I can’t count how many cafés try their hardest to have a funky groove about them but almost every single one end up just feeling manufactured but there’s a little café on Henry Street in Fremantle called Moore & Moore that pulls it off without flinching. Attached in what appears to the old loading dock of the historic Moores building with un-rendered brick and stone walls, rocky un-eaven concrete floors and eclectic yet restrained furniture really set the mood. Little touches like the table numbers made from old parts of bikes with a childs alphabet flashcard clipped to the top, or the old westinghouse fridge painted fire-truck red and filled with water bottles. Every day the place is full of hipsters, yummy mummies, arty types and students yet it never feels overcrowded, the tables are large and well spaced although every now and again you’ll struggle to find a seat. Today I’m sitting at the far end of a large table, at the other three women talking about their experience traveling through africa volunteering at refugee camps, patting each other on the pack and saying how the experience was good for them. Now they’ve moved onto different yoga styles. Still, the smell from the tiny kitchen wafts through and out onto the street enticing more people in for a look, a smell and a coffee. Read More...

Tags:Coffee, Bread, Breakfast, Sausage, Smoked Salmon, Western Australia

Having moved to Fremantle a few weeks ago for work I’ve started exploring but I haven’t gotten very far once I found the Mad Monk Brewery at 33 South Terrace. I dropped in and had their Western Australian Harvey Beef rib-eye served with a great potato gratin with Manchego cheese which is a slightly tart sharp (piquant) semi-firm sheep milk cheese and the a dish of the richest jus I’ve ever had. Thick and syrupy and so full of flavour I’d more than happily drink it by the glass. I went back three times just for the rib-eye and to work my way through a pint of each of their brewed in house beers, a kolsch, bitter, pale ale, wheat beer and an amazing chocolatley porter that goes so really well with the steak and jus.

Mad Monk serves more than just steak and beer though, pizza (which I haven’t tried yet) and a unique tapas styled menu featuring small dishes from around the world that I shared with two friends from work. We had planned to order everything on the tapas menu and work our way through it but luckily they were out of some of the items since we struggled to finish the generous and well priced servings. My favorite was definitely the sticky pork belly and scallops, but you know what I’m like with scallops.
Read More...

Tags:Review, Restaurant, Fremantle, Olive Oil, Scallops, Pork, Western Australia, Beef, Beer, Ham, Cheese, Vegetables

I said I’d go back to Varga Bar to try their food menu and today was the day, or at least I thought it was. It was time for brunch, around 1030, 11 and I wanted a bit of breakfast, salmon eggs benedict to be exact but they were out of smoked salmon. Okay fine, I’ll just have ham. Sorry, out of that too? Not to worry, I can understand how difficult it is to find either of those two things in Newtown. The Deli is all of 2 minutes walk away, not to mention all of the other delicatessens and heck, even the IGA on King Street has both.

I ended up with a sandwich. Luckily it was tasty but given it was a bacon sandwich ($10), a little light on the bacon.

Bacon, Avocado, Tomato and Lettuce on Sourdough @ Varga Bar

Tags:Newtown, Bacon, Sandwich, Avocado, Review, Café

I had to go back to Sydney early from my New Zealand trip so I can sit an exam and since I hadn’t had any luck finding the quite space I needed to read the text books I’d lugged around with me thus far I booked myself two days in Harbour View room at the Hilton Auckland (I got a good deal at wotif). The hotel itself is smaller than I thought and felt cramped every time I walked through the lobby but the rest of the hotel is quite spacious. The room I was in had a very large marble bathroom with separate bath and shower, the rest of the room contained a king size bed, 32” LCD TV and DVD player and a desk. Then there was the balcony - the same size as the room itself! The only complaint with it is that even though there are double sliding doors opening on to it, there was a concrete pillar in the middle of them making getting outside a little awkward and blocked the view from inside.

I hadn’t had breakfast that morning so once I settled into the room, opened all the draws and flicked all the light switches I had a look at the room service menu. There was all of the standard fare you get at the Hilton plus the specialised items from the hotels restaurant. I ordered the Nasi Goreng, just a light meal. Presented well, the rice moulded in a bowl and turned out into the plate with a fried egg across the top, tomato and cucumber slices fanned around the edge and individual bowls of chili paste, soy and dried fish so they could all be added to taste, a single large prawn cracker and three small chicken satay skewers to the side. Flavour wise it was more subtle than I’m used to, all of the flavours were balanced so it was a clearly deliberate choice and it certainly wasn’t bland per se but I could see a lot of people thinking it was.

The second night I stayed I went to White, the hotel’s restaurant with Italian chef Cristiano De Martin running the show. You can see his European training and years of dedicated practice in the way every dish was executed, starting with the produce then preparation and cooking then finally the presentation. De Martin’s dedication to his food extends to joint venture called Homegrown with NZ primary producers to source the best ingredients. I can’t see any losers here, especially as I get presented with my first course.

Starting off with Heart of the Desert saffron infused carrot soup with parsley foam it’s not surprising De Martin highlights one of his Homegrown partners in Heart of the Desert saffron. Who knew that NZ can grow it given 90% of the world production is from Iran? The soup itself was good blending the more complex earthier kiwi saffron standing up against fresh sweet carrots. The parsley foam was wispy and delicate adding a level of texture and evening out the parsley flavour so that no mouthful could ever be overpowed with a herb than can taste like grass if you get a mouthful of it unexpectedly.

Contrasting the soup’s delicate flavour profile is the Northland kingfish carpaccio, spiced shallots with citrus and sesame dressing and mini coriander leaves hitting you with an incredible burst starting out with the lime that is made palatable with the shallots, coriander and sesame on the finish. Without any one of these the dish wouldn’t balance but here all of the flavours are inline leaving you with the amazingly fresh kingfish carpaccio. The mouthfeel of the slightly oily kingfish sliced paper thin and served raw as it melds itself with the rest of the flavours creating one of those moments you sit up and pay attention to what you’re eating.

I love duck and I eat it quite often but until now I hadn’t actually had the chance to make or try tea smoked duck. I made tea smoked snapper a few weeks ago as a trial before I give it ago on duck. Now I’ve got a gold standard to aim for. A salad of tea smoked duck resting on crisp filo pastry, pistachio, celery and grapes with a blueberry and riesling verjus dressing was a familiar yet different taste. Smoking the duck adds a soft undertone to each bite that while you can tell it is there, at no point does it distract you from the duck itself or any other ingredient. Pistachio as a nut has an odd flavour that wouldn’t have worked if the duck wasn’t smoked. A lesser chef would have either used hazelnut that I think would have enhanced the smoke and overpowered the rest of the salad or blanched almods simply for texture. The filo pastry was disappointing, it seemed more like a layer of cardboard where I was expecting the salad to be perched on top of individual layers of delicate filo. Did you notice something missing in the picture? When I was served the dish I thought it was odd but there isn’t a black/purple drizzle across the top. I’m not sure how they did it, but blueberry skin wasn’t in the ingredient list for the dressing so it’s is perfectly clear. The two black half circles are grapes.

Scallops are tender pillows of shellfish that have a sweeter meat than crayfish. Their intense flavour, despite that they’re physically delicate, means they can carry other strong flavours and De Martin picked almost a surf and turf with Spirits Bay scallops seared with crispy pancetta, apple pureé and a snow pea salad with cabernet sauvignon vinegar glaze. Even before the plate lands you can smell the pancetta and the bacon instinct kicks in and your nose is in the air trying to breathe it all in. The pancetta releases so much of it’s flavour as it’s friend in the pan next to the scallops that they seem to soak it up like a sponge. The drizzle of glaze on the plate was incredibly intense and perfect for cutting through the pancetta’s fat so you can reclaim the scallop’s individuality.

The Assistant Manager (who did an amazing job all night) disagreed with the chef on his choice of wine for a number of dishes and I either saw her point or agreed completely. This time I only saw her point. She gave me some of the listed wine, a Cloudy Bay ‘08 Sauvignon Blanc, and the wine she thought was best, a Brancott ‘07 Sauvignon Blanc, both from the Malborough. I’m sorry to say I wouldn’t have said either were a perfect match but then I can’t say what would have been either. The Cloudy Bay was good at balancing the glaze and pancetta but destroyed the apple and scallop where as the Brancott was obliterated by the fat. Given the focus of this dish was scallops, not pancetta I’d have erred on the side of caution and taken the Bancott as the manager suggested.

A Kaffir Lime sorbet broke the meal. It tasted like the only possible way you could have that much lime flavour in a that glass was if someone froze and blended the lime itself. It had such a fresh taste to it, probably enhanced by the fact it was frozen, but it could have easily been the smell of a fresh picked lime. My guess is it was probably oil from the skin being sprayed in to and incorporated with the mix.






The headline of the show for an international hotel in NZ was of course the Hawke’s Bay lamb loin roasted with garden herbs, parsnip créme and crisps, manuka smoked olives, lemon and Te Arai Extra Virgin emulsion. The lamb was cooked a touch longer than I’d have liked but within tolerances for medium-rare so it did benefit from the olive oil and parsnip mash for moistness. That’s not to say it wasn’t full of flavour; I’d say the kiwi’s have made a good go at it. Infact given the better farming and grazing weather in NZ for the past few years, their lambs might just be better than the Australians. For now. Picking up some of the smoked olives with the lamb made for a nice way to extend the otherwise limited range of flavours on the plate, the parsnips and olive oil seemed to take on a new life. Half way through I’d ran out and wished there were more, olives, not parsnip.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the names of the two cheeses served on this course but they seemed along the lines of a mature cheddar and a firmer white mould cheese along the lines of a costello perhaps? As I was dining alone, I think I received a hastily cut down portion. There was just simply not enough cheese to try all of the condiments with at least one cheese, there weren’t even enough wafers. Still, it was nice for a course designed to transition your palette from red meat to dessert.




Of course, at the end of any meal you can’t go past dessert and what a dessert. The menu called for a chef’s selection and I don’t think there was anything left he hadn’t selected. When this course came up I was offered an extra glass of wine because there had been ‘an issue’ in the kitchen and I would have to wait an extra 10 minutes or so. What I think it was is that they couldn’t figure out how to present a dessert platter that’s designed for two people to a single person when most of the items are either slivers anyway or single units. Half a scoop of ice-cream anyone? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that if there were two people that I would have been disappointed with the portion size, there are four separate desserts for heavens sake but to cut them down further would have been unsightly. Which is why I got a dessert platter for two! It goes without saying that every single one of these desserts were delicious and flavour packed. No surprises in the taste, they were almost concentrated in their own flavour. So clockwise from the back we’ve got an apple galette topped with vanilla ice cream, vanilla panna-cotta with raspberry compote, lemon cheesecake, dark chocolate hazelnut torte with a scoop of hazelnut ice-cream.


I ordered an espresso to go with the petit four which was basically a sphere of pear and cream that finished the meal as I sat and waited for it to move itself below my centre of gravity and chatted to an Australian couple that also had the degustation whom asked me how I enjoyed it and gave them my Red Whisk business card so they can come and look at the pictures. My sincerest apologies have to go to them for the delay in posting this article.

All in all, I really quite enjoyed visiting (and not as their guest, this was fully funded by The Red Whisk). Next time I visit Auckland I’m going to have to stay at the Hilton again. As far as international standards go the Hilton here is above the average. Sure there are some things that could be done better but they’re probably not going to be picked up or worried over by your average consumer. As for the restaurant, the service of the assistant manager scored herself a very generous tip for her friendly yet professional service keeping the person dining alone who didn’t bring a book to read company, her generosity in pouring wine and offering not only and alternative to the listed wines, but both!



Hilton Auckland and White Restaurant
Princess Wharf. 147 Quay Street
Auckland. 1010
NEW ZEALAND

Tags:Degustation, Hilton, Auckland, New Zealand, Review, Restaurant, Wine, Fish, Soup, Scallops, Duck, Dessert

The point of the trip to New Zealand this year was to celebrate my mother's 50th birthday, so while my Aunts little monkeys were at school we took a trip out to one of NZ's top rated wineries, Mills Reef, in the Bay of Plenty region not far from Tauranga in the town of Bethlehem.

Mills Reef is hardly a stable but if the attitude of the staff on the restaurant is anything to go by then jebus himself was born here and it was our privilege to be on sacred ground but more on that in a minute. Going along Moffat Road and seeing the grounds appear before you is impressive with manicured lawns and rows of trees all leading up to the main building and it's own formal gardens but this is a working site. All of the processing, bottling and distribution happen here even though all of the grapes are bought and shipped from the not so far away Hawks Bay.

As you walk up from the car park the first door on the left is the tasting room so we went there first. As a tip for those visiting a winery with it's own restaurant, here's a good place to try a sip of a few things before you try and match them to your lunch and give you a chance to mull over which bottles you pick up.

Mills Reef Winery, 143 Moffat Road, Bethlahem New Zealand

In the tasting room we met Ken, the cellar manager who ever so patiently walked my family through not only their range but the tasting process (lightest and brightest to heaviest and darkest). From what I could tell all of the prices for the wine were quite reasonable where as the souvenirs had souvenir prices.

After a few uhms and ahs we took a price list and headed for the empty restaurant. There was a choice of the outdoor terrace or inside a dining/function room. The enormous main dining room was having the air-conditioning replaced before summer. Not to worry because ir was spring after all and we chose a table on the terrace in the shade. Just like everyone else did but being outside the noise wasn't an issue and the tables were well spaced anyway. After the stop-off in the tasting room I picked my entrée and main based on their recommended wines and everyone else chose the recommended glass. I wanted to see how they stood up to good quality food and thankfully what came out of the kitchen was great. Luckily I was really only interest in their red wine because the restaurants fish order hadn't arrived to meet the demand of their predominantly fish based menu.

Going around the table my mother had their seafood trio and the Pinot Gris, a slight alteration due to the lack of fish she had a king prawn, scallops and a piece of salmon; my brother had the oysters and my aunt had the bread and dukka which surprised me. For such a simple sounding entrée the chef added a bit of flair throwing in a couple of different types of cibatta and more than just a simple dukka, there was some great avocado oil, tapenade and homemade pesto too. I had the chicken liver paté with truffles crostini and the Cab Melot, or at least that's what I ordered. Instead I got garlic crostini that worked very well and I wouldn't have had any complaints if only I hadn't ordered truffles. That and if I didn't have to wait 10 minutes and actually need to get up from by seat, walk through a construction site and find the wait staff and ask them for our wine. Even though there were a few people in the restaurant by that stage I find it hard to believe a winery restaurant forgot to bring the wine.


Seafood Trio - Prawn, Salmon and Scallop


Cibatta with Dukka, Avocado Oil, Tapenade and Pesto


Chicken Liver and Cognac Paté and Fig Jam with Garlic Crostini

Main course ran smoother, Mum had the strawberry and asparagus salad with Kaimai Brie and a glass of the Sav Blanc which was tasty and exploration in vegetarian texture more than flavour, my brother had two giant lamb shanks that were cut above the knee and were so tender the meat would have literally fallen off the bone if he'd picked it up washed down with the Cab Sav. The meat was good quality lamb but seemed a little bland on it's own and relied in the jus to carry it. Mind you I only picked at his leftovers, so the most of the meat could have been fine. My Aunts Cajun chicken Caesar salad was generous, well seasoned. I had the lamb fillet that was cooked to a perfect pink with a blue cheese and pear salad with a walderberry jus, much like my favourite duck salad. The lamb itself seemed under seasoned but balanced out with some cracked pepper and the jus. The Merlot Malbec was a perfect match.


Asparagus, Strawberry, Avocado and Kaimai Brie


Warm Lamb Fillet, Watercress and Baby Spinach Salad with Pear, Cashew, Kikorangi Blue and Walderberry Syrup


Lamb Shanks Braised with Wholegrain Mustard on Green Pea and Potato Mash

Dessert. Only mother and I had dessert, her with the mandarin and cinnamon spring rolls which looked delicious and I had the 'ode to the lemon' which was a set of three lemon desserts starting with a lemon curd in a bitter chocolate case the size of a patty-pan, a lemon cremé brûlée in an espresso cup and a scoop of lemon ice cream in a parfait glass. All of which matched brilliantly in their own way to the riesling ice wine. If only it was delivered with the course. As the waitress walked off I called out "um, and our wine?" She flicked her nose up and walked off in acknowledgement. I waited. I waited. Again I got up and asked for my wine yet again. The excuse was they were waiting for the others coffee to be made before they bought out all of the drinks. Pity my ice cream had melted and my crem brule was cold by the time it arrived.

The location, food and wine at Mills Reef are nothing to complain about but the attitude and service of the restaurant wait staff really left more a lot to be desired.


Nectarine and Honey Spring Rolls rolled in Cinnamon Sugar served with Blueberry Syrup and Vanilla Ice Cream


Burnt Lemon Curd, Lemon Crem Brule and Lemon Ice Cream

Tags:Salad, Chicken, Lamb, Lamb Shanks, Paté, Prawns, Scallops, Lemon, Ice Cream, New Zealand, Wine, Review, Restaurant, Travel

The lunchtimes of the IT Consultant tends to run along the lines of starting off at a new client, asking where the best place to have lunch is and going there every single day for the six weeks you’re on the job. Sometimes it’s hit and miss but sometimes you get lucky.

Peppermill Café, Milsons Point

At a recent contract I went out myself and failed miserably picking the Kirribilli Village Café and Restaurant. I tried their steak sandwich and it was just awful, chewy, tasteless and very overpriced. $25 off for the sandwich and a coffee. That’s when I asked. The team I was working with and I went around the corner to The Peppermill Café in Milsons Point, their coffee is a little to be desired considering it’s Campos Coffee, but it almost always seemed burnt but the service and food was always pretty good.

The first day I went I was recommended their regular special, a chicken and leek pie. Not what I expected in the presentation department but it was tasty. An individual baking dish with mashed potato on the bottom, a regular chicken and leek filling and a square of golden puff pastry balanced across the top. Almost every day since then I went to Peppermill for either lunch or breakfast, often for both. When I had breakfast, brunch, or afternoon tea, I’d pick up a smoked salmon, ricotta and avocado croissant, the combination of the soft buttery pastry and the oily smokiness of the salmon was a winner.

Smoked Salmon Croissant @ Peppermill Café, Milsons Point

They serve an all day breakfast here, and the majority of the menu was based around breakfast but almost as often as I’d see someone have a burger I saw someone else have either the pancakes or french toast, both served with either bacon and maple syrup or a mixed berry compote. Delicious stuff and well worth a try if you want a bit of extra energy before hitting either the Kirribilli or North Sydney Markets one weekend (I worked weekends too). The beef burger is nice, standard fare, but the chicken burger was the winner, chicken, bacon, avocado. Damn tasty.

It’s also licensed and they won’t pass judgement if you have a Bloody Mary on a Monday!

Chicken & Bacon Burger @ Peppermill Café, Milsons Point

The Peppermill Café
30 Glenn Street, Milsons Point (map)

Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm
Saturday and Sunday 8am - 4pm

T: (02) 9954 1444
F: (02) 9954 1444
www.thepeppermillcafe.com.au

Tags:Coffee, Restaurant, Review, Chicken, Burgers, North Sydney, Milsons Point, Croissant, Smoked Salmon, Avocado, Bacon

A little while a go my neighbours recomended a chinese take-away down King Street called Good Wok (587 King Street, Newtown). I’ve always seen a couple of people in it but dismissed it as a cheap dodgey little store that I would end up with the squirts. As it turns out, it’s clean, very clean. Sure it’s got wood panneling, vinyl covered chairs and laminate tables but it’s tasty stuff. A few times this past week I’ve been running much later than I’d have liked to get home so I’ve stopped in and picked up something on the way or had something there.

Good Wok - 587 King Street Newtown

I haven’t spotted anything out of the ordinary or a speciality on the menu, it’s all the usual stuff you’d expect, mongolian beef, cashew chicken and all that but it was the bbq wonton noodle soup that I’ve gone back for. It definitley isn’t the best I’ve ever had but Good Wok’s version is the type of soup you go to when you’re stomach is compleltey empty and you need to fill it with carbs, hot broth, meat and vegetables.

The soup has a good chicken and vegetable stock, fresh bbq pork and some very fresh vegetables including perfectly cooked brocolli. Even I struggle to get mine tender-crisp but this was pretty much perfect not to mention generously served.

Good Wok - BBQ Pork Wonton Noodle Soup

Good Wok Chinese Food
Ph: 02 9565 2175
587 King Street
Newtown

They don’t do delivery but do take phone orders, it’s cash only too.

Tags:Noodles, Wonton, Soup, Asian, BBQ, Newtown, Restaurant, Review

What big pieces of cake you have! Varga, the norse word for wolf ordanes that little corner café just off King Street, on the corner of Wilson Street and Erskineville Road. I’ve seen this place for years, walking past the unassuming frontage but hiding a secret. Seeing the queue of people at the take-away window and the full tables and thought it’s either just got a great location (which it does) or something really special is going on inside. Turns out it’s probably both and then some.

Varga Bar Espresso. Corner of Wilson St and Erskineville Road, Newtown

I went there today with a friend of mine that I have’t seen in years because we’re both too goddamn lazy to meet up but we managed today. He’s very punctual though, when he said he was running approximatley 12 minutes late, he was exactly 12 minutes late. Good work. At least it gave me extra time to get some descent location shots of the outside and plenty of time to check out the hot blond barrista and the clientelé.

The thing that surprised me here, wasn’t so much the fact that what we were served was fantastic, but it was creative. I’ve tried a lot of cafés in Newtown but this was the first time I’ve seen a honeycomb and belgian chocolate affogato (espresso with a scoop of ice cream) on a menu and the cakes we had were delicious and well presented. I had the banana cake, unfortunately a little dry in places but delicious none the less. The other cake, the chocolate and raspberry mousse cake was denser than you’d expect, more cakey than moussey, but the affogato. Smooth, sweet, delicious with goopy melted chocolate in the bottom of the glass topped with a sprinkle of violet crumble.

Honeycomb and Chocolate Affogato and Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse Cake

I’m going to have to come back and try out the food menu.

Tags:Restaurant, Review, Café

I’ve been known to on occasion have a thing for gingers, more often than not it’s ended in more than disaster but one day I’ll get it right. Tonight, one of them was more than satisfying and I think even my mother would approve.

About to be eaten ginger

The wonderful people at Gingerbread Folk make organic, free range gingerbread people, house kits, flowers, christmas decorations and custom made gingers for special and corporate events. Keeping the environmentaly concious theme they even package their individual bloodnuts in compostable plastic!

As they’re made of all natural ingredients there aren’t any preservatives in them so don’t expect to keep these for months on end like you can with commercial ginger bread (next christmas, check the expiary date on the gingerbread in supermarkets, it can keep for years, that can’t be good). Lucky they’re tasty and beg to be gobbled.

Tags:Ginger, Gingerbread Man, Organic, Cake, Cookies

For a good 8 months now I’ve been a regular customer of Box Fresh, a company I came across while in Hudson Meats one day. Every week I get a present delivered to my front door, a weighty box crammed full of the freshest fruit and vegetables that Sydney’s wholesale markets have to offer.

The first thing you notice once you’ve moved the box into the kitchen isn’t the volume of food, the convenience or even the value for money, it’s the sweet smell that almost overwhelmes you as you break the seal on the box and lift the lid. It really is amazing stuff in there. As you can see below you can get everything from a whole rockmelon, an egg plant, green beans, sugar snap peas and a bag of baby spinach, salad leaves and a whole lot more.

Box Fresh Delivery

I’ve done a comparison and even if you disreguard the fact that this is restaurant quality food, you can’t get this amount of food for less than the $49 expecially if you want it delivered. Coles Online for example was $95! On top of the fruit and veg, you can also pick up a good selection of cheese, jams and even a meat tray from Hudson meat. Give them a go.

This weeks box had all sorts of fun stuff:
Vine ripened tomatoes
Broccoli
Green Beans
Potatoes
Red Onion
Brown Onion
Avocado
Ginger
Green Chilli
Garlic
Corriander
Mint
Parsley
Carrots
Field Mushrooms
Egg Plant
Sugar Snap Peas
Baby Spinach
Mixed Salad Leaves
Red Capsicum
Kiwi Fruit
Carela Pears
Fuji Apples
Oranges
Bananas
Rockmelon
Lemon

Tags:Box Fresh, Review, Purveyor, Vegetables

I don't think anyone ever really, or vary rarely, plans to go to a specific restaurant in Newtown (save the one or two places where you actually have to book). Everyone else just wanders up and down King Street soaking up the atmosphere until they see something that catches their eye like a heaving plate of prawns or a luscious piece of beef being served to someone else through the window.
So after meeting some wonderful company at the station we began walking up the eastern side of King Street until we started to realise that we were almost of restaurants. Just at that point we were standing next to The Dumpling King (194 King Street, Newtown). Declaring my love for dumplings we headed in, sat down and went over the menu looking for some rare and tasty dumplings I'd never heard of before. Bitterly disappointed given the name of the place there were only four dumplings! Northern Meat Style, steamed or pan fried, and Vegetable Dumpling, steamed or pan fried. How can you call yourself the Dumpling King if you only have two types of dumplings?! We decided to order the shallot pancake and the meat bun and of course, both types of dumplings - steamed.
 

You won’t find many dumplings at The Dumpling King (194 King Street, Newtown)

Twenty minutes later the pancake (that I don't think had even met a shallot) arrived along with the pan fried flavourless northern meat buns. Chewing through those and washing them down with some weak green tea (from a bag) we sat and chatted. Pleasant and engaging conversation, thankfully, which made the next forty-five minutes waiting for our dumplings bearable.
Eventually, after physically getting up and asking the wait-staff that had ignored us since we ordered where the rest of our meal was, two steamer baskets turned up with an excuse that the Dumpling King had run out of dumplings and he had to make them fresh! Two things are wrong with that, one - the DUMPLING KING ran out of dumplings; and two - if he did have some on hand they wouldn't have been fresh! I know I'm probably arguing for two different sides here, do I want fresh dumplings or do I want quick service but that's not the point. We weren't the only table that didn't get their meals, I noticed two or three other tables having to stop the wait-staff and ask where their food was.
At the end of the night, I have to admit the dumplings were actually quite nice, but the experience was terrible with poor service and a promise of a plethora of dumplings that just don't exist. The rest of the menu looked quite uninspired and with the variety available on King Street I'm not going to be in any hurry to visit the illegitimate Dumpling King again. I'd rather go to Happy Chef.

Tags:Dumpling, Newtown, Review, Restaurant

Not really knowing what to call this whitebait fritter is really what I thought when I first saw this presented to my table at The Union in Newtown. Now this place is my local and I eat here reasonably regularly - infact I’m typing and posting this just minutes after I ate the meal, which in it’s own right feels a little too close to comic book man from The Simpsons logging on to the internet within moments to register his disgust for the new Itchy and Scratchy episode with Poochy.

I was expecting something a lot more like a pancake with little tiny fish heads sticking out perfectly crispy waiting for me to cunch. What I got was little brown deep fried sea-poops on a soggy salad. Although, the beetroot relish on top was just delicious. There are plenty of better whitebait fritter recipes out there.

What’s going on at The Union? This place used to be known for it’s top class pub food. The last time I ordered fish here it was obviously a frozen fish fillet because it was still hard and cold in the centre. Their regular menu is rock solid - I guess it must just be the specials.

Little brown sea-poos with beetroot relish

Food, 6/10 - Good but the standards are slipping
Service, 8/10 - Can’t complain here
Coffee, 0/10 - There is an espresso machine, but this is a pub. Have a beer
Value, 6.5/10 - Pricey for pub food but better than the competition
Location, 9/10 - Full of good intentioned locals

Tags:Newtown, Whitebait

Meeting John for dinner tonight I had a hankering for some seafood, nothing special mind, just a nice piece of salmon or some scallops, but when we ended up at Splash on King Street in Newtown we ended up going all out and picking the hot and cold platter for two (or even three). The rest of the menu wasn’t very inspiring, nothing you couldn’t find at every other seafood restaurant in Sydney.

Splash @ 226 King Street, Newtown

Now while the decor of the restaurant is a fairly dark but modern I can’t help but feel that this is a second home to those who work here with little touches making it feel more like someone’s living room - the framed boxing memorabilia coming from the eldest son and the bright sea-life painting coming from his mother insisting “these will look lovely.” The feel of being in someone else’s house is reinforced with the clumsy but well intentioned younger sister waitress, the always looking busy but not really older sister waitress, then there’s the eldest muscle bound pony-tailed brother who sits intimidatingly behind the bar only to rush off outside or to the kitchen every time his mobile phone beeps or rings. I always got the feeling that I was imposing being there and even more so when I asked for another drink.

At least the food was good quality with more than a substantial serving, three people or two hungrier people than us could have finished it with a bit more effort, we struggled to get through half of the a pile of chips, bbq baby octopus, pickled octopus, lightly battered and fried prawns, cold cooked prawns, fresh oysters, scallop mornay, smoked salmon and the whole crab. We didn’t even touch the salad.

Hot and Cold Seafood Plater for Two @ Splash Newtown

Food, 6.5/10 - Everything was there, but it wasn’t original by any means
Service, 5/10 - I felt like I was imposing on them being there, it seemed everyone had better things to do
Value, 7/10 - For what we got, the $100 bill was fair for quality seafood in Sydney
Location, 9/10 - Heart of King Street

Tags:Newtown, Seafood, European, Mediterranean, Cyprus

This morning, day two of my short break between contracts was a little more relaxed. A little. I still didn’t get to sleep in, I had to head into an interview with my new employer at 9am (went well) and the rest of the day was dedicated to preparing everything for my housewarming this weekend.

After I got back from the meeting I headed off to the Victoria’s Basement outlet in Alexandria with a pit-stop at a little café I’d spotted once before that seemed a little odd out on it’s own on an otherwise desolate strip of Mitchell Road.

I took a gamble and went for the salmon egg benedict roll, an unusual presentation in itself but buoyed by the fact that it looked delicious. Tasted good too! The only thing I was annoyed with was the poached egg was hard, not runny at all - but then, given that it was obviously meant to be eaten by people with a well defined palate with out any time it made sense. I won’t mind stopping in again one weekend and picking up a quiche or something else to see how that goes. Stay tuned.

Salmon Egg Benedict Roll @ La Cachette Alexandria

With the exception of the coffee (burnt and bitter, what a surprise there), I was pleasantly surprised. Stop by if you’re going past the area and peckish.

Food, 7/10 - Better than you’d expect for what looks like a workman’s lunch-bar
Service, 4/10 - The girl was training and seemed lost
Coffee, 0/10 - It was undrinkable
Value, 6.5/10 - $10.50 for a brea-roll and a coffee, but what a bread-roll
Location, 4/10 - In the middle of nowhere

Tags:Eggs, Eggs Benedict, Coffee, Alexandria, Bread, Breakfast

In 1867 His Royal Highness Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh was shot in the back while on a picnic in Contarf, which is probably why a pub named after him was built miles away in Enmore in 1876. Well, actually it probably had a bit more to do with the near-by Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, which was built with memorial funds after his assasination attempt (the hospital, not the pub). A little ironic building a hospital since the guy that shot him was hung.

Affie, as he was known by his family was so called because he was affable, easy to talk to and that sense really has been instilled at The Duke. Given it’s prime location meters away from the Enmore Theatre everyone comes here for a beer and a meal before a show ( The Presets drew me here Monday night). If you’re planning on eating get here early because the place fills up fast. On freezing cold nights like last night, the roaring open fire helps too!

I’ve been here a few times, and the place isn’t cheap but the food is good and usually pretty high quality with some very generous servings. I had the mixed grill this time around, sausages, minute steak, bacon and lamb cutlets on chips with sauce of your choice, pepper, mushroom etc, all for the princley sum (get it?) of $17.50. It is just pub food here, steaks, burgers and the good old chicken parma that a friend had, looking equally as delicious and priced.

Mixed Grill @ The Duke, Enmore

Food, 7/10 - Better than most pubs and everything you’d expect on a classic pub menu board
Service, 8/10 - For a pub, you can’t complain - they were happy and friendly
Coffee, 10/10 - Because it was made with hopps and barley and served by the pint
Value, 7/10 - Tough one, but for the location and the generous servings it gets a couple extra points
Location, 9/10 - If you’re going to the Enmore it’s ideal

The Duke of Edinburgh
148 Enmore Road, Enmore NSW 2042
P: 02 9519 1935
F: 02 9557 1381
W: http://www.duke-hotel.com/

Tags:Pub, Enmore, Duke, Mixed Grill, Steak, Sausage, Fries, Lamb, Bacon, Chicken

Bill Granger is someone I would aspire to be like, studying art and working as a waiter he discovered and grew his passion for food and now he’s gotten pretty well rich doing something he loves, with out selling out.

Bills - 359 Crown Street, Surry Hills

Bills second restaurant in Surry Hills opened 12 years ago and has been going strong ever since, full to the brim from opening till the end of brunch, easing off through the day and picking up again for dinner. It’s a great place to come despite it’s incredibly short menu, one of the shortest in Sydney with usually ony a dozen items to choose from, most of which are staples that are always there such as the sweetcorn fritters with guacamole and the chicken club sandwich, which is what I had today. Now this isn’t your typical three tier sandwich, it’s a chibata roll with roast tomato, baked chicken thigh, roquett and a light spread of dijonaise. It is delicious, but for $17.50 you’d want it to be. Don’t count on the coffee, it’s always just a little burnt.

Club Sandwich and Herbed Fries - Bills, 359 Crown Street, Surry HIlls

If you’re after better coffee and cheaper sweet corn fritters (also $17.50) try Lemon Twist a little further south on Crown Street.

Tags:Surry Hills, Restaurant, Chicken, Bacon, Review

This Saturday after pulling a monster of a 21 hour shift at work (hope you’re enjoying the Commonwealth Bank’s new phone banking system by the way) I woke up with a couple hours sleep and went to enjoy some pleasant company and to staid my sleep-deprived cravings for fat and sugar. John and I agreed to meet at Corelli’s, a café just south of Newtown Station on the King Street side. He’s mentioned it once or twice as we’ve walked past together and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out, there was a bit of justification for it.

Corelli's Café - 352 King Street, Newtown

Being the heart of Newtown it manages to still have that feel of Bohemia about it, which is odd because Arcangelo Corelli was Italian not Slavic; nor was he gypsy. In fact he was long dead before the French even coined the phrase. The point though, is that Corelli’s has that aire of real Newtown about it with it’s cramped tables, mismatched paintwork and staff that will get around to taking your order when they’ve stopped day-dreaming as they watch the foot traffic.

As for the food, the menu seemed skewed towards breakfast, proven by dinner there tonight with my pick of the menu being the bangers and mash (not too bad but simple as it should be). For that breakfast though John had the generously portioned eggs benedict with an obviously not store-bought hollandaise sauce. You could tell it was made with fresh egg and lemon.

Eggs Benedict @ Corelli's Newtown

To satisfy the need for sugar and fat though I couldn’t turn up the made-to-order Belgian waffles with strawberry and rhubarb compote, maple syrup and fresh cream. Good lord it hit the spot — then stomped around on it for a while. The waffles themselves were light and fluffy with just enough sugary-caramelised crispiness, balanced with the sweet and tart compote and the lusciousness of the cream. I think John’s arse clenched when he tasted some! Are you reading this John? :P

Waffles with Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote @ Corelli's Newtown

Tags:Restaurant, Review, Newtown, Breakfast, Sausages, Rubarb, Eggs Benedict, Waffles

I guess the irony can't be lost that I'm sitting on a train at 9am (when I'm meant to be at work) and this being the first time I've had a chance to write a post about a croissant I had for breakfast a couple of weeks ago when I missed even the 9am train. It had to be one of the sorriest excuses of a ham and cheese croissant that I've ever had the pleasure of eating. The outside was nice and golden crispy but the ham and cheese on the inside were both quite cold with out even the slightest signs of being melted. The coffee was just as good. Surprisingly they do still have a small queue for the take-away window every morning but I guess when Café Acoustica is the only place you can get a coffee within a 5 minute walk within any direction of the train station then you've pretty much got the bad coffee market cornered.

Missed Train Croissant. Cold, unmleted cheese. Damn.

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Tags:Breakfast, Croissant, Ham, Cheese, Late, Review

Today is the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Australia (except WA) and I bet she had a lavish breakfast in bed served on a silver tea tray with delicatley poached eggs, toast soliders and a pot of tea to celebrate.

This little black duck though had to walk for hours around the centre of Adelaide CBD to find somewhere that was open and serving breakfast.

Scoozi - Big Breakfast

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Tags:Adelaide, Breakfast, Review, Restaurant

When I get run into the ground at my day job I try and get away for the weekend to relax and unwind and this weekend saw me wing it to Melbourne and land at the Sofitel. I've written before about my less than five-star experiences in Brisbane with the Accor owned company but the Melbourne version has a much better track record. The rooms are well fitted out, complete with dvd players, surround sound and an iPod connection controlled by the touch-screen remote next to the bed and then there is the club lounge which is in a world of it's own. How many hotels have a fireplace on the 35th floor?

On the nights I was there the lounge was mostly quiet, perfect for a book and a gin and tonic and enjoying the open bar and evening canapés or the sweeter petit fours of an evening with a hot chocolate. Some company would have been nice too.

Sofitel Melbourne Club Lounge

Breakfast is a hybrid buffet and à la carte, having scrambled eggs, bacon fruit and cereal on the bar and a slightly changing menu of a 'big breakfast', eggs benedict etc. I'd highly recommend the ricotta hotcakes.

Pine Nut and Honey Ricotta Hotcakes @ Sofitel Club Lounge, Melbourne

Those of you who know me, and those of you that finish reading this sentence know that I love coffee. Most of you even know that I like *ahem* a drink or two. So when I hit the Atrium Bar at the Sofitel Melbourne the night I landed I started to relax, To understand the atmosphere in this bar you need to appreciate the layout of the Sofitel Melbourne. Even though the reception is based on the lower floors the hotel itself does not start until the 35th floor, perched on top of an office tower. This is where you'll find the Atrium Bar and it's skylight another 15 floors above.

Atrium Bar @ Sofitel Melbourne

I went through a couple of drinks, starting with a fig and scotch martini that was nice except I'm not the biggest fan of scotch - the figs almost made up for it. I ended up with heaven in a glass with an espresso martini. Goddamn it was good, heck, it even had crema thick and frothy enough to hold up whole beans... It wasn't like any of the other espresso martini's I've had before, this had a dash of frangelico in it I think.

I think I've found a reason to dust off my own martini glasses.

Espresso Martini - Sofitel Melbourne

Tags:Sofitel, Melbourne, Martini, Coffee, Atrium Bar, Lounge, Club Lounge, Review

Following on from my breakfast today I went for a walk along King Street to do a bit of shopping for the house and to find something nice for lunch. At the opposite end of King Street to where I started from I saw the Macro Café. I've been meaning to check it out for a while and I finally walked through the door.

Macro Café, King Street, Newtown

Unsurprising for the neighborhood, the post-hippie generation feminist matriarchal vegan families seem to be flocking to this place in numbers as large as the uni-students taking advantage of the free wireless internet. If you can at all avoid it while queuing to place your order (no table service), don't stand behind one of the aforementioned feminist vegan matriarchs placing her order especially if they're heavily pregnant. Instead of picking something off the menu board that meets their stringent dietary requirements they seem to instead rattle off all of their dietary restrictions and the reasons why to the poor waitress trying to find something they can eat. 10 minutes later she settled a garden salad with a hard boiled egg. Obviously she's not a real vegan. I bet she doesn't even pocket-mulch. If I wasn't afraid of loosing my seat I'd have tried to sneak into the kitchen and slip some bacon into her food.

As far as what I ate, I settled a simple ham and cheese croissant and a pot of byron chai. $4.50 for the chai I could understand, but I was a little concerned at the $9.50 for the croissant! If it wasn't for the fact that I'd already queued and there weren't many more options for breakfast in the direction my travels were taking me I'd have probably left and found something else. WIth a bit of a surprise I ended up being presented with a substantial croissant with either emmental or jarlsberg cheese, good quality ham. tomato and baby spinach. It really was a meal in itself. I did think it odd that the menu board didn't mention it. Now I understand why it cost so much.

Croissant from Macro Café

I tried to make croissants from scratch many moons ago and even though they tasted okay, they were a right pain in the arse and I vowed never to make one again. I might give it another go some time but no. Real hand made croissants can easily take a professional days to make, mine took four days and another two days to clean the kitchen! There are plenty of rumors as to the origin of croissants, including Polish bakers hearing the early morning tunneling of Turkish soldiers whom alerted the local authorities and ambushed the Turks. To honor the victory in the battle, the bakers supposedly made croissants in the shape of the crescent moon on the Turkish flag. All this in the 700's, nearly a thousand years before the earliest reference to puff pastry! They are more likely a French variation of a Viennese pastry. I'd still rather cross an armed Turkish soldier than cross the feminist vegan to ask her to hurry up and order.

Tags:Restaurant, Cake, Croissant, Newtown, Review

After a week of having moved into my new house I still haven't gotten to the supermarket to stock up on the essentials, like food. Sure I've got four boxes full of food that I bought with me, but twelve types of vinegars some dried peas and some cannelloni a meal does not make. So, I took the plunge and went for a walk up to King Street, straight past the supermarket and into a café. Grub and Tucker to be precise. It's in the site where Circul8 used to be, now renovated with an awkward 2" raised area to one side of the dining room, complete with a little wire fence around it. The oversized furniture and plants that lean into the walkways in this space aren't helping either. I eventually get to a seat with a view out the window with out making an absolute arse of myself and sit down.

Eventually I get a menu, eventually the waitress comes back to take my order, eventually I get my drinks, eventually I get my food. Saying that though, if I'd gotten the braised beef cheek ($18.50) that I ordered any faster I might have had to send it back. To a chef that has a large menu full of relatively quick dishes, like the asian inspired duck salad that I almost went for, having a couple of slow food items can really throw you. If you slow cook something and hold it in a perpetual state of almost finished like you have to in a restaurant - heating it and getting it on a plate too fast will cease the meat, make it tough ruining hours worth of braising.

Braised Beef Cheek from Grub & Tucker, Newtown

If you haven't had beef cheek but like lamb shanks, I'd suggest giving it a try. Like shanks, cheek is a very well used muscle group so it's hard and tough and needs long slow cooking to make it tender and even more than a shank, you get that wonderful gelatinous mouth feel that just means winter for any self respecting carnivore. This dish was served on a bed of potato purée, sliced green beans and broccoli, unfortunately the greens were a little over done and even with the flourish of fresh parsley over the top it still lacked both the freshness and the body you'd expect for a dish that's obviously meant to warm you from the inside. The beef cheek itself was excellent mind, but the jus lacked body, a handful of black peppercorns in the jus while it was simmering would have fixed it.

On the plus side, a walk down King Street on a Saturday night is really what this neighbourhood is all about. Instead of having to deal with drunks and drug addicts along Oxford Street, I found street performers and artists and a happy active crowd of onlookers enjoying the spectacle. Best of all, I met the group of artists that put together Oh Really Magazine, picked up a piece of their artwork (free with a donation!) and commissioned them to do some work for me. I love Newotwn.

Oh Really Pig

Tags:Restaurant, Newtown, Beef, Beef Cheek, Review

This past weekend I flew over to Perth and stayed at the Intercontinental at Burswood. I went for a standard river view room from Wotif, running around $250 a night which might seem a little steep but compared to my recent visit Sofitel Brisbane I can’t complain. It was a big room, well laid out with an enormous bathroom, with a bath that had a view of the TV. The only thing that could have made that bath any better was a few water jets and a larger TV to look at.

I had a room-service dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and all of us were blown away with the quality and value. We had two soups, two fillet steaks with prawns and a sirloin with roast veg, all for around $135 and that really is great value.

My sister-in-law had a tom yum soup ($15) that was perfectly balanced hot-sour, not too much oil and with giant prawns resting as a surprise on the bottom of the bowl while I had the wonton noodle soup ($13) that was amazing; the broth was clear, golden and delicately flavoured and the wontons were the best I’ve ever had. The wonton skins were perfectly white, delicately thin and a perfect mouthful of prawn and I think scallop meat. When I saw it presented I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any egg noodles in the bottom and no seafood free-floating on top but once I tasted it all of that was forgiven. I can tell that I’ll be trying all winter to re-create this soup.

Wonton Noodle Soup, Intercontinental Burswood

As for the main courses my sister-in-law and I both chose the fillet steak with prawns and wedges and my brother had the sirloin with roasted vegetables (all around $35). All of us, as with the soups were extremely impressed. The steaks were generous, all over 500g and the sirloin I’d suggest was pushing 750g and even with the ride up from the kitchen to our room they were perfectly cooked just how we’d ordered them and all butter soft.

Sirloin and Roast Vegetables, Intercontinental Burswood

The only thing I missed from the meal, not that we’d ordered it, was a bottle of water on the table; for an order this size it would have been a nice touch but I won’t fault them for not providing one. The one litre bottle of Evian in the mini-bar was $8.

The next morning I ordered the “Burswood Breakfast” from room service as the buffet breakfast wasn’t included in my rate. It was $35 and again I couldn’t find fault with it. My family had breakfast at the buffet and the report was they would have been more than happy with just what I’d received. A choice of eggs with a mountain of bacon, sausages and tomato, fruit platter, toast, several spreads a croissant and a Danish with juice and tea or coffee. Each morning I had it I could only get through half. If you’re a light eater, you could possibly split this with someone else if you ordered an extra pastry and juice. Some how, the poached eggs on my first morning were delivered perfectly cooked with soft runny yolks and the scrambled eggs on the second day were tender, rich and creamy while the bacon was a good mix of soft and crispy.

Burswood Breakfast, Intercontinental, Burswood

Next tim I head to Perth I’m going to have to stay again, hopefully with a little more forward planning I’ll be able to book a club room and check out their lounge.

Tags:Intercontinental, Burswood, Travel, Hotel, Room Service, Beef, Steak, Soup, Breakfast

At the top of the list of any visit to Perth, with out fail, is to head out to Fremantle for the day to wander through the [unfortunately small] markets and have lunch or dinner at one of the many top class restaurants. This trip, the family and I went to the Little Creatures brewery for a late lunch.

The brewery is housed inside one of the two boat sheds that make up their premises, the other houses the bar and restaurant with a giant glass wall separating the two so you can watch the brewers occasionally scuttle around checking valves and whatnot. It’s not a fascinating show if you ever even get to see someone, large modern brewery, even the smaller ones like Little Creatures are generally set-and-forget with only some monitoring of the brewing and fermenting. I was hoping for an ommpaloompa, but I guess they’re probably locked in cages to protect the public.

Little Creatures, Fremantle

It was a beautiful sunny day so we went through a couple of false starts to try and secure an outside table, having much more success than most. The back area is large and set to have the feel of your mate’s back yard, complete with bocce pit taking up some valuable real estate. Full credit has to go to management for not trying to squeeze in an extra 100 people and ruining a great atmosphere.

Inside are two levels of seating that seem to be able to fit hundreds of people with the ground level split with a large bar at the front and the open planned kitchen at the back, including the wood fired pizza oven that probably didn’t help to cool the inside of the warmer than outside shed. It was cooler outside in the sun.

We didn’t want a huge meal, just something to tide us over until dinner so we just ordered a plate of prawn skewers (a little over cooked) and a spicy sausage pizza that left a satisfying lip tingle for 15 minutes after you’d eaten it. For a wood fired pizza, I was a little disappointed but I still went back for another slice. I am glad they showed restraint in the toppings department and didn’t overload any of the pizzas on the menu.

Prawn Skewers @ Little Creatures, Fremantle

Spicy Sausage Pizza @ Little Creatures, Fremantle

We only had the pale ale to drink here and it was as nice as ever, and one of the better pale ales around. I saw the cider on the menu when we first sat down inside but completely forgot about it by the time we’d moved seats twice to try and get outside.

It was really nice sitting outside watching the well-behaved toddlers run around, a group of friends play a round of bocce and others clamber over the small stage that’s occasionally used for live bands so I’m glad we did shuffle around to get out there. The wait-staff were friendly and mostly professional. The best evidence of this was how the waiter and subsequently management dealt with a woman we’d pointed out to them who probably chose the wrong seat and should have waited to get an outside seat too…

Dignity. She Needs It

Tags:Restaurant, Beer, Prawns, Pizza, Perth

This past weekend I went to Perth for the birthdays of several members of my family (including my own). I booked my flights last minute and had to end up flying via Melbourne and damn the food was sub standard, even for airline food but more so for business class.

On the flight to Melbourne I had a steak sandwich that had rock hard bread and piping hot steak and what were meant to be fried onions and rocket. Simply awful. The flight to Perth was great, I sat next to a really great woman named Michelle and we chatted the whole flight over. Again the food was quite awful, I had a barramundi with an unidentifiable brown mush spread across the top of it. I took pictures of both of these but they really aren't worth publishing. The bonus was the small tub of Maggie Beer's Passionfruit Ice Cream and dessert wine (Noble One I think). Damn it was nice. Almost as good as the leg room on the upper deck of a 747-300. I stretched out and couldn't touch the seat in-front of me with my feet.

Maggie Beer's Passionfruit Ice Cream

The flight home was a long red-eye on the lower deck with considerably less leg room. The food was better but not by much. The cabin lights were ambient, so the picture is sort of funky. James Morrison was sitting a few rows in-front of me.

Business Class Supper on Qantas Under Ambient Light

Tags:Qantas, Business Classs, Ice Cream, Dairy, Maggie Beer, Perth

I met Mel for breakfast today at the Newtown Café, surprisingly in Newtown. From the outside it's looks like the last place you'd want to eat breakfast, especially if you're sitting outside because it's sitting on the promontory created by the forking of King Street and Enmore Road, thousands of cars busses and trucks rumbling past every minute. Surprisingly though, the noise isn't an issue and neither were the fumes. Although I think they might have started to get to some of the staff who've worked there too long. She didn't pull of the narky-sarcastic waitress stick very well. On the plus side though, the service, for our table at least, was very efficient. There were a number of times the wait-staff lost customers or attempted to deliver orders to the wrong table. If the traffic still puts you off, the inside was a lot better than you'd expect, clean with high ceilings (filled with a giant plasma TV) and air-conditioning.

Café Newtown, Newtown


As for the coffee and food though, it was great. The coffee was a little off but I think that was just the blend, it was a bit too dark for my liking but I still drank it and enjoyed it. Mel had the Eggs Benedict with a side order of baked beans that was so big she struggled to finish it which is great considering most eggs benedict is just an english muffin and not much else. The big breakfast I ordered was big and it had everything you'd want, except baked beans but I didn't miss them; I only got through two thirds of mine. With the very generous serves and low costs (my big breakfast just crossed over the $15 mark) it's great value.


Eggs Benedict @ Café Newtown


Big Breakfast @ Café Newtown

Food, 9/10 - Very generous serves of well cooked food
Coffee, 6/10 - Darker roast than I'd have liked but still good
Service, 7/10 - We didn't have a problem with it but other tables struggled to get their food
Value, 8/10 - Pretty darn good for what you get
Location, 7/10 - Very convenient location across from Newtown Station

Tags:Newtown, Restaurant, Breakfast

Today was one of the sunniest warmest Sundays in Sydney all year. The only day sunnier was the Saturday before. For a city that prides itself on it's fair weather and beach culture, not to mention that it's in a drought, really says something about the sucky weather we've had. So for the sake of it i jumped on my motorbike and headed over to Manly and stopped off at the Manly Grill on South Setyne, where Mel and I should have went for breakfast that day.

The thing that, as always, makes it for me is the demeanor of the staff, if it's not service with a smile, it's not service. Sure, may be it had more to do with the beautiful day or the incredible shirtless scenery walking past every 3 seconds (which in all honesty is why I went to Manly instead of Newtown) than it did with me but who cares, it makes a difference. These people smiled and they genuinely seemed happy to take my order. Which brings us to the menu. Manly grill prides it self on the two things that any restaurant in this sort of location should, it's seafood and it's beef. While it was the perfect day for seafood such as their enormous $120 seafood platter which is well worth the money from what I could see around me. It would serve 2 Americans, or 4 normal people. I opted for a plain and simple cheeseburger, served with shoestring fries and homemade coleslaw.

What I got though was far from a standard cheeseburger, it was simple, just the basics, but that's what you want from a cheeseburger. The beef on this thing was fantastic. 200 day grain fed Black Angus from the Southern Highlands. No wonder it tasted good. There was a little surpise with the buns too, they were char grilled like the burger, the underside had thick and dark scorched lines which gave a much appreciated smokey flavour that, I'm guessing, came from a charcoal grill given the unique taste. As for the sides, the fries were expertly cooked, pale yet hot and crispy. No sign of McCain, and the coleslaw was very high quality if a little limp from being under a heat lamp a fraction too long (or the 30°C sunshine).

This is a good quality restaurant, in a top location, so do expect to pay for what you get, unlike some other restaurants on this strip. For my burger, two pepsi max and a bottle of perrier, the bill came to a fraction over $35.00

Food, 8/10 - I'd have liked a small salad in place of the large quantity of fries, otherwise, it was extraordinary
Service, 8.5/10 - Always a smile, always attentive and efficient
Value, 8/10 - Perhaps a touch over priced for a cheeseburger
Location, 8.5/10 - Hard to beat in Manly

View Larger Map

Tags:Manly, BBQ, Burgers, Beef, Fries, Review, Restaurant

Given last night's excellent Coffee Steak and the match to Monteith's Summer Ale I decided to go back to Vintage Cellars and pick up another six pack of it and the sister beer, the Radler.

As I mentioned before, the Summer Ale is somewhat of a ginger beer, or a beer with a zesty ginger flavour at any rate. It's fairly different from any other beer I've had and is a great change of pace. Tossing in a slice of lime, lemon or even orange really changes the character of this beer, making it an entirely new flavour, taking away some of the zing of the ginger but keeping it in the background.

As for the Radler, it's like a Corona with a slice of lime added, but with out having to add the lime. Of the two it's the more refreshing and for today's sudden sun and warmth it was perfect for a mid afternoon refresher.

Tags:Beer, Review

For the second time running when I checked into the Sofitel Brisbane, something stood out and it wasn’t the multimillion dollar upgrade of their ground floor bar and restaurant. In fact, neither of them stood out at all through either of my stays here. What did stand out though was the clerk that’s checked me in on both of my stays here; Michelle. There is something to be said about efficient and competent professional service and the entire Sofitel front of house staff are, though Michelle was different – she smiled, she was genuinely cheerful and happy to help. The rest of them bordered on clinical; almost as if they were reading from a well rehearsed script and giving out the same vibes that a call centre operator gives when they’ve just had enough for the day and clearly want to get you out of the way as fast as they can so they can go back to their soduku. I can honestly say Michelle was the only front of house staff member I ever saw smile and not only that, everyone I saw walk away after she served them was smiling too. To that point, the concierge service I feel was average, they did make 2 out of 3 restaurant bookings for me (the third was closed so they can’t be faulted) but when I asked some questions requiring local knowledge the service fell sharply. I asked for an arts supply store because I needed a new sketch book; 10 minutes later after they went through the yellow pages I got a call in my room telling me the nearest store was a 30 minutes train ride away in the suburbs. To his benefit he did tell me which train to catch and how to get there, but the nearest arts supply store is just a few blocks away down one of the streets the hotel borders. Why didn't they just goggle it and give me the answer on the spot?

Sofitel Looking from Post Office Square and across Anzac Square

By no means was Michelle from the front desk the only pleasant and friendly staff member at the Sofitel. The staff in the club lounge were excellent, happy and cheerful and even remembered Miles and I when we came back over a month after our first visit. Heck, they even smiled while they cleaned up the plate of scrambled eggs Miles dropped on the floor half asleep one morning. Speaking of the scrambled eggs, the club lounge breakfasts are quite nice in their own right; they have all of the basics, but then, only the basics. Fronting up for breakfast are scrabbled eggs, mushrooms & bacon in the bain-marie and a good selection of fruit, yoghurt, and a few cereals and juices and some pastries; plus champagne on weekends. I’d liked to have seen more but I’m happy with what they provided. I guess if they did have more no one with access to the club lounge would fork out the $30 for the “interactive” breakfast at Thyme² which had everything from eggs benedict to custom made omelettes.

Club Lounge Breakfast at the Sofitel Brisbane

Evening drinks and canapés at the club lounge were much better than the breakfasts, a good selection of cold items, sushi, an antipasti platter, petit fours and some warm items ranging from samosas, spring rolls, curry puffs etc (two different hot items per night, cold items are the same). The hot food again wasn’t anything extraordinary, all from a packet, but I guess the fact that there were free wines, beers and spirits made up for it considering the prices at the Cuvee Bar downstairs. The view on dusk can't be beat too! The club lounge is a perfect way to start an evening and I would highly recommend a visit here.

Lower Level of the Club Lounge


Upper Level of the Club Lounge

As for the $6 million dollar upgrade of the hotel recently; the lobby, restaurant and bar as well as the club lounge were extensively upgraded and a quite nice with clean lines and lots of natural materials, the rooms though need some improvement. Sofitel has a concept called “myBed” which is meant to provide a night sleep that will change your life forever, apparently. I understand what they’re trying to achieve, most beds in Australia have hard and overly firm mattresses, but really what you need is a fairly soft mattress that will conform to your body and support it, the bed I have at home is like that and it’s like sleeping in a warm hug. What I got out of the beds here were sore necks and shoulders and the feeling that all of the mattresses were worn out, less like a hug and more like a school camp.

The corner suite we stayed in on the first visit seemed quite tired despite the new furnishings while the club room I stayed in the second time suffered less; though it could have used thicker walls. The couple in the room next to us seemed to enjoy their room quit a lot. They enjoyed it at 3:00am, again at 3:30, 8:30 and 9. They enjoyed it so much that the bottle of water on MY bedside table fell off.

On the whole I’m disappointed with the Sofitel Brisbane, particularly because the few times I’ve stayed in their Melbourne and Sydney counterparts I’ve never had a problem, the beds were huge and comfortable, the staff were excellent and the food was great and well priced. The Sofitel Brisbane is definitely the poor cousin to their bigger city family. When I head north again in a couple of weeks I think I’ll try the Hilton but I’m worried that like the Sofitel, it’s going to be suffering from it’s hurried Expo ’88 construction and lack of a through refurbishment since. I really am worried that the Sofitel Brisbane may still well be the best on offer. If the Hilton doesn’t prove any better Miles is going to have to start coming down here instead. I’ve got a more comfortable bed, a quieter room and better food at home.

Tags:Sofitel, Club Lounge, Thyme2, Lounge, Bar, Restaurant, Wine, Brisbane, Beef, Breakfast, Hotel

The star rating system for hotels doesn’t tell you how good a hotel is, just what it offers and the Sofitel Brisbane is a 5-Star example of it. As I said, they come down to what a hotel offers, is there a hairdryer in the bathroom? Is there an iron the cupboard? How about a gym and pool? The Sofitel gets its 5-star rating because it’s got more than one restaurant/bar but they only have to have them, they don’t need to be any good.

Let’s start with the Cuvee Bar. Every bar everywhere has an unwritten etiquette to follow and it’s always different but not unreasonable and usually boils down to how the manager of the establishment likes his or her staff to act, and that’s it – it’s a guide for the staff, not the patrons. May be it was me, I made the place look untidy or something, but if a customer wants to order a drink from the bar here, they’re promptly dismissed and told to take a seat before an order will be taken. Even if I try making an order I’m still told to take a seat for the waiter to come and take my order. It’s down right rude and even worse; the wait-staff aren’t very knowledgeable with their drinks unlike the bartender I had questions for who told me to go and sit down. Is your apple martini sour or sweet? Could I get a twist of lime instead of lemon? Would you mind not straining the ice from my cocktail? Every question the wait-staff gets that look puppies do when you poke your tongue out at them. Once they scamper off to ask the bartender, they come back and you have a follow-up question. The routine continues until you give up and say “I’ll just have a gin and tonic then” or your presented with a drink you didn’t want and it takes you a few sips to realise that the inept wait-staff have bought you the another table’s drinks; and their bill!

When you finally get your order, the way you want it, it’ll be easier to pay cash than try and charge the drinks to your room. I know it wasn’t this guys first time charging drinks to a room, he’d served me before, but from my seat you could tell he was struggling.

Thyme² is mainly setup for a buffet or as the Sofitelians like to call it, an ‘interactive experience'. I’ve mentioned before that the breakfasts there are great, for $30, serving you everything you’d want in a breakfast. The dinners seem to be the same. Miles and I didn’t have the buffet dinner when we were there, we did see it though. Couples with children, like seagulls taking turns ferrying overflowing plates of oysters, prawns and everything else they could scavenge back to their offspring. For $80 a head (wine not included) if you’ve got the mentality to eat your monies worth its probably good value but we felt like something smaller, so we went for the ala carte menu.

You can tell head chef Marshall Orton has planned for 90% of his clientelé to take the buffet option; it sure looked like they did. I only saw two other tables out of the full restaurant ordering off the menu and a queue for the seafood. The menu is short and has fairly simple dishes from and nothing you wouldn’t expect to see at a pub with the obligatory pad thai, t-bone with chips, fish (roast snapper) and a tandori chicken. It all seemed fairly pedestrian with only Miles’s meal served with any restaurant flare and by that I mean everything was stacked on top of each other. The current menu can be found on the website.

One nice touch was the appetizer that was served to us, a small ball of duck confit and orange marmalade served on a bed of lettuce. It tasted quite bland an uninteresting, but as it turns out they forgot the orange marmalade on ours. This wasn’t the only thing that was missing from the dishes we were served either. I ended up ordering the t-bone with “a roast tomato ragu and a creamy pepper sauce served with shoestring french fries”. The roast tomato ragu at least had tomato in it but it was just roughly diced fresh tomato in a warmed up pasta sauce – there was no way these tomatoes could have ever seen the inside of an oven; there wasn’t even the slightest hint of caramlisation any good roasted tomato has. The fries seemed to be of the McCain variety, either deep fried at too low a temperature or were left to defrost and get laden with water leaving them soggy. The pepper jus that was served was honestly very nice, rich thick and concentrated with steak, balsamic vinegar and rosemary flavours and would have gone very well with the roasted tomato ragu, if it had had roast tomato in it. Note that I said it was a pepper jus and not a creamy pepper sauce? Guess what was missing. I find it difficult to believe that a restaurant of this size and supposed calibre can deliver very basic dishes so far removed from the menu.

Miles also had the beef. A 120 day grain fed Darling Downs beef filet served with Parisian style butter on green beans and a potato cake. It was well presented, stacked a good six inches high with the same jus that accompanied my steak, minus the pepper, drizzled around the side. The report on it was generally positive, although the potato was a little under done.

To counter balance the average food were some excellent wines, chosen by the Sommelier, Toby Graham, to fill out the wine list. For the main I chose an ‘04 Wantirna Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (List Price $112, Store Price $60-$70). The wine itself is quite nice and is more complex than you’d expect from just a Cab Sav Merlot, and that’s probably because there’s actually some Cab Franc and Petit Verdot in the bottle too. Overall, the wine has a nice blackcurrant to mulberry flavour with the classic merlot dusty finish. If you’re looking for it in a store, Wantirna Estate is the one with the Michael Leunig cartoons on the labels.

When it came to dessert, I wanted a bottle of something else to go with our Lenôtre Frambrosier’s so I asked Toby for a recommendation. There was the obligatory Noble One, but I thought that the overpowering honey in it would kill the delicate raspberries and cream in the dessert, Toby agreed and recommended the 2005 Grande Maison Semillon Sauvignon Blanc Muscadelle from Monbazillac in France (List Price, $51/375mL, Store price $30/375mL). I found that it had soft hay-like flavour, not grassy at all, it was drier and warm but with a definite floral sweetness that worked well with the dessert.

The Sofitel, being owned by the French Accor group have enlisted, under license, Lenôtre to provide desserts and cakes for its hotels, they look stunning, particularly the signature Frambrosier, which looks like a giant pink lamington topped with fresh raspberries and a raspberry sugar swirl. Within the gayest dessert of all time are layers of sponge cake with a raspberry centre, covered in cream and then a pink coconut (I think it’s pink coconut anyway). Given that it’s a sponge cake with cream and a raspberry centre I was expecting something more like a molleaux which is an individual cake that has a liquid sauce centre that spills out across the plate when you cut into it. The frambrosier certainly had the potential for it. I’m still not sure if what we got was meant to be a molleaux because they were half frozen. The bottom and centre were practically solid with the top had just started to soften. I don’t know if you’ve ever frozen cream but it doesn’t work – large ice crystals form and when you cut into it, it splinters apart. At the very least, these desserts should be served only slightly chilled to show their true potential, and meet their hype.

The highlight of Thyme² has got to be Toby Graham’s wine list and the quite knowledgeable service he provides. Toby has been studying and working with wines for over 15 years and answered all of our questions quickly and with confidence, not only suggesting wines but explaining why he’d suggested them which for mark-ups like these is great because he can help narrow down the choices for you – sure all sommeliers should do this, it’s their job, but Toby does it well.

Tags:Bar, Restaurant, Sofitel, Brisbane

This is the second time that I'm flying business class to Brisbane with Qantas and I have to say the club lounge is a much different experience during peak hour than it was for my previous 11am midweek departure. The demure asian lady that would humbly and politely, but with self respect, that cleared my used glass and plate previously has vanished to be replaced by a rough eastern european woman (perhaps?) that actually grunted when I thanked her for clearing the glass.
Saying that though it still beats being downstairs with the commoners fighting for a bottle of Mount Franklin and the last Whopper. At least here they form an orderly queue to fight for the last re-heated deep fried, umm... I guess it's meant to be a pork dumpling? It's too big for a wonton and it's the wrong shape for a dim sim. Who knows, it was full of reclaimed pork what ever it was.

My flight out, QF548, after boarding at least (the attendant that was relegated to Y Class was quite rude) was splendid under the Cabin Manager I flew with, Julianne. This is the second or third time I've had the privilege of flying with her and I hope I'll be able to again. Service in the business cabin was smooth, efficient and personable, as I'd mentioned before - the simple things of being called by name are the things that really make the difference between service and quality that despite it's industry reputation, factions of Qantas flight crew are actually striving to achieve.

As for the meal, my seat buddy Corey and I we were served a reasonable beef in oyster sauce with jasmine rice and a 'salad'. I say 'salad' because it only just qualified as one. In my opinion a salad needs two ingredients and this only had two different types of lettuce. The spicy asian vinaigrette from Neil Perry that went with it was wonderful, I even put some on the beef because the sauce that had was quite plain. I was actually surprised with the bread roll, it was incredibly soft. I guess Qantas realised they shouldn't arm 200+ passengers with their previous hard as a brick projectiles. The wine was quite nice too - a 2004 Penfolds Shiraz with a deep cherry note.

Tags:Qantas, Club Lounge, Beef, Jasmine Rice, Penfolds, Neil Perry, Shiraz

A week or so ago I was running through my local overpriced inner-city supermarket only to find what turned out to be a fairly nice gooseberry jam. Sure, it was still over priced but it was good; you could hardly spread it for the whole gooseberries. To be perfectly honest, I haven't had all that much gooseberry jam, especially not the home made stuff, not that this was, so I don't have much to compare it too spare to say that it tasted more like an average quality fig jam than anything else. The real gooseberries I've had before are beautifully sweet yet tart.

I wouldn't be in a hurry to buy another jar, probably more because I hardly eat jam in the first place but I'll keep an eye out for a better quality or a home made gooseberry jam next time.

Tags:Jam, Gooseberry, Toast, Bread, Breakfast, Condiment

After a false start at a café that didn't do table service (what's with that?), sculling a very nice banana smoothie during some house huting this morning, Mel and I finally settled down for breakfast on a heavily raining morning in Manly. To put this in context, we were both quite hungover from the Mars Lounge and a few other drinks later on in the evening (I got to bed at 530am, for an 8am start).

We found our table at 'Northern Bites' on Manly's South Styne beachfront by walking past a row of cafes and went to the one that smelt the nicest, I think we smelt some french toast. I wish one of us had ordered it but cést la vie. I hate to start a review so poorly, but there were so very few good things to say about our experience here, what was good had more to do with the scenery walking past to and from the surf carnival that was on that day. It took 20 minutes for someone to take our order and another 20 more minutes for my coffee to arrive which I'd finished by the time my food did and Mel's meal didn't arrive until after I'd finished eating mine. Appalling.

Of my big breakfast, everything was cold, except the baked beans (cutely serviced in an espresso cup), and some how, even though the food had been cold, the butter hadn't warmed up from being taken out of the fridge. The hash brown was from a packet and so was the bread. It's very disappointing because it still cost in the order of $17 when the cafés on the same block had similar meals with potato rosti, organic sourdough and organic lamb sausages... There really wasn't anything to say that stood out from that meal, I stopped eating half way through. Heck, they even just served slices of tomato instead of the grilled tomato everywhere else does.

Saturday morning breakfasts are meant to be a casual affair, but if it was any more casual I'd still be waiting. Again, I'm sorry to sound so negative about it, but the excuse were given about why Mel's eggs benedict being an hour was because the guy they went to Coles to *BUY* the hollandaise sauce hadn't come back yet. What cafe BUYS hollandaise sauce, and then admits it to their customers? Even though I got mine faster 15 minutes before Mel, my food was only just warm, to the point that the fat had started to congeal.

Food, 3/10 - their big breakfast had everything you'd expect, but the lowest quality possible
Service, 2/10 - only because two of the waiters were good looking, and one of them very obviously wasn't wearing underwear
Coffee, 5/10 - it arrived 20 minutes after I ordered but it was hot and good quality
Value, 1/10 - I'd only give a zero if they took my money and didn't feed me
Location, 8/10 - nothing you couldn't have gotten from anywhere else on the street

It's only saving grace was the coffee and location, but I am sure any other cafe on the beachfront in Manly could do better

Tags:Breakfast, Review, Awful, Manly, Eggs Benedict

Zinfandel is a less common varietal of wine in Australia having originated in the USA where most of our wines have an origin in Europe. To me it has the flavours of a good Shiraz with black-current and some spicy notes like cinnamon and clove but the wine can still maintain a lightness like a Pinot because of the grape's high sugar content. That's probably got something to do with this particular Zinfandel having come from the McLaren Vale which is typically hot and dry compared to the cooler and wetter conditions in the Barossa Valley. A Zinfandel from the Barossa (not that I think they produce Zinfandel there because it isn't it's native conditions) would have an even lighter flavour, not as much black-current and more raspberry. It's in the $30-$50 range, so it's a little pricey but for those of you who don't like the big alcohol punch of a Shiraz but want the black-current flavours you really should give it a try. I had it with a bbq t-bone and a blue cheese sauce so it can stand up to some strong flavours in your food and would go equally as well with roasted red meat or almost any meat that's been grilled. Keep in mind however, even though it doesn't have a heavy flavour, it's still got a heavy alcohol content. This one was 15%

Tags:Wine, Red Wine, Zinfandel, McLaren Vale

May be it’s just me, but has any other Australian foodie wondered who’d win in a no-rules bare knuckle fight between the heavy weights in Aussie cooking, Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander? I know I have. I’d throw Margaret Fullerton in her better years in for spice, but that’s just getting off topic, she can last the distance obviously, but her style is more float like a butterfly than Maggie and Stephanie’s overwhelmingly meaty punches.

Ever since Stephanie “slow and steady” Alexander released the first edition of “The Cooks Companion”, everyone’s been waiting for Maggie “the verjuice vixen” Beer to throw a dirty left hook and bring out her own heavy weight cookbook. Maggie came into her own in the last round with “Maggie’s Harvest”. A damn fine effort and both gals have just about knocked each other out but this one is going to come down to points.

It has to be said that these are very different fighters, they have their own unique sensibilities and style and the battle will be tough but with out further a due, here’s the fight!

The Weigh-in:

	The Cook’s Companion	Maggie’s Harvest
Total Numbered Pages	1126	716
Overall Thickness	700mm	65mm
Weight	2.494kg	2.555kg
Price	Found on sale for <$80	First release price, $125
Quality of Book in itself	Solid, a true all-round work horse that will always deliver	Well polished but possibly relying on her refined good looks
Coordination (Contents, layout and index)	Utilitarian alphabetical with a tightly packed and often cross-referenced index. Looses points with some noticeable omissions from the index	Seasoned (Summer, Autumn, etc) content. Clear easy to use index, but lacking in the cross-referencing of method, ingredient, style et al that is found in TCC
Recent Wins	Stephanie has been a stalwart of the industry, and a pioneer in Australia. Full commendations to her persevering effort at all levels of the industry. She may have run further back in the pack recently, but her presence is still felt by all.	Maggie started slow but gallantly with Pheasant Farm and the associated restaurant. She slowed, focusing on her strengths then shot out with Cook and the Chef, winning acclaim, syndication and valuable marketing for her strong brand.

Round 1 – The random page:

This round is conducted in two sections, first, TCC is opened to a random page and the recipes for that section are assessed. Maggie’s Harvest is then searched for recipes in the index for that ingredient and compared for quality and originality, then the same, with the names reversed.

The Cooks Companion: Sausages

	The Cook’s Companion	Maggie’s Harvest
Pages	9	4
Recipes	9	2
Most Original Recipe	Crépettes and chestnuts	Steve’s Sausages in Grape Must
Best Sounding Recipe	Bratwurst in beer	Chicken and Tarragon Sausages with Cumquats
Quality of introductory material	Brilliant encyclopedic knowledge as with the vast majority of everything with it’s own section in this book	Anecdotal, but with good substance and can be used as a great resource for inspiration

Maggie’s Harvest: Preserves and Pickles

	The Cook’s Companion	Maggie’s Harvest
Pages	36	5
Recipes	36	3
Most Original Recipe	Pickled Sardines with Chili	Pickled Figs, Farm Follies Style
Best Sounding Recipe	As above	As above
Quality of introductory material	Again, brilliant encyclopedic knowledge within each section, and here, the side recipes prove their worth	A narrative effort again from Maggie, but she does leave you with the overwhelming feeling she’s only given you her best

Round 2 - General Content:

Stephanie’s book is cheaper and the physical book itself is a lower quality but I think this sacrifice is more than justified. To make her book in the same way Maggie did, she would have to have produced at least two volumes at at least $125 each. Both of these factors would have made the book un-economical and turned off many buyers. The Cook’s Companion truly lives up to it’s name providing a recipe for practically everything you will find in the suburban supermarket with hundreds of others for specalised ingredients, let alone the basics section which I use quite often. It really is a quick reference section for all of the basics, the simple master recipes for stock, muffins, pancakes; as well as definitions for methods and of ingredients that are in most people’s pantry but aren’t always truly understood, such as leaf gelatin.

Round 3 - Summary Findings

First off, I have to say, Maggie’s Harvest is an amazing book, her stories alone, especially the one with her and Stephanie Alexander alone in an out of the way farm house in rural France are priceless, if not suggestive, and her recipes are extraordinary. The production values of her book are un-known in the Australian market. She sacrifices no expense (because you’re the one that has to sacrifice the cost) in the book. The cover is bound in a front to back embroidery, the typeface is clear and well spaced on paper that will stand up to a very good amount of splashing in the kitchen.

The Winner: Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion

TCC is the first cookbook you should buy. It might be intimidating with out pictures, but with all honesty it will give the foundation a potential cook should have and the solid backup an experienced cook can fall back on. Maggie’s Harvest however, is as I said earlier, a different contender. It’s not trying to be the encyclopedia that The Cook’s Companion is, but at the same time, the books compliment each other very well. There is little overlap, except where required as a fundamental for more complicated recipes where someone may not have acquired TCC first. Maggie’s recipes are well written and clear so any cook with a modicum of confidence should be able to manage. Stephanie’s can be a bit more technical, but those recipes are balanced with the simple ones people can attempt first to build their confidence.

Tags:Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer

Since I moved into an apartment with a big balcony and 'harbor glimpses' I've wanted to get a BBQ. It took me forever to find one I liked. As demonstrated by an episode of King of the Hill, unlike gas, charcoal just adds that extra level of flavour that makes barbeque food barbeque. With out it you might as well be frying that steak in the kitchen and if you're as serious about a good steak as I am, it's worth having that extra level of flavour.



The first thing you notice about the Eva Solo Grill is it's striking resemblance to R2D2 and C3PO's love child. The entire thing is made from stainless steel, meaning it'll stand up to anything and last forever and it's quite well designed too. One of the side panels can be easily pulled off to revealing the ashtray and under that there is enough storage space for all it's accessories and everything you need to grill with, except the dome lid. The flat lid that comes with the grill standard can be used as a side table when not otherwise covering the grill when you purchase the optional 'legs'. I've found them surprisingly useful.

After a little practice cooking with charcoal, you can turn out some excellent meals. I've made everything from simple burgers, bbq prawns, a leg of lamb and even a few pizzas (with a pizza stone sitting on the grill bars). There aren't many downsides to this gorgeous piece of equipment, but there are some to keep in mind. It comes in two sizes, of course I got the large one, but it feels a little bit of overkill when I'm only cooking for 1-2 people, sometimes even 3 seems a little much depending what's on the menu. At the same time, with a few friends over, the smaller one would have made cooking something like the leg of lamb almost impossible. I'd still recommend going for the larger one. The only other draw back has to be said. The price. The basic grill is AUD$2300, and that just includes the grill and the lid. Everything else is an expensive optional extra, expensive even in the context of already having paid $2.3k for it. Heck, the dome lid alone is nearly $400. I'm sure you can get it much cheaper in the US or Europe, closer to the manufacturer and with a larger market. With the optional accessories, and not including the matching bbq utensils, you're looking at an investment of over $3000... The utensils will add about another $400.

Since the average bbq's life span is 5 years and this one is expected to literally last a life time, the cost per year, even over just 20 years is only $150 which starts to look more realistic.



If you're looking for a bit of the Eva Solo style with out that price tag you might want to think about the table top grill. It's made with white porceline and stainless steel inserts. For the times when I'm cooking for 1-2 or just need that bbq flavour on something, I think I might just get that too! :)

Tags:Review, BBQ, Barbeque, Grill, Eva Solo

For the past few days I've been staying at the Sofitel Brisbane visiting the S.O. and as far as the hotel is concerned, frankly, I'm disappointed. Sure, it can't be faulted for the location or the service, however the hotel itself is quite out dated and screams of it's 80's construction with a half dozen slap-dash makeovers.



Only the foyer and club lounge look half way modern with natural materials and tones and the unfortunately named Thyme² restaurant and someone in the Accor marketing departments' insistence on calling the buffet an 'interactive experience', so you can have an 'interactive breakfast if you'd like. What's so interactive about some tourist getting up off their fat ass and getting their own bacon and scrambled eggs from a bane marie? The club lounge though, is wonderful, if it weren't for parents using it as a play room for their screaming, bored and running a mock toddlers. Almost every single time I've been here this week there has been at least one family with screaming children. I'm not a parent myself so I can't appreciate what it's like but at what point do parents stop remembering what it's like to try and enjoy a nice relaxing breakfast and let their own children get away with running into some one else's table and knocking their cup of coffee into their plate of scrambled eggs and fresh fruit?

As far as the club lounge is concerned, toddlers withstanding, the service is incredibly personable, having the staff remember your name and continuing polite conversation throughout your stay is a great plus in my book. As I'm writing this I'm sitting in the club lounge, just finishing my new years day champagne breakfast. It's nothing special admittedly, each day it's been scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms and occasional tomato for hot food, plus there is a great selection of fresh fruit, yoghurt, smoothies, toast and pastries. The choices at the 'interactive breakfast' were much better, sausages, eggs benedict, pancakes,

Through out the day a cycle of sandwich fingers and small cakes and slices are run through and of an evening, an open bar with a selection of well made and tasty (ie: not the cheap crap I got at the Hilton) warm food including spring rolls, samosas etc, plus an excellent anti-pasti platter including great smoked salmon. I'd highly recommend staying on a club floor, or even just paying for the upgrade just to access the lounge.

Tags:Review, Travel, Sofitel, Breakfast, Club Lounge

So here I am, sitting in the domestic Qantas Club lounge at Sydney Airport waiting for my flight to Brisbane. Since it's only midday the champagne premium Australian sparkling wine isn't flowing, but the cold meat and relishes are. I spotted a few little cakes and fresh cut fruit, a few automatic espresso machines and an array of juices (I had tomato). Certainly nothing to write home about but it sure beats sitting in a crowded departure lounge with a thousand screaming babies and worse, tourists. There certainly is an air of civilization. Is it the the quiet chatter on the Qantas jet in Wallabies livery that just taxied past the floor to ceiling windows, talk of the news in Pakistan, the Sydney To Hobart and Jetstar? Or is it that every two minutes a well dressed young lady comes through and clears the plates with unfinished ham sandwiches and half drunken cappuccinos?

Tags:Travel, Qantas, Business Classs, Review, Club Lounge

The cheese platter was washed down by another gin and tonic or three, and since I'd anticipated luxurious room service all day I skipped lunch and my stomach was rumbling. Browsing through the lengthy room service menu I finally settled on the "3 mini-burgers" and some buffalo wings.



The 3 mini burgers were the highlight, but nothing outstanding. It was a nice concept and worked well visually, the problem though was that other than the beef patty, lamb patty and chicken tenderloin on each burger, the rest were identical, a slice of tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. They relied too heavily on the meat. When your concept is to have three individual burgers, you'd expect you'd do something so each one stood out individually? It would have been an easy fix, some caramelized onion on the beef, a dab or tzatziki instead of the mayo on the lamb, and perhaps some chili on the chicken?

As for the buffalo wings, they hardly rate a mention. They were warm and had a crispy skin with paprika and basic spices.

Breakfast the following morning was back in the club lounge and was equally disappointing as the canapes the night before. Just the stock standard sliced fruit, juices and cereals on the cold side of the buffet and on the warm there was just bacon, hash browns, sausages, scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes. Individually everything was nice enough, but it certainly didn't hold a torch to the Sofitel Melbourne's breakfast buffet, they even had pancakes!

Tags:Room Service, Hilton, Review, Burgers, Chicken, Wings, Travel

Recently I had a bit of bad week, I won't get in to it but the gist is that I had to start cooking for one again... So to cheer myself up I threw caution to the wind and booked myself into a 'Relaxation Suite' in the Hilton Sydney and bought a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to keep me company. The room was brilliant, particularly the enormous bed and the double spa bath with floor to ceiling window and a 26" LCD screen!

But this is a food blog.



Since I was in a suite I had access to the club lounge and complimentary pre-dinner drinks and canapes. Free gin always gets thumbs up as far as I'm concerned, but I'd need more than the couple I had to distract from what they tried to pass off as food. There wasn't anything you wouldn't have found in the freezer section of your local supermarket and with absolutely no attempt at masking that it came from one. I held higher hopes for the room service I was going to order later.

A quick call to room service after the stodge in the club lounge I'd ordered a cheese platter. For about $20 it was a lot better than I expected, the standard cheeses, blue, camembert and cheddar were accounted for along with a good selection of bready things to put the cheese on, wafers, grissini sticks and a few others. What made this so nice were the quality accoutrements. Fresh strawberries, dried apricots, muscatels and dried figs! My favorite.

As for the main meal, we'll get to that next.

Tags:Room Service, Hilton, Review, Cheese, Canapes, Travel