restaurant

March 19, 2010

Sydney: Doyles on the Beach

Agnes australia, cuisine, eating out, lunch, mod aus, restaurant, sydney, travel

To complete our weekend of sea, sailing and sun in Sydney, Alastair and I went to Watsons Bay with my MIL Annette, her husband Terry, plus Alastair’s Uncle Ken and Aunt Rayleen.

Being in the stunning Watsons Bay, we went to Doyles on the Beach for lunch. I hadn’t heard of Doyles before, but Terry told us that he had eaten there previously – 30 years ago. While that may sound like a while ago, seafood has been sold on the site since 1885 and the restaurant has been owned and operated by the family for over 5 generations. Amazing!

We had a quick wander around Watsons Bay prior to lunch to work up an appetite. It was another beautiful Sydney day, warm and still.

When lunch time came, we were seated at one of the tables under the verandah looking out to the ocean.

The tables had a rather fabulous view for lunch. It was only slightly marred by people lining up for tables, but they soon dispersed.

We were given some nice crispy bread rolls before the food arrived.

I had the Doyles selection ($39) – which came with blue swimmer crab, a stuffed jumbo prawn, a couple of King prawns, some fried whiting fillets, smoked salmon, and a small amount of chips. Everything was really good and a good balance of deep fried versus non deep fried. Don’t you hate it when you order a seafood selection and it’s all deep fried?

Alastair had food envy when he saw my meal, particularly with the crab, which was particularly moist and sweet. Being a good wife, I did share. Here’s a shot of the inside of the stuffed jumbo prawn. It was filled with bacon, sultanas, egg, spinach, leeks and pine nuts and covered in beer batter. It was really tasty, with a great crispy batter and not at all oily. Same for the whiting fillets. Chips were good too.

Alastair ordered the Tasmanian Atlantic salmon fillet, which was pan fried and served on a dill and potato galette with lemon infused olive oil ($36.90). He said it was okay, but he had food envy which caused post ordering regret, I think!

I didn’t take a photo of all the meals, but I snuck a shot of Rayleen’s meal – she had the barramundi fish and chips (you could also order whiting, snapper, flathead, or john dory at various prices). It was HUGE. It could possibly be the most expensive fish and chips ever at $40.30 but it did look fantastic.

We finished with sticky date pudding to share. Everyone was far too full to do this justice. I would advise against ordering dessert and ordering a serve of prawns to share instead!

Oh, and we received some chocolates with the pudding – they had fish stamped on them. Cute!

We had a delightful lunch at Doyles. It’s fairly pricey, but… do you need to scroll up and look at the view again? That’s the price to feel like a fancy schmancy person for a couple of hours, my friends. Plus the seafood was good, so it seems to be the case of “do one thing, do it well”. However, it does mean that if you’re not a seafood eater, there’s no love for you here – with ONE dish on the menu for non seafood eaters (steak) it’s incredibly slim pickings.

After lunch it was time to head to the airport and say farewell to beautiful Sydney. We returned to Melbourne with Annette and Terry, who had spent four weeks in NZ previously and stayed with us for a week before heading home to the UK.

And so began a week of eating…. which I will eventually post about! I have a huge backlog, but will try and find the time to clear it as much as possible.

Doyles on the Beach,
11 Marine Parade,
Watsons Bay NSW
Phone: (02) 9337 2007

March 9, 2010

Provenance: Valentine’s Day Berry degustation

Agnes collingwood, cuisine, degustation, dinner, eating out, mod aus, restaurant, suburb

On Valentine’s Day, Dany, the Boys and I headed to Provenance for a berry degustation. The original plan had been to hold the event as a picnic in the Edinburgh Gardens, but with the weather forecast predicting showers, it was held inside the restaurant – picnic style on astro turf!

Berry degustation at Provenance Food & Wine

Thanks to Dany for the pic!

All the tables and chairs had been moved out, the entire floor astro turfed, and everyone sat on “picnic blankets” (I think they may have been tablecloths!) for the duration of the meal – fun!

The theme being berries, everything we ate involved berries of some kind. When we arrived, we were greeted with a bottle of Point Leo Road Salmon Blanc de Noir, and warmed ciabatta along with raspberry infused salt and strawberry infused olive oil.

I couldn’t really taste the raspberry in the salt – it just seemed really salty! But it was a lovely colour. The olive oil did have a faint strawberry flavour, and the bubbly went down rather well.

Next up were grilled chicken skewers with strawberries, balsamic vinegar and rocket salad. I’m not a huge fan of fruit with meat, but found that the balsamic vinegar really brought the strawberries and chicken together.

After that we received venison skewers on celeraic mash and blueberry sauce. I wasn’t too sure about the venison and blueberry sauce combo, but I LOVED the sauce with the celeraic mash.

After that it was time for dessert – not one dessert. Not two desserts. THREE desserts.

The first dessert was a divine summer pudding. Summer pudding has always sounded odd to me – white bread soaked in berry juice? How could that possibly be good? Well, it was. Really good. The bread was all moist and juicy with the berries, and just lovely with a dollop of cream. (I ate all that cream. Hell yeah.)

Dessert #2 was pannacotta with berry compote. It was a good pannacotta – creamy and smooth, with the berry sauce providing some tartness.

And finally, dessert #3 was a bluberry tiramisu topped with shavings of white chocolate. It was a berramisu really, as there didn’t seem to be any coffee in it? It was my least favourite of the desserts, but that could have been due to already eating two rich desserts and three bottles of bubbles (between the four of us). Phew. I was a bit weary by this stage and ready for a nap!

We had a great time though – hopefully there will be another event soon to look forward to.

Provenance
288 Smith Street
Collingwood
Phone: 03 8415 0700

October 2, 2009

Horoki: Dinner

Agnes cuisine, dinner, eating out, japanese, melbourne, restaurant, suburb

Note: This is a scheduled post, Alastair and I are currently eating our way through Japan!

A couple of weeks ago, Alastair and I had dinner with Maria and Daz at Horoki. We ordered several dishes to share.

The first item out was a sashimi and daikon salad. The salad consisted of finely shredded daikon, salad, shredded seaweed, cherry tomatoes, fish roe and soy based dressing. Around the sides of the salad was several pieces of sashimi. The salad was great – crispy, salty, and fresh. I particularly loved the bursts of salty flavour that the seaweed provided.

Next was octopus in garlic butter. This was served with bread – perfect for soaking up all that garlicky buttery goodness!

We ordered four stuffed chicken wings (styled by Maria!). The wings had been deboned and stuffed with leeks (?) and… I forget what else! I do remember that they were juicy and delicious.

This isn’t something that I normally would have ordered, but I’m glad that Maria and Daz did! This is the Teriyaki chicken pizza. The thin crispy base was topped with cheese, teriyaki chicken, seaweed and spring onions.

We ordered two serves of the soft shell crab. Goodness knows what has happened with the photo! The soft shell crab had been battered, deep fried and was served with a lemon mayonnaise. We knew when we ordered that we would enjoy it – hence the two serves – and it met our expectations. Yum.

And last came the roast duck and eggplant – slices of roast duck laid out on slices of eggplant and in a dark plumish(?) type sauce.

I really like the food at Horoki and thoroughly enjoyed dinner.

Read about a previous visit to Horoki here

Horoki
19 Liverpool St
Melbourne 3000
Phone: 9663 2227

September 22, 2009

Farewell lunch at Takumi

Agnes cuisine, eating out, japanese, lunch, restaurant, work lunch

Not only was yesterday my last day before going on four weeks leave, it was also my last day at my current job. Sadness!

A crowd of us went out for a farewell lunch at Takumi, a Japanese restaurant that specialises in wagyu.

I had the wagyu pattie bento box ($13.80). Inside the bento box was sashimi – thinly sliced pieces of scallop and salmon, a big wagyu beef pattie, fresh salad, and rice topped with furikake.

It was very good! The sashimi was nice and fresh, and the pattie was juicy and full of flavour. I really like the furikake on the rice too.

A couple of others on my table had the wagyu beef burger. It was massive and looked awesome. It’s hard to see, but inside it had a big meat pattie, salad and even a fried egg!

And others had the ebi bento box – similar to the pattie bento box except with a couple of crumbed prawns and fish. All the bento boxes came with a bowl of miso soup.

Takumi is tastefully decorated, with chocolate brown walls and a polished floor. We were a large group, and the staff were friendly and helpful in dealing with our orders. It was a lovely place for lunch on my last day.

I will really miss my colleagues (particularly Twinsy!) but on the upside, I have a holiday to look forward to. We leave in a few hours! It has been almost two years since our last decent holiday, so I’m looking forward to some long overdue time away.

I probably won’t be posting while I’m away, but I have a few posts scheduled to publish over the next few weeks so keep coming back for some food goodness. I will probably be slower than usual in replying to comments though. See you when we get back!

May 24, 2009

Kum Tong

Agnes chinese, cuisine, dinner, doncaster, eating out, restaurant, suburb

The Parents went home today (awwwww!). Each time they visit, it goes smoother and smoother. I’ve stopped reverting into a sullen teenager (can’t say the same of my Bro though… ahem…) and they give me less lectures… err advice. We must all be mellowing with age! In fact, I don’t think I was snappy at them at all this time, and I only received one lecture. Maybe two if you count the advice on eating more fish – they bought us two humongous jars of omega-3 supplements because they were concerned about our fish intake! Rather random, but sweet.

When mum and dad were still here, we went out to dinner on Mother’s Day. It’s not normally a day we celebrate, being a meaningless commercial invention and all that, but my parents booked it, so off we went.

Mum and dad had seen an ad in a Chinese newspaper for a set menu with crab at Kum Tong. There were different set menus – one for four people, one for six people, and one for ten people. There were five of us, so we paid extra for an additional person and choose the four person menu. Unfortunately we didn’t seem to receive extra food, apart from oysters and rice. Mum and dad complained but didn’t get anywhere.

We started with a thick clear soup, with scallops, shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

Next were steamed oysters. Everyone received two – one topped with black bean, and the other with a kind of spicy oil. I thought the black bean overpowered the oysters, and found the spicy one more enjoyable. I do prefer my oysters plain though.

After that – CRAB! It was stir fried with spring onions and XO sauce, and sitting on a bed of noodles. The crab was difficult to get out of the shell – I think it needed a bit more cooking time. We made a terrible mess of the table pulling the crab apart.

After the crab came a plate of Chinese vegetables – I think gai lan / Chinese broccoli. I like this vegetable, it has slightly bitter leaves and a sweeter stem. The stem is my favourite part.

A plate of poached white cut chicken came out at the same time. The chicken was really good – very tender and smooth.

Steamed fish is not that hard – and it was good.

A bowl of tong shui (sweet soup). This was red bean and sago (although you can’t see the red beans, they were hidden at the bottom). It was sweeter than I would make, but I enjoyed it. Ignore the messy table.

And we finished with some fruit – some rather sour oranges and better grapes.

Kum Tong didn’t receive the parental seal of approval (the bar is very high) so probably wasn’t worth the trip across town. At least it was a place of their choosing!

Kum Tong
19-21 Andersons Creek Road,
Doncaster East
Phone: 03 9841 8688

May 16, 2009

Work lunches: Mrs Parma’s

Agnes cuisine, eating out, lunch, melbourne, pub grub, restaurant, suburb, work lunch

Oh hai! I’ve been very quiet on the food blogging front. If you’ve guessed it’s because I haven’t been doing much cooking since mum and dad arrived – you would be correct!

(How has it been? It has been fan-fricken-tastic. I haven’t been this spoilt since… well, since the last time they came for a visit!)

So even though I haven’t been cooking I thought I’d put up a little post about a lunch I had with colleagues recently.

We used to have a weekly Friday lunch club at work. One person in particular had the duty of organising the Friday lunches, and when he left the weekly lunches stopped. Not too long ago, we found a volunteer happy to take over the lunch organising duties, and the inaugural Friday Lunch Club 2.0 was held at Mrs Parma’s.

While there are a few other options on the menu, if you don’t like parmas, this is not the place for you! Mrs Parma’s is all about parmas and beer. The website states that it is Melbourne’s first and only bar/bistro that specialises in parmagianas and Victorian micro brewery beers.

With the parmas, first you choose a base: chicken, veal or eggplant. Next, you choose a topping. You could go the original route (ham, Napoli and cheese) or go for something a bit different like the Greek (olive, onion, tomato & feta salsa) or pumpkin (roasted pumpkin, feta cheese and caramelised onions).

I choose a Mexican chicken parma, topped with tomato salsa, sour cream, guacamole and jalapenos – I can’t resist jalapenos and sour cream! Chips and salad were bought out in separate bowls to share amongst the table. Reading other reviews online, I see that you can ask for a top up of chips for no extra charge.

And the verdict? It was pretty good. The chicken was moist, and not too oily, and I enjoyed it with the jalapenos and sour cream. While it wasn’t the best parma out there, and definitely not one to win over a parma purist, I enjoyed it. I thought it was good that the chips and salad were shared amongst the table, as the parmas were so large that we didn’t finish the sides off anyway. It was a good Friday lunch club choice!

Mum and dad are off home next weekend (gulp), so I’ll be getting back into the cooking grove shortly. Think I’ll be starting off Soup Sundays again!

Mrs Parma’s
25 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria
Phone : (03) 9639 2269

March 29, 2009

Baba: presents Animal Farm

Agnes brunswick, cuisine, degustation, eating out, food and wine festival, food event, restaurant, siblings who dine/lunch, suburb, turkish

This post is all about offal. If offal makes you squeamish, you may want to skip this one!

Did anyone do any Melbourne Food and Wine Festival events? I only ended up doing one thing – Animal Farm at Baba. Details from the program:

“a seven course menu exploring the flavours of Turkey and the Middle East, matched with wines from Spain and Italy. Featuring bone marrow, heart, brains, tripe, liver and kidney mezze, claypots and kebabs, with Turkish delight, gelato and Turkish coffee to finish, this is a culinary feast not for the weak at heart – but for those who eat it.”

Only Bro and I went to this dinner – Alastair stayed home and had a “safe” dinner of curry. 🙂

A long table was set up in the middle of the restaurant, with tables for normal diners around the edges of the dining area. We were told that the food would be served communally, but as not every seat was filled there was space between groups and each group received their own dishes.

The first course was a rich and smooth chicken liver parfait with middle eastern melbas and cornichons. A rather safe dish to start off with and good smeared on the crispy bread.

Next was roast bone marrow with smoked lemon, caper and parsley salad and Turkish bread. Little dishes of pink salt from Tibet were placed on the table. To eat the bone marrow, we scraped it out of the bone, spread it on the toast, sprinkled with a bit of salt and then topped it with some of the parsley salad. Mhmmmm it was buttery and soft, plus mildly meaty with the salt and parsley helping to balance out the richness.

The third course was Libyan baked lambs brains in gadaffi pastry and harissa. GAK. The brains felt sooooo greasy and just seemed to coat my mouth in fat. It was the fattiest thing I’ve ever eaten (more than the bone marrow)! Looking around the table at other diners, many seemed to share my distaste. The brains weren’t a very popular course!

Happily, the next course was tripe soup with cumin, currants and coriander. The soup was lovely – very strongly cuminy, and the tripe was cooked until very, very tender (I may be strange, but I thought it looked very pretty in the soup). Every now and again I would get little bits of currant and crunch down on cumin seed (one of my favourite spices).

The fifth course came out in three separate dishes. Oh boy, things were getting heavy!

First we had sweetbreads with basil and tomato. I don’t think I’ve had sweetbreads before, but I really liked them. They had a kind of firm, bouncy texture and reminded me of chicken nuggets.

Then there was a sumac seared ox liver with a glazed onion and chickpea salad. The ox liver was good too – rather rich, but the zingy sourness from the sumac and chickpea salad helped cut through the richness.

And last for this course was a za’atar grilled lamb kidney kebab. It was bought out to the table last, and we were already eating the sweetbreads and liver by the time it arrived. As soon as it was set down, all I could smell was that awful kidney scent. I ate a kidney, and while it tasted fine I couldn’t get over that smell. Even if my stomach hadn’t been approaching full I wouldn’t have been able to eat the whole kebab.

The last savoury course was an East Brunswick bunny boil-up. In the boil up was rabbit kafta dumplings, chicken hearts, lamb sweetbreads and peas. We also received a small dish of pilaf. The pilaf was really good, lovely and buttery, but unfortunately after so much offal we could only eat a couple of bites. The dumplings, hearts and sweetbreads in the light broth were all fine and good, but even the most hardened offal lover would have been a bit weary by this stage (and we were a bit…. weary….).

And finally, to finish, there was Turkish delight gelato, served in cones with a lump of Turkish delight on top. Thank goodness dessert didn’t follow the offal theme! The faintly rosewater flavoured gelato was a good way to end the meal and I loved the cones.

We didn’t stay for coffee – we had been sitting there for about four hours and we were desperate to get out of the wooden seats. The seats would’ve been fine for a normal dinner but four hours called for a cushion! Food wise, it obviously wasn’t the most balanced dinner (did you notice the distinct lack of any green stuff?) but we knew what we were getting into. In the whole we thoroughly enjoyed it, with only the brains and kidneys kinda defeating us. It was definitely a meal for the brave….. or for the ones with cast iron stomachs!

Baba Levantine Trading Company
80 Lygon Street, Brunswick East
Phone: 9380 8534

March 3, 2009

Wellington: Regal Chinese Restaurant

Agnes chinese, cuisine, dumpling/yum cha, eating out, new zealand, restaurant, travel, wellington

The day we flew out of Wellington, we had yum cha with my parents at Regal Chinese Restaurant. We’ve been to Regal a couple of times with mum and dad for yum cha – there’s always a good selection of food and my parents seem to like it.

There’s not much to say about yum cha that I haven’t said before so this post is light on words and heavy on photos.

Fried taro dumpling (wu gok).

Deep fried crescent dumplings (ham sui gok).

Steamed BBQ pork buns. One day I’m going to try making these. From scratch (including the BBQ pork). I have made my own BBQ pork before, so I’m halfway there.

Steamed pork dumplings (sui mai).

I think these were pork and ginger dumplings.

This looks like the more well known radish cake, but it’s actually taro cake. It’s made in a similar way to the radish cake but using taro. This was really good! I don’t see taro much in Australia, and eating this reminded me of how much I like it.

Speaking of radish cake, Mum used to make it when we were younger. We would eat it for breakfast with a chilli and garlic sauce. Radish cake is yet another thing I’m going to make one day.

My favourite savoury dish – chicken and sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf (lou mai gai). Here’s a tip if you’re ever at yum cha: don’t let them cut the parcel open (they’ll want to, with their scissors). If it’s cut, you get leaf bits all in the rice. Unwrap it instead!

One of these prawn dumplings (har gow) made a beautiful dive off my chopsticks and somersaulted its way under a chair.

I think these were chive dumplings.

Rice noodle rolls (cheong fun) – love ’em!

A basket of chicken feet (fung jiao).

And, as always, I refuse to leave until I’ve eaten an egg tart.

Regal Chinese Restaurant
7-9 Courtenay Place
Wellington
New Zealand
Phone: +64 4 384 6656

January 14, 2009

Kaneda Japanese Restaurant: Siblings who lunch

Agnes cheap eats, cuisine, eating out, japanese, lunch, melbourne, restaurant, siblings who dine/lunch, suburb

I had my four wisdom teeth out yesterday afternoon. The procedure went fine – it was under a general anaesthetic, so I went to sleep and when I woke up I had four less teeth! In fact, the hardest part was having to fast with no eating after 8am or drinking after 10am. Particularly not drinking – it was HOT yesterday. I must admit that I was naughty and took a few tiny sips of water to wet my mouth after 10am.

Today I’m not feeling too bad. The inside of my mouth is swollen and is a touch uncomfortable. The discomfort is not bad enough for me to take painkillers yet, although I do have some on hand if this changes. I also made soup to get me through the next few days – pumpkin, and beef and vegetable. Soup is okay, but I can’t wait until I can eat normal food again!

Before my surgery, Bro and I had another lunch together. I felt like cheap Asian food again, and we went into the Mid City Arcade on Bourke Street and came across Kaneda Japanese restaurant.

They had a good selection of bento boxes on the menu, so we both selected one.

I had the Unagi Tempura Set, which came with the unagi tempura, sashimi, fried chicken, a spring roll, green salad, miso soup and rice ($13.50). You can’t really go wrong with something deep fried – certainly not with me – and the unagi was great! The batter looks a bit darker than you normally see, but it was still nice and light. And it had that yummy unagi fattiness… mhmmmm….

Bro had the assorted sushi and salmon sashimi set, which came with salmon sashimi, assorted sushi, fried chicken, spring roll, green salad, miso soup and rice ($13.50).

With all the deep fried items it wasn’t a particularly healthy lunch, but it was quick, casual and a reasonable price.

Kaneda Japanese Restaurant
Shop 6
Mid City Arcade
200 Bourke Street
Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9663 8802

January 8, 2009

Japanese ITO Noodle Cafe: Siblings who lunch

Agnes cheap eats, cuisine, eating out, japanese, lunch, melbourne, restaurant, siblings who dine/lunch, suburb

Bro had a day off recently, and came into the city to have lunch with me. We went to ITO Japanese Café on Bourke Street. When we entered I found that the restaurant was somewhat like the Tardis – it seemed much larger on the inside than the exterior suggested!

I choose an item that was on a specials sheet – the steak don set. The set came with miso soup, salad, a side dish and wafu steak on rice ($14.80). Good stuff.

The side dish was strange however – it tasted like it was soaked in tea or like pickled plums. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was oddness. Fortunately everything else hit the spot.

It was a stinking hot day, so I also had a green tea smoothie ($4.80). It was cool and refreshing, with that slight green tea bitterness.

Bro had the Nabeyaki udon which came with prawn, chicken and a raw egg in a hot pot ($12.50). He was sold by the raw egg!

After he finished his meal, Bro then proceeded to demolish everything that was edible on the table – the remainder of my salad, rice, pickles, AND the orange slice on my drink. I do believe he was hungry!

Japanese ITO Noodle Cafe
122 Bourke Street,
Melbourne
Phone 9663 2788

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