the dating game

Unusually for me, it has been over four years since I last had a first date. I’m not one of those creatures who pair for life and lets just say, in the dating department there has been a fair amount of H20 under the bridge.

Now as much as I am free to “date” (the SE and I are hot on honesty and cool on ownership) its been months since I've met a new soul that has made my heart flutter. We were in a group, sharing a lunch and chatting our little heads off. I knew something was up when I struggled to get through even half the food on my plate.

What struck me most, when I read this piece in The Observer’s last food magazine about what to eat on a first date, was the bits that Jan Moir left out.

I was amused when it covered all the things that could go wrong in selecting your venue, with the conclusion that you leave the choice of restaurant to your date so they can take the heat if it is a bad choice. Rubbish! One of the things I’ve always enjoyed is trying to match a person to a restaurant. Perhaps on a first date the lack of knowledge about the fellow dinner can be a bit of a challenge but surely it breaks the ice a little in the pre-date chat to talk about food and what kinds of places you most enjoy eating in. For me my radar would go off if anyone came in with a strong preference on either end of the scale – from ‘I never eat out, restaurants make me feel uncomfortable’ (oops I should have listened to that one when it happened) to someone who names only the current top hot spots (trying too hard to impress).

Years ago I had a first date at the Vegie Bar. It had just opened in a little corner restaurant, before it expanded to the current barn-like space next door. We’d bought a bottle of plonk (in the days where the only places in a student price range were BYO) but it hadn't got its liquor license yet. The owner colluded to hide the bottle and we drank it out of teacups. Far from being a disaster it bought about conspiratorial closeness, a story to tell and a memory that has lasted much longer than the accompanying night of smooching.

Moir advises against ordering oysters (too obvious), sushi (chopstick embarrassment making you look like some kind of uncoordinated, messy fool) and strong smells like garlic or coffee. It sounds like a very boring date to me! Even worse, she advises against getting plastered, which we all know is the only way to survive some of the more hideous first dates. Well maybe total inebriation will only lead to tears but I disagree with the advise on ordering a type of beer based on sophistication. Order what you usually drink so as not create a false impression, would be my advice.

One of my most memorable first dates involved being taken on a picnic in my hometown. It was a spot I’d never been to before, a cliff top from where you could see the South Island. He’d cooked and I bought a thermos of orange juice laced with brandy. Fortunately we had met before, otherwise such a remote location may have been tinged with palpitations of fear rather than excitement.

So what are Melbourne’s best first date restaurants? If I am meeting someone I really don’t know, I prefer a coffee in daylight, or a glass of wine somewhere low key. A meal implies a longer period of time spent together and it is much harder to leave half way through. Much worse would be lust at first sight, ordering a fabulous meal and not being able to stomach more than a mouthful or two. Sadly the first flutter of attraction is about the only thing, bar illness, that makes me loose my appetite.

My last first date was to meet for casual drinks at dusk on a Sunday. There was no assumption that it would turn into dinner or more, just meeting up when he was going to be near my neighbourhood. There was a glass of wine at a good first date pub – comfortable chairs, a fireplace, pleasantly full of people but not too noisy you can’t hear each other. A couple of hours later dinner seemed the natural progression and we headed down the road for Spanish (lots of garlic!), a glass of sherry and paella to share (the not eating much being less obvious with a shared dish) and then not ready to say goodbye – we strolled back up the street to a swish intimate bar for a nightcap.

Some dates work best when you break all the rules!

Provincial Hotel
299 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
Enough light to see what the date looks like but not too bright to show all your flaws. Avoid the Friday night crush though.


De los Santos
175 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
For first date garlic breath.

Polly
401 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Low lights, plush velvet, great cocktails.


First date tips and disasters - the comments section eagerly awaits your response!

tasting New Zealand

Monteith’s Radler bier

It’s got to be hot for me to want a beer. Let’s be honest, when I say ‘beer’ it’s inevitably a shandy – a lager with just a dash of lemonade. I don’t know why as I am not that keen on sweet drinks but there is something about the lemony-ness that I enjoy. Hot days in Wellington are a rare thing. Surprisingly we had quite a string of these delightful days. The first of which found us in the small courtyard of a suburban brewery bar. The sun beat down on us and it was declared ‘beer o’clock’ but what to drink in this foreign land?



The unusually efficient barman told us to not worry – he’d bring us a sampler to the table and thus begun a pleasant relationship with the Radler. A fruity lager, with a hint of lemon and lime and just a dash of sweetness. I liked it so much that I sampled it on many occasions, to the point that “I’m Radled” became a constant cry.



Another Wellington surprise

When having a drink in the sun (Monteith’s Khandallah, St John’s Bar) at some point a barperson will appear with sunblock. You need it too, with sun that beats down stronger than the thermometer implies. A great twist on ‘drink responsibly”.

Schoc chocolates

Oh boy – I need to discover a new chocolate obsession like I need a hole in my head. I was a little nonplussed when I approached the cute cottage on the outskirts of Greytown offering ‘chocolate therapy’. I admit it, I am a chocolate snob and I really doubted that small town New Zealand would be able to deliver something other than sickly little callebaut knock offs. But just one look at the single country of origin tablets in varying percentages of cocoa mass (including one 100%) and a taste of the vast array of dairy-free 53% flavours and I was hooked. (Sure they do truffles and dairy milk ones as well).

Favourites included: Limechilli, Lemon and Cracked Black Pepper, Rose, Sea Salt and toasted coconut but really, I could eat the lot.

Oh dear – I’ve just discovered Schoc chocs are available in this part of the world.



Nostalgia

Not up to Schoc standards but purely for nostalgia I gave into a Whittaker’s peanut slab now available in a dark, dairy-free version. At high school I could nibble a peanut slab through recess, stringing it out for 20 minutes. On the nostalgia trip I took over 24 hours to get through one. Thanks for the memories Whittaker’s.



Fish and Chips

It begun innocuously enough on day 2 when I popped in for a quick visit to see some friends who produced a bag of fish and chips for afternoon tea. Afternoon tea?! I had a little nibble of the very passable chips and a bit of fish from a place in Karori. Unfortunately a couple of days later, after helping another friend move house, all that was on offer on a public holiday in her neighbourhood was a much more inferior version. Strangely 1 serve of fish equalled 3 pieces, quite a common thing I was to discover. Despite Island Bay being by the sea, it’s fish is nothing to write home about. But worse was to come. I won’t even utter the name of the local ‘fisherman’s’ chain that I was taken to the next day. The salad bar comes in a boat and under such circumstances the old faithful fish and chips or burger was a marginally better option.

For a dairy-free, no-meat girl in NZ fish and chips becomes the default option. So many vegetarian dishes are laden with milk products, it is a nightmare. Fortunately the final dose of F&C, once more the only thing I could eat on a bar menu, came at the upmarket Martinborough Hotel, perfect chips and a good tartare sauce which I washed down with, you guessed it, a Radler.

Hopefully I’ll not have to face a plate of fish and chips again this year, or at least til my next trip home at Easter!

More smoked seafood than you can poke a stick at

New Zealand is smoked food heaven (though smoked tofu still isn’t readily available). In most good supermarkets there is a wide variety of seafood lovingly smoked – mussels, eel, kingfish, cod, NZ salmon and much more.  It always inspires me to make kedgeree.

I discovered Chow, a better than average chain of Asian restaurants which I have previously mentioned, has a great smoked fish salad which I managed to make a fair copy* of for New Years Eve, though the smoked eel rolls packed less of a punch.

On a less fishy note, another discovery at Chow was the Kaffe Eis sorbet served with saffron syrup. The passionfruit was a real stand out.

One last bit of food nostalgia

The Significant Eater did a valiant Tour of Duty, helping me with my family visit. I think after his recent effort I am to be replaced in the will. My parents are committed carnivores, while their surviving offspring are not. The SE however jumped at the chance to make them a roast with premium kiwi lamb. Scouring the ’70’s era cookbooks he came across a simple marinade of a scant amount of olive oil and red wine, then slowly cooked the lamb the next day at 160c. Complete with spuds, kumara, onions and pumpkin caramelising in the juices of the roast (us vegetarian girls cooked ours separately) he added the Italian touch of a heap of simple salads on the side. Mum knocked up some fresh mint sauce (mint, sugar, malt vinegar) while I resurrected a decades old skill by making the gravy - it was perfect and looked so good I only just resisted sticking my finger in for a taste. It turned our smooth and glossy, with a perfect lump-free texture and all that stirring was a pleasant, therapeutic almost, experience. It was a memorable meal.




* Kiwi New Years Eve Smoked Fish Salad

smoked Kingfish fillets (or similar firm fish)
a generous handful of Asian herbs eg: coriander, Vietnamese mint (or mint and basil)
rocket or salad mix
cucumber, sliced
cherry tomatoes
spring onion, sliced on the diagonal
red chilli, finely sliced

Toss together with a dressing made from fish sauce, lime juice and a little palm sugar.

the year in food

The countdown is on. A few more days of work, running around like a headless chook, the last minute catch up for lunch with friends and then I am off to the airport for that familiar trans-Tasman flight once more. Here are my culinary highs of 2007. What have yours been?


Best dining experience of the year:
Yu-u, not just finally getting around to obtaining a booking at this enigmatic little gem and the steady supply of delicious morsels but also the unexpected communal dining experience. Memorable!

Best eating experience of the year:
All the tofu, tempeh and fresh fish in Indonesia. Six months on I’m still dreaming of the food there. My first gado gado on the beach at Vila Shanti, my little Sanur favourite Pregina and Sura’s in Ubud. Then there was the drinks – young coconut juice straight from the tree for breakfast, soursop at Sura’s and Bali’s own Storm Beer.

The kitchen accessory promise I never got around to in 2007:
The tagine. I got close to procuring one twice, it is just I have such a small kitchen. Now…if I turn the old laundry into an extended pantry think of all the junk wonderful, used only one time a year, gadgets I could amass!

Oh-my-goodness flavour explosions:
Savoury – the eel from Sapphire Smoked Seafood (Eden).
Sweet - “The Cook and the Chef” fried rhubarb.

Even better than childhood:
Making my mum’s chocolate mousse with 85% chocolate!

Most delicious ‘detox’ dish:
A toss up between quinoa pilaf and stuffed artichokes.

Perennial favourites:
The site meter still goes crazy for gyoza, with cooking whole fish coming in at number 2.

Dairy-free discovery of the year:
Jill Dupleix’s guilt-free 'ice cream'.

Favourite new brekkie dish:
Cross-cultural baked eggs, though fresh fruit in any form is a close contender.

Best cooking school:
Hands down (and it happened to be the only entry) winner – Casa Luna in Ubud. Have only made one of the dishes since but the sultry summer weather should motivate me any day now.

Best bar:
This is an unfair question as Melbourne has so many and I have not sampled them all. The Rooftop bar at the Order of Melbourne is delightful at twilight and Geralds Bar for sheer convenience, amazing range of drinks and neighbourhood quirkiness.

New foods (without leaving the country to find them):
Food I played with at home for the first time included: nettles, fresh turmeric, monkfish, Samphire, mulberries (they weren’t a part of my kiwi upbringing), desert limes and black radishes.

Melbourne food scene question of 2007:
Where were the food bloggers in the future of food writing at the Melbourne Food Festival? According to the old media (Fairfax) sponsored chew and blab-fest food blogging is not even a blip on the radar. What will they pull out of the bag for 2008?

Update:
The next day Ed posted that Matt Preston phoned to ask him to be a food blogger presence in the 2008 MFF Out of the Frypan panel along with Stephanie Wood. See a little stirring in the blog world is worth it in the end!