eating Camden

When eating out at home, 90% of the time it’s within walking distance. For my week in London I followed the same motto. After all it’s a huge city, time consuming to traverse and after a day of crawling through medical museums, art galleries and shops it’s nice to hang out with the locals.

Market 

43 Parkway, Camden, London NW1

This place is exactly what I look for in a ‘local’ - a relaxed atmosphere, unpretentious service and reliable tasty food that provokes a little bit of menu indecision.

Market, is a far cry from the grime and tat of Camden Lock. It’s a comfortable restaurant, with warm brick walls, uncluttered lines and generous serves of seasonal food. The cuisine is British with a French influence. Which really means English food, done well.

Other than side dishes there’s nothing that would sate a vegan but the seafood offerings meant I could eat rather well. There are a handful of daily specials and a small but well-formed menu. The oil based prawn linguine with a decent dash of chilli on the specials board spoke my name. As it was a very large entrée, it was lucky I was hungry as the whole fish (the type now escapes me, possibly bass), cooked simply with lemon, accompanied by a bucket of chunky chips should have been more than enough on it’s own.

My hosts ate with glee. They loved the meaty offerings. Though they left the large side order of braised greens entirely for me to devour. We drank a delightful French rose, perfect on a warm early autumn evening.

I was too full for dessert, even though the apple sorbet was tempting. From the mouthful I tasted, it was refreshing alternative to the heavier options on the menu.

Cost for three people, 2-3 courses each, plus a bottle of wine $175 (including tax and tip). They advertise 2 course meal deals for those who want to dine earlier in the evening.

It was a faultless night and my pick of places to eat in the area. Though the most amusing thing about the evening was a rather obvious first date being conducted at the next table. The poor woman was literally bored to tears as the guy, around 50, droned on and on about himself. It was so awful, at times we couldn’t help but eavesdrop. It took all my willpower to not cheer her on to walk out on the self-centred prick. 

York and Albany

127-129 Parkway, London, NW1

Away from the rabble, heading towards Regent’s Park, sits a restrained former pub. York and Albany is a boutique hotel in the Ramsay empire. There’s a relaxed front dinning room/ bar where we breakfasted. The menu offered standard options but was well done, with coffee better than average. I ate a perfectly executed eggs Florentine and the boys went for lashings of bacon and posh sausages.

The staff appeared to be have chosen on their looks and were restrained, bordering on snooty. It’s the kind of place you go when you want to impress, rather than for an outstanding dinning experience. Or perhaps if you’re a poor Antipodean who wants to sample an offshoot of Ramsay-dom, without lashing out on an expensive meal.

inSpiral Lounge

250 Camden High Street, London NW1

From the sublime to the ridiculous, this was a solo visit. Not the carnivorous hosts cup of tea at all. Camden’s hippy roots live on in the sadly shabby but not chic market district. In need of some vegan food to balance out weeks of daily fish eating, I took one of Lisa’s tips. After a lovely early morning walk down the canal I spied the open sign on the inSpiral Lounge door. Well they said they were open but only just. None the less the bloke behind the counter said that my veggie breakfast would be out in 5 minutes. Twenty-five minutes and one rather pedestrian coffee later, it arrived. What a blast from the past – veggie sausage, button mushrooms, half a barely cooked tomato, scrambled tofu and a patty of some description possibly a variation on a hash brown.

According to their site, “inSpiral specialises in gourmet optimum nutrition for connoisseurs, all freshly handmade onsite and served from our vibrant counter.”  Not sure my breakfast could be classified as gourmet or 'handmade onsite' (considering the two obviously commercially made components plus bog standard sliced brown bread) but it was exactly what I needed to counterpoint the (actual) gourmet food of the previous three weeks.

Vegan pickings are hard to find in Camden and inSpiral has plenty of raw and organic options. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast looking out over the canal in the almost empty café. Reviews online describe it differently, noting by lunchtime it’s hectic. Many mentioned that the food is overpriced and not as good as it looks on the website. 

Like many vego establishments in the UK, inSpiral is deeply entrenched in 70's vegetarianism and neo-hippy decor. Something we've fortunately moved on from in Melbourne.

other people's food for thought

At the recent food blogging conference, where I was given the generous opportunity to talk about how and why I blog, restaurant reviewing was a hot topic. It’s something I’ve always felt uncomfortable about. I’m caught between the role of review as public service (vegetarian-friendly, caters for vegans, has healthy food, great food but under-patronized etc), or conversely not wanting to add to the publicity of an already hard to get a table at local favourite. Because I have a limited dietary range, whenever I’ve actually reviewed an eatery I’ve made it clear how this filters my experience of the menu.

Holidays are different. Reverting back to blogging in it’s original form as a web log/online diary, I’ve seen documenting dinning experiences in places like Bali, Malaysia or New Zealand as a way of sharing holiday highlights rather than an actual review. Just as I’ve found some delightful meals in out of the way places thanks to some nifty googling, so too are the many hits the blog has had for eating in Gili Air or Melaka.

An event late last year, which I haven’t written about before, crystallised my discomfort with reviews. That being, negative aspects of reviews can potentially impact on individuals who own or cook in such eateries. I think that a fair review is not gushingly uncritical nor an unnecessarily negative one and that balance lies somewhere in the middle. If I have an issue with the food, service or overall experience, I’ll own it if it’s due to my own mood or picky eating habit.

Out of the blue I answered the phone at work late last year to hear an aggressive man bark down the line “Are you the person who writes a blog called Confessions of a Food Nazi?” As you may have noticed, the blog is anonymous, though even before speaking at the conference it really only took two clicks of a mouse to work out my identity. It’s not so much that I want to be anonymous so I can write nasty reviews; the issue is that blogging is my hobby and I don’t like to blur the boundaries between work and my non-work (I am so not an entrepreneur!). While writing under a pseudonym I accept that I'm still accountable and identifiable and don't do anything to subvert that.

On the other end of the line, entirely out of context, was a chef/restaurant co-owner who had a beef with a response that I’d made to a series of untraceable comments* regarding a follow up to my original review of his restaurant. The place was getting quieter by the week and I dared suggest that unless all his ardent supporters ate there more often that they’d be out of business in a few months.

“How’d you like it if I said that you’d be out of business soon?” he shouted. He had a good point; I’d be very upset if unsubstantiated comments about my service were published on the internet. But the point he missed entirely was that I’d asked people to eat there and see what they made of the place, I’d asserted the good lineage of the restaurant and that although I didn’t have a huge choice the food was ok. It was just that it seemed to have an identity crisis and for some reason it didn’t work as a whole. Neighbours commented on a similar issue. I had a bundle of feedback from his target user group that I was happy to share with him on the phone but no matter how often I said, “I’m on your side – I want your restaurant to work” he kept shouting over me.

And clearly the restaurant wasn’t working. My predictions were correct. A few weeks after the verbal assault down the phone the place shut up shop and last week in Epicure I read that it was sold and the new owner had reopened under a similar name. I cycled past it on the weekend and observed a friendly looking chap serving a large table of relaxed looking people. They had the look of those who’ve just eaten a satisfying meal – a marketing tableau that money can’t buy.

Back to the phone call, two actually, with the chef who was most likely haemorrhaging money and understandably stressed. The reality is that a low traffic blog such as this, would have no real influence on the success or failure of his business. Interestingly, though there was one anodyne review in The Age shortly after it opened, nowhere else on the net was a review of any kind. It was flying under the radar and attracting no interest, no buzz. I called him back a few hours later after rereading my posts and the comment in light of his criticism, to point out that I’d qualified what I’d said and in fact done everything at the time that he’d later requested (i.e. “why didn’t you tell people to come and try it for themself?”). We ended up having an interesting conversation about the restaurant business. Though unfortunately he spent most of the time blaming other people and the location. We never actually touched on the fact that his menu seemed out of synch with the clientele he wanted to attract. It was not bad food, just priced higher than the locals were willing to pay for it. Only time will tell whether the new owner can make a go of the enterprise or the location is the "lemon" he asserted it was.

I was glad I could justify my criticisms and that it was a fair review, so that once he’d calmed down I could go over each point with him and gain some grudging acceptance. In the end the only issue he had was casting aspersions on the chances of the restaurant staying open. I guess I won that point too but perhaps there was a possibility that the venture could have been a success if he was able to take on board feedback – from a blogger as well as locals who’d stopped eating there.

My question to you the reader, local eater or fellow blogger – what do you think of blog based restaurant reviews? Do you write them? Do they help guide your eating out choices? How do blog reviews differ from print media? Is one or the other likely to be more impartial? Do you ever suspect a blogger or journalist is getting undisclosed freebies for their reviews? Could food bloggers be legitimate restaurant "consultants"?

I do read reviews from a handful of blogs. On the whole, I tend to ignore writers who only give glowing reviews or are too subjective, Gourmet Traveller included! I tend to skirt around simple reviews that merely say I like this or didn’t like that if it’s without context. And of course, being the Food Nazi, the lovers of meat and dairy are not the ones I tend to consult. But I’ll own that. One thing I love reading blog restaurant reviews for is something largely ignored by the print media, those covering dietary niches. I search for new vegan eateries when my sister visits and enjoy discovering allergy-friendly restaurants beyond the hippy ghetto. I love reviews exploring the diverse eating opportunities in my own neighbourhood as well as ones across town that I rarely get to visit.

What are your thoughts?

* a tip for restaurant owners - if you're going to plaster blog reviews with comments under various guises then consider writing in a variety of personas with different "voices" and genders. It helps also if you've commented on other local food blogs under those names too. Just a thought.

the bad egg

It wasn’t so much an egg, though we will get to that, rather a nasty wedge of avocado.

I am very fussy at the best of times but avocadoes bring out the worst in me. I border on phobic when it comes to blighted fruit. A black bit on an avocado, stringiness or downright past its use by date in my book means it is not acceptable to end up on a customer’s plate. When you are paying for a side order, there is an expectation that every mouthful is edible. This was not.

The slim quarter of the avocado sat innocuously enough with its pit side down. There was a pesky spot a couple of centimetres wide which I considers cutting around. Turning the fruit over for a closer inspection I found the discolouration had riddled its way right through with a dark blemish engulfing at least a quarter of the slice. The flesh around the area was old, watery and unappealing.

I caught the waiter’s eye and pointed to it saying “any chance of another piece of avocado?” There was no hesitation on her part and though she didn’t whisk the fruit away, she did head off to the kitchen in search of a replacement. During those 4 minutes I made some decent headway through my breakfast. The hash brown tasted old and tired. A home made offering, not one of those dreaded processed bricks but pre-fried possibly days ago and on its last legs none the less. The eggs while poached sufficiently, had curious whites. One was scraggy like a sea creature and the other had been sliced off in chunks leaving a rhomboid shape of just a couple of centimetres of egg white around the yolk. I much prefer to eat the yolk so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything but visually it didn’t look right and I wondered just how bad the offending parts had been for them to be removed in such a way.

This place is known for it’s homemade bread. After a wheat-free week I was looking forward to some good quality, crunchy toast. Yet even the amputated poached eggs carried enough water to rob the toast of its crispness. In fact it was so disappointing I may have well eaten a couple of slices of the tasteless gluten-free bread for all the flavour and texture it had to offer.

The coffee was drinkable but bland and not exactly what I’d ordered. I sipped it for a while none the less.

I dread writing a bad review of a neighbourhood restaurant. The last time I did the café closed shortly after. No not from the power of my words alone of course but we are a fickle bunch and move our loyalty elsewhere even from a favourite if it fails to perform. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a similar meal with a fellow blogger. We all enjoyed each mouthful of our different breakfasts but Black Ruby – you are officially on notice. We’ve put up with the vagaries of your odd flavour pairings in your savoury menu for years. You are a little quirky but the spirit of the place has kept pulling your though. But when breakfast goes bad – the locals start walking and as we know you have families to support we’d really like you get your act together and stay.

First the dried out black bean sausage. Now this. You can have an off day with the hash browns, the odd misshapened egg is allowable but soggy toast and a rotten avocado – come on you can do better than this.

Tiba's Lebanese Restaurant

Two doors up from another great Brunswick institution Mediterranean Wholesalers, sits Tiba’s a bustling Lebanese takeaway and restaurant. The front of house is a popular spot to grab a kebab or falafel on the run. They also sell excellent dips and pastries to take away.

After some months of experiencing the delights of Tiba’s dishes to take out, I thought it was time to actually eat in.

But what to eat? The sit down menu offers a variety of set meals as well as sides from which you can build a satisfying feast. Friends of mine from a “mixed marriage” (a meat eater and a vegetarian), who are regulars like to create their own shared meal from falafels, tabouleh and dips with a carnivorous bit on the side.

For a first time experience we went the easy route, with some set meals.

I opted for the “Falafel Serve” ($10) – 5 freshly cooked falafels, pickled turnips, green salad, tabouli, hummus, yoghurt dip and rice. This turned up on a large plate, with a generous helping of flat bread in a basket. The falafels were satisfying, though I have had better (and worse). The pickled turnip was a perfect addition, for both flavour and texture.

The Significant Eater got a little excited by the meat based offerings and went for the “Mixed Grill” ($16) which came with all of the above minus the falafels but with 5, yes 5, different meats including a cutlet, spicy Lebanese sausage, chicken and lamb. While my meal came on a large plate – this was huge, catering platter size and overflowing with meat and salads. He managed to chew his way through the lot with appreciative grunts, the only criticism being it was a little salty for his palate.

What I like most about Tiba’s is the great value for money, diverse clientele and I even took a liking to the plastic replica mosque that lights up and plays the call to prayer unexpectedly halfway through your meal! I’d expected the staff to down tools and pray but service carried on as usual.

There can be a downside to cheap; in this case it was the smell of chemical air freshener that wafted in waves throughout the meal. There was also a randomness of where the staff seated people. We sat literally on the divide between the ‘nicer’, table-clothed restaurant side and the takeaway kebab bar. Despite there being lots of empty tables in the ‘restaurant’ which had the same menu, there was a weird reluctance to seat people there – even the couple who pointed to a table and asked nicely but still ended up being placed right near the door in the takeaway section. Needless to say the décor is heavy on the type of tack that will never be fashionable (plastic, musical mosque aside).

With these petty grumbles out of the way, there is one more thing you need to know about Tiba’s, being a Halal restaurant means no alcohol. Having advanced knowledge of this meant we had a pleasant pre-dinner drink a block or two away at the Village Green.

Tiba’s ticked a lot of the “very cheat eat” boxes as far as I am concerned: for under $20 there was a wide variety of complete meals (i.e.: protein and a decent serve of vegetables) for vegetarians, vegans and carnivores. Despite it being unlicensed, I could still get a balanced and tasty meal as well as a drink (even if it was somewhere else) nicely within budget.

Tiba’s Lebanese Restaurant
504 Sydney Rd,
Brunswick
Phone: (03) 9380 8425

This review is cross-posted at Very Cheap Eats.

Capitol - Wellington

Wellington. My old hometown. Another public holiday, flying visit. I’ll keep it short and sweet – only one new food experience for me this weekend.

There was much talk of “draconian” new labour laws - where employers now have to pay a decent holiday loading and give time off in lieu. What a scandal, up to 20% surcharge in some of the establishments that daned to turn their espresso machine on for Easter Friday and Sunday. Being all for fair pay, I didn’t mind. But anyway. I wasn’t out on the mean streets looking for a meal on those days.

Saturday, the city briefly came out of a sleepy hiatus. I had the opportunity of a quick lunch in the city with my sister after we’d the amusing experience of watching our elderly dad land a 737 in both Heathrow and Singapore. No airline food in the flight simulator though. Time for something new, or at least a change from the predictable fare (yes I had yet another good meal at Chow in Tory Street and a passable lunch at Eva Dixon’s on the way to the airport – though when a menu says “nicoise salad” I’d expect to see some olives and for the tuna to not be optional).

Unlike the last time I attempted to eat there, The Capitol was open. Right next to the movie theatre at the top of Courtney place, this café has stood the test of time. The menu is relatively small and the service is variable. Vegetarians are not very well catered for. My sister managed to rearrange the crepe on offer, removing the pancetta and cheese for a more vegetable based option. The kitchen obliged with no hassle. For me there was only one dish that caught my eye – an artichoke and potato fritter with smoked fish. A trip to New Zealand is incomplete without some kind of fishy morsel, preferably smoked. I didn’t catch the quickly spoken name of the seafood that was on offer that day (oh to have such choice in Melbourne) but it was pleasantly smoky and salty without being over the top. The fritter was more of a well fried, large potato cake with chunks of fish on top. Flavour-wise the closest comparison would be the addictive fish cakes at Ciccolina in St Kilda. I skipped the crème fresh and was not at a loss without it. Maybe something acidic to cut through fat would have been better, preserved lemons perhaps?

The espresso, looked and tasted like a ristretto, a mere half a mouthful of caffeine. It didn’t touch the sides. The soy hot chocolate passed muster, though took some prompting after waiting for 10 minutes in a café that at the time had only 2 tables of patrons.


Verdict: Worth another visit. The menu range was very narrow for non-meat eaters but the staff was friendly. I’d certainly try the fritters again.

Capitol
10 Kent Tce
Mt Victoria
Wellington
Region: Wellington

Phone: 04-3842855

Grandma Kimchi BBQ - a very cheap eat

The search for very cheap eat continues.

Asian food has always been a mainstay of cheap eating and about 80% of Kimchi Grandma BBQ’s menu meets our criteria of a “very cheap eat”. Sure there is a wagyu dish or two for more than twice that price but pampered beef meals aside, the vast majority of the dishes on offer provide a satisfying and enjoyable meal on a budget.

My first Grandma Kimchi experience was at their flagship Carnegie restaurant. It was late on a weeknight, the staff were looking forward to their shift ending and while they weren’t over friendly, the service was prompt. Perhaps because I was tired my inaugural meal was not that memorable but I remember my partner chowing down with relish, pleased to share his favourite local restaurant.

The empire has since grown to Box Hill, Hawthorn and for the last couple of years, the CBD. The city restaurant looks a little snazzier, yet has the same butchers paper tablecloths and anonymous white tableware.

The menu comes in a large black plastic insert-style book. Many of the dishes are illustrated, perhaps as a result of too many questions from the uninitiated in the early years of the chain. For those unfamiliar with the cuisine, it could crudely be described as similar to Japanese but with liberal doses of chilli paste. Other than the spice - tofu, cabbage and chilli oil are frequent inclusions. A recent episode of ”Food Safari” provides a good primer on the subject. Grandma Kimchi BBQ, has a range of meat, rice, noodle, seafood and soup dishes but purely vegetarian offerings are thin on the ground. It is possible to create a vegetable based meal out of entrees and side dishes though.

While I’m told the traditional bulgogi (marinated thin strips of beef, pork or chicken) brings many loyal fans back to Grandma Kimchi, after repeated visits my favourite remains hae mul chon gol, a seafood steamboat dish. A pot of seafood, tofu, mushrooms and other vegetables simmered in stock with lashings of chilli paste and powder, is cooked at the table. It is a meal for 2 (or more) people and comes with rice and of course kimchi – usually between 5-7 small dishes of pickles including the eponymous cabbage dish. It is a fun meal to eat and suits itself to a long meal grazing and chatting with friends. The chilli level is enough to make your nose run and warm your mouth without burning, without obliterating the delicate flavours of the star ingredients. Tea also comes free with all meals. At $36.90, this meal fills you to the gunnels for less than $18.50 a head.


Kimchi


Ready to cook


Hae mul chon gol - ready to eat

While service is usually efficient in getting you seated, regardless of it being a quiet or busy night for some reason drink service seems to be uniformly slow. After half a dozen or so visits the meals have always been of a consistent quality and with each experience my fondness for kimchi grows.

Kimchi Grandma BBQ
145 Bourke St (between Russell and Exhibition Sts), Melbourne
Phone (03) 9650 0384

Also check out the cheap lunch set meals and special deals.


This entry has been cross-posted on Very Cheap Eats

restaurant at the end of the universe

We took the ‘expensive’ room with a view of the lake. The other, though I now think would have been a whole lot quieter, was like a walk in cupboard with a double bed crammed into it. Our one night away from the relatives would have a view and enough room to swing a cat. Anyway, I’m a sucker for blue over a drab olive green any day.

After sitting at a picnic table outside the bar downing Monteith’s finest ale my rumbling tummy set us in search of food. The pub was the only choice in the area, so thankfully there would be no issue about who’d drive home. The whiff of tired oil from the deep fryer meant fish and chips (the only choice available to me on the bar menu) were a choice to be avoided, so we relocated to another picnic table on the opposite side of the hotel’s main door to the pricier restaurants. My aunt who lived in the region had mentioned crayfish and whitebait so my expectations were high, despite the malodorous chips. The former was sadly off the menu but for NZ$21 an entrée of whitebait could be had in a traditional egg fritter. While there was more omelettes to fish, it was a nostalgic taste of home. Whitebait for the uninitiated are small wormlike critters, caught in a fine net flung across a river. Being from fresh water they have a very mild flavour. Don’t confuse them with the dirty variety, sourced from Thailand that can sometimes be had in Melbourne, or the small fish variety that Aussies give the same name to.

The SE had ‘Pacific marinated fish’. White fish, swimming in lashings of coconut milk with cucumber, coriander and a dash of lime. More a soup the way it was served but pleasant none the less.

In between we had a jug of Radler and watched the sun ebb closer to the Marlborough Sounds. We requested at least a half hour between courses when we ordered and the kitchen honoured it, almost down to the minute.

For mains, not deterred by the menu description of a ‘tropical salsa’, I went for the fish of the day (red cod) pan fried, on coconut rice and a mango concoction of top. Surprisingly edible. I was concentrating on woofing it down, so now I have no memory of what the SE ate, something involving salmon I think.

Dessert was port – a generous serve filling a champagne flute and the remaining half of the peanut slab in my bag from the day before.


oops half way through before the pic was taken

The sunset was the best I’d seen for sometime, the sun not disappearing over the Sounds til well after 9pm. Crazy 'Ary's sunset bar in Gili Air would be able to scrape a living if their crimson skies lasted as long. New Zealand may not be the tropics but their latitude affords long summer nights.

The Lake Ferry Hotel, felt like the restaurant at the end of the universe but the food was passable (not so the bar food friends have warned me) and the service friendly, albeit unpaid (the amusing local wife of the English chef) who said “I’m just helping my husband out, he’ll start hollering for plates if no one clears the tables”). The accommodation though left a bit to be desired, with every sheet of flooring and door hinge squeaking, as it’s temporary residents made their way to the communal bathroom during the nights. The walls were also so thin that the room reverberated with the snoring coming from the next room (and that is no exaggeration).

After very little sleep we made our way to breakfast before it ended at 10am. The large communal table was set the night before (very noisily next to our room), offering a free continental with the tariff of the room. All that was left was the crust and final slice of the wholemeal bread, a few containers of honey, half a jug of milk and some cereal. Instant coffee, no juice – we decided it was time to head back to civilisation for a long black with something eggy.

Verdict: Try the seafood but the sunset is the biggest winner.



Lake Ferry Hotel
South Wairarapa Coast
Telephone 06 307 7831
Website http://lakeferryhotel.co.nz (with little useful info but pretty pictures)

Link: More absurdities from the Lake Ferry Hotel at other rants

even more eating in Wellington

Another mad dash across the Tasman to attend to family affairs. In 4 days I managed to cram in 2 birthdays, a 2 part breakfast on the same morning, eat 3 other meals in Asian restaurants, a lunch at the wonderfully quirky Maranui SLS Café and cook 2 dinners.

One old favourite stood out - Kazu in Tory St, is a better than average mid-priced Japanese restaurant. By Australian standards, even before you get the benefit of the dollar difference, it is very good value for money. The sushi was tender, as was the calamari with miso and garlic. The tempura included pieces of fish and 2 discs of a vegetable and shrimp medley which got full marks. Our final dish of eel on rice appeared as a large fillet of teriyaki eel which was tasty and generous. If we’d had room for it, one of the specials – a vegetarian sharing plate (NZ$18 for 2) was very tempting.


sushi at Kazu

I have mixed feelings about Ernesto (Cuba Street). A member of the Havana/Fidel’s empire, I keep going back for more. I like the feel of the place, light and spacious with art and wood. This kind of look wouldn’t be out of place in Melbourne. There is table service, which varies from professional to haphazard. When it is good, it is very, very good – but in half a dozen excursions (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) in the past 9 months – I still can’t put my finger on what is missing. Mostly the food is great, though the cornbread with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach is a touch on the small side. The coffee is reliable, as it is in most Wellington establishments these days. Something just doesn’t add up – but not so badly that I don’t go back to check them out every now and then.

As for cooking, I hope to be back on the horse any day now.

lovers and others

Cleaning out unpublished documents. This is a snippet from an unfinished post last year. A little outdated but the sentiments remain the same.

…We headed to St Jerome’s and in the Friday crush drank long necks of Coopers (him) and a passable house white in a tumbler (me).

Places like St Jerome’s remind me why Melbourne is a such a great city. It’s an unpretentious, no wine list, sit on milk crates in a laneway kind of place. It has a great buzz and the music is fab. I also love the fact that men have to cue just as long as the women, waiting for a stall in the unisex toilet – now that is equality, I reckon.

By 10 people were drifting off to other engagements, numbers were dwindling and my tummy rumbled so (despite his protests) I dragged him up Bourke Hill. Do they have beer where we are going? Yes. Are we almost there yet? Yes. Just one more block.

I got the urge to revisit the Nudel Bar. A favourite for years, I realised it had been far too long since I had been there last. When you hang out with the anti-carb brigade, it can be a bit hard to convince them a meal in a place that only sells noodles is where they must be.

The menu hadn’t changed. Nor the waiter. We got to sit upstairs overlooking the street, eye level with the treetops. While I waited for him to plough through the menu (a no brainer for me - there is only one dish I could possibly have after such an absence) I thought of all the people I had eaten and drunk with there, over the decade or so it had been open. There had been birthdays, rowdy girls nights out, queuing up on a busy evening with good conversation and a bottle of wine waiting for a table, heart to hearts, grabbing a bowl of noodles before the best Elvis Costello concert ever. Lovers and others.

When the food came – I eyed the Thai Fried Noodles like an old friend. Had it really been at least 2 years since we had last met? The prawns were luscious, the scallions crunchy, though the chilli oil not as hot as I remembered.

He dived into egg noodles slippery with sesame oil, vibrant Chinese greens and generous chunks of roasted duck. Between groans he kept asking “Why haven’t you bought me here before!”, “It’s the best restaurant in Melbourne”.

Sure it was the beer talking but the noodles really are worth the walk up the hill. For me, it was reassuring to run into an old friend and marvel at how they haven’t changed, just got better with age.

breakfast pizza

Ok so I'm not quite back in the saddle yet in the kitchen but I'm trying little tricks.

My brief was to go to the Vic Market this morning as usual, but to look at it like a tourist. Instead of charging around the stalls as I always do - today I stopped for breakfast. Not my usual tofu and vegetable nori roll from Tofu Trek today - it had to be different and hot. I've too often been dissappointed with Invita, which is the closest fit for my dietary requirements. So in tourist mode I hit the take away food stalls in the Dairy Hall. If I was a carnivore the kransky's with onion would have been an obvious choice.

What caught my eye was Colour of Earth (Shop 97-98 Dairy Section). I'd had a nifty piadina there before, it had been creative but never lured me back. Eying off the mini pizzas, I innocently asked "Do you have any without cheese?" There was a Western Australian sardine creation with chilli and tomato that seemed a little strong for the hour of day, instead as if reading my mind he answered "We've got a potato one - how about that? Olives? Sundried tomato? Black pepper? Rosemary?" Perfect!

A few minutes later it popped hot out of the oven, the base thin and crispy without being dry. The flavours were great and the only thing I'd add to it in future would be garlic.

I sat down at a chilly outdoor table, a fellow shopper was looking for a seat and I was happy to share. A pleasant chat and back to shopping.

It's nice to be a traveller in your own city sometimes.

eating Bali and Gili Air

Rocket fuel! Benzin flavoured vodka

Food and drink highlights:

Sanur:
The first gado gado is the best gado gado! At Vila Shanti, on the beach, while sitting at the bar having the best beer Bali has to offer – Storm Golden Ale. which is naturally brewed in the bottle with no chemical additives. But back to the food. A smorgasbord of delight featuring rice, tofu, tempeh, cucumber, tomato, and a roll of steamed greens (likely water spinach), the peanut sauce has more than a hint of lemongrass. The most expensive version in the trip (at Rp 25,000 about au$3.30) but certainly worth it.

Pregina a better than average warung, on Jalan danau Tamblinghan, quickly became our favourite and we had a return visit. I loved the tahu isi, fried cubes of tofu filled with vegetables served with a spicy soy based sauce. A serve of 3 was meant to be an entrée but filled me up (Rp 12,000/$1.60). The grilled whole fish in banana leaf came with sambal and rice, was beautifully fragrant (Rp 40,000/$5.30).

Padangbai:
This is a town you either love or hate. I fall into the less favourable category. It’s a good introduction to Sasak food, the predominant culture of Lombok just across the water. The small establishment in the main street where we had seafood satays (with chilli sauce - Sasak style) was our first questionable meal in Bali. We thought the hygiene would challenge our digestive fortitude. What made our dinner in this town most memorable is that we came through it with no ill effects!

Topi Inn, a café and guesthouse at the Blue Lagoon end of town, was clean and had good Balinese and Western food. It got my award for the best Nasi Goreng (see photo in previous post).

Best place to drink in town hands down goes to the Zen Inn (opposite the port) run by the extraordinary Ronald, a Dutch ex-pat. A good crowd of both European travellers and locals.


Gili Air
It is hard to have a bad meal on the island, the worst you will get is average. Sasak food is the traditional fare of Lombok and the islands. To me it seems Chinese influenced (actually the Sasaks are decedents of the Burmese), with 3 standard sauces on offer – chilli/tomato (the cuisine is supposedly high in chilli but to our heat tolerant palate it seemed rather mild, so we’d always ask for it spicy), sweet and sour or garlic. For example, cap cay - a typical vegetable dish, is basically fried vegetables with a sweet and sour sauce. For wary travellers, the Gili’s have an added bonus – with no natural fresh water on the island all the ice is made from imported clean water.

Breakfast: this is where I acquainted myself with the joys of freshly picked, green coconut juice with breakfast. One of the guys running the guesthouse would climb 10 metres up a tree for me each morning. It is reputedly good for those recovering from Bali Belly or hangovers, of which I had neither on the island. Typical breakfast is a choice of: banana pancakes (or pineapple if you prefer), banana fritters (dainty lady’s fingers in a light batter) with runny honey, jaffles (egg or fruit) or a savoury omelette, with Javanese coffee. All this, while lounging in a baruga (covered platform) staring out over the pristine water.

My best 2 meals on Gili Air were - Abdi Fantastik just a shack on the beach, this was the only place on my travels I found gafé dishes. The calamari came with a rich, brown coconut sauce. I wish I’d had more! Santay Bar also cooked up a mean meal. At night, like most other establishments there was a range of freshly caught fish you could choose to have barbecued. We had red barracuda (not the blue boned one we’d had elsewhere which had pesky, fine bones) with garlic sauce, rice, vegetables and fruit to follow for Rp 50,000/$6.60). I also had a green vegetable curry, still distinctively Indonesian with the flavour of white turmeric.

Drinks: Though “Crazy Ary’s” on the south west side of the island boasts being the sunset bar (it serves only cocktails and only operates for the 2 hours around dusk – within half an hour of sunset the place is pitch dark and only bars like Star, Santay and Legends seem to have much going on), Legends at the northern end probably gives the most stunning view of the sun going down. However the young guy tending the bar at Crazy Ary’s will make you a mean pina colada and once you get to know him he’ll use the good grog, not the cheap local knock off they tend to palm off on you. He also spins a good line about black magic.

Ubud
This town is a different kettle of ikan from the other places we travelled. Here you can chow down on fine fusion food, pasta or sushi. Just watch out for the tax that ranges from 10 – 20+%. Despite that you can still find a good warung.

My favourite was Sura’s just a little walk up the hill on Jalan Kajeng. We liked it so much we went back many times, first just aiming to stop by for a fresh juice (soursop became a fast favourite) then getting seduced by the menu. Dishes are very cheap (mie goreng about Rp 14,000/$1.90 plus 10% tax). The vegetarian food was fantastic here. My partner even had a steak, a steal at Rp 30,000/$4. Service is slow, which they make a joke about in the menu. Yes they really do make each order up from scratch, often with the daughter getting on her motorbike to get fresh ingredients, repeatedly through the night.

Casa Luna is at the other end of the price spectrum but by Australian standards still incredibly cheap. In this, and other western owned restaurants, I found the flavours subtly different, maybe saltier and with a different complexity to a warung meal. The Balinese Paella was pretty special.

These are the people behind the cooking course at the Honeymoon Guesthouse, which will feature in my next instalment of eating my way around Bali.

Maranui cafe

Out on Lyall Bay windsurfers hopped on grey waves. The last forecast I’d heard mentioned a current temperature of 10c. Ah, Wellington, some days I remember why I left you. The boxy wooden building on the foreshore didn’t look like the epicentre of groove central from the outside. Tripping over the raised doorstep we made our way up narrow wooden steps lined with long oars in lieu of handrails. During our ascent photos and club memorabilia on the walls amused us. They were a crusty lot at the old Maranui Surf Life Saving Club.

Once through the double doors we were in a different world. At 1pm the place was hopping. We found two stools at the end of a communal table and placed an order at the counter. I’ve ranted before about the lack of table service in Wellington but as it’s a culture that doesn’t tip – do you blame the staff for minimising their effort? Specials included a soup, pasta and fish dish. The standard menu had some great burgers, sandwiches and a breakfast burrito. We made our order synchroniously choosing a fish burger each. After relocating to a just vacated table, we found ourself in a quiet enough corner to hear each other speak.

The café sits on the second floor of the life saving club, looking out across the bay with the airport to the left and the Cook Straight to the right. The Inter Island ferry made its way out of the safe harbour into the heads. How much pleasanter to sit in this cosy place, I thought, than nurse seasickness in a Southerly for the next few hours.

The place is decorated with retro style. Our table had some interestingly named marine paint colours and stuffed big game fish adorned one of the walls. Behind the counter sat a row of old soft drink bottles. The joint is definitely kitch, but cool kitch.

With a coffee, ginger beer (the wonderful dry Hardy Boys) and 2 fish burgers between us – this hardly adds up to a restaurant review. But I can attest to the deliciousness of the burger - the fish fried but not greasy in the merest of batters, a big dob of aoli, a wholemeal bun and just enough chunky fries on the side to make it feel like a treat without regret.

If you are in the neighbourhood, pop in a find out for yourself.

Maranui Café
7 Lyall Parade
Lyall Bay
Wellington
New Zealand





UPDATE:2 August 2009 - I am sad to report the demise of the Maranui SLC due to a fire this weekend. The owners are talking valiantly of rebuilding but time will tell. I'm missing it already!

Yu-u and me

Yu-u
Address: 137 Flinders Lane (enter from Oliver Lane)
Phone: 9639 7073
Cost: the dishes are reasonably priced but many are very small, so you need to eat a lot of them. The wine list is reasonable. With wine $50-70 per person depending on appetite and thirst.


So much has been written already about the anonymity of this eatery. It’s Melbourne. We have laneways. This is a modern take on hunting and gathering so enjoy the search for you will be handsomely rewarded in the end.

Once you push open the rather heavy door, you know you have entered a different world. Furnished with sparse elegance, the jarrah bar such a nice change from the usual chunky pine furniture that haunts Japanese establishments. There is a kind of hush, a reverential atmosphere – though depending on the clientele this is not always true. Do not be fooled, no matter how hopeful you may feel about spotting an empty seat at the bar or a space at the table, it is rare for you to be seated at night without a booking.

For the first time I could enter the place with confidence. Yes, we had a booking and our chairs awaited us at the end of the u shaped bar. We had arrived!

The menu is very reasonable, but this is mainly because some of the dishes are mere mouthfuls. But as each tastebud is stimulated with every morsel, it doesn’t matter. You can always order more.

Slowly assemble a selection of little dishes to share. Try to remember to get at least one item from the lovingly fanned char grill in front of you.

Don’t skimp on the wine. Though a small list, it a carefully assembled and very reasonably priced.

So what did we eat?

Kingfish sashimi - 6 little triangles of tender wonderment.



Avocado and salmon sashimi in sweet miso dressing – a very modest mouthful, but every little bit of it was wonderful.



King George Whiting tempura – once more minimalist, but up there with the finest mouthful of fish that I have ever experienced.




Prawn dumplings – not encased in your run of the mill wrapper, these were crafted in ribbons of flat noodles. Sensational.



Agadashi tofu – a perfect version of this classic dish with the best dried bonito flakes in the city.



Salmon on rice in a green tea broth – there was the slight bitterness from the tea and a hit of wasabi – an interesting combo.



Char grilled rice cake – well we wanted something from the rake thin yakitori chef’s fine fan waving hands and as 99% of it was chicken, a little bit of ballast seemed like a fine idea. It was deliciously char grilled and tasty.

We drank: 2005 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Riesling. Sublime and affordable at less than $40 a bottle.


Yu-u is not the place to eat if you have a huge appetite or don’t like Japanese food. It is a temple of taste and a true Melbourne Foodie experience. Take a note from the Japanese diners who remember to order some greens with their meal and a little soba, to make it more balanced.

And don’t forget to book!

Thanks:

Marie for taking the photos and her sparkling company.

The bankrupt business man for providing the unexpected entertainment.

Honourable mentions from the Bellarine Peninsula and the Surf Coast

Last week I had 5 days of decompression at the beach. The plan had been to have lazy barbecues after surf lessons, but instead it was inside time with unseasonal hail pelting the tin roof (a few days later, I was back in Melbourne with mild heat exhaustion!). The Significant Eater was on a budget, so we packed a sharp knife, some good olive oil, smoked trout, rice and other essentials to do some leisurely cooking at the beach house we had rented. The weather dictated soup, curry and hearty grains.

There was no grand dining but I had 2 of the best takeaways in a long time that deserve special mention.

Queenscliff Fish and Chips, in the main street of Queenscliff was the best fish and battered prawns I’ve had in years. The King George whiting was available in different sizes (pricey but worth it) which was rolled in a light coating then grilled (for a few cents extra - its interesting the effort involved in flipping a piece of fish over rather than dunking it in the deep fryer universally attracts a surcharge in this country). The batter tasted like a light, savoury pancake and complemented the tender flesh. Instead of chips we went for calamari rings and battered prawns. Both great, but the prawns were a stand out. The lunch was eaten overlooking the wild sea on a grey day, out of the paper in a steamy car. Perfect!

Seaweed Sushi, 22 Pearl St, Torquay. This little Japanese eatery is hidden away, around the corner from the main shopping strip. They get special commendation due to the fact that brown rice is an option in some of their cooked meals and in some of the Tokyo Rolls and squares. Also some inventive vegetarian sushi – sweet beancurd skin and mushroom being especially delicious.


Moby (Torquay) and Barwon Orange were also up to standard. Moby got extra brownie points on their great customer service when they had messed up an order. Sadly the local pub at Barwon Heads hadn’t improved in the interim. You know that food will be average at best when you see a menu with some curious cross-cultural food pairings, like a Thai green curry with Indian condiments.

I’m still hankering to crack open the picnic rug and load up the basket. Maybe next week!

when your soul needs saving

SOS
Level 3
Melbourne Central
211 La Trobe Street
Melbourne
Ph: 03) 9654 0808

I’d heard that SOS, in the revamped Melbourne Central, was hard to find. Actually, it was very easy just jump on the escalators from the corner of Swanston and Latrobe Streets, get off at the top and turn left. The next bit involves a bit of faith. Stand outside the blank, rather impenetrable, black door underneath the sign, take a breath and will it to open. It does.

SOS is big on the theatrical entrance. Once through the door, which swiftly closes behind you, a slightly abstracted, dimly lit forest awaits. Ignore the black curtained entrances off to either side and go directly forward into the light. You have arrived.

And arrived we did, enjoying a quick dinner on a bright, recently daylight saved Melbourne evening. We were early enough to have a plum table for two on the wide balcony, the seating comfortable and arranged to sit side by side and admire the view. Before us skateboarders did their thing, trams rattled and couples canoodled in the grounds of the State Library.

In the same stable as Chocolate Buddha and Soul Mama, I was a little hesitant to try SOS. It sounded right up my alley being dedicated to those who eschew meat but eat seafood – I call it piscaterean. While the former two endeavours, the first a Wagamama rip off and the second an upmarket vegetarian cafeteria are good, maybe better than average but I’ve always found the food fails the deliver the “Wow!” factor.

I was spoiled for choice with the menu, though the offerings were not that huge if you are strictly vegetarian. If you are vegan, forget it. The paltry couple of entrees and one main all contained dairy. Even the side of broccolini is tainted with anchovies.

I chose a couple of entrees wanting variety of taste more than a large amount of food. Being ‘modern Italian’ pasta of various hues was abundant. The SOS website boasts the presence of a wood fired oven, supposedly to offer ‘artisanal pizzas “unlike any you have seen in Melbourne”, but none were on the menu.

While we admired the view, caught up on the events of the week, looked at the extensive wine list and made our choices, the very competent staff regularly checked in to offer us bread (a choice of three), water (bottled or tap), answered a question about some unfamiliar wines and translated the menu. I thought I was pretty good at ‘menu speak’ and the Significant Eater is half Italian, but we still needed a little help, which made me think it was just a tad pretentious. A bit dazed and confused we finally made our selections and within moments a little amuse bouche was placed before us. Nice touch. This was a small cube of marinated kingfish and a few other tastes including grapefruit, which was rather pleasing.

The Significant Eater finds it hard to pass up fresh oysters, though he prefers them just naked and unadorned in their shells. These came with what balsamic and crushed ruby grapefruit and were so nice I had to try one.

Having waxed lyrical before on my love of smoked eel I feel compelled to order it in order to keep it on the menu for others to experience this fishy delicacy. SOS’s offering was described as a “smoked eel fillet served with egg mimosa , kipfler potato, poppy seed onion ring and baby parsley salad”. Only a photo does the prettiness of this dish justice. It was a standout for me, with the exception of the top of the fillet being unnecessarily dry, suggesting the protective fatty layer had been removed too long before serving.

The Significant Eaters, otherwise delicious snapper also was a little desiccated on top, but the tang on the wasabi fish roe on top earned the dish a “Wow!” factor award.

Sadly though the pasta dish I tried, was a bit average. It featured clams, prawn and whitebait, but tasted strongly of fishy brine. There was a liberal amount of the mildest chili imaginable, which added no flavour to the dish.

SOS is a seafood haven. Do not even think of taking your vegan sister or meat eating uncle here. It does what it chooses to do very well. Prices are in the fine dinning category (or what you’d pay in an average Sydney restaurant) with entrees starting at $17 and mains in the $30’s. To get some vegetable balance, sides are around $8. Desserts are priced similarly as entrees.


Conclusion: Great service, wonderful view, better than average food and more value for money than Fifteen.

SOS

UPDATE:(Feb 2007) According to Epicure today, the SOS experiment has failed to be financially viable. The wine menu is to be stripped back and the menu tweaked. The chef is leaving and the fabled pizzas I mentioned on the site's menu are about to make an appearances. It all speaks of dumbing down. Maybe a little less pretention is not a bad thing. Becoming more "accessible" fortunately doesn't mean meat will be on the menu, but I would be happy to trade less fussiness for a little drop in the prices.

Beyond rabbit food

I got a delightful email from a reader living in KL who is missing the vegetarian delights of Melbourne, which prompted me to go back to the most enduring vego restaurant in this city and count my blessings.

Shakahari
201-203 Faraday Street, Carlton, Melbourne
Ph: 03 9349 1754
Prices: entrée around $12, mains $17-18, dessert $9-10


I first went to this landmark Melbourne restaurant about 20 years ago, when it was hardly a new kid on the block, having at that point clocked up a decade of service to the vegetarian community. Down the road were other vego stalwarts like Lord Lentil and Vegetarian Adventure, which have sadly long since hit the dust.

Shakahari has survived and moved from Lygon Street to just around the corner in Faraday. The move swished up the décor a little, especially the sense of arrival in the plush red corridor. Despite this, there is still an odd feeling of austerity that clings to the place. Maybe it’s the unadorned planked wood tables, or the mustard coloured walls that are desperately in need of a makeover. I have only been told to quieten down or vacate a restaurant twice in my life - both in large groups at Shakahari (a venue that has always catered well for big table get togethers). It’s as if they want you to be a little more reverential and have a little less fun.

But that aside, the food is delicious. The vegan portion of the menu has greatly increased over the years and there is a good mix of old favourites (the satay and croquettes) as well as new tastes. There is attention to detail for flavour, using spices that I still can’t name and mouth feel. The servings are generally high on vegetables and low on stodge, unlike some other veggie establishments that rely on lots of rice and bread to fill you up.

Entrees are light and tasty, though not skimpy. The green mango salad was succulent in a sweet soy dressing that honoured the fruit. The old favourite (and ongoing reminder of the now defunct sister restaurant “Madam Fang”) tempura fried avocado rolls, are so delicious that I still order them though they contains capsicum, for which I do not have a fondness.

There is always a curry on the menu. It’s presentation has evolved from the more utilitarian compartmentalised metal tray, to a terracotta pot. Here the chef’s use of herbs and spices sets it apart from any other curry I’ve eaten. The flavour relies on a wide palate of flavours rather than searing heat. A generous serving of pickled vegetables with tender shavings of lemon grass and a small side of rice accompany the dish. If vegetarian protein is more in order, tofu and seitan are plentiful in the trademark satay skewers, or tempeh and fried tofu in a flavoursome laksa.

I am not usually a pasta fan, but with a seasonally changing menu it is worth keeping an eye out for inventive vegan options. I once had a ‘lasagne’ featuring the most delicate, citrus flavoured sheets of pasta – that still brings back many happy memories.

The serving sizes allow most people to eat 2 courses without feeling uncomfortably full. But it’s a dilemma to go savoury or sweet. Even with a modest menu, it is hard to choose. For me – a creamy vegan dessert is a rare treat and here I have to recommend the tofu caramel. This is a silky mound of tofu, richly flavoured by the caramelised pistachios and lashings of sweet syrup.

Other than the atmosphere, the only other small quibble about Shakahari is with vegetables being centre stage, they would have tasted even better if they had been organic. With such a delicate balance of flavours, not laden with heavy sauces, my organic acquainted palate can detect the difference - but it is still top end vegetarian eating, at a reasonable price.

Lunch in the sun

Cookie252 Swanston St, Melbourne.

The thing about Melbourne’s great City bars is they are either tiny little bolt holes in challenging to find laneways or huge spaces where noise has a habit of reverberating and multiplying. Most are known for their beers or cocktails. Few for their food. Cookie is in a straightforward location, with some clever private zones amidst its massive floor space and has a reputation for food as well as its 3 different, comprehensive alcohol menus (1 multipaged masterpiece for beer alone).

Having only experienced Cookie on a Friday night as it heated up with the after work/uni crowd, although the Thai inspired menu looked interesting it has either been the wrong end of the evening or so crowded your senses can be almost too overstimulated to contemplate eating.

When a friend suggested this be the perfect place for a long lunch, while the rest of Melbourne got excited over a football match - I was quick to agree. Weekend lunch at Cookie is not about DJ’s or atmosphere (of which the place has by the bucket load at night), the place was uncharacteristically quiet though the private dining “rooms” created by the row of Juliet balconies were of course already claimed. We were confident however that by the time our food arrived and the starting siren had blown they’d be a place for us out in the sun, overlooking Swanston Street, and that’s pretty much what happened.

The menu is divided into three sections offering small, medium and large plates. Just like clothing sizes for women, there is no guessing just how tiny or generous each serving size will be. Cookie tends to be on the roomy side, as small turned out to be quite a generous entrée and medium close to a regular serve. I’m glad we didn’t order any large dishes – as we would have had to have stayed all night as well as the afternoon to devour them. Though that wouldn’t have really been a problem, in our own little balcony world.

So the food. Sadly, there is no website to get the exact details from an online menu. I do remember a delicious Italian Pinot Grigio for Friuli. A crisp light white, perfect for lunch. Actually, I’d had this wine a number of times before and swear that despite it being so drinkable, even sizable amounts haven’t resulted in a hangover! To accompany the wine, conversation and glorious sunshine we ordered three dishes. One small but plentiful offering of shrimps (I’m sure they were described as prawns, but they weren’t by the general Australian definition) with some vegetable content, wrapped in a large rice noodle to create two rolls. They were served with a soy sauce. It was flavoursome but nothing to rave about. A medium dish of “fried fish” and green papaya salad was a little puzzling. The fish component was tasty but didn’t contain any visible chunks of fish – more a liquid matter that had been deep fried, to create this crispy, lacy layer underneath the pawpaw. The accompanying dressing was based on fish sauce, citrus and sugar. Strange but compellingly moreish. Lastly a simple dish of sweet potato and eggplant in coconut milk. Both went well with rice.

Cookie has many quirks – the plastic bowls to eat from, the bill presented in a Golden Book and waiters that ran both hot and cold. Overall the food was better than average bar food and a reasonable price – but I’m sure it tasted better eating it out on our private little patio.

Update March 2007: I've eaten at Cookie a number of times in the last 6 months and it grows on me more each time. Most nights the place buzzes and hums and the air traffic controller at the door says "Hm, well we can give you a table but only for an hour because we have a booking". But they can deliver with a subtle speed that doesn't make you feel rushed. Each time I explore a different section of the menu. The drunken prawns are worth a taste. The soft shell crabs with fish broth are great. The rice salad with pear and avocado - very odd, but kind of works. Definitely quirky.

More eating in Wellington

Land of the long white cloud maybe, but to me New Zealand could be renamed the land of the long corn fritter (with a crisp white wine on the side). Fritters, fritters, fritters – what is it with the Kiwi’s and their desire to encapsulate random vegetables in a batter and cook it up like some kind of savoury pikelet? In 5 days I had beetroot, chickpea, fetta and mint fritters (all in the same little patty, surprisingly nicer than it sounds) and sampled 3 different corn fritters of varying quality – from doughy to crispy.









Corn fritters with a great salad at The Flying Fish Café, Martinborough.





To balance this out there were plentiful local sauvignon blancs to be tasted. For balance, some good reds as well.















A Wairarapa sauv blanc as the sun goes down, The White Swan, Greytown.



As I have mused before, eating in Wellington can be variable. This time was no exception. I took a punt on an eatery, named after 2 opposing compass points, that was so bad I wouldn’t know where to start critiquing it. As I ate my way around Wellington and the Wairarapa there were also frequent servings of dishes that bore little resemblance to it’s menu description – aioli which was chutney and yoghurt, shitake spring rolls without a hint of mushroom of any sort, a macchiato made with steamed milk…But in fairness it is time to heap some praise on a local establishment that has been serving very happy Wellingtonians for the past 15 years.

The Boulcott Street Bistro resides in a local landmark, a 19th century peaked roof cottage on a steep road leading into the CBD. The first hurdle was the fact that this popular establishment takes no booking. It was a cold night and the outline of happy diners could be glanced though the condensation fogged front windows. Inside the place was buzzing and cosy. Despite getting there within 45 minutes of opening the restaurant was almost full and we were placed up the narrow stairs in the private dinning room in the attic. Each time the wind blew the windows rattled and the little wooden building shook. The night before there had been an earthquake and the movement unsettled me a little. But with pre-dinner drinks efficiently dispensed and an excellent bottle of Spy Valley merlot opened, we relaxed into the experience.

The menu is described as ‘modern bistro’. Francophile food is not the best choice for the dairy intolerant, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fare on offer. The special of the day was whitebait, which made my heart sing. “Real” whitebait, little worms of the waterways, are boneless morsels which bear no resemblance to the little fish sold by that name in Australia. As a child I spent a chilly day standing in a river with a distant cousin catching the tiny critters, which makes me even more endeared towards them. Usually they are dished up in the ubiquitous national fritter, but the Boulcott Street Bistro wrapped them in a thin omelette with a hint of garlic making this the most delicious entrée I have eaten anywhere in recent memory.

For mains, the chef replaced the mash for steamed, small gourmet potatoes to make a cream-free dish of mahi mahi on a bed of mushrooms and spinach – making it still tasty but very healthy. Others opted for a classic steak with béarnaise sauce and chicken with green beans. Conversation slowed down as we ate - for once our fussy family had hit the jackpot. Some even had dessert. Their famous crème Brule was devoured and a pineapple sorbet made in house got 5 stars. At (NZ)$275, for 4 people eating 2 courses each, with wine and pre-dinner drinks, the Boulcott Street Bistro hit all the right marks, with high commendation to the waitress navigating those narrow stairs laden with plates with a smile on her face.

For more reviews of the good, the bad and the indifferent in Wellywood check out my previous post.

wine appreciation

The Incoherent Blogger:

A Thai feast supreme
Taste explosion, good friends, wine
How I ache today!

Thai Classic - Nicholson St, North Carlton
A gathering of good friends to celebrate being alive for another year - all my favourite foods, from the best local Thai restaurant

(photos token - too much frivolity to focus)

The menu

Starters
Lemon prawns “Thai style” – raw, marinated in chilli, lemon, garlic, fish sauce – a challenge for even the hardiest chilli eater, but worth the pain



(we'd almost finished them, but Anne Marie thoughtfully arranged the last one)

Fish cakes




Spring rolls – vegetarian and prawn

Mains
Paw paw salads
Beancurd and ginger stiry fry
Whole snapper – deep fried with curry (2 versions)
Whole Trout – steamed with spices
Seafood curry ‘custard’
Stir fried greens
Bean shoots and tofu
Seafood stir fry
Pad Thai – vegetarian and prawn
Thai style prawns (with a lot of fire!)
Red curry duck with lychees

There was more…only by that point in the evening my experience was of great flavours, laughter and…Tasmanian champagne, Pinot Grigio from the Mornington Peninsula, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (rather a number of different bottles)

The chef presented us with a couple of very pretty fruit platters




(No the melon ball didn't come like this, someone thoughtfully replaced on the plate when I grabbed my camera!)

Followed by a change of venue – frangelico with fresh limes (from the garden) and ice, orange peel in dark chocolate, dried fruit, Turkish delight, paneforte…and who knows what else. Some singing to that Martha Wainwright classic (you know the one), some tarnishing of ones own reputation and much appreciation of the new chairs.

dish of the year

Cerviche at Arintji.

No picture - so you will get 1,000 words instead :)

Imagine a small, white ovoid bowl. At the bottom is a rectangle of green banana leaf.

In the bowl sits slices of kingfish. Narrower strips than sashimi.

This delicately flavoured fish has been marinated in coconut milk, slices of unexpectedly firey red chilli and fine slivers of lime leaves. I'm guessing there's lime juice in there too.

The mouthful is sweet, creamy, tangy and if you chance upon the chilli - explosive.

So good - we finished the meal with a second serve!