cuisine

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

February 18, 2009

Maha: siblings who lunch

Agnes cuisine, eating out, lunch, melbourne, middle eastern, siblings who dine/lunch, suburb

On the Friday before Australia Day, Bro took the day off, so we organised to have lunch in the city. Rather than going for cheap Asian again (like the other lunches we’d had recently), we went down to Maha Bar & Grill.

After looking at the rather awkwardly sized lunch menu we decided to go for a soufra (banquet). There are 3 options available – two courses for $35, three courses for $40 and four courses for $45. We decided that we didn’t want dessert and choose the two course option.

Not too long after we had ordered, the first course came out on a wooden board. On the board there was a selection of mezze: marinated olives, char grilled eggplant, warm and crunchy runner beans, rather good hummus, cucumber topped with harissa and a feta-ish cheese, a carrot salad, and pita bread.

Everything was really tasty, and I particularly liked the cucumber – it was a great way of serving a mostly disinteresting vegetable! Almost everything can be jazzed up with spiciness and cheese!

We didn’t wait long for the second course, which also came out on a wooden board. On the board was butterfish with pinenuts and pomegranante seeds, fattoush, chargrilled lamb mince balls with heirloom tomatoes, capscium dip, cous cous with raisins, and more pita bread.

The smokey, garlicky lamb balls were nicely spiced, charred on the outside, and served quite raw in the middle – the capscium dip complimented them well. I enjoyed the heirloom tomatoes, and since Bro doesn’t like raw tomatoes I got to eat them all!

The butterfish (at the back) was also very good, perfectly cooked and juicy.

Bro and I both really, really enjoyed our lunch. The amount of food was just right and, more importantly, delicious. At lunch it’s particularly good value – at dinner it’s a bit more expensive. Judging by the meal we had though, I’m sure it would still be worth it!

Maha Bar & Grill
21 Bond Street, Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9629 5900

January 21, 2009

Persimmon

Agnes cafe, cuisine, eating out, lunch, mod aus, st kilda road, suburb

The other week, Alastair, Benisa and I went to the NGV to see the Andreas Gursky exhibition.

Andreas Gursky, a German photographer, takes large scale colour photographs of scenes of modern life that are often highly detailed. At the exhibition are some fantastic photos – one of my favourites was titled Nha Trang, a shot of a factory floor where woven baskets and chairs are made. Really, you just have to see these photos in person – some are simply astounding – because they are MASSIVE and seeing them in a book or online doesn’t have the same effect.

It would be great to own one of his photos, but alas, (according to Wikipedia) he holds the record for the highest price paid at auction for a single photographic image – a measley GBP 1.7 million in early 2007 for 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001), a shot of a discount store (this is in the exhibition).

It’s the first Australian exhibition of his work and the NGV is the only Australian venue for the show. Andreas Gursky can been seen until 22 February 2009. For more info about him, see his page on artsy.net.

After we had seen enough of the photos, we went to Persimmon for lunch. I had been keen to try Persimmion after reading about visits that other Melbourne food bloggers had made – see Tomatom, 1001 dinners, 1001 nights and Eat (almost) anything.

Persimmion is located at the back of the NGV, overlooking the Grollo Equiset garden. The restaurant only opens at lunchtime (between 11am-4pm, closed Tuesdays).

We were given a selection of some nice warm little rolls.

Benisa started with a mezze plate of green olive tapenade, smoked aubergine puree, marinated mushrooms and artichokes, braised red peppers and toasted ciabatta ($14).

Alastair and I shared a serve of deep fried soft shell school prawns with garlic aioli ($12). Eaten whole, the little prawns were simply done, but delicious! If you’ve ever eaten a prawn head or tail you’ll know the intense the prawn flavour is. We gobbled these up in no time!

After our starters, there was a longer than normal wait for our mains, as the restaurant had filled up.

Ben had the braised ox cheek burger, served with beer battered onion rings and fat chips ($16). This looked great! The meat was fork tender.

Lisa had had the pan fried silver dory, with cauliflower cream, pickled onions, carrot ribbons and watercress ($24).

Alastair had the plats du jour, which on Fridays is pan fried Atlantic salmon with caramelised chicory, citrus fruits and rocket ($28). On the subject of the plats du jour, on Sundays they do a roast of the day with all the trimmings. I’m tempted to go back on a Sunday already!

And I opted for the three onion risotto with sweet white onion puree, red onion marmalade and grilled spring onions ($19). It was pleasant and creamy with the grains still having some firmness. The red onion marmalade was quite sweet.

After a wee rest, we were then on to dessert. The descriptions of the desserts were very intriguing on the menu and I couldn’t let us leave without trying something.

I choose the coconut parfait for Alastair and me – it came with roast pineapple and toasted almonds, sago and “Malibu” foam ($13). Unfortunately, Alastair didn’t like my choice! The desserts seemed much more “inventive” than the rest of the menu and mine was more interesting than delicious. The Malibu foam tasted quite strongly of the liqueur (ie alcoholic) and the roasted pineapple was strongly flavoured (not really a surprise) but was quite good with the nuts. The dessert worked better when the components were eaten together rather than separate, but again, it was more interesting than delicious.

Benisa shared the iced nougat with banana marshmallow and bitter chocolate ($13).

It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon – it definitely beat going to work! The restaurant and setting is lovely and prices are reasonable. NGV members get a 10% discount.

Persimmon
Café/Bistro
Ground Level
NGV International
180 St Kilda Road
Melbourne

January 19, 2009

Victoria Street Lunar New Year Festival 2009

Agnes cuisine, eating out, food event, richmond, suburb, vietnamese

There’s a new year coming – Chinese/Lunar New Year! Celebrations have started around Melbourne to ring in the Year of the Ox, which officially starts on 26 January (which also happens to be Australia Day this year). There were festivities in Footscray the other weekend that I missed, but which Towser from Spot4Nosh has blogged about. And yesterday, there was a festival in Victoria Street, Richmond.

Victoria Street was closed to traffic between Hoodle and Church Streets, and along its length were food stalls, rides, random knick knack sellers, performances, and information stands. Food wise, it was Vietnamese, and there was lots of deep fried stuff, grilled food, and skewered items, with most stalls offering similar things.

Top left: Beef in betel leaves being grilled.
Top right: Corn on the cob!
Bottom left: Rice cakes (?) being cooked.
Bottom right: Bananas in sticky rice. I haven’t tried these yet, and got too full for one! It’ll have to go on my “to eat” list next time.

Top left: Chive cakes.
Top right: Skewers, skewers, skewers!
Bottom left: More skewers!
Bottom right: Sugar cane. Bro and I shared a cup of sugar cane juice, but we wanted straight sugar cane juice like we’d had in Hong Kong. The juice was mixed with something citrusy (cumquats?) and just wasn’t the same.

Top left: Dried squid for sale.
Top right: Random pork sausage on a stick.
Bottom left: Deep fried Mung bean cake thing topped with a prawn.
Bottom right: Inside you could see the mung beans. It was soft and fairly flavourless.

Top left: Deep fried prawns on a stick.
Top right: Beef in betel leaves. My favourite item of the day. I could’ve eaten many of these sticks! Fortunately I restricted myself to one.
Bottom right: Pork jerky in different flavours. I didn’t buy any (I’m not sure my teeth could handle it yet) but I do like this jerky far more than is healthy.
Bottom right: Egg rice cake with a sweetish, fish saucey, vinegary sauce that I poured over. The rice cakes themselves didn’t have much flavour, although Bro said that they had a fragrance that put him off (he thought almond, I thought perhaps coconut). And BOY, you should’ve seen how much oil some the vendors were using to cook these.

Yesterday turned out warmer than I was expecting, and the sun and heat meant we soon wilted. Plus the oiliness and deep fried factor of most foods, also meant that it wasn’t long before we couldn’t face eating yet another unhealthy item (unusual for Bro and I, but there you have it). At least we have another year to recover!

Disclosure: I didn’t take as many photos as I wanted to. However, we went to the Vic Street Lunar New Year Festival a couple of years ago (before I started blogging) so I have supplemented this post with some of those photos. Sneaky!

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

December 16, 2008

Soy sauce chicken wings

Agnes chinese, cuisine, recipe

So it was my birthday in the weekend. I organised a low key BBQ to mark the occasion – and of course it was the wettest day this year. It rained ALL FREAKING DAY. Nevertheless, I sent Alastair out in the rain to tend the BBQ.

Whenever we host a BBQ, I prefer not to cook raw chicken. No side of food poisoning for me thanks! So if I do chicken – normally wings – I poach them beforehand in a soy sauce mixture.

This is my favourite way of doing wings because they are sooooooooooooo good. The poaching ensures that the meat is tender and slides off the bones, and the soy sauce and star anise gives it a wonderful flavour. The wings don’t have to go on the BBQ either – whenever I make a batch I always eat a couple that have just been poached. I can’t resist them!

The poaching liquid can be reused and will develop more flavour as it ages. To store the sauce just boil it for about 5 minutes afterwards, cool completely, and store it in the freezer. The recipe calls for rock sugar (you can buy it from an Asian supermarket) but if you don’t have any you could use brown sugar. I would recommend tracking down rock sugar though, it seems to have a different sweetness (or maybe that’s just in my head…).

Soy sauce chicken wings

Adapted from the Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen

About 2 kilos of wings (or you could use a whole chicken if desired)
3 cups thin soy sauce
2/3 cup black/dark soy sauce
2/3 cup Chinese rice cooking wine
500g yellow rock sugar
1 & 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 heaped teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
8 star anise
3 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed

Rinse the wings under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

In a large pot, combine all the other ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

When the rock sugar has completely dissolved, taste it. It should be fairly salty, but also have a touch of sweetness. Add more sugar if necessary.

Add the wings (do this in two batches if you can’t fit them all in the sauce) and return the sauce to a boil over medium-high heat. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.

Cover and cook for about 20 minutes (longer for a whole chicken – approximately 40-45 minutes. A whole chicken will also need to be turned halfway through).

If not doing another batch, turn off the heat and let the wings sit in the sauce for another 20 minutes. They can now either be eaten or cooled and saved for a BBQ.

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