I Can't Believe They're Brussels Sprouts

The best Brussels sprouts are about the size of walnuts. They come into season in midwinter and make an easy, quick and convenient side dish, as there is very little waste. Like cabbages, to which family they belong, they contain protein, iron and vitamin A, but they are easier to digest as they are not so rich in calcium and vitamin C. They are good sauteed in the juices of a pork roast, as a side dish with stuffed pig's trotter or simply fried in butter. Allow about 6 per person.
From The Silver Spoon

I can handle game, offal, sweetbreads, crocodile, turtle, jellyfish, chicken feet. Even Chris's Beeramisu and roasted pig head feature on Masterchef tonight had me drooling. But Brussels sprouts? Put them on a menu and watch me avoid them like a sober driver in a Ferrari avoiding a tree. Had them three times, and I hate them. Hate them hate them hate them hate them. I like cabbage, but I hate Brussels sprouts.

Imagine, therefore, the look on my face when I was served the last rabbit saddleback special at Movida with Brussels sprouts.

16 of the dastardly things I counted on the plate. In my head, I wondered what I had done to deserve Brussels sprouts. After all, I had waited more than 30 minutes for this plate to come out after a false start (pork belly with white beans instead of the Tommy Cooper smoked mackerel with pine nuts and lemon sauce). I had been patient. I had tolerated the amused looks from fellow diners who had witnessed my returning of the pork belly. I had tried not to look too hungry in between courses while everyone else was chowing down on clams and goat.

Yes they were little things, just a little bigger than the size of my thumb, fried with ham in a butter sauce. Yes the dish was an appropriate arrangement of seasonal ingredients, and the whole thing looked very comforting. Yes I was so lucky to get the last serve of rabbit before the afternoon break, and the now envious faces around me said it all.

Still, I murmured to myself, if the waiter had mentioned "Brussel sprouts" when he was spouting the specials of the day, I would have avoided the dish like a sober driver in a Ferrari avoids a tree.

Deep breath, plunge fork into rabbit, then a sprout. Make sure you get plenty of sauce.

Mmmm...MmMmMmMmMmMm is this truly a Brussels sprout?

Another round of rabbit, then sprout, then sauce. Mmmm. Tender rabbit, beautiful sauce, and dare I say delicious Brussels sprout?!

I remembered then why I come back to Movida. Amidst all the wonderful meals I have in Melbourne, I always think of Movida for solitary indulgence in comforting, delectable little dishes and seasonal surprises (like a few others I spotted that day). The service for me may not be as great as once upon a time (since the maitre'd went to be front of house at Coda), the serving sequence may not be as logical, but they still serve fantastic food. Wonderful surprises.

I still cannot believe they are Brussels sprouts. I still cannot believe I cleaned the plate...

LS on Movida: Food 4.5 stars out of 5 - let's face it, the menu is a bit dull after a while. After all, now I can order without so much as a glance at the menu. The desserts on the blackboard are mostly the same after all these years. Yet they know what they do well, and by gawds they deliver! Service 3.5 stars out of 5 - at least, I can still get a seat pretty much 9 out of 10 times there without a booking.

Cooks Online Oh Let Us Unite

Thanks to Masterchef and the recession (the one that has given Australia a little shake and smack on the bum while making most other economies in the world bedridden), cooking at home and writing about food, cooks etc seems to have become the new national past time. One that has captured not just the regulars i.e. Gourmet and Delicious magazine subscribers and Beanscene readers, but the professional chefs (cheves?) and OK magazine readers have all gotten on board (hi there Fi)

As a result, I have found that articles discussing food and food shows outside the usual media have increased. For example, now we are concerned about the origins of the Australian Masterchef show which is quite different from its UK parent. Then we are concerned about what Masterchef has turned us into. Now we even think that particular foods can prevent us from catching Disease-Of-The-Day like the Swine Flu (oh ye much maligned porky, how I pity your name being dragged in mud):

Swine flu? Try kimchi
THE Korea Tourism Organisation has found the silver lining in the swine flu cloud, using it as an excuse to spruik the benefits of kimchi, the incendiary national dish of fermented cabbage. The "kimchi cure" was first noticed during the avian flu outbreak, when Koreans suffered low infection rates compared with neighbouring countries; subsequent tests by Korean scientists established that kimchi fed to chickens has an inhibitive effect on the virus, probably due to the ingredients of ginger, green onions and garlic. The scientists also found that the more fermented (and sour) the kimchi, the more effective it was. It's certainly tastier than Tamiflu, anyway.

- Espresso, Epicure 23 June 2009

Now I have just found out that chefs are going online and becoming Twits (oh jeez - do you call them Twits or a group of cooking Twat, as Good News Weekend guests wondered?) to share their cooking challenges, triumphs, failures, expeditions and techniques of the day. Restaurant critics have too joined the game, along with a growing crowd of eaters talking to Gourmet Traveller via @gourmettweets.

As a blogger not a Twitter (or a Twit, or a Twat) , I find the idea of constantly updating your status in no more than 140 characters challenging. Even a waste of time if not for it being used as a mode of serious communication to the world at the moment (think Hudson River plane landing, Indian hotel attack, Iran protests etc). If, among other things, it helps with people becoming better cooks and appreciating the fact that chefs, even the ones who look good on TV, are just mere mortal beings, then I cannot dispute that it has some merit (darn).

For an example to illustrate the inadequacy of 140 characters, I tried a new recipe from the new little chunky 'Vegie Food' book this week and thought it worked very well:

Heat 1 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp unsalted butter together, then add 2 tsp black/brown mustard seeds, and cook until seeds start to pop. Add 2 thinly sliced leeks and cook gently for 5-8 minutes or until softened. Stir in 500g thinly shredded cabbage (most abundant in winter; I used Savoy as I prefer its flavour to other types of cabbage) and cook over low heat for 4 minutes or until it wilts and softens. Season cabbage well, add 1 tbsp lemon juice (again, abundant in winter; make sure you microwave lemon for 30 seconds and then roll it about a bit with your hands before you cut & squeeze the lemon to get maximum amount of juice) and 5 tbsp creme fraiche , and cook for 1 minute longer. Stir in 2 tbsp chopped parsley (which has loads of iron and necessary taste-wise to complete this dish) and serve immediately. Serves 4 - 6 as a side.

Dinning with Elrond

It was nearly seven on Thursday night and we just been turned out from Movida... it was fully booked, even the bar section also booked out. So, we moved... I just blindly followed LS into Oliver lane.

Are you booked out? Yes, we did... So, what time should we come if we don't book in advance? LS asked meekly with her pitiful eyes. We finally were let into the bar section at last, thanks to the lovely waitress. I think she took pity on us two hungry girls :P

We started with a glass of Pinor Gris and each before we studied menu... heavy Asian influence... eg. beetle leaf, rice paddle leaf, galanga...

I left the ordering to LS 'cos I sure she 'd make a good choice :P So, she grabbed spanner crab, scallop, bone marrow, kingfish, snails, and rabbit saddle.

When the spanner crab came, first I notice about beetle leaf.... I was so excited about it since I haven't had it for age and it made me thinking of home... this tapas 's very refreshing, with pomelo and ginger... but we hope it should be a little bit more spicy... LS said she thinks it should be more spicy, which 's wield coming from her :) while, I can't detect chili in it at all :( Judging from this tapas...we agreed that the foods here 's promising, it has potential.. so we were very excited for the next tapas

The next one 's scallop in white sauce and salmon roes... good, decent, a bit salty.

And, then come the bone marrow and kingfish dish. We started with cured kingfish dish...a salty of the cured fish is well balanced with yuzu dressing, fried sliced spring onion and carrot pickle. We 're happy now... foods 're not just promising to be good...they 're actually good :)

Then, we moved to bone marrow wrapped in Vietnamese rice paper roll with shitake mushrooms with lemon and white pepper dressing. The best way to enjoy it 's break it in half before pouring the dressing into it, no....we didn't discover it by ourselve...but were told to do so :P

When springroll was broken in half, the earthly, smoothly fragrant of mushrooms came up. I 'm happy to eat it plain while LS like hers with the dressing. Nothing wrong with the dressing, though. I just like my springroll plain. In this case, I topped my springroll with the garnish...rice paddle leaf...it added another dimention to springroll...with lighter and fresher taste.

And, then the snails came... baked snails and puff pastry with a twang of lemon white sauce. We techniquely licked this dish, don't waste good sauce :P By this time, we started giggling over foods... so happy to come back here again by this stage.

Cassoulet of rabbit (rabbit saddle, rabbit liver paste, and other part that we still fought over whether it 's a liver or kidney..haha...) and white bean looks typically western style food but after chewing, I feel I need rice. It 's gingering, zingling dish.

We then decided to order one more dish, steak tartare with quail egg and mustard leave. It came with melba cracker... NO...it 's not a cracker but I forgot that word...still thinking... :( Anyway, it 's suprisingly goooooooooood. Saltiness of anchovy and melba beautifully completes this dish. Can I say it 's better than Guillaume at Bennelong's one? I know it 's not fair, it just like compare Ping Lady with Gala apple... it actually depends on what is our liking. But... I compared it in the sense that I can keep eatting steak tartare here and not bored with it, really... I 'll come back for this dish. It is so great that we had to sparingly shared the last melba :P

Steak tartare 's perfectly married with Cotes du Rhone '04, Grenache. The Somelier offered Grenache because of rabbit and snails dishes, which we happily accepted. My first monthful feeling 's I 'm happily drink it as a dessert... it 's not sweet, just my though...

To wrap up our dinner, we chose the dessert taste plate; lemon tart with yuzu mashmellow and chocolate pod with pumkin fome....so cute, isn't it?

Lemon tart is a little bit too sharp but the chocolate pot is extremely good. So good that we have to rearrange our dessert preferences :) The coffee 's not bad neither. They use Gravity coffee which made LS reluctantly order her latte and mine is Mocha. The coffee 're doing o.k. it 's much better than Sevenseeds house coffee, no kidding.

After we went through all dishes, we also spied other tables nearby to see what they had :P We notice that our somelier 's good. While I wandered away, LS notice that he busied over one bottle of Red... starting from warming the bottle up, opened and smell...then started pouring wine into the decanter...in order to let wine breathe. After these process, it confirmed itself that this wine is the expensive one, so we 'd like to know which table this wine 'll go ...nosey, aren't we?

It turned out to be a good nosey though. That red went to the table next to ours, Hugo Weaving's table...we sat next to him for nearly 3 hours and didn't know...hahaha... we too obsess in foods there, I think :P

In case you don't know who he is, I confess I don't which made me gain a disapproved look from LS... he 's an actor who played a role of King of Fairy in Lords of the Rings, Matrix, etc.

Coda Bar+Restaurant: Basement 141 Flinders Lane (Cor Oliver Lane) Tel: 9650 3155

Chef: Adam D'Sylva

Scent of Chives, Chocolate and Tea

For all the fancy restaurants and celebrity chefs in the world, nothing creates a natural high more easily than a homemade group meal.

Thus it was on a cold Sunday night that while we were still talking about the Vogue Produce Awards dinner at Circa, The Prince (where we sat with rich gourmets and felt seriously inadequate on the monetary front), notable more for the copious amount of wine and discovering just how 'out there' our table companions were than for the offerings of Paul Wilson (he of Botanical fame, now looking at opening his own establishment) & Matt Wilkinson, we were also checking whether the eggs and sugar had been creamed to "pale and thick" as dictated by the Donna Hay recipe for moist chocolate cake. I also taught JJ and Nut a short cut to the "chopped chocolate" requirement:

• Grab your bars of chocolate in its packaging. Ensure you have the correct amount as required by the recipe.
  
• Pulverise your chocolate. Vent all your stress on it. Slam and hit the chocolate against every conceivable hard surface you can find. Chairs, tables, brick walls, karate style palm slams. No accompanying shrieking or screaming needed unless you want to re-enact a B-grade kung fu film.
  
• When you are done, open the packaging to turn the chocolate out on the chopping board. Chop chocolates to required size if not already done by the pulverising process.

This process should not only help to lower your blood pressure and give you an arm work-out, but also reduce your chopping effort.

In the kitchen, JJ and Shi were rolling out fresh dough to turn into dumpling skins and filling them with the traditional mixture of marinated pork mince, chives and spring onions. The scent of sesame oil and chives, so familiar and so endearing to all in the room. When Nut, YW and I attempted to help out with rolling the dumpling skins, we had a taste of the gap between us "amateur cooks" and the "experts" i.e. JJ and SL who had watched the women of their families do this sort of cooking their whole lives. Our pace alone made us stand out like burnt toast in a stainless steel kitchen. Finally, we sensibly decided to avoid causing wrath akin to Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen (which we had a taste of for about three minutes) and went back to watching Masterchef.

We forgot to keep track of the dumplings we devoured. We all agreed that the homemade dumpling skins were much better than store bought ones. We agreed that the dumplings were absolutely the right thing to have on a cold winter night.

Without alcohol there is chocolate. Baked for Nut to make a birthday wish on even though she actually has no real interest in cakes, the cake was ready to be served after several reminders of "do not open the oven before it is time". The birthday song was sung in three languages, as you would given the diversity of those present. The wish was made, the first cut carefully made into the cake with a vegetable cleaver. We agreed that the lychee black tea went well with the cake, but the Twining Organic Earl Grey was an even better match. We discussed birthday cakes, and whether a chestnut cake was feasible for JJ & R's birthday dinner. We boiled more water for more tea, and YW held an impromptu cabaret concert (acapella style, no less) as we maniacally printed lyrics off the Net on R's computer. The night ended with us doing tongue twisters before I finally got onto my tram, watching them stroll off arm-in-arm for a post-dinner winter walk.

Shared effort, a lot of humour, a lot of fun. For all the expensive establishments and award-winning chefs in the world, nothing really beats a home-cooked meal with family and/or friends.

Dutch Mess

I actually didn't know what the Dutch Mess is. I only know that I have to go to CH2 for 'ORANGE SORBET' 'cos LS told me about it twice already. I went to CH2 for the first time last Friday but there is no Dutch Mess on the menu. It 's off the menu already.

Luckily, the staff there asked the chef to do it for me :P Dutch Mess was in a bowl with a lid on. The first thing I saw was fragrant, not see by the eyes but by nose instead. This dish 's very refreshing and uplifting a soul... Orange sorbet 's fabulous, accompanied with pure vanilla ice-cream, candied orange zest, meriange, and cointreau brioche... yumm...

I went there again on the following day with LS... since with some reasons that I don't really know, my apartment had no gas. So, I was titled to have something to cheer me up :P

SL rating: Service 4 Dessert 4.5

Food As A Distraction

A train ride on a wintry, wet evening after a ridiculous day at work, silently lamenting how many fools the bureaucracy can produce to disrupt your life. I grab the first magazine I can get from my bag. The latest Big Issue, and it is on produce, cooking & eating habits during times of thrift. Hmm, this may be a keeper. I start reading, and am reminded of dinner for the night - mutton and vegetable curry in my new Emile Henry claypot.

I like times like this, when the cosmos come together to make me feel better. To remind me that work does not consume my life. To remind me that there are other things in the world to care about. Family. Friends. Food. Books. Thinking about how to emulate geniuses who change the world. Like Edward de Bono (his thoughts on creativity and the Six Thinking Hats are brilliant), Heston Blumenthal (I cannot help wondering if he is a savant or normal-smart), Raffaelo Esposito (the baker from Naples widely credited to be the inventor of modern pizza), whoever found out how to turn cocoa beans into luxury chocolates, and whoever created cafes for catching up with friends.

I caught up with a few of my friends at Chimmy's in Richmond after we found out that Momotaro Ramen was closed on Sundays. Secretly I was glad because I had earlier indulged in Portugese croquettes, salt cod fritters and Portugese custard tarts (best I have ever tasted) at A Taste of Portugal festival. I would have found it difficult to resist ramen on a cold day...and caused myself a stomachache from too much food.

Chimmy's is apparently famous for pastries and coffee (Convent Bakery free trade beans). We also had a chance to sample the breakfast & lunch menus. While my friends went for a chicken quiche and the Big Fry Up respectively, I decided I was more into a sweet main - apple bread with honeyed yoghurt and baked fruits.

I am unsure how much enjoyment was had from the Big Fry Up (first time I have seen big raw cherry tomatoes served in a fry-up, though they were apparently very very good) or the chicken quiche, but I was quite happy with my dish and coffee. I found the bread a bit too crumbly for the intention of the dish, but liked the yoghurt and fruit. I cannot say too much about the service - the waiting staff confused the orders when the cafe was full even though we all had table numbers. I was tempted to have a second coffee but decided to go healthy and opt for a smoothie instead. We were allowed to stay and chat for more than two hours, which we thought was nice considering the increasingly cloudy skies outside.

I think I would go back if I had the chance, but maybe for a coffee and tart after a ramen lunch just to make the trip more worthwhile. Then again, making a trip to anywhere for food and drink is worthwhile when in good company to retain a realistic, positive perspective of life.

LS: Food - 3 to 3.5 stars; Coffee - 3.5 to 4 stars; Atmosphere - 3.5 stars; Service - 3 stars.

How to Become a Human Pack Horse in 3 Hours...or Less

Winter in Melbourne makes you want to sing,

"Tis The Season For A Foodie,
Falalalala, lalalala
Tasting wine and buying goodies,
Falalalala, lalalala
All my friends and I are happy,
Falalalala, lalalala
Tis the Season For a Foodie,
FALALALALA, LALALA"

As you can tell, I went to the Good Food and Wine Show 2009 with Juls for a key reason: TO SHOP. Hyukhyukhyukhyuk.

We got off work early to head to the Masterchef demonstration. As we queued up to go into the show, I noticed a familiar face in the Book Signing section. Could that be...Matt Moran?! From our vantage point in the queue (so no that is definitely not me next to Matt), Juls and I agreed that Matt is a better-looking man in person (and very fit too) than in the various media you see his picture in. He really should smile more - he does look good when he smiles. A pity that I do not have any books for him to sign, but then I was there to shop. The photo is a bit dark I must admit - tried to fix it up but I gave up because it would have made his bald head too shiny. You will just have to take my word for it - he is better looking than most chefs.

Catching a LG Celebrity Theatre show was incidental and perhaps necessary - after all, what is the point of inviting all these celebrity chefs if nobody is going to go watch them cook? I am very supportive of food show organisers in their efforts :) We failed at the Fruit and Vegetable audience game (long beans are a fruit?!) and so did not get a chance to win any of the fabulous gifts on offer.
We were sitting in the third row, which meant we got to smell George's egg and lemon soup (mmmm) and watch the hot doughnuts with lavender sugar teasingly pass us by (nooooo). It also turned out that we were sitting in front of the two biggest food show hecklers I have ever heard...no I do not recall their faces but do I really want to? Hecklers are hecklers - they think they are SO funny when really they are just being annoying. We were all surprised to learn that Masterchef Australia is still filming. The audience wanted Chris the Victorian beer merchant to win, but Juls and I rolled our eyes at that. We would not mind visiting his future beer establishment though :) We also learnt from George that an authentic Greek lamb souvlaki has mustard, not garlic sauce, and chips. Somehow it reminded me of late nights having an AB in North Adelaide - lamb kebab meat (we call them kebabs in SA), chips, garlic sauce and tomato sauce, all wrapped up to eat outside the Blue & White. Ah memories...

Anyway, we almost skipped out of the show the second it ended so we could get started on the shopping. I also took the opportunity to watch out for 'pretty' stalls - I applaud creativity in attracting showgoers.

I found out a few things, e.g. the Boscastle Factory Cafe is actually near my place (Barkly Street, Brunswick) and produces mini pies, and you can freeze fresh smoked salmon. Juls and I agreed that the Selectors showbag by Safeway was a great buy. At the Red Kelly booth I finally got the Tom Yum Spice Grinder I had first seen in Bicherno, Tasmania (a Tom Yum Spice Grinder? You exclaim. What outcome will that hold? You ask. I will let you know when I get to use it.)

Unfortunately the Swiss Diamond exhibit was not available this year, nor any real bargains to be had at the Phillips Crab exhibit. We got Jack Daniels Tennessee Style Barbecue Sauce (Four for 10 bucks!), Tassal salmon showbag (875gm smoked salmon, 2 tins of smoked salmon and a recipe book for 30 bucks!) and Sence Rose Nectar - I also got a bottle of Sence Rose Liquer just for the heck of it. Maybe I can use it in baking...

Soon Juls and I had a swag of goodies - I am pretty sure that Juls bought more things than I did because she had more difficulty negotiating her goodies toward the end of the night (which was before 8pm for us). I do recall stopping at the Dilmah tea booth for a rose tea - boy they make their teas strong there! I also found very tasty Palomba Antipasti Marinated Mushrooms (2 x 330 gm for 10 bucks!)

By the time we were done staring, smelling, tasting and appreciating (with suitable oohs and ahhs), we were exhausted. We looked at each other, and agreed that we were not even going to bother going into the wine section to try anything. Normally this constitutes a cop-out for us, but we had purchased a few bottles of wine from Yarra Valley during Juls' birthday celebrations. Recalling my drinks list on the fridge, I also worked out that I did not need any more alcohol. Besides, we would have been horses in a china shop. :P

It was a pity that the Veneto Region stall, so talked about in the Show advertisements, was much less than what I expected. Those who have been to the region e.g. Padua, Verona or Venice (ah, Venice) would have been severely challenged to argue that the stall represented anything that we knew about the region. As a result, I end this post by leaving you a picture of the Venice in my mind, the kind of stall I think should have turned up at the Show to justify the expense in reserving such a big exhibitor space in the show:

Good Food and Wine Show 2009

As LS posted on her earlier post, LS and I both excited about Good Food and Wine Show, ofcouse for different reasons. She wanted to explore the new products while my highlight 's Gordon Ramsay. We went there separately since LS had to work that day.
How excited I am...excited enough that I woke up early and did brunch since I think I wouldn't have enough time to eat at the Show. I headed to the show and arrived around half an hour before the show started but there were lots of people there and there was a long queue just for getting into the actual show area :( After the door open, I was in another queue to get a ticket for Tobie Puttock Masterclass, went to get a Gordon Ramsay book which came with the ticket, and went straight to the Celebrity Theatre for Gordon Ramsay Masterclass!!!
I 've got a seat in K row which supposed to be a good seat since it 's only 11th row from the stage but all 10 rows front of me are on the flat floor and I 'm short enough that I had to straight my neck to see what happened on stage :( But on the bright side, the seat was closely enough to get the aroma of what Gordon was cooking :)
At first, I though the show should forbid to take pictures in the theatre. But once I get in, 8 out of 10 persons stareted bringing out their camera/mobile and taking photo. So I did it as well, lol

Gordon talked fast and cooked so fiercely, it looked like he was very tired from speaking very fast and run around the stage. He joked about the swine flu since he sat next to Mrs.Piggy (a puppet) when flying to Melbourne, hahaha... mentioned that he and Susan Boyle were born on the same town, and joked that Susan 's Jamie Oliver's oldest sister, haha..

He did cook three dishes which 're Cod and Tomato chowder, Glazed Salmon with Spinach and radish salad, and Poached pears in Mulled wine, which all dishes were serving at Lindemans Early Harvest Restaurant within the Show.

The chowder 's basically a vegetable soup. All vegs except tomato should be stir-fried before simmering to get more flavour and keep theirs shape. When putting the stock into vegs, just put it to barely cover vegs and simmer until vegs are tender. After that, put Cod fillet in over vegs and put the lid on, so the vegs 'll cook by boiling while Cod 'll be steamed. When Cod 's opaque, take Cod out to shrade into flake before putting it back into the soup. This chowder also uses pearl barleys which have to cook separately. The chowder also serves with Pasley. I latered on tried the chowder, which I found it's alright but not impressive :(

His next dish 's Salmon, which has asian influence. He use soy sauce, honey, ginger to marinade the fish. The dressing 's made of sesames, ginger, soy sauce, etc. So, the dominant aroma of stir-fried spinach 's soy sauce, which reminds me of Japanese foods.


Gordon's dessert 's Poached pear. He mentioned about lemongrass can be put into the mulled wine for poaching pear, which I think quite bizzare but would love to try, lol. Actually, poached pear 's a normal dessert but it 's the presentation that make it looks interesting. The cream 's whipped with lime zests and lime juice to make it zinging. I also tried this dish at the restaurant. It 's not througly cooked since I had to use 2 spoons to help cutting the pear.

After Gordon show finished, I rushed to the signing booth since I wanted Gordon to sign his book for me. But...when I was there, there were roughly 100 people queuing up before me. How I figure this number, no..I didn't make it up.. there 's a staff there and she counted heads since she said Gordon would sign books for only 100 people. And, I was number 101 or 102, I was told. Though she was o.k. that I can queue up and depended on my luck. Fingers cross!

The clock ticked by and the book signing time was over (the schedule on a website said 30 minutes for each book signing session) but Gordon was still signing. So I was still in a queue though it was time for Tobie Puttock Masterclass. I figured out that I may never have another chance in a life time to meet Gordon in person and I wanted to take this opportunity. While, Tobie stays in Melbourne and he 'll go to A Taste of Melbourne for sure, hahaha...

Wait...wait...and wait, another hour passed..and there were only 10 persons before me, and it near the time for Tobie's book signing session. Finally, I 've got my book signed, yippie :P Gordon was so nice, he spent time making small talk with each person, that 's why it took so long for signing. His first question was 'where do you come from, darling?' bla...bla...bla... Then I mentioned that I 'm looking forward for his restaurant to open. He then told me that it 's going to open on 1st of March next year :)

Gordon was so nice and friendly. I didn't say that because I personally like him but because not only he spent time with his fans but he also extended his schedule. No one can blame him if he walked out of the signing booth when the session 's over though there were lots of people queuing up. He sticked around trying to sign for everyone until it was time for Tobie's signing session then he finally wrapped up and I think everyone got his signature on their books. (How did I know that? Because I was queuing for Tobie's signing session. So, I was there :P )

After that I went to buy Tobie's book for signing, ofcourse. My sister 's so crazy about Tobie, so I decided to get a book signed for her. I was a first on line since I went there before Gordon's signing session was over. After that I headed to a restaurant around 3 p.m. for lunch. Caramelised Brioche with Forest Berries from Tobie's are yummy. When chewing, brioche tasted creamy castard-liked.
I, then, took another session of Masterclass, the MasterChef, which LS and I both attended but didn't realized until Saturday that we attended the same session. Both George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan cooked smoothly and played with the audience. George cooked egg and lemon soup and souflaki (I think I definitely spelled not-correctly). His souflaki 's super slow made, around 6 hours, umm..I better buy one instead of cooking one. After cooking, he asked who wants to eat it? Apperently, everyone wanted it. So, he asked a new question, does his cousin 's in here? There 's a guy said 'Yes' but he appearently couldn't be his cousin since he looked totally different from George. For Gary, the only dish I remembered that he cooked 's doughnuts since he forgot to turn the frying machine on, LOL The first thing I learned from this lesson 's don't forgot to turn on the frying pan when making doughnuts.

He then had to continue demonstrating doughnuts cooking using the word it supposed to be brown after lifting from the pan...bla..bla...bla, which made the audients started another roll of laughing, hahaha... very funny..

I went back to the signing session after MasterChef Masterclass session to take close up pictures since I knew that George had a signing session there. When they came, I had a chance to take pictures with both of them...which LS saw later and called me 'a celebrity chef chaser' since I had pics with all celebrity chefs in this show except Matt Morrans, lol

Overall, I had a good time there learning some cooking tips, get books signed, and best of all I finally met Gordon. I wanted to meet him so much because he 's one of my two favorite chefs. He becomes my favorite since I never fail when using his recipe. And, if you press hard enough, I would tell you that he 's my most favorite chef.

SL's main cookbooks: Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cookbook, Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Heaven, Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef.

Waiting To Go To Good Food and Wine Show

A Friday has never been this hotly anticipated, I am afraid. Nut and I are going separately so we will likely resort to separate posts in this blog based on different sessions and aim. Nut is there to watch Gordon Ramsay cook and get a book signed, I am there to shop. Enough said.

All week at work the Show has been the key topic of discussion. People booking at the last minute, my getting a Buy 1 Get 1 free offer AFTER I had already bought my tickets (damn you Entertainment Card!), girls discussing Masterchef. Good food has been brought to the fore. There was even a discussion about whether the Australians or Kiwis created the pavlova, which resulted in a discussion about pavlovas in general, which led to a peppermint crisp pavlova making an appearance (and then disappearance) at the weekly office staff meeting today. Yeah for food discussions!

To distract everybody, I organised the usual payday lunch at a 10-day-old place called Bertha Brown. Decent eight-dollar pizzas at a rustic, spacious, clean, sunlight-lit bar near my workplace are finally achievable, and from the post-lunch feedback I received it sounds like I have found my colleagues a new lunch cum post-work drinks place. Certainly the staff are still keen to impress and serve, the drinks still at good prices and the hand-cut chips still very nice. Must talk to them about their coffee making skills though - besides the fact that they serve Lavazza which seems very at odds with a place that looks as Australian as this one, they really must work on the milk temperature.

To further distract myself from thinking about the Good Food and Wine Show, I decided at Bertha Brown that I should try new places. After all, I have the Entertainment Book, and other friends have the Age Good Food Guide and Cheap Eats. An alphabetical sequence in approach makes sense, except there are so many places offering winter specials at the moment as well...

If you like to join me, send me a message and I will contact you whenever a trip is being organised! You can even drop me suggestions! The first restaurant is, you guessed it, one that has to have a name beginning with A...

On a different note, I received a link to an article from AC. I had to reply after reading it, "I can only identify with one, yeah!"

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/11-ways-to-spot-a-food-wanker/#item203

What Is It with Paella?

Standing within inches of a man in a T-Shirt which had “Valencia Giant Paellas” emblazoned on the back was probably a good sign that there was going to be a mass feeding wherever that man was.

Even after watching that giant paella being cooked over that massive orange wood flame while chanting the key ingredients of an ‘authentic Valencian paella’ (beans, water, chicken, rabbit, sweet paprika, saffron, tomatoes, olive oil, Spanish paella rice, snails) with the rest of the gathering London crowd in summer 2008, it still amuses me how the paella can capture attention like few other dishes of its kind. By this I mean the other cultural equivalents – think Chinese fried rice and ‘eight jewelled rice’, Italian risotto, Indian pilafs, Persian spiced rice etc

Put a paella on your menu, and it is almost a safe bet that the only thing that can stop people from ordering it will be the time it takes to actually cook one (unless the paella is the sole main dish on the menu, it is cooked only on order. In some restaurants, you have to book your paella 24 hours in advance) and the number of people at the table - if you ever find a restaurant with a one-person serve of decent paella, let me know because it is as rare as hen's teeth.

Thus it was that when a paella appeared on the menu at Markov's Place (Drummond Street, Carlton), my two visiting Malaysian friends got pretty excited. This amidst all the tapas and mains on the relatively short menu (compared to Movida, that is). The waitress must have heard them because when I asked her what her recommendations were, it was the paella that got top billing in her book along with spiced pumpkin croquettas and a warm beetroot salad with goat cheese.

We settled in to wait for the seafood paella, sipping our pomegranate punch (we thought ordering a jug would have yielded more than three glasses) while talking among tea lights. I must say that this place was dimly lit even for someone like me who is used to dimly lit places. Definitely a place for couples and soft conversations, I thought to myself. Sarcasm-filled conversation about traffic cops and Malaysian graduates was certainly incongruous with such an environment...

The spiced pumpkin croquettas were a marvel. The pumpkin had been pureed to such a smooth paste that it melted in the mouth. Careful seasoning and crunchy outer layer sought only to enhance the winter-developed flavour intensity of this pumpkin. Eating this led to a ten-minute conversation about the many uses of pumpkin in cooking, and how it is one of the most undervalued vegetables in Malaysia. It is surprising how many people grew up not seeing a pumpkin in the kitchen simply because they did not realise how versatile it can be. The steamed pumpkin cake (think 'yum cha' radish cakes-like product, smoother texture, more pepper, meat optional) was one transformation of the pumpkin that I grew up with thanks to my grandmother, and I am eternally grateful for that.

Then the salad was served, but where was the paella? You can only eat so much salad, however good it is, before you need the main to come and balance the flavours. In this case, the salad definitely should have been served with the paella (or for that matter, any other dishes that have been ordered with it). Curious serving sequence, this. I stole glances at neighbouring tables, barely making out the outlines of king prawns wrapped in jamon and roast Glenroth chicken with chickpeas.

We were quite happy to leave the salad half-consumed until the paella came. Covered in Spring Bay mussels, I could make out peas and Spanish rice underneath the black glossy shells. As expected of a Vogue Entertaining and Travel Producer Award winner, the mussels were fresh and sweet, even better than a pot of freshly-caught Port Lincoln mussels cooked in white wine and leek (big call, I know). The paella, I must admit, was quite tasty though I did have trouble working out where the squid was (or what the real colour of the paella was - tealights are seriously not conducive to working out food colours). No trouble finding the chicken, prawns and scallops. Or peas. So many peas.

For the price we were paying, we were expecting this quality. This, I thought, was better than the seafood paella at Robert Burns Hotel (sorry, Smith Street stalwarts) and definitely better than that at Movida - another case of friends falling for the paella on the menu. I was fortunate enough that time to have another friend to order tapas with and separately from the paella sharing group - it IS a tapas bar, after all. The paella was...let us just hope that Movida III, geared toward communal dishes like the paella, will fare much better.

Still, even after this meal, I could not help but be reminded of my mother's words, after we had tasted our (free) portions of the Valencian Giant Paella in all the warmth and glory that a London summer afternoon can muster:

"This is basically Spanish fried rice, isn't it?"

LS: Food - unable to rate due to lingering feeling that we should have tried the tapas and other mains but that pumpkin croquetta is nothing but gold; Service - 31/2 stars; friendly but muddled perhaps in terms of food service sequence; Atmosphere - 3 stars; WAY too dark for me!

A Stall under a Highway Bridge in Downtown Kuala Lumpur

It has been nearly a week since I arrived back in Malaysia and I am slowly ticking off my “to eat” list . Even though I am as Aussie as they come, ‘til this day, the comfort food I yearned for when I am having a bad day is still predominantly Malaysian food.

My days in Malaysia so far have revolved around satisfying the nostalgia I feel for the food from my childhood. The day will start with mum asking me as soon as I open my eyes “What do you want to eat today?” This will usually lead to mum bringing me back to the hawker stalls from my childhood following by the owners of these hawker stalls going “Wow, you are so big now, cannot recognize you.”(yes, English is spoken slightly differently here, it is known as Singlish).

In addition to the places from my childhood, mum also brought me to new places and the one we went this morning for Nasi Lemak (rice cooked with coconut milk usually accompanied by fried chicken or a curry) has just been added to my “to eat” list on future trips back to KL.

As Malaysian as they come, this is a stall set up under a highway bridge with just some chairs in downtown KL. By the time we got there, there was already a queue waiting for the macik (Malay lady) to serve her customers, though grumpily. Given that it was hot, we decided to “ta bao” (take away).

The stall is famous for its fried chicken which was fried to perfection with its golden hue and produces a satisfying crunch as soon as you bite into it. The fried chicken is also highlighted with its accompanying sambal (Malaysian chili paste) which has a unique smoky taste.

Fried chicken

I also tried the other specialty of this stall, which shall I say is part of the cow which I don’t think we eat in Australia. I do actually like this dish and the balance of sweet and spicy flavour as well as the chewiness of the main ingredient reminded me of American Beef Jerky.

Nasi lemak with the fried chicken and squid (no, is not the part of the cow that we don’t eat in Australia).

Given that I will probably be having the leftover from this morning for lunch and Mum & I are off to the Night Market tonight to tick off another item on my “to eat” list, I should now get off my butt, put on my runners and head off to the gym.

p/s The gym I go to here offers free soft drinks (no, not diet) and has skinny personal trainers who eat doughnuts. Hmmm….. I guess it is as contradictory as me going to the gym after indulging on all these food. As one of my colleague told me, you can always work it off when you get back.

Not Just Desserts

You got to love Australia Post for the resourcefulness its staff can demonstrate (though we still think the national mail carrier should not have discriminated against overweight staff, especially when those staff were still productive and loyal).

http://www.stamps.com.au/shop/stamps/not-just-desserts

On a related topic (dessert wise), always watch out when you are trying a cake recipe for the first time. Sometimes any slight deviation from the recipe instructions can create embarassing moments...

*LS Lesson from Baking an Orange Loaf Cake: using a Japanese chopstick instead of a skewer to test whether the cake is cooked can mean that when you pour on the sugar slurry while the cake is hot (as instructed), a sugar pit where your chopstick had been inserted will be created...and you will suffer gawd-awful puns about a Holey Cake at the office during The Biggest Morning Tea. Thank my lucky stars that the cake was orange-moist and tasty enough to make the cake knife keep going so that the pit soon disappeared. Next time I will use lemons...and a skewer.*

Seven Seeds, new branch of Brother Baba Budan

I 'm so excited about Seven Seeds since it 's a new branch of Brother Baba Budan which 's one of my favorite coffee cafe though I have to walk for about 20 minutes to go there while Seven Seeds 's just less than a minute walk from my home.

I went there right after I know about it but very disappointed that it didn't open yet. When I went to law library today, I saw smokes from Seven Seeds site. I think it must be opened since the smokes must come from coffee beans roasting, which 's correct.

I went there from Barry street entrance, just opposite Melbourne Uni's law building. When going inside, there's no boards so I have to ask what coffee's on the griders; one 's house, the other I forgot since I order house blend :P

The place 's welcome, a lot of natural light, big space, many tables. It's good hang out after studying.
They also have a clover machine here. I 'm kind of dumpstuck that they moved a clover from BBB to here but nooooo... they told me that they have 2 clover machines, silly me.

My table 's next to cupping room

They also serve foods here, this 's their kitchen.

My mocha, latter are is nice, coffee color 's right, but the taste 's not...it's a bit waterly. I don't know what 's wrong so I have to bring my coffee expert, LS. Apperently, she thinks it 's my fault, :( since I tends to drink single origin coffee which 's more intense and deeper than the house blend. How she figured it out? We ordered house and special of the day latte which mine 's waterly as usual but her 's so..nice. So, the temperature and water 're not a problem since it the same process. The difference is with coffee beans. Either it 's too fresh or it 's not as deep/strong as I like...