suburb

April 3, 2010

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival: Heat Beads Hawkers’ Market

Agnes food and wine festival, food event, melbourne, suburb

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival: Hawkers' Market

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is over for another year. I only went to two events this year, and the first was the very popular Heat Beads Hawkers’ Market held at the Queen Victoria Market.

Held on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, there were two sessions on each evening. We attended the later one at 8:30pm on the Tuesday night. A ticket for the event included four vouchers to purchase four small dishes from the various stalls.

I was a bit worried that it would be crazily busy, and the night was going to involve lots of lining up to get food, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. There were twelve restaurants represented, with each restaurant presenting a small selection of their dishes.

As soon as we arrived, we nabbed a table. I specifically chose one that was close to the food stalls and under good lighting.

Alastair and I shared our dishes, so we got to sample eight dishes plus a bonus.

We started at Dainty Sichuan. I was VERY overwhelmed with the choices on offer – the lady at the stall rattled them off at breakneck speed and by the time she got to the end I had forgotten what she had first said! It would have been great to have them listed on a piece of paper. I ended up with a prawn skewer, a chicken wing and some pork ribs. I didn’t actually ask for a chicken wing – I normally steer clear of barbequed chicken – but it ended up on my plate, so I just accepted it. Turns out that the wing was good anyway. The wing and the prawn skewers had a spicy, tongue numbing quality to them from Sichuan peppercorns.

We tried a serve of the goat masala and daal from Chilli India. This was just okay, I thought it was a bit bog standard.

Next up, we tried the pork cheek from Pan Asian. This was VERY fatty, and very tender. I was a bit worried that Alastair would be put off by the fattiness, but it turns out that he was in an eating mood and gobbled it up.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that I specifically choose a seat with good lighting? At this point THEY TURNED OFF THE LIGHTS IN OUR SECTION. Rahhh! Hence the funny lighting in the rest of my photos.

We had the fish grilled in a banana leaf from Laska Me. The fish was tender and moist, with some subtle spices. It was very nice.

From Maedeya, I selected the okonomiyaki and sweet potato. I was surprised that the okonomiyaki was actually pretty good – it was still nice and hot which definitely helped. The texture was very soft, but it was tasty. One of the best dishes we ate that evening.

We also tried the japchae from Hallah. Points for being freshly cooked, but unfortunately taste-wise I found it to be far too sweet.

By this stage we were getting full and I was running out of things I wanted to try! Lots of places had also sold out of dishes as well, which cut down my options. So I gave a voucher to Kenzan @GPO for a serve of their yakisoba and cooked tuna sushi roll. The yakisoba was just so so – like the japchae, I found it too sweet. The sushi roll was nice though.

Thanks to Bro for the picture!

After this we were too full to eat any more savoury food, so I headed to the ice cream stand. You had to pay for ice cream though, and while I normally wouldn’t have minded, I still had two vouchers left! So I figured a compromise would be a banana fritter from Dumpling King, which came with a scoop of ice cream. I don’t know why they stuck sparklers on their banana fritters, but it was cute! Thanks to Bro for taking the photo, because the sparkler fizzled out before I made it back to our table.

Oh, and the banana fritter and ice cream was great.

For my final voucher, I handed it in at Warung Argus and received a serve of black rice pudding. What I had actually wanted from them was the suckling pig, but they had sold out by the 8.30pm session (BOO). The rice pudding was very runny and coconutty, with the rice still quite firm. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing either. Pork would’ve been better!

Bro received an extra voucher from someone who was too full to use all theirs – apparently he looked “deserving”. Heh! He finished with a bowl of laksa!

There was entertainment…. but we were too busy eating….!

While four vouchers each doesn’t sound like a lot, it did end up being quite a lot of food, and we were STUFFED afterwards. While some of the food was just so-so, overall it was a good event and we really enjoyed ourselves.

If it’s on again next year, I do recommend going.

March 31, 2010

The Abyssinian: Week of Eats

Agnes african, cuisine, dinner, eating out, flemington, restaurant, suburb

After our short trip to Sydney, we returned to Melbourne with my in-laws, Annette and Terry in tow. Terry in particular really loves food, so I was keen to take them out for some good meals.

One evening we went to the Abyssinian – and because Terry is outrageously well travelled, he has actually eaten Abyssinian food before…. IN Abyssinia (what’s now known as Ethopia and Eritera). Well. At least Annette had never experienced it before!

The Abyssinian is a very popular restaurant that does food from the Horn of Africa, serving traditional Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking. Every time we go there, it is always packed. We normally order the combination platter, but this time I decided that we should order dishes from the menu.

We had a couple of starters to whet our appetite (not that our appetites needed whetting!). We had the Melaznzany ($6.00), which were cubes of grilled eggplant that had been seasoned and marinated with fresh garlic, olive oil and chillies.

We also had the zucchini starter ($6.00), which was sautéed zucchini with a light, spicy berbere and tomato sauce that had been sprinkled with crushed chillies seeds.

(Note: berbere is a hot spice mixture that is a key ingredient in Ethiopian and Eritrean food. Injera is a sour, pancake like bread that is traditionally made of teff – a grain that isn’t available in Australia. At the Abyssinan it’s made with self raising flour, rice, red sorghum and corn flours. To make injera, the flour is mixed with water and allowed to ferment for several days, before being baked into large pancakes. It comes out soft and spongey, with lots of air holes on one side.)

Both starters came with injera bread rolls. They were fantastic – spicy and packed with flavour. They were oily though. This is not a place that does diet food!

For mains, we ordered five dishes to share between us. A large platter of injera was brought out and the stews were tipped on top. The food is eaten by ripping off small pieces of injera and using the bread to pick up stew.

We had:

The shiro ($15) which was finely ground spiced chickpeas that had been cooked and simmered with olive oil and chopped garlic. Mhmm mhmm, check out that oil. I did say already that it’s not diet food! It made for a spicy, nutty sauce, although I would have loved it if some pieces of chickpea had been left in for texture. This was served in a little pot, and we spooned the hot sauce spooned over the injera as we ate.

The dubba ($18) consisted of large cubes of pumpkin in a thick berbere sauce. This was great, rather spicy, with the pumpkin lending its usual sweetness.

The dorho kulwha ($18) was strips of chicken breast that had been marinated in ghee and African spices and sautéed. It was topped with pureed tomato and simmered in a light creamy sauce with turmeric.

My favourite dish of the night was the derek tibs ($18) – strips of marinated lamb that had been seasoned with spiced clarified butter, green chillies, onions and rosemary and then grilled on a hot pan. The meat was cooked until very dark – and almost burnt – which gave it a deep, almost bitter flavour. It was also very spicy, which I loved! To keep the meat hot, this was also served in a little pot, and we spooned some on to the injera as we ate. I also appreciated the fresh tomato that was a touch cooling against all the spiciness.

And last, we also ordered the goat on kemmam sauce ($20). The goat had been slow cooked with a tangy sauce made of lemon, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. The meat was tender in the moreish sauce.

We also ordered an extra serve of injera ($1) so we could keep mopping up the stews. The problem with having the stews directly on the injera is that the parts below get all soggy and hard to pick up. So extra injera was essential!

I really like the Abyssinian. The food is inexpensive, filling and flavoursome. If it’s your first time, the combination platter is hard to beat, but otherwise I think ordering off the menu is the way to go.

Read about a previous visit to the Abyssinian here.

The Abyssinian
277 Racecourse Road, Flemington
Phone: (03) 9376 8754

March 28, 2010

Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt: food bloggers dinner

Agnes bloggers banquet, cuisine, dinner, eating out, melbourne, mod aus, restaurant, suburb

Last MONTH (I cannot believe how behind I am!) I had the pleasure of attending a food bloggers dinner hosted by Nuffnang at Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt.

You can read other recaps of the dinner at:

Nuffnang
Food Rehab
Half Eaten
Hot or Not
The Gourmet Challenge
Addictive and consuming
I eat therefore I am
Iron Chef Shellie
EssJay Eats

We started with a tour of the kitchen, which might sound dull to non food lovers, but to a whole gaggle of food bloggers, a kitchen tour is a VERY EXCITING THING (yes, so exciting it deserves caps!). The kitchen is open to guests, so people eating at Collins Kitchen can go for a wander and watch the chefs at work at the five cooking stations – sushi, deli, wok, grill and patisserie.

We oohed and ahhed at the fresh ingredients on display, the sexy red meat cutting machine in the deli section, and all the super shiny clean surfaces. Whoever cleans that kitchen – please come and clean mine!

In the wok section, there were two turbo jet wok burners. When they turned on, they sounded like a jet taking off. I didn’t take a photo of them because I was transfixed with a serious case of lust over the burners – I WANT.

There was also a steaming station for fresh dim sum with artfully arranged steamer lids. I wonder who has the job of arranging items in the kitchen in an attractive way?

And now for some food pics! We started with a sushi/sashimi platter. It was all very fresh and good. The fresh wasabi was amazing.

And you can bet that I totally ninjaed the unagi – yum!

Next up was the antipasto platter with rockmelon, prosciutto, liverwurst, mini gherkins, deli meats, roasted vegetables, and tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and basil. I didn’t try everything on this platter, but the liverwurst was fantastic, all smooth and rich.

The tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and basil were also very good.

Next was a tomato, olive and basil foccacia, very so cheesey and soft. I restrained myself to only one piece because I knew there was lots more to come.

Moving along, we received a plate of Asian roast meats with roast pork, roast duck, soy sauce chicken and char siu. I only tried the crispy pork and char siu, but from other reports I should have tried the chicken as well! I thought the crispy pork and char siu weren’t bad, though the crispy pork could’ve been crispier.

There were sauces to go with the roast meats – plum sauce, chilli sauce and a ginger and spring onion one.

As well as a plate of Asian vegetables, which I didn’t eat because I was trying to keep some stomach space spare.

With the roast meats, there was also received a plate of fried rice. The rice was fine, and this is probably just me, but I would normally never eat fried rice with other dishes. To me, fried rice is a meal in itself. So I was kind of wanting plain rice with the roast meats….!

And now for the big guns…. this was the grainfed porterhouse steak, which had been aged for 30 days on the bone, and grilled to medium rare. This was some gorgeous steak, tender and full of flavour.

The steak was served with creamy, buttery, mashed potato, very tasty mushrooms, broccolini and a couple of sauces – a red wine reduction and bernaise.

And finally to end the savoury courses, there was also a mixed seafood platter with grilled scallops, salmon, tuna, Moreton Bay Bugs and large prawns. The sweet, plump scallops were a highlight, as were the Moreton Bay Bugs.

For dessert, a gorgeous looking dessert platter came out. On the platter was a banana millefeuille, chocolate fondant, and various flavours of ice cream – pistachio, passionfruit, strawberry and vanilla. The pastry in the millefeuille was particularly good, and I adored the pistachio the most out of all the ice cream flavours.

And on the other side was a rhubarb crumble with custard and peach melba. I actually thought the peach melba was a pannacotta until I dipped my spoon into it and found it very runny. No one seemed particularly enthused about the peach melba, poor little dessert! Too retro for us??

As you can see, there was a lot of food! The only part that was a bit disconcerting was jumping from one cuisine to another to another, but I realise that was so we experienced a cross selection of dishes on the menu. And I soon got over the cuisine changes once the plates of food were placed in front of me. 😉 It was fantastic to spend the night chatting to fellow food bloggers, so a big thanks to Nuffnang and the Grand Hyatt for the evening!

Disclosure: I dined courtesy of the Grand Hyatt and Nuffnang.

Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt
123 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: (03) 9657 1234

March 24, 2010

Beer DeLuxe: Shinobi Japanese Secret Beer Garden

Agnes cuisine, japanese, melbourne, suburb

Shinobi Japanese beer garden at Beer DeLuxe

In support of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Beer DeLuxe at Fed Square have set up a Japanese “secret” beer garden with a special menu and beers imported from Japan.

When I received an email inviting me to check it out, I was sold at Japanese beer garden. I took Alastair along with me to have a look, and we walked in from the Flinders Street entrance. The outdoor area facing Flinders Street has been modified with a structure of bamboo screens and a noren curtain. Past the curtain, is a courtyard, with an outdoor bar to one side and tables and chairs on the other. It made me wonder where the secret part came in.

We met up with Janis from Beer DeLuxe, who took us on a quick walk around. It turns out that apart from the entrance and the outside bar, there was a small part hidden off to one side, behind white Japanese curtains – ahh I got the secret part then! We were told that it was modelled on a Japanese tea garden, and it was much quieter than the rest of the bar.

I particularly liked the lanterns hanging up in the area, which were surrounded by hand folded paper cranes. Cute!

After our little tour, it was time for food. Quentin, the chef, came out and we had an enjoyable discussion about the menu and the simplicity and flavours of Japanese food, and the importance of presentation. A big thanks to Quentin for taking time out from his evening to chat to us.

This was the gyu tataki – very lightly seared eye fillet with citrus ponzu dressing and a small smattering of Japanese chilli flakes. The quality of the meat was evident – there was nothing to hide behind in this dish. The meat was very rare, very tender and delicious. I could have eaten buckets of this!

We tried the gyuniku negimaki, which were thin slices of grilled eye fillet wrapped around spring onions in teriyaki sauce. I loved the crunch of the spring onions with the meat.

Another item I really liked were the skewers of grilled salmon coated with a mixture of teriyaki and yakitori sauce. The salmon was good, perfectly cooked, with the subtle sauce not masking the flavour of the fish. Behind the salmon we had some crunchy seaweed salad.

We also tried the karaage, little tender and moist pieces of fried chicken which had been marinated with soy, garlic and ginger and then deep fried. You can’t go wrong with fried chicken, no you can’t.

We had the opportunity to taste a couple of the beers available as part of the Japanese beer garden. One was the Temple Soba ale, which is made with toasted buckwheat! Did you know that Australia is apparently the third largest producer of buckwheat? The buckwheat gave the beer an interesting nutty aroma. We also tried the Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, which I seem to recall being told that it was made with rice (someone correct me if I’m wrong!). This was particularly interesting, ever so slightly fruity and very drinkable.

Not that we got sick of beer, but if we had, we could have moved on to these Japanese soft drinks. Alastair loves these because the bottles use marbles as a plug – such a gimmick (but I must admit it’s very cool).

Alternatively, we could have hit the cocktail list. One we tried was the Ginger Ninja, which was made with jasmine tea infused with 42Below Vodka, sake, cucumber and ginger beer. This was very sweet – possibly a bit too sweet – although I did like the cucumber that came through at the end.

Speaking of sweet, when we were chatting to Quentin, he recommended dessert – which turned out to be mochi ice cream.

Have I mentioned how much I love mochi before? My mochi love also extends to mochi ice cream, which is a small ball of ice cream surrounded by a thin layer of chewy mochi. (You can also buy these at Asian grocery stores around the city.)

As we were eating the mochi ice cream, one of the staff members folded an origami flower. Isn’t it gorgeous? I was so impressed that I had to take it home and it’s now sitting on my book shelf.

And finally, just before we left, Alastair and I both chose a fortune paper. As we were leaving we tied our fortunes on to the robes hanging by the entrance. I can’t recall what my fortune said now, but hopefully it said something about a long life filled with love, good food and many more trips back to Japan. 😉

It’s a shame that the structure is being taken down at the end of March, but I’m glad I got to see it and try some of the food and beer. A huge thanks to Janis for taking time out from her evening to show us around and chat with us.

Disclosure: Our food and drinks were courtesy of Beer DeLuxe.

Shinobi Japanese Secret Beer Garden at Beer DeLuxe
Federation Square,
Cnr Swanston & Flinders Street,
Melbourne.
Times & Dates: 12 noon – 11:45pm, daily until Sunday, 28 March 2010.
Telephone: 03 9663 0166

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

February 13, 2010

Footscray Lunar New Year Festival

Agnes chinese, cuisine, dumpling/yum cha, eating out, food event, footscray, lunch, suburb, vietnamese

We went to the Footscray Lunar New Year Festival recently – Chinese New Year is tomorrow, but the Festival was held a couple of weeks ago. It was a hot and windy day, so we showed up at Footscray early in an effort to beat the heat.

We did a quick lap of all the stalls, and then decided we would have yum cha and then return to the Festival. We headed to our usual yum cha haunt – Dai Duong.

We pretty much ate all our usual stuff. The first two things we had were pork buns and radish cake. Alastair ate both the pork buns, so I don’t know what they were like, but the radish cake was good.

Bro said yes to a basket of tripe. The tripe was really good – lovely flavour and not too chewy. I know most people don’t like tripe, but it’s really so good! We also had some pan fried pork dumplings. I love these with red vinegar.

Next up was a basket of steamed dumplings – I think these had prawn and garlic chives. They were fantastic. The wrappers were smooth and thin, and they had big pieces of prawn in the filling. We also had beef cheong fun, which were fine.

Yum cha isn’t over until Bro has eaten a basket of chicken feet (normally a whole basket by himself) whereas I don’t leave until I’ve eaten an egg tart. There were only two egg tarts per plate, so we had to get two plates so everyone received one. I got to eat the extra one. Wahoo! Alastair finished off with a bowl of dessert tofu.

Read about a previous visit to Dai Duong here.

After filling up on yum cha, we went on a walk through the festival and took some photos. Unfortunately we were too full to eat anything! Waah! There was lots of grilled stuff going on.

More grilled stuff.

I was full, but still bought a drink – this was a basil seed drink with what I think was grass jelly. It was kind of strange. The seeds sort of looked like tadpoles!

There were lots of dodgy looking rides and games.

Some kids looked like they were having fun on the rides, but I don’t know if I’d trust my life on them!

The MFB had a tent, and they were giving out paper models of fire engines – complete with road cones and little paper firemen! Squee!!

We arrived just in time to see the firecrackers being lit, but unfortunately there was a crowd and I couldn’t manage to get a photo. Afterwards there was a lion dance. A stall was also selling funky balloons.

Some more drinks on offer.

And more grilled stuff – corn, betel leaves and meat on skewers.

There was also dried squid hanging up for sale.

This was a big pile of betel leaves stuffed with beef.

And egg cakes (I think! Someone correct me if I’m wrong!)

I have no idea what this was, but it was GREEN. And HIGH. How could I not take a photo??

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day! We aren’t doing anything for CNY (I haven’t even cleaned the house – gasp!) but we are going out tomorrow for a late lunch/early dinner. More later. I hope everyone has an auspicious and love filled day!

October 8, 2009

Horoki: lunch

Agnes cuisine, eating out, japanese, lunch, melbourne, suburb

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.

Read about a previous visit to Horoki here

Horoki
19 Liverpool St
Melbourne 3000
Phone: 9663 2227

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 13, 2009

Q Eleven

Agnes breakfast/brunch, cafe, eating out, south melbourne, suburb

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!

Q Eleven / Q11
303 Coventry Street,
South Melbourne
Phone: 03 9645 7311

July 22, 2009

The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel: Bastille Day dinner

Agnes cuisine, degustation, dinner, eating out, french, southbank, suburb

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.

Read about a previous visit to the brasserie here.

the brasserie by Philippe Mouchel
Riverside at Crown,
8 Whiteman Street,
Southbank
Phone: (03) 9292 7808

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