Note: This is a scheduled post. Alastair and I are still in Japan and will be off to HK in the next couple of days!
At my old job, JC (a colleague) and I would tally up favours that we would do for each other. We would mark up the favours on a whiteboard, and from the beginning I was waaaaaaaaaay out in front.
JC offered to take me to lunch before I left work. I’m sure it was a way to equalise the favours board but I never say no to a lunch!
We went to Horoki. During lunchtime, they do a lunch platter for $13.90. You choose rice or bread, and then you pick three items off a list of about ten items. For an extra $2 you can also have a bowl of miso soup.
I choose….
The tuna and tofu salad – discs of lovely soft tofu, flaked tuna and salad. I loved the dressing on top – a sweetish, nutty, sesame sauce.
The mini scotch fillet steak with onion sauce. Some tender beef and a bit of green!
And the salmon and spinach croquettes – deep fried mashed potato with salmon and spinach.
I think it’s a great value lunch. Even though the servings of the three items are small, it’s just the right amount for lunch. Everything is tasty and beautifully presented.
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.
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!
The other weekend Alastair and I started things off with a rather good brunch at Q Eleven. It must’ve been a sign of things to come because we enjoyed good eating for the rest of the weekend. That evening we met up with Maria and Daz for dinner at Horoki before going to see Tripod. Dinner was great, and Tripod were fantastic. On Sunday we had a home made breakfast (pictured above) with scrambled eggs, fried chorizo, a big fat grilled mushroom and hash browns (supermarket ones… I’m not ashamed to say that I like them!). For afternoon tea later that day there was freshly baked banana cake with a cup of strong tea, and then finally for dinner Bro and I made Hainanese chicken rice. It was so good. I just about had to roll my way out of bed on Monday.
But back to Q Eleven. Alastair and I were in South Melbourne for my regular market wander. Food shopping bores Alastair senseless, so he rarely gets dragged out for food shopping these days. Bro and I normally go together, but as he was busy Alastair had to be the dutiful husband. I thought that he needed some food to shore up his patience so we headed to a cafe for breakfast.
Q Eleven is “cozy”, and seems pretty popular, so we were fortunate to get seats! It’s popular for good reason – as soon as I opened the menu, I was excited. It’s not just bacon and eggs here! With items like the creamed sago pudding with lime, coconut, berries and yogurt, or the warmed rhubarb and apple compote with pistachio crumb fingers of French toast, or the refried beans, with fried eggs, pumpkin and coriander roesti, salsa and chipotle mayo, choosing only one thing to eat was difficult!
Alastair had the omelette with crispy potato, roasted capscium, feta and gremolata ($13.50). He gave me a taste, and even though I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like open omelettes, this was pretty good. No rubberiness here!
I had the ham and roesti stack ($16.90). It truly was a stack – out came a soft poached egg on top of a slice of Kassler ham, a quinoa and potato roesti, and spinach. Perched at the very top was onion jam, and on the side of the stack was rosemary roasted tomatoes. It was good, the rather salty ham providing the seasoning to the gooey egg, soft roesti and spinach. I really enjoyed it.
Fortified by a good breakfast, we were able to make the market rounds. As for Q Eleven, I would definitely go back – even now I’m still wondering about the creamed sago pudding. Next time!
On Bastille Day last week, we joined Benisa for dinner at the brasserie by Philippe Mouchel. A four course set menu was being served in celebration of all things French (or so the promotional email stated!). When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a guy in a beret playing the accordion. Is an accordion particularly French? I don’t know! It was kind of funny though and fortunately he was pretty good (insert disparaging accordion joke here), since he played the entire evening.
The first course were snails wrapped in cabbage, on top of a poached liquorice bouillon. The snails were diced and mixed with finely cut vegetables inside the cabbage leaf. I think that even people who would normally have issues with snails would have no problems with this dish. I couldn’t really taste the liquorice in the bouillon, but the broth was very nice and worked well with the sweetness of the cabbage. The snail meat reminded me of the texture of paua/abalone – which wikipedia says is a sea snail. That would explain the similarity!
For the second course we received sautéed scallops with couscous and vegetables and Argan oil vinaigrette. Look at those scallops – they were lovely, perfectly cooked and flavoured with ginger and chives. A small amount of cous cous and a couple of little vegetables were on the plate, but the scallops were really the star.
Next course was a slow-braised wagyu ox cheek with carrots and mashed potatoes. I’ve had a larger version of this dish before, when Alastair and I went to the brasserie for lunch a while back, and was happy to eat it again. The meat was very, very tender and braised in that dark, rich sauce. It was on the verge of being too salty, but when eaten with a bit of the smooth mashed potato it was fantastic.
Dessert was chocolate fondant with vanilla anglaise and pistachio ice cream. Hard to go wrong with chocolate fondant, especially when it was –
Mhmmm, gooey……
And finally some petit fours to finish off. Bro and I made everyone wait while we had a cup of tea (served in a very cute little teapot) and finished our petit fours. Yum.
It’s been a long time between Ladies Lunches. Last month I caught up with my friend Emily for a spontaneous lunch. We met at Journal Canteen, but unfortunately it was chock-a-block when we arrived, so we wandered up to Gills Diner instead.
And what a good idea that was! We had a wonderful lunch.
(Excuse the exceptionally shit phone camera pics. Just try and think of the strange blurry, smudgy parts as “artistic”.)
I had one of the specials – a very wintery dish of braised ox tail and mashed potato. I must’ve zoned out when the waiter was describing the dish to me because I thought he said ox tail and grilled cheek. But I’m pretty sure that grilled reddish thing was tongue. Either way, it was very good – all tender meat and dark, savoury sauce.
Em and I shared dessert: lemon delicious pudding with vanilla ice cream. We were warned that it would take 15 minutes to make – and oh boy was it worth the wait. The pudding was divine! The top was a delicate lemon sponge, and underneath the sponge was a tangy lemon sauce. The ice cream was also delicious and flecked with vanilla seeds. We savoured dessert right to the last spoonful and I had a touch of regret that we hadn’t ordered one each!
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
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
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
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
