus should hold it's sausage shape while it's cold, so you need to work very quickly and carefully.
With a extremely sharp knife, thinly slice the octopus and place each slice on a plate. This is where you will see the beautiful pattern that tentacles make.

Serve the Octopus with a Thai Green Nam Jim dipping sauce.

Red Spice Road

2009-05-05T22:42:00.005+10:00

27 McKillop Street, Melbourne Ph: 9603 1601

Does anyone really know where in Melbourne, McKillop Street is? I didn't, until I discovered Red Spice Road. Now I believe they should rename the entire street - Red Spice Road. Seriously! The food here is THAT good. I visited here on a recommendation from a friend and have been back many times since. The food here is brilliantly fresh, tasty, vibrant and of course- spicy!

Red Spice Road is like a cross between, Longrain and Gingerboy, but you can leave there with money in your pocket and your tummy is much more satisfied.

You can order, of course, from the a la carte menu, which is good value, but you cannot go past the lunch or dinner banquets, which are UNBELIEVABLE value! At lunchtime you can have an appetiser plus 5 mains for $25 or at dinner you can have 7 courses, plus dessert for $50! My tip is though... don't plan on completely finishing every course, because it's most likely that you're going to end up, very, very full!

The dinner banquet consists of:

betel leaf with spanner crab, chicken, chilli and kaffir lime
oyster with cucumber, green chilli, shallot and salmon roe
crispy five spice quail with jicama, shiso, watercress,
cucumber salad
shredded chicken, pomelo, coconut, mint salad
pork belly with chilli caramel, apple slaw and black vinegar
beef cheeks with spiced star anise sauce, mushrooms &
viet mint, bean sprout salad
wild barramundi with mushrooms, coriander, sugar
peas and spicy coconut broth

steamed jasmine rice
mango brulee with coconut ice cream

The food here I believe is similar to that of Longrain, but I believe is a hell of a lot more tasty. I think that Longrain bases their dishes on heat, lime and more heat. At Red Spice Road, the spices, the fresh herbs, the sweet palm sugar and wonderful textures are in each and every dish.
The stand out dish, is by far the pork belly, which is crispy on the outside and wonderfully soft on the inside, with just the right amount of fat in there. The dressing can be a little too sweet, but the acidity of the shredded green apple helps to cut through the sweetness and the richness of the pork.

My other fave was the beef cheeks, which are so tender, they literally melt in your mouth.

On the day of your visit, just make sure you skip at least 1 or 2 meals, so you can enjoy the huge banquet that is Red Spice Road.

I'm BAAACK!!

2009-03-27T12:08:00.002+11:00

Well, I hope at least by me writing that I'm back, I'll start to write up all the posts that I haven't got around to for months!! I've still been eating out and cooking as much as I ever have - I just haven't had a chance to get to all the photos and writing them up.
I've also been concentrating on attempting to start up my photography career and also investigating opening a cafe. Unfortunately, the money situation doesn't allow for a cafe just yet... so it looks like I'm a part time photographer! I even have a few weddings coming up - how excitement!

Stay tuned!!

I want to link to your blog!

2008-10-19T13:25:00.002+11:00

Hey everybody.
I haven't updated my blogroll for over a year now and I know there are lots more wonderful Melbourne Food blogs around these days. So, if you would like your Melbourne food blog to be added to my blogroll, please just leave your details and blog address in a comment on this post and I'll add you to my links.

Also, if you're an international blog and have linked to my page, also let me know and I'll add you too!

The Breakfast Club

2008-10-19T12:59:00.003+11:00

206 St Georges Road, Northcote, 3070. Phone 0450 581 494

I did see the movie a long time ago, although I wasn't one of those people that fell in love with it. I was more of your Karate Kid, kind of guy. A movie about detention, just didn't appeal to me. What does appeal to me however, is good food and the cafe named after the movie does just this.

The Breakfast Club cafe on busy St George's Rd is small. Very small. There's barely room to stretch out your legs, but there's just enough room for my tummy to expand after eating their yummy food. The music is grungey rock, the coffee machine is making itself heard, the ordering is done at the counter. Although, the place is so small you could just tell the girl behind the counter from your seat what you're after.

No printed menus. I hate this. So annoying. Everyone seems to be doing it these days. Is it an effort to become environmentally concious, cool, or just cutting costs? Lucky me, chose a seat directly under the blackboard, so i almost had to lie horizontally backwards to read it.

The menu is quirky, some other items that looked interesting was the Bananarama - banana, cream cheese, cinnamon and honey on sourdough toast and Nutella if you like. There was also the Ringwald, a brie and quince paste melt with basil on sourdough toast. Yummy

I ordered the Bircher Muesli- Oats, thick yoghurt, grated granny smith, toasted coconut, hazlenuts all drizzled with sweet honey. Just the thing I needed after my morning run.

The English Breakfast tea, comes served in an old fashioned tea pot complete with Nanna's tea cosy. While tea cosy's are cute - it's slightly embarressing for a single guy, flying solo for breakfast, drinks his tea with a lovely tea cosy.

The staff are pleasant, but also seem about as excited to be at work on a Sunday as any of us would be. Still, a smile would be nice. The Breakfast Club is busy and seems to be well liked by the locals... I can see why. I'd go back, just maybe next time, I wouldn't sit so close to the menu and i'd probably order the Bananarama and my tea minus the cosy.

Shire

2008-10-17T21:36:00.005+11:00

69 Victoria St, Fitzroy Ph 9417 3788

A frustrated morning of wandering to and from my favourite Fitzroy cafes only to find they're full and there's a wait on a table. I was flying solo that morning and still couldn't find a seat. It was the day after Grand Final day and I had left it too late to go out for breakfast. If you go out, usually before 10am, usually you can avoid the tourists from the 'burbs and get a table. Then I remembered a place a friend recommended to me, just off Brunswick St, in a new trendy apartment block. The cafe is called Shire.

It was the day after Grand Final day and the place was full of hungover trendies, looking a little worse for wear, telling tales of Grand Final night drunkeness. But Shire didn't disappoint. They have chairs and tables in nooks all over the place, so a table for one it was. The room is suprisingly spacious and cosy at the same time.

The breakfast menu is large- spanning two pages. Organic sourdough, free range googies, omlettes and muesli all look attractive. However, I think most of the people already there were ordering the greasiest breakfast they could find.

I went with boring, old eggs benedict (12.90). Only it wasn't boring. Well, it was your standard eggs benedict, but it was delicious! My only problem with it, was that there was a slight taste of vinegar - I'm not sure if this was the eggs - from the poaching liquid (in case you don't know, vinegar helps the whites set nicely), but it could also have been in the sauce. But I'm probably being a bit picky here. It really was tasty. I usually don't order eggs benedict - that much butter in the morning always makes me feel a bit queezy, but not this time! Nicely done! I liked them so much, I ordered them again, the next time I went back.

Service at Shire is nice and friendly and very prompt, no hassles with waiting too long for my food or tea, or anything like that. All in all, a very nice place and one that I'm glad I got a seat at.
Did I mention their floor is made from an old bowling alley? Now all you trendies and hipsters can have an excuse to wear your $300 Campers bowling shoes to breakfast.

Pearl Cafe

2008-10-12T21:02:00.004+11:00

599 Church St, Richmond Ph 03 9427 1307 - Website

Wikipedia says that disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations to manifest.

Never have I been as disappointed as when I visited Pearl Cafe.

I had been waiting months for Pearl Cafe to open, as apparently they had lots of problems with opening, so it was delayed for quite some time after the originally announced date of opening.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, Pearl restaurant, it's in my top 3 favourite Melbourne restaurants, so with the news of Pearl Cafe opening and the return of their famous breakfasts, it's fair to say that I was excited!

The first time I visited Pearl Cafe for breakfast, I was instantly hit with disappointment and I hadn't even been served my meal yet. It turns out that they stop serving breakfast at 11am and we arrived right on 11! So at 11am, we had to order from the lunch menu. What is this, McDonalds? What sort of place in inner city Melbourne, especially one as respected as Pearl, doesn't serve all day breakfast - or at least breakfast until 2 or 3? I think the reason behind this, is the fact that as far as I'm aware, most of the food is prepared down the road at the actual Pearl restaurant and just headed onsite at the cafe. I know this because I saw a guy wheeling a tray of coddled eggs down the street as I was leaving.

So, that day I ended up ordering a somewhat dry and very average Macaroni and Cheese for what I guess you would call brunch. If it was my cafe, I wouldn't be putting this on the menu, if it was served everyday like this. Unless, I just got it on a bad day.

A few weeks later I returned (early this time!) for breakfast. At the Pearl restaurant, when they used to serve breakfast, they used to serve this amazing coddled egg on a cube of toasted bread, with Y.V. Salmon Roe. Delicious. So, when I saw coddled eggs on the menu again - I was quick to order. There are a few different options of Coddled Eggs on the menu, I went with the Coddled Eggs with wild and picked mushrooms.

The eggs were delivered tome at my seat at the big communal table in a little ceramic pot used especially for egg coddling. Let me describe the eggs to you. On top, they were still clear and very raw. At the bottom they were very overcooked and solid. Amongst the dry and uncooked egg was a single field mushroom - which could have very well have been handpicked from Coles down the road. There were no wild mushroom in my coddled eggs! The person I was with, couldn't believe I was actually eating what I was served. You know what? Thinking about it now, either can I.

If the food is always this bad coming out of this place - this is going to tarnish Pearl's good name - it has to. If people go there to try the cheaper version before they try the real thing - they're definately not going to try the real thing - i know I wouldn't have.

Oh, another thing - their tea strainers are woven like a little cane basket, they look very nifty, but they don't strain anything!! There are gaps in the weaving and your tea leaves run through. As Rove would say.... What the??

ICI

2008-09-20T19:02:00.003+10:00

359 Napier St Fitzroy, VIC 3065 (03) 9417 2274

What do you get when you cross decent food with possibly the slowest and least attentive service I've seen to date in Melbourne? ICI, that's what.
I've lived in Fitzroy for the last 6 years - just around the corner from ICI and somehow I've successfully managed to avoid visiting this place for that whole time. From outside there's nothing inviting about it- a few seats outside and a very small cafe inside, with again very few seats.
There are always people at ICI though, which is apparently a popular haunt for the locals.
Unfortunately for us, my mate wanted to give ICI a go last weekend and offered to pay for my breakfast, so who was I to complain?
No free tables inside or outside. So, we were forced to be those annoying people that stand around watching other people eat, waiting for them to leave. 10 minutes later we got a seat outside. Another 10 minutes later, the waitress decided she was going to finally clean our table of the last people's mess.
Another 10 minutes later a waiter appeared to take our drink orders and advised us, we'd need to go inside to look at the blackboard for the menu. How hard is it to print up some paper menus for people sitting outside? Damn Fitzroy hippies, not wanting to waste paper!
15 minutes after we ordered, one of my friend's Scrambled eggs and toast arrived - this was obviously first, because it was easiest and didn't have any sides like the rest of us.
It wasn't for another 10 minutes at least before the rest of our breakfasts arrived. This is poor form for any cafe or restaurant. Everyone should be served together in my book.
Presentation obviously isn't a factor at ICI, everything is banged on the plate with minimal care and it seems to barely fit on the plate.

Apart from all that - the food is actually half decent. The eggs were nicely poached, the tomato chilli jam had a nice kick and the bacon tasted like bacon.
If you're sitting outside, also watch for the seeds from the trees above blowing into your food. It happened to us, not very cool, but I guess there's not much the cafe can do about it. There's plenty they can do about their service though. Attempting to order more drinks when we finished our food proved hopeless.
If you want to lounge around in the back streets of Fitzroy and act like a local - there are better places to do it than ICI, I'd suggest Minlokal, just around the corner.

Seared Scallops with Spicy Carrot Fritters and Yoghurt Lime Dressing

2008-09-15T21:38:00.004+10:00

With the nice weather suddenly coming back to town, I thought it was time for an interesting lighter lunch, full of flavour. i found this recipe on a BBC website from the UK. It's actually a Bill Granger though - the king of lightness and simplicity (I'm talking about his food, of course!)
This is a really simple recipe and you don't need to be an amazing cook to whip this one together in no time. My only tip would be to make sure you only cook the scallops for 1 minute on each side on a hot frypan. Any longer and you will overcook them - making them chewy.

Carrot Fritters:
60g plain flour
125ml soda water
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp turmeric
1 tsp sea salt
1 small red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
235g grated carrot
8 spring onions, finely sliced
25g chopped coriander
60ml vegetable oil

For Scallops:
12 medium-sized scallops, roe removed
2 tbsp olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
watercress, to serve

For Yoghurt Dressing:
125g plain yoghurt
1 tbs lime juice
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbs olive oil

Method:
1. Place the flour, soda water, egg, cumin, coriander, turmeric and salt in a bowl and mix well. Add the chilli, carrot, spring onion and coriander and stir to combine.
2. Heat frying pan, add oil & heat until hot. Cooking in batches, add two tablespoons of batter per fritter and cook for two minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Cook the remaining fritter batter, adding extra oil if necessary. Place the fritters on an ovenproof plate lined with paper towels and keep warm.
3. Place the scallops in a bowl, add olive oil, season with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium-to-high heat and cook the scallops for no more than one minute on each side.
4. For the yoghurt dressing, place all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.
5. Place three carrot fritters on each plate, top with the watercress and scallops and drizzle with the yoghurt dressing. Season with pepper and serve.

Jacques Raymond

2008-09-13T13:50:00.006+10:00

78 Williams Rd Prahran VIC 3181 Tel: (03) 9525-2178

Of all the restaurants I've visited over the last few years, somehow I've managed to unconsciously avoid visiting any type of French restaurant. So, when I found out that my best mate was going to take me to Melbourne's 3 hatted Jacques Raymond for my 30th birthday, I was over the moon! Not only do I get to visit one of Melbourne's best restaurants, but I get to try proper French food for the first time, too! What would be eating? Frogs legs? Kilos of butter? Snails? I thought I would cheat and check the restaurant's website before going, but it seems that JR don't actually have an online version of their menu.

We arrived at the Williams Rd, Windsor location and I was surprised to not see a shopfront type restaurant, but instead a typical Toorak style Mansion, which most Melbournian's would know what I'm talking about.

We were greeted at the door by three elegantly dressed waiters. The best way I can describe them is if you've seen that episode of The Simpsons where the waiter has the argument with the Mayor's son about the pronunciation of the word 'chowder'. The waiters very much resembled that character. The spiffy suit, the slick hair and one even had the very cliche' little French moustache. Our main waiter for the evening had a very radio/car-salesman-esque voice where everything he spoke to us about, sounded like he was performing a voice over. If only I could show you a photo of him. (Actually... I found one on The Age website)

....only when the waiter saw my camera (still in it's case) he very politely advised that the chef did not allow restaurant visitors to take photos of their food. Apparently there are these things out there called 'blogs' and people take photos and post them on their blog and write reviews about restaurants. Really?? Who knew?? The waiter mentioned that the chef thinks that most of these photos look rubbish and are a poor representation of the food, so they don't allow photos of the food. But apparently, the chef is happy to make a booking with you, if you're a photographer and you can come down during the day and take photos of the food. Somehow, I don't think that is going to happen.

Ah well. Rather than sit through an entire degustation menu, and attempt to take photos of the food, this time I could just sit there and enjoy the food and the service. The degustation menu is 7 courses, which the chef decides on for you. There's no list or menu to tell you what you're having, you just make sure you tell the waiter if there's something you don't like or don't eat and they will accommodate.

First up was a Crayfish and Pork Dumpling (Ravioli) with a Dashi Broth and Topped with shredded and oven dried apple. What a wonderful start! I'd never had Crayfish before this. So, nice- yet not very French, I would say more Japanese.

Second course was a bit of a jumble of flavours. There was Ocean Trout Sushimi, Duck Breast, Water Cress and Foie Gras. Well, I know Duck and Sushimi is very Japanese , but we did have some Foie Gras on here. I'd never tried Foie Gras before tonight, probably for two reasons- one because it's so expensive and the other because a lot of people believe the process for making Foie Gras is cruel. But that's another story. It tastes, like a cross between a very rich pate' and butter. It also has the texture of a soft butter.

Third Plate was Hiramasa King fish, with (from memory) a skin of miso and a buttery sauce. The fish was a very small fillet, which was standing upright on the plate. It was very attractive and the colours looked delicious. We were even given very special cutlery for the fish. Apparently the only real difference to the fish knife and fork though is the fact there is a little knick taken out of the side of each.

Fourth plate was a very rare slice of Venison, which was only briefly seared on the outside. It came with a extremely thick and sticky beetroot and red wine jus and was served on cauliflower florets in a delicious white sauce. I'm a big fan of Venison and this one was done particularly well. Very, very tender and so flavoursome. Perfect with the sweet beetroot reduction.

Fifth plate was what I would consider our main meal. Apparently there was a choice of Lamb Cutlets and Veal, but as there were two of us, we were just given one of each. For a place that prides itself on customer service, it would have been nice to have been given the option here.
The Lamb again was cooked very rare and seemed only just seared. I know Lamb isn't meant to be cooked right through and still be slightly pink, but even I would have considered this a little under-done. The lamb was served with a savoury Pistachio foam, which was another new experience for me - I've never tried a 'foam' before and I have to say I like the idea of it and love the taste and texture. My friend had the Veal, which was poached in Milk and was also served with a Milk foam over the top - kind of a 'baby cow cappacino!'

Sixth Plate was a cheese course. It was a delicious South Australian Goat's Cheese, wrapped in a vine leaf from the farm where the cheese comes from. There was also a little mound of salad and 3 pieces of walnut - generous! The cheese was very tasty indeed and was just the thing I needed at this point in the degustation.

For the seventh and final main plate, we had our dessert course. Dessert was served in a 1990's-esque tubular vase type contraption which was lying on it's side. You needed a long spoon to get in there and get out the food. It did look very pretty though. It was a layering of flavours and textures. On the bottom was crushed nougatine, which was more of a biscuit like texture than the chewyness I expected. On top of this was a scoop of an amazing Oregano and Mint ice-cream! Who would have thought to put Oregano in an ice-cream? These guys did and it was fantastic! The Oregano was not overpowering at all, like I thought it would be. Laid over this was a slice of peppermint marshmallow. Very subtle flavour and texture. And on top of it all was an extremely strong coffee foam, almost like having a Short Macchiato!

Finally, with our tea and coffee we were given a lovely looking plate of Petit Fours, which the kitchen had written a nice, little happy birthday message across the top in chocolate. I managed to sneak a photo of this one on my mobile phone.

Jacques Raymond overall was a fantastic experience. Everything was pretty much perfect, from the service, to the ambience, to the decor, to of course the food and even the gent's toilets were pretty snazzy. Dinner there isn't cheap though by any means. For the two of us, the bill totalled over $400! That includes four imported beers. I thouroughly believe though at most restaurants that you get what you pay for and on this occasion, you're paying for perfection and perfection always comes at a cost. I'm just glad that on this occasion, perfection was my birthday present!

* Unfortunately, as I usually use my photos as a reference to remember exactly what we ate, this time i'm just going from memory, so my descriptions may not be 100% accurate. If the restaurant would like to correct me though, they are most welcome to contact me to do so.

The First Drop

2008-07-13T22:34:00.002+10:00

69 Baptist St, Redfern, NSW 2016 (02) 9690 1611

We found The First Drop by accident. We were actually looking for Danks St Depot, but couldn't find it, so when we stumbled across this place, we thought that we would check it out. Little did I know - we were in the middle of one of Sydney's seediest suburb - Redfern. I probably should have guessed, since every single house in the street had bars on the doors and windows.
During my week in Sydney, went back here two more times. The food here is fresh, hearty and served with pleasant and helpful service.
On my first visit I ordered French Toast with Bacon, Maple Syrup and Fruit Salad. It sounds strange, but tastes delicious! The fruit salad is fresh, the bread is thick, the bacon is salty and the maple syrup's sweetness balances it all out. Delicious. This is actually what I ate again on my third visit.

My second visit I had the Corn Cakes. Made with Sweet Corn and with some crispy Bacon on the side. The Corn Cakes are not so much cakey, they are light and almost fritter like. There's a good ratio of Corn pieces to give the Cakes a good bit of texture.

My friend had vegie options on the two visits to The First Drop that she came to - one was Mushrooms with Fetta on Toast and the other was a vegie breakfast with Avocado, Ricotta, and Tomato, both apparently delicious!
If you're brave enough to venture into downtown Redfern, give this place a shot - I'm a big fan and I bet you will be too!

Asian Style Lamb Shanks with Wasabi Mash

2008-06-07T20:49:00.003+10:00

With winter upon us, it's those slow cooked comfort food recipes we all pull out of the back of the cupboard to warm our bellies on those chilly nights. Rather than your standard English style Lamb Shanks, why not try these Asian style Lamb shanks instead. The poaching liquid they are cooked in is more like a quick Chinese Master Stock, than casserole base.
Wasabi Mash is a great accompaniment to the shanks and with this amount, is by no means hot or spicy, but you just get a hint of that Wasabi flavour.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 tbs plain flour
1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
4 lamb shanks, Frenched
40ml (2 tbs) olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small red chilli, seeds removed, finely sliced
1L (4 cups) beef stock
40ml (2 tbs) red wine vinegar
40ml (2 tbs) oyster sauce
20ml (1 tbs) soy sauce
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp Szechuan pepper, crushed
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp cornflour

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Combine the flour and five-spice, then roll shanks in the seasoned flour. Heat the oil in an ovenproof casserole dish over medium heat. Add the shanks and brown on all sides, then transfer to a plate and set aside.
Add the onion, garlic and chilli to the pan and cook for a few minutes until the onion starts to soften. Add the stock, vinegar, sauces, spices and lamb.
Bring to the boil, then cover and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and strain sauce into a saucepan. Transfer shanks to a plate.
Combine cornflour with a little cold water, stir into the sauce and bring to the boil. Cook until thickened, then pour over shanks. Serve lamb shanks with wasabi mash (see related recipe).

Butternut Pumpkin Cupcakes

2008-06-07T20:04:00.004+10:00

Butternut Pumpkin cupcakes may sound a little strange, but think of the other vegetables you use in cakes - Beetroot, Carrots, Zucchini, so why not Butternut Pumpkin? In fact, this recipe is very similar to a Carrot Cake recipe.

These cup cakes are so simple to make- basically you just whiz everything up in a food processor and you're ready to bake.

I have to say, these cupcakes are probably the best cakes I have ever made! I really fell in love with the sweet pumpkin cake and the zesty, sour cream icing. Give them a try!

Ingredients:

For the muffins

400g butternut pumpkin, skin on, deseeded and roughly chopped
350g light soft brown sugar
4 large free-range or organic eggs
Sea salt
300g plain flour, unsifted
2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
A handful of walnuts
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
175ml of extra virgin olive oil

For the frosted cream topping

Zest of 1 Orange
Zest of 1 lemon and juice of ½ a lemon
140ml of soured cream
2 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar, sifted
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and seeds scraped out
Optional: lavender flowers or rose petals

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Line your muffin tins with paper cases.

2. Whiz the Pumpkin in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar, and crack in the eggs. Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and olive oil and whiz together until well beaten. You may need to pause the machine at some point to scrape the mix down the sides with a rubber spatula. Try not to overdo it with the mixing - you want to just combine everything and no more.

3. Fill the paper cases with the cake mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Check to see whether they are cooked properly by sticking a wooden skewer or a knife right into one of the cakes - if it comes out clean, they’re done. If it's a bit sticky, pop them back into the oven for a little longer. Remove from the oven and leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack.

4. As soon as the muffins are in the oven, make your runny frosted topping. Place most of the Orange zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the soured cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix well. Taste and have a think about it - adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour. Put into the fridge until your cakes have cooled down, then spoon the topping on to the cakes. Serve on a lovely plate, with the rest of the Orange zest sprinkled over. For an interesting flavour and look, a few dried lavender flowers or rose petals are fantastic.

Cafe Di Stasio

2008-05-20T08:39:00.005+10:00

31A Fitzroy St, St Kilda (03) 9525 3999

If I had to pick a style of cooking that I do best, I would probably say it's Italian. It's the first style of food that I learnt how to cook and it's probably the style I understand the most. For this reason, I'm always interested to try an Italian place that makes great, authentic food. I'd heard a lot about Cafe Di Stasio for a long time, but as I knew the prices there are on the higher end of the scale, I put off visiting there. That was until the other day when I had a day off work and my friend suggested we go and check out the Cafe Di Stasio Lunch special. The lunch special is your Melbourne standard two courses and a glass of wine for $30.

Di Stasio is located on St Kilda's Fitzroy Street, right in the heart of the action. From inside however, with the shutters tilted, you would be completely unaware of the hustle and bustle outside the window. The restaurants tables seem packed in to the relatively small L shaped room. The walls are stricken with horrible mime-like face masks which are used as light holders, I don't know what they were thinking!

I ordered the Spaghetti with Tuna and Tomato as an entree. The portion was extremely small, especially in comparison to the oversized bowl it was served in. The spaghetti was definately on the undercooked side of al dente and could have done with an extra minute or two on the stove.
The tuna sauce was tasty though, with just the right amount of Tomato mixed through.

For Main Course, i ordered the Chicken Cacciatore. This was a much better example of classic Italian cuisine and was actually quite delicious, however, once again, the serving was undersized and I probably should have listened to the waiter's recommendations of ordering a side dish. The chicken was tender and the sauce was rich and tasty.

The waiters at Di Stasio are the first waiters I've come across in Melbourne that wear outfits that basically look like tuxedos. It seems very over the top, especially when the service doesn't match up to their dress standards. There was no service with a smile and our empty glasses of water got about as much attention as we did.

I always think that a good lunch special is a great indication as to whether you should go back to a restaurant for dinner and pay full price. Considering the high prices at Di Stasio and the fact that they failed to impress us at lunchtime, I don't think we will be returning anytime soon. The food is very simple and iwhat we had was nothing that even someone with minimal cooking experience could cook in their own home.

The Commoner

2008-04-18T11:23:00.003+10:00

122 Johnston St, Fitzroy 3065. Phone 03 9415 6876
www.thecommoner.com.au

Over a year ago, the guys at The Commoner posted a note on this blog asking me to drop in and check out their place. I guess in the hope that I'd come in and review their recently opened business. Even though the place is about two blocks from my house, I never made it. Until about a month ago that is. You know what? I'm now kicking myself, that I left it so long! I have found myself probably one of the best breakky places around and it's right on my doorstep!
The Commoner is literally next door to the over 30's bar The One Twenty Bar, on Johnston St and is housed in what appears to be a small, old retail building.
The room is decorated with cute little nic-nacs which look like they've been found from around various op shops. The room has a slightly old skool country vibe, which I love- especially in the heart of Fitzroy!

I ordered the Arabic Pancake with Roasted Black Plums and Yoghurt ($14). I thought that the pancake was going to be some fancy Arab spiced pancake, but from what I could tell, it wasn't. It was what goes on top of the pancake that is Arab inspired. Gorgeous sweet, but slightly bitter, deep red plums and delicious yoghurt to balance out any richness from the plums. So good. You only get one pancake on the plate, but it's just enough.

Now to the service. I visited on a day, which was forecast to be 40c and by 9am, it was already bloody hot outside. The lovely waitress offered me a big plate of chilled Watermelon to finish my breakfast, saying "it's going to be a hot one today, here's some watermelon to help get you through." What can I say, but WOW! I mean, it's a bloody plate of water melon, that would probably cost them 30 cents, but it's great little things like that, that makes you fall in love with a place and makes you want to keep coming back!
I had a look at the rest of the menu, as they do lunch (obviously) and dinner as well. The menu reads like it has been put together by a real Melbourne inspired foodie and I can't wait to get back down there and check out some dinner options.
The one bad point about this place? Well, it's not really their fault, but apparently it was reviewed in The Age last week, which means it's going to be packed and hard to get a seat! Good for them... not so good for me.

Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes and Ricotta

2008-03-08T17:41:00.005+11:00

Last time I went to Sydney, I had this exact dish at North Bondi Italian Food. It was so good, so simple and so memorable, I decided to try to replicate it myself. This dish takes no time at all and you know what? Mine turned out better than the one I had at the restaurant. Pity my dining room doesn't look out over Bondi Beach though.

Orecchiette 320g
Cherry tomatoes 350g
Garlic clove 1
Parmesan 50g
Basil leaves 3tbs
Ex. V. olive oil 1tbs
Ricotta 200g

Method
1. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out the juice and seeds. Peel and chop the garlic finely. Grate the Parmesan. Wash the basil.
2. Combine the tomatoes and garlic, season, add the oil and toss to combine. Let marinate for 15 minutes. Put the ricotta in a bowl, season and stir.
3. Cook the orecchiette in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain.
4. Gently heat the tomato mixture and add the drained orechiette, stirring gently to combine. Finally stir in the ricotta.

Serve with Parmesan.

Zucchini Carbonara

2008-03-08T17:15:00.003+11:00

While I'm on the Jamie Oliver vibe, here's another one from his latest book. I actually started making a very similar recipe to this one over 10 years ago, simply because, as much as I love Carbonara sauces, there's not much goodness in there for you and too be honest with all that Bacon, Egg Yolk and Cream, it can be quite fatty. So, instead of just using Zucchini, like Jamie has below, I also like to add some Squash in there (not the pumpkin kind) and maybe even some Yellow Capsicum. The secret to making this dish great, is using some really good free range eggs and bacon. You'll find that you can get free range bacon at your supermarkets now like Coles and Safeway, in the fridge section- a good one is made by KR. Remember, it's just as important to buy free range bacon and pork products as it is eggs and chicken!

Serves 4

Ingredients

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 medium green and yellow courgettes
500g penne
4 large free-range or organic egg yolks
100ml double cream
2 good handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
olive oil
12 thick slices of pancetta or smoked streaky bacon, cut into chunky lardons
a small bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked and chopped, flowers reserved (if you can get hold of flowering thyme)

1. Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Halve and then quarter any larger courgettes lengthways. Cut out and discard any fluffy middle bits, and slice the courgettes at an angle into pieces roughly the same size and shape as the penne. Smaller courgettes can simply be sliced finely. Your water will now be boiling, so add the penne to the pan and cook according to the packet instructions.

2. To make your creamy carbonara sauce, put the egg yolks into a bowl, add the cream and half the Parmesan, and mix together with a fork. Season lightly and put to one side.

3. Heat a very large frying pan (a 35cm one is a good start – every house should have one!), add a good splash of olive oil and fry the pancetta or bacon until dark brown and crisp. Add the courgette slices and 2 big pinches of black pepper, not just to season but to give it a bit of a kick. Sprinkle in the thyme leaves, give everything a stir, so the courgettes become coated with all the lovely bacon-flavoured oil, and fry until they start to turn lightly golden and have softened slightly.

4. It’s very important to get this next bit right or your carbonara could end up ruined. You need to work quickly. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water. Immediately, toss the pasta in the pan with the courgettes, bacon and lovely flavours, then remove from the heat and add a ladleful of the reserved cooking water and your creamy sauce. Stir together quickly. (No more cooking now, otherwise you’ll scramble the eggs.)

5. Get everyone around the table, ready to eat straight away. While you’re tossing the pasta and sauce, sprinkle in the rest of the Parmesan and a little more of the cooking water if needed, to give you a silky and shiny sauce. Taste quickly for seasoning. If you’ve managed to get any courgette flowers, tear them over the top, then serve and eat immediately, as the sauce can become thick and stodgy if left too long.

Tray baked Meringue with Pears, Cream, Toasted Hazelnuts and Chocolate

2008-03-07T00:04:00.004+11:00

This is from Jamie Oliver's latest book, Jamie at Home. I'm not going to write much here, I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Let me tell you though, this Chocolate and Pear Syrup is the best stuff ever! Look at the oozing chocolate sauce - yum!
You could probably feed about 8 people with this Meringue. For a family of four, you could probably halve the recipe, you might need to adjust the cooking times though.

4 large free-range or organic egg whites
1 1/4 cups raw sugar
Pinch sea salt
100 grams hazelnuts, skins removed
2 400g cans halved pears, in syrup
2 pieces stem ginger, thinly sliced, optional
200g dark chocolate (minimum 70 percent cocoa solids)
400ml double cream
50g icing sugar, sifted
1 vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped out
1 orange, zested

Preheat your oven to 150c and line a baking sheet with a sheet of waxed paper.
Put your egg whites into a squeaky clean bowl, making sure there are absolutely no little pieces of egg shell or egg yolk in them. Whisk on medium until the whites form firm peaks. With your mixer still running, gradually add the sugar and the pinch of salt. Turn the mixer up to the highest setting and whisk for about 7 or 8 minutes, until the meringue mixture is white and glossy. To test whether it's done you can pinch some between your fingers - if it feels completely smooth it's ready; if it's slightly granular it needs a little more whisking.

Dot each corner of the waxed paper with a blob of meringue, then turn it over and stick it to the baking sheet. Spoon the meringue out onto the paper. Using the back of a spoon, shape and swirl it into a rectangle. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 1 hour or until crisp on the outside and a little soft and sticky inside. At the same time, bake the hazelnuts on a separate sheet in the oven for 1 hour or until golden brown.

Drain the cans of pears, reserving the syrup from 1 can. Cut each pear half into 3 slices. Pour the pear syrup into a saucepan with the ginger, if using, and warm gently over a medium heat until it starts to simmer. Take off the heat and snap the chocolate into the saucepan, stirring with a spoon until it's all melted.

Take the meringue and hazelnuts out of the oven and leave to cool. Place the meringue on a nice rustic board or platter. Whip the cream with the sifted icing sugar and the vanilla seeds until it forms smooth, soft peaks. Smash the toasted hazelnuts (in a kitchen towel) and sprinkle half of them over the top of the meringue. Spoon half the whipped cream over the top and drizzle with some of the chocolate sauce (if the sauce has firmed up, melt it slightly by holding the saucepan over a large pan of boiling water). Divide most of the pear pieces evenly over the top. Pile over the rest of the whipped cream and pears. Drizzle with some more chocolate sauce, then sprinkle over the remaining toasted hazelnuts with some grated orange zest. Serve straightaway. If you're making this in advance, get everything ready and assemble at the last minute.

Bottega

2008-03-06T19:09:00.004+11:00

74 Bourke St, Melbourne Phone 03 9654 2252

Unfortunately, I never seem to make it to very many Food and Wine Festival events. However, I always make sure that I take advantage of the Express Lunches, that many of Victoria's great restaurant's offer during the festival period. The Express Lunches basically give you a choice from a limited menu of two courses and a glass of local wine for $30. Not bad, considering some of the restaurants involved usually sell a main course for $35+.
Bottega is located between two of this ciy's most well known Italian eateries, one being Pellegrini's and the other being Grossi Florentino - so as you would expect, Bottega has a lot to live up to.
Now, I know that the whole idea is an 'Express' Lunch, but the service at Bottega seemed very rushed and un-personable. I don't know if it simply was because we had ordered from the 'cheapy' menu, or if the service here is generally lacking friendliness.
The food however was exceptional, however the portions were quite small. Again, probably due to us ordering from the Express menu. I hate spending $30 on a lunch and leaving the place wanting to grab a sandwich.

I started with the Carpaccio of house cured duck breast, with fresh figs, goat's cheese and vincotto. This was the first time I'd ever had Cured duck breast. It was delicious. It was like mini strips of prosciutto, but less salty and not quite as chewy. The breast was perfectly matched with the wonderful fresh figs and soft tangy goats cheese.

Mains was Western Plains Pork Rotolo with Sage and Burnt Butter. The pasta was slightly dry on top, not sure if this was because it was grilled under a salamander grill or left under the pass lights for too long. Apart from that, the dish was so tasty! The pork was cooked down until it was completely tender. The pasta was also lovely, smooth and not chewy.
My friend had a dessert instead of an entree, which was the Cannolli of ricotta, hazlenuts and chocolate candied orange with bitter chocolate ice-cream. Considering that the plate was cleaned in a couple of minutes, I assume it tasted pretty good!

An Express Lunch is the perfect way for people to check out a restaurant, which they may not usually go to. If they like it, they'll tell their friends and come back. Not bad advertising, however, if it's no good- you're shooting yourself in the foot. I myself loved the food and was very impressed, but the service, while it was not rude wasn't particularly friendly. Italians are known for their love of food and welcoming people into their homes to share food. Unfortunately, we didn't feel completely welcome here - but like I said, the food was great!

Estivo

2008-01-20T11:53:00.000+11:00

330 High Street, Kew, 9853 1727

After our debacle at trying to get a table at Church St Enoteca in Richmond, we managed to book ourselves a table at Estivo, in High St, Kew. This was a pretty random choice based on a review in The Age Good Food Guide and a review by John Lethlean. None of us had been there before and thought we would try somewhere new.

The restaurant is quite small, but comes with all the trimmings; crisp white table cloths, fabric napkins, shiny new cutlery and modern, posh artwork on the walls. The first thing we noticed was that the restaurant was very quiet, so found that we had to keep our voices down so that we didn't share our conversations with the rest of the room. From one extreme to another, the silence in the room didn't last long, the private function which was going on upstairs kicked into gear and the shouting and cheering from above destroyed any ambiance going on in our room for the rest of the night.

The menu was very Mediterranean as you'd expect with a name like Estivo, but there was also some Asian influenced dishes in there like Crispy Pork Belly with Nam Jim. The waiter advised us that there were a couple of changes to the menu this evening and some dishes had changed. Eg. The Gnocchi in one dish had been replaced with Spagettini, which happened to be the Main that I ordered.

The service started off very professional offering all the right things, pre-dinner drinks, napkins on laps, extra cutlery where required, but seemed to lack a sense of friendliness and personalisation. I queried with the waiter what was on the Tapas tasting plate, but he was unsure and had to check with the kitchen. Not quite what I would expect, when you're paying these prices.

After confirmation of what was on the Tapas plate, I ordered the plate as my Entree. The standout tastes were the deliciously fresh oyster with a sweet Tomato, Salsa type dressing. As well as the gorgeous Quail served on some perfectly cooked Eggplant. My Entree was great and hopefully a sign of things to come.

As it happened, the Main that I ordered was the Gnocchi dish, which as the waiter explained, came with Spagettini instead. It was Pork and Veal Meatballs, with Peas, Hazlenuts and chickpeas. My meal arrived, only it didn't look like what I'd ordered. It was Spagettini, tossed in a Tomato Sauce with Mussels and Prawns. I explained to the waiter that this wasn't what we had ordered and that we ordered the Meatball pasta. This waiter, different from the one that took our order, told us that, that dish wasn't actually on the menu this evening and that the chef would have to make it up for us, so it might take a while. The original waiter hadn't told us it wasn't on the menu, only that the Gnocchi had been replaced by Spaghettini.
After about 10 minutes and everyone else had pretty much finished their meals, those of us that ordered the 'gnocchi' finally had our meals arrive. Only to discover that there was still no Spaghettini- but the original Gnocchi, which apparently was off the menu! The waiter explained that the confusion came from the fact that the Chef had taken the dish off the menu, because he hadn't refined it to his liking and he wasn't happy with the dish just yet. Now, the reason I ordered the Spaghettini dish, was because it wasn't Gnocchi- I don't like restaurant Gnocchi. I'm happy to make it at home, but I've never been to a restaurant which makes it as light as I like it. This was no exception. In this case, it wasn't just the Gnocchi I wasn't a fan of, but the overall dish.

The Green Peas didn't have any freshness about them and had the same texture as the Chickpeas, dry and slightly chewy. I also frown upon the fact that this dish had so many ingredients of the same size and shape, such as the Peas, Halzenuts and Chickpeas. None of these ingredients were working together for me, the dish was under-seasoned, the Parsley leaves that were mixed through were huge, over powering and the Veal Sausage meatballs were chewy! The Chef was right not to keep this dish on the menu and I wished I had of kept the original plate that was bought out to me, which looked a lot tastier than what I got in the end.
I have to say though, that the second waiter did apologise for the error and only charged us for an entree size dish, rather than the main to make up for the mix up, which made things a bit better.
I should make a point that everyone else (everyone that didn't have the Gnocchi) was very happy with their meals and they were all presented very well. The Steak meal looked delicious, as did the Lamb.
Onto dessert. I had a Vahlrona Chocolate Tart, served with a Poached Peach and Rosewater Cream. The Tart was very soft, but probably not 'Chocolatey' enough for my liking. The Rosewater cream however, was completely out of place in this dessert, too much rosewater had been added and was completely over-powering. Without the cream, I was very happy with this dessert.

This is a lovely little restaurant, which I'm sure on a good night can serve some pretty decent food. It was such a shame that we had to turn up on one of their off nights. Overall, we were pretty disappointed with our night out and definately think our money could have been better spent elsewhere.

Strawberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi

2008-01-15T21:26:00.000+11:00

I saw Jamie Oliver do this recipe on his new show, where he has the insanely big garden, huge house and best of all, a massive woodfired oven!
I love the idea of food with a twist and mixing ingredients together that seem a little unusual. This salad has definately got that vibe. Although it might sound a little strange to have strawberries in a salad, the taste is actually really (for lack of a better word) 'zingy'.
My local deli didn't have any Speck, but I'm sure you could find it in Melbourne if you looked hard enough- so I used some nice thin Prosciutto instead. Make sure you use some good Balsamic vinegar for this recipe, otherwise the final product will be rubbish. My favourite is from Simon and Johnson, which is about $20 a bottle- but lasts for ages and is definately worth it for the taste.

Ingredients

300g strawberries, hulled and cut into one quarter cm slices

good-quality balsamic vinegar

the juice of half a lemon

extra-virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

a few sprigs of fresh basil, leaves picked

250g halloumi cheese, cut into 8 thin slices

a few sprigs of fresh mint, leaves picked

a handful of mixed salad leaves, washed and spun dry

8 slices of speck

In a bowl, drizzle the sliced strawberries with a good splash of balsamic vinegar, the lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. This will draw out and flavour the lovely strawberry juices.

Preheat a large non-stick frying-pan to medium hot and add a splash of olive oil. Press a basil leaf on to each slice of halloumi. Place the slices, leaf side down, in the frying-pan and fry for a minute. Turn over carefully and fry for another minute until the halloumi is light golden and crisp.

Get yourself four plates and place a couple of pieces of the crispy halloumi on each. Put the mint, the rest of the basil leaves and the salad leaves into the bowl with the strawberries and toss together. Pile some of the strawberry mixture in the middle of each plate and drape the speck over the top. Finish with more salad leaves. To serve, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

Sheila's Pudding

2007-12-07T23:20:00.000+11:00

Finally, Summer is upon us and with the warm weather comes my favourite fruit of all, the stone fruit. Apricots, Plums, Nectarines and best of all Peaches. Normal Peaches and White Peaches, I love them so much, I could eat them all day long.
This dessert is a little strange, because it's more of a Winter comfort type of food, rather than a light, refreshing Summer dessert. Even so, if you can deal with eating a Winter dessert in Summer, this pudding is delicious.
This recipe is a Jamie Oliver remake of an old pudding, which is actually made with Apples, rather than stone fruit. The original pudding is called Eve's Pudding.
It's quite an easy recipe to put together, but if you're going to make it, do yourself a favour and make it with proper Vanilla Beans or at least Vanilla Bean paste, it makes all the difference.

Ingredients
6 ripe peaches or nectarines, halved and stones removed
4 heaped teaspoons unrefined sugar, like turbinado
4 tablespoons water
1 vanilla pod, scored lengthwise and seeds removed
4 1/2 ounces butter
4 1/2 ounces caster sugar
2 large free-range eggs
4 1/2 ounces self-raising flourPreheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the peaches in a saucepan with the unrefined sugar, the vanilla seeds and 4 tablespoons of water. Simmer for 5 minutes and then place into a well greased and lightly floured ovenproof dish or bowl. Beat together the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the flour, mix thoroughly and spread over the peaches.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve with hot custard or something cold, like vanilla ice-cream or creme fraiche.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Banana, Maple Syrup and Honeycomb Butter

2007-12-07T19:12:00.000+11:00

I love nothing more than eating a signature dish at a famous restaurant and then finding the recipe and making it myself at home. What I love even more, is making it at home and making it better than the one I had at the restaurant.
On the weekend, I thought I'd try my hand at making my own Ricotta Hotcakes, like the ones I had at Bill's in Surry Hills.
It's amazing that Bill's has gotten so famous for such a simple recipe. To be honest, they're not all that different from regular pancakes, just slightly more dense. The Honeycomb Butter is what really makes this breakfast. Crushed up Crunchie Bars, mixed through a stick of butter. Now that's some triple by-pass creating goodness, if I've ever heard of it!
Anyway, here's the recipe for you, which is featured in Bill's Sydney Food, book.

Serving size: Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups ricotta
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
50g butter

to serve

banana
honeycomb butter, sliced (below)
icing sugar for dusting

Honeycomb Butter

250g unsalted butter, softened
100g sugar honeycomb, crushed with a rolling pin
2 Tbs honey

METHOD

Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.
Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites through batter in two batches, with a large metal spoon.
Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of butter and drop 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (don't cook more than 3 per batch). Cook over a low to medium heat for 2 minutes, or until hotcakes have golden undersides. Turn hotcakes and cook on the other side until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and quickly assemble the other ingredients.
Slice one banana lengthways onto a plate, stack three hotcakes on top with a slice of honeycomb butter. Dust with icing sugar.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Shape into a log on plastic wrap, roll, seal and chill in a refrigerator for 2 hours.
Store any leftover honeycomb butter in the freezer, it's great on toast.

Fish Pie

2007-11-16T11:22:00.000+11:00

I just bought the 'Delicious' 5 nights a week book, by Valli Little, which has some really interesting and easy dishes to cook mid-week. I'd never made or even tasted fish pie before and even though it was under the 'kids favourites' section, I thought I would give it a wurl.
It's not the quickest dish to put together and was well over an hour before it was ready, but it certainly was tasty. I imagine you you posh it up a bit, by adding some other types of seafood in there, maybe some Prawns, Bugtails, even Lobster if your wallet was that way inclined.

Ingredients (serves 4)

200g boneless white fish fillets
200g skinless salmon fillet, pin-boned (ask your fishmonger to do this)
450ml milk
750g desiree or pontiac potatoes, peeled, chopped
100g unsalted butter
2 tbs (40g) flour
150g frozen peas
1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemons
50g grated cheddar cheese

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C.
Place fish in a baking dish, season with salt and pepper and pour over 400ml milk. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes until fi sh fl akes away slightly when pressed with a fork. Remove fish, reserving milk. When cool enough to handle, fl ake fi sh into bite-sized pieces.
Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and keep warm. Melt half the butter in a saucepan, stir in flour and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes.
Slowly add reserved milk and continue to cook until thickened. Add fi sh, peas, parsley, egg, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Mash the potato with the remaining 50ml milk and the remaining butter until smooth, then season. Pile the fish mixture into a 1 litre-capacity baking dish, spoon the mash on top and smooth with a spatula. Trace a pattern into the mash with the tines of a fork and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.

Lamingtons

2007-11-15T22:31:00.000+11:00

To be honest, I never in my life thought I would make a Lamington from scratch. And here we are today and I have made my first batch and it probably won't be my last.
It's a bit of mucking around, dipping your little sponge cakes into the melted chocolate icing, but the finished product it's worth the effort. Your friends will be impressed to boot!

Ingredients:

Sponge Cake:
6 eggs
150 g (51/2 oz/2/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
200 g (7 oz/12/3 cups) self-raising flour
30 g (1 oz) unsalted butter, melted

Chocolate Icing:
500 g (1 lb 2 oz/4 cups) icing (confectioners') sugar
200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
15 g (1/2 oz) unsalted butter
125 ml (4 fl oz/1/2 cup) milk
375 g (13 oz/4 cups) desiccated coconut

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). Lightly grease and line the base of an 18 x 28 cm
(7 x 11 inch) tin with baking paper.

To make the cake, beat the eggs for about 5 minutes with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is thick and the sugar has dissolved. Sift in the flour and fold in lightly. Add the butter and 3 tablespoons of hot water and stir gently to combine. Pour into the tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the chocolate icing, put the sugar, dark chocolate, butter and milk in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly until melted and mixed together.

Cut the sponge into 16 squares. Put the coconut in a bowl. Dip each sponge square into the chocolate icing and then in the coconut. Leave on a wire rack to dry completely before serving. Makes 16

Poached Salmon, Pea and Risoni Salad

2007-11-15T21:58:00.000+11:00

Ok, you could possibly call me a hypocrite. First I was bagging out Bill Granger and his terrible cafe, then I was telling you how good they are. Now I'm telling you how good his cook books are. Bill's books aren't filled with the most adventurous dishes, but they are perfect for someone who's just getting into cooking or for us seasoned 'foodies' who want to eat some proper home-cooked food after a long day at the office.
This recipe is from his most recent book - Holiday, but I have also found it online here.
I'm no nutritionist, but this is a pretty healthy meal as far as I'm concerned and highlights how fast food, doesn't have to be burgers and chips. Poached salmon has got to be one of the best ways to enjoy salmon, as it's so moist, with little chance of overcooking and when cooked, it simply flakes apart for this little salad.
I didn't have any Dill as the recipe asked for, so I used some Mint in it's place. Mint goes perfectly with Peas and Salmon, so give it a go if you prefer. Such a great Spring Salad.

North Bondi Italian Food

2007-11-05T23:46:00.000+11:00

When there's sun and you're in Sydney, where does one go? Bondi Beach of course!! After sunning myself on Australia's most famous beach for a few hours, I'd worked up quite an appetite. My friend told me that there was some great food and people watching to be had at North Bondi Italian Food. NDIF is at the opposite end of Bondi Beach from the famous Icebergs Club and lives below the North Bondi RSL club (click the link to check out the view from the RSL above).
NBIF has the best view I have ever seen from any restaurant before, it looks straight down onto the beautiful Bondi Beach, sprawled with tanned bodies from all over the world. Not only are those bodies on the beach soaking up the sun, but they're in NBIF, soaking up the atmosphere.
The place was packed when I arrived, so I was lucky to score one of the mini tables just near the front window.
A little bowl of unshelled peanuts was waiting for me on the table and another little bowl for my shells. The waiters, some of which were very italian, wore some very weird short overalls, which looked like they were supposed to be trendy, but if I had to wear them, I wouldn't be happy at all. But despite their strange attire and the busyness of the restaurant, the staff were lovely and were constantly visiting my table to make sure everything was ok and that I had enough water. They were even consistantly coming by to take away my empty peanut shells.
The menu is big and so much to choose from. I went for the Orrechiette with Ricotta, Basil and Cherry Tomato. ($26)I thought this was the perfect choice for a hot spring day, and it was. This was such a basic pasta dish, but it was so tasty and so fresh. The ricotta sauce was a little dryish, so I was glad I ordered the Rocket and Fennel Salad ($9) on the side, which kind of helped lighten up the meal.
Once I'd finished the pasta and salad, I was silly enough to look at the dessert menu. Silly because I was so full, but couldn't resist the of the North Bondi Gelato ($14).
A huge bowl of Lemon, Strawberry and Chocolate Gelato arrived on my table, with a cute little italian flag in the top. It was all so sweet, but so cold and so good. But as gorgeous as it was, there was no way I was going to finish it. I did get through at least half though.
To sum up NBIF in a word, I would say 'beautiful.' The view is beautiful, the people are beautiful and most importantly, the food is beautiful.

Bills, Darlinghurst, Sydney

2007-11-04T21:01:00.000+11:00

Back in February this year, I paid my first visit to one of Bill Granger's Sydney restaurants. It was Bill's in Surry Hills. My meal there was terrible, I couldn't have been more disappointed, hence my scathing review.
For some reason though, on a more recent visit to Sydney, I felt compelled to try another of Bill's restaurant's, this time the Darlinghurst version- just to see if it was all really that bad. Now, even though I had read Mellie's Review of Darlinghurst, I thought I'd pay a visit anyway.
I arrived at Bills at about 10am on a Thursday morning and was suprised to find that the place was almost empty, apart from two other tables of people. Score!
The cheerful waiteress greeted me at the door and told me that I could sit wherever I liked. I sat next to a nice big window, which had a leafy view out onto the Darlinghurst Street.
This time 'round I ordered the Ricotta Hotcakes with Banana and Honeycomb butter and a breakfast juice.
Since I was here solo on this occassion, one of the waiters were kind enough to point me towards their magazine collection for something to read, instead of blankly staring out the window.
My after about 5 minutes, my Hotcakes arrived and amazingly this time around they were infact, hot! The hot cakes were delicious. They were just light enough, with the perfect ratio of chocolate/honeycomb to butter. Being that the restaurant was so quiet, it was a relief that they got my breakfast right. I can see now why Bill's is famous for his hotcakes.
The service this time around was fast and friendly and the food was spot on.
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but 2 days after my visit to Bill's Darlinghurst, I also visited Bill's in Woolhara. Woolhara is very different to the others. This version is set up in a courtyard of a small shopping mall on the main shopping strip and a majority of the tables are outside.
I'd suggest if you're after the real and original Bills vibe, go for the Darlinghurst option - definately the best of the three.

Homemade Baked Beans

2007-09-13T21:04:00.000+10:00

Would you believe that I've never made or eaten Home-Made Baked Beans? I've only ever eaten those SPC things out of a Tin, which you heat up in the nuke-rowave. Aussie? Yes. Tasty? Not Really.
So, on the weekend, I found a recipe from Bill Granger's 'Everyday' book. It's not quite as quick as opening a tin, but believe me, it's much tastier and hey... everyone's into 'slow' food these days, aren't they?

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Onion
100g Pancetta (leave this out for a Vegie version)
1 Garlic Clove
2 Anchovies
1 Teaspoon of Finely chopped Thyme Leaves
1/2 Teaspoon of Dried Oregano
400g Tin Chopped Tomatoes
2 x 400g Tins of Canellini or Butter Beans
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Preheat the Oven to 160c
Heat the olive oil in a large flameproof casserole over a medium heat
Add the onion and cook, stirring for 5 - 6 minutes, or until slightly crisp.
Add the garlic, anchoviews, thyme and oregano and cook, stirring for another minute.

Add the tomatoes and 125ml of water, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer for another 10 minutes.
Stir in the beans, put a lid on the casserole and bake in the oven for 30 mins. Season with Salt and Pepper.
I added chopped flat leaf parsley at the end.
Serve on some nice Crusty bread and drizzle with some Olive Oil.

Happy Birthday..... Me! Nigella's Custard Birthday Sponge

2007-09-13T20:35:00.000+10:00

Well, this is my first post in quite a while... I've managed to go AWOL from my Blogs for about a month now...sorry guys! I blame Facebook! Ugh!
Anyway... Last week was my 29th birthday....yep... only one more to go, before the big 3 - 0!
Apparently at my work, they have a tradition of making your own birthday cake! That sucks if you ask me. What makes you feel more special on your birthday than someone having gone to the effort of making you a nice birthday cake? Oh well, so I decided to make my first Nigella Lawson cake. What other Celebrity Chef would you look to for a Birthday Cake?
This recipe was surprisingly easy and absolutely delicious. Everyone at work loved it and there were mentions that they wished it was my birthday everyday!

Ingredients:

For the cake

* 200 g plain flour
* 3 tbsp custard powder
* 2 tsp baking powder
* ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
* 4 eggs
* 225 g soft butter
* 200 g caster sugar
* 2 tbsp milk

For the buttercream filling

* 125 g icing sugar
* 4 tsp custard powder
* 75 g soft unsalted butter
* 1½ tsp boiling water

For the chocolate icing

* 60 ml water
* 2 tbsp golden syrup
* 125 g caster sugar
* 175 g dark chocolate
* Hundreds and thousands

Method
For the cake

1. Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F, Gas 4, butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.
2. Put all the cake ingredients, apart from the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk 1 tbsp at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.
3. Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.

For the buttercream filling

1. Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

For the chocolate icing

1. Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and then take it of the heat.
2. Break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.
3. Prong with candles, light them and sing.

Son In-Law Eggs

2007-08-20T22:18:00.000+10:00

This is my really simplified version of Ezard's Son In-Law eggs, which he serves at Gingerboy.
Ezard serves his with a nice little salad on top, drizzled with Chilli Caramel.
My version is basically the same, but uses less ingredients and is much quicker to put together. This a nice quick little starter to an Asian style dinner party.

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
Bunch of Coriander
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Vegetable oil for Deep Frying.

Method:

Soft boil your eggs (for about 3 - 4 minutes)
Run cold water over the eggs, so they're cool enough to handle
Peel of the shell, gently, being careful not to damage the whites of the eggs
Heat your Oil to 180c and gently deep fry your eggs until golden
Drain on absorbent paper
Cut the eggs in half and place on a plate, yolk side up. The Yolks should still be slightly runny.
Drizzle some sweet chilli sauce over the eggs and place a little mound of Coriander on the top.
Eat with your fingers, YUM!

Spaghetti with Red Mullet

2007-08-08T20:30:00.000+10:00

Here's a fantastic recipe, which is really simple to prepare, but whacks you around the head with it's Italian flavours. It takes no time at all and is great for a quick mid-week dinner.

Ingredients:
500g Dried Spaghetti or Linguini
5 or 6 fillets of Red Mullet, pinboned
1 Small Red Chilli (more if you like)
2 Cloves Garlic (more if you like)
Small Bunch of chopped Parsley
Olive Oil

Method:
Cook your pasta to packet instructions
In some olive oil, fry your fish fillets for about 3 - 4 minutes on the skin side and then turn over.
When you turn the fish over move them to one side of the frying pan and add a little more olive oil, add the garlic and chilli.
When the fish is cooked, start to break it up with a fork.
Drain your pasta and add to the fry pan with the fish.
Toss the fish and pasta together in the fry pan.
Season the pasta with salt and pepper and tos through chopped parsley.
Plate up and top with some good olive oil.

Serves 4

The Rose

2007-07-24T21:41:00.000+10:00

The Rose. 309 Bay St Port Melbourne 3207

After getting on my Greek food inspired high from dining at The Press Club bar, I thought I'd continue the Greek theme. This time for my good mate's birthday, we decided to visit The Rose, in Bay St, Port Melbourne. We found The Rose in the 2007 Good Food guide, which mentions that The Rose does some of the best Greek food in town. They are right.

The Rose is an old pub, which has now been converted into a largish restaurant, but still has a pub type setup, with the big bar on the side and TV screens showing the football on a Saturday night. The restaurant was almost full, which says good things already.
The menu consisted of a large seafood selection and a wide variety of distinctly Greek flavours. We started off with Chicken livers, pan fried with fried onions, fresh oregano, garlic and lemon, served with wet fava. ($14.50) I'd never had chicken livers before... only as part of a pate. They were suprisingly soft, tender and had a slight spice flavour to them. The wet Fava was like a soft mash, which went beautifully with the livers and a squeeze of lemon topped of the flavours beautifully.

Next we had the Barbecued and smoked octopus with a salad of chickpeas, herbs and oven dried tomatoes. ($15.50) The Octopus was deliciously soft and subtly smoked. I wouldn't have thought to put chickpeas with Octopus, but it worked nicely, giving a slight bit of cruch to the dish.

For mains my friend had the Red Mullet. ($?) The red Mullet was nicely pan fried. It's a great oily fish which wonderfully flavoursome and The Rose serve the fish with a nice Greek inspired warm salad.

My mains was the Slow roasted leg of lamb with vine leaves and mustard, served with braised white beans and salsa verde ($28.50). The lamb was cooked to perfection - slightly pink in the middle and it was soft and tender. The salsa verde was great too... however I think they were a bit stingy with the amount they served with the meat.
To finish off, we shared a plate of Greek delights – selection of baklava, filo and semolina custard, halva, Kataifi and Turkish delight (approx $15 from memory). This plate was fantastic value for money. Lots of different sweet tastes. Only problem was the Halva, which left your mouth feeling like you'd just eaten a sheet of plaster board. I've had Halva before and it was much better than this. The standout was little filo triangles, not sure what they were called, but they had a lovely sweet cheesy substance inside, which were absolutely delicio

The service at The Rose is lovely and friendly. They're not over the top, yet the waiters are always there if you need something.
If you like your Greek food, give The Rose a go. I don't know much about Greek food, but I know what I like and this place serves delicious, authentic, fresh and tasty Greek treats.