Nine Days of Masterchef Gone - What Do We Think?

We love the Signature Dish episode for the Top 50 this year, involving the peer voting system - it was great to see how the contestants bucked any gender bias preconceptions and voting with their tastebuds. We love culinary technique becoming a crucial part of the show, given how critical technique is in the professional kitchen. No getting away with uneven bits and boney salmon fillets in a restaurant! We love the contestants being forced to forage for their food from the farms and country butchers. We love the contestants recreating their most memorable dishes. We love the contestants learning this early on what the real pressures of running a restaurant is like on the service front.

We cheered when Jimmy got into the Top 24 with his chilli crab curry. We bit our fingernails with Adele as George deliberated over the crostini with walnut ricotta cream. We teared up with Claire talking about her grandma. We drooled at Alvin's Drunken Chicken with Bruised Green Bean Salad (must download that recipe), and worried with Gary about Jake's take on oyster soup (hey he was being faithful to the theme, what can we say?). We were stunned at Skye's quirkiness (chocolate with avocado?! Really?!), and thought it was ridiculous of that advertising head leaving Phil alone to fend for himself. That was followed by us cringing over the sight of his goat's cheese risotto, agreeing his dessert looked wonderful and then gunning for him to stay in the show. Who cares if the show is pre-recorded, and there seems to be so much waterworks this year?!?!

We were touched at George's tender touch with contestants, marvelled at Gary's beef wellington (never have I ever wanted to go to a pub for beef more) and screamed in slow motion as Matt threw THAT pork chop over his shoulder (PLEASE tell me a crew member fetched it on a plate for later consumption). Matt has to be the only man in the country who can wear a cravat, colourful pants AND fancy shoes, and still strike fear in the hearts of all cooks just with one look. & what was the deal with Luke Nguyen using the two knifes to chop garlic (while we at home thought he was wasting it by letting pieces fall to the floor) and then going over to Alvin's side to help him with the Hue pancakes?!

Love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it. :)

http://www.masterchef.com.au

Where do you find a good pizza and dessert under the one roof in the CBD?

Barbagallo Trattoria E Pizzeria (103 Lonsdale St, Melbourne) is the CBD child of Pietro Barbagallo, he of pizza royalty I Carusi in Brunswick East. Remembering the fun I had when I visited I Carusi a few years back with LF and FH (we have not yet had a chance to go back), this place seemed a good choice for another old friends' get together.

Located in an old brick building with a prominent arch entrance, we were unfortunately located near the entrance due to my forgetting to place a 530pm dinner booking. Still the table did seem a bit small for four people, and it felt even smaller once our drinks and entrees came. AC loved the salade caprese with the imported, oozingly fresh buffalo mozzarella while the boys preferred the charcuterie platter. I found the special of the day, the chargrilled squid with fresh chilli, eggplant & zucchini, tender and suitably smoky. Still, AUD15 for the one squid?! At least give me a few more pieces of vegetables then!

AC and I then ordered the tagliatelle with scampi, while TW and KMZ went for pizzas. I was bemused by what I can only call "Italian sized" pasta, though you could tell it was fresh pasta and very fresh, sweet scampi. Suddenly I remembered how thin the young Italian women and men looked in Venice...could portion sizes truly be the key reason?

TW's mushroom pizza looked very enticing and smelt great but I resisted asking for a taste. The poor man had trouble staying full from sharing the pizza with AC as it was :)  KMZ's chorizo pizza was, as always, a meat lover's delight.  We all worked together to make sure our food dishes did not slide off the small table from overcrowding at the same time.

Now we come to dessert (after a few more glass refills).  Lemon-scented vanilla bean panna cotta, chocolate calzone and berry semifreddo.  The warm chocolate melted out of its pastry casing, and the sweet scent of cocoa wafted around the table.  The panna cotta wobbled suitably, and did taste ever so lightly of lemon.  The berry semifreddo, refreshing and creamy all at the same time, made me want to go home and flip through my recipe books so I can make my own semifreddo.

Food: 4 out of 5; special points go to the freshness of the salade caprese, the earthiness and nod to the seasons in the mushroom pizza, and the desserts.  Always, always desserts.

Atmosphere and service: 3 out of 5; the allocated table was definitely too small for four to have a proper 3-course meal, and the service was polite but difficult to attract.  The crowd kept things merry and toasty in the building with relatively subdued music in the background which is good for conversation, and kudos for making sure no child was ignored at family tables.


Value for money: 3 out of 5; it was incredible how much our drinks amounted to on the final bill, and I probably would have been even more stunned if we had opted for actual primas instead of the pizzas or pastas based on the size of the pastas.  However, the pizzas were the right size.  Definitely a 'plastic' place or if you have a spare gold note in your wallet.

Overall verdict:  Be there for entrees, pizzas and desserts, but watch your drinking & remember to book in advance or stay at the bar. 

Good pizza in the CBD for the tightass: Bertha Browns (562 Flinders St, Melb)

New Late Night Chocolate!

Make sure you reserve a special space for dessert at Shocolate when you are on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. It has well-crafted chocolates with creative touches such as saffron stigma praline & star anise ganache, it has "how can I finish that on my own?" chocolate-themed desserts such as the Raphaela (Madagascan 67% dark chocolate orange mouse on a brownie sponge), it has comfortable seats & attentive staff, and it is licensed. What more do you need after dinner on a weekend night? Well, maybe a little jug with melted chocolate so thick that it solifies into a shiny coat upon impact with vanilla ice cream...

Reviewing Institutions

It is always tough to review places that are already famous, especially if they have managed to attain semi-legendary status. It is not peer pressure you deal with here, nor a hot food critic's latest column. You are dealing with history, reputation, legions of fans and troupes of regulars. You are there not to test the kitchen and the service, but to verify what hundreds and thousands before you have already praised. Criticise in public at your own peril. After all, think of the pressure and stress that those people behind the kitchen doors must be experiencing while trying to make sure the reputation is upheld.

On top of all that, you have to manage your own expectations, trying hard not to be unrealistic or dream of your chickens before the eggs hatch. Just because the chicken is a prized show-winning fowl (breed of poultry in the context of this blog) does not mean that all its chicks are going to come out champions. Those kitchen doors do keep flapping open and shut, staff do come and go, and menus do change. Sources of ingredients get updated and swapped, and preparation methods change. Insides get renovated, customer tastes shift, trends influence and shape.

At the end of the day, as we all love saying thanks to the Masterchef judges, the taste of what is before you is all that matters.

All that went through my mind as I sunk my teeth into a classic Andrew's Hamburger with the lot. The sun was out, the grass on the park was green, I was surrounded by friends, and we were all clutching tightly onto our burgers. We had just gone to the farmers' market, played with pugs & bulldogs & little children, bought heaps of freshly baked bread, eaten croissants & Happy Fruit, sipped on iced chocolate chai and taken heaps of photographs.

We licked the melted cheese off the hamburger wrappers, and we made sure the fresh tomato juices did not drip onto us. The bread was soft and white, the burger meat well seasoned though without apparent spice or herb and cooked to be soft not firm, the fried egg blending with the lettuce and bacon so as to be almost indistinguishable and inseparable from the rest of the burger.

Was it a good hamburger? Yes it was. Was it a remarkable burger? Unfortunately not to FH or me. Yet I can appreciate why it is to the hundreds and thousands before me. Even as I was chewing and talking, trying hard not to accidentally spit any food morsels onto those around me, my mind went back into my childhood, when there was only one fast food joint in town and my grandfather needed to get meat into my system that was not a fried chicken drumstick. This was the kind of hamburger the place made then. The kind that made you drag your grandfather's hand as you skipped on the sky bridge to the place, forget to take off your little fisherman's hat as you released your grandfather's hand and ran for the counter without any money or ability to articulate what you wanted to order, make your little seven-year-old eyes go as big as saucers (even if you already had it several times before then) and your mouth as round as a capital O. The kind of hamburger that you knew was good but never sure why.

Nostalgia. Tradition. Memories. These are what some of us end up paying for when you have an Andrew's Hamburger. You cannot put any stars or objectively review that sort of food. You can only sit back, chew & bite & swallow, and savour the sunshine that streams ever so brightly from above the trees as you listen to the birds sing and your friends laugh.

How blue the sky is today...##

A beauty of piccolo latte

I struggled to buy coffee from coffee strand nearby my workplace. But I can’t come to term with the fact that they steam milk in advance and left the steamed milk in a jug until someone order coffee although I understand why they do it that way. There is always a long queue waiting for their coffee. So, they steam milk in advance to speed up the process. The fact that they use the bean I approved, Campos coffee, doesn’t help the case.
Why don’t I buy from other stand? It‘s the bean issue. I like the beans there more than beans using in other strands. Yes, I know I ‘m choosy :D
This afternoon I came up with a theory that they should make latte art for piccolo since their piccolo cup does not have a lid. Thus, the barista will need a specific steamed milk temperature in order to make latte art so he has to steam milk on the spot with fresh cold milk. The only assumption of this theory is the barista makes latte art according to the book. Lucky me, he did!

We Love Value For Money Japanese

Sake & Grill Maedaya is well-known for its authentic sake and yakitori charcoal grill selection. One of the first properly set up izakayas in Melbourne, it has earned a reputation for its reasonably priced taste offering of Japan.

However, what is less known is its lunch specials. Most would head for Maedaya upstairs to enjoy a smokey dinner (and meat meat meat). Those who are more inclined toward travelling to Bridge Road during the day for, say, shopping would do well to also head to Maedaya to grab a good meal. The a la carte menu is attractive (there, I said it, I called a menu attractive.) but for $14 you choose an entree, a main dish or hot plate and a side dish. Serving sizes are generous, and miso soup & endaname are free. The black walls with hessian rope draped across the ceiling lend to the impression that you are in a big ship, with various sake bottles lined across the walls.

While the girls opted for fried soft shell crab and seaweed salad to go with their tuna tataki (dish of the day), I opted to have the tuna accompanied by a sanma (also known as a Pacific saury) & soba salad and spicy bamboo shoots. The waiter was slightly stunned when we requested for a sake tasting set as it is uncommon for sake to be requested over lunch.

The sake, three types of varying taste strength in colourful glasses of 60ml each, did actually help us wash our meals down. JJ preferred the first which ML explained was "a common though pricey, high quality sake which tastes very light, best served snow-cold", while I preferred the second (a cheaper, more robust concoction) which matched well with the strong grilled taste of the sanma and the lovely tuna tataki that was served with a light wasabi mayonnaise.

The meal was a silent one, punctuated only by slurping and chewing while ML occasionally reminisced over her time in Japan. The clouds rolled in and the rain intermittently drizzled. We sipped our sake and miso soups, we slurped our noodles, we loved the just-right crunchy and salty soft shell crab, we tried hard not to ask for a second helping of rice. We were a very contented bunch.

We are coming back we are coming back we are coming back. That is, when we can resist the nourishing, thick ramens next door at Momotaro Ramen (another Melbourne Japanese favourite).

Food - 4 stars; .5 star docked off when I found out that some side dishes like my spicy bamboo shoots (which I found less than titilating in comparison to the other dishes) had gone through a *shock horror* microwave oven;
Service and atmosphere - 4 stars; the Japanese hospitality industry is the kind that all other nations can only dream of, as with their attention to detail;
Sake selection - 4 stars; bring a friend or two for yakitori, a sake and a good chat. That is what an izakaya is all about at the end of the day, after all;
Value For Money Count - 4.5 stars :)

From One Coffee To Another Coffee

We met up at the new-look Toby's Estate Brunswick, wondering if it would rain or shine. Half of the original cafe/retail space had been isolated and converted into training space, and gone were the big communal tables originally intended for families & big groups. There is an increased focus on wares for the enthusiastic home barista, with the most intriguing product being the mypressi Twist. This REALLY challenges what we normally know about the extraction of espresso coffee, but the design is actually not too far a stretch for those who drink traditional cloth-filtered coffee. If you travel by car then this may work but I am not sure that the weight will be welcomed for airline travel. There are also more coffee making equipment at the counter for (future) diverse methods of extracting a good coffee.

The waitress explained that the new set-up was to bring back the focus to coffee ("but no more French toast?!" my head screamed), and Chris as Victorian Operations Manager would be responsible for roasting and training operations ("you mean no more coffees from Chris?!" my head shrieked) Behind the counter all I could recognise was Yoshi. I could see how the local (semi-regular) customers were reacting - heard "it was nicer before" being whispered around me. Then I was served my short black Brazil Daterra -viscose and bright, which meant for me it was a kapow of sour, followed by salty and then a hint of sweet. Not my kind of coffee (it made me miss Toby's Organic Mexican terribly) but then the argument over bright versus earthy will keep raging as long as wine makers will argue over what a shiraz should be.

The service is still polite, but we agreed that we miss the boisterous chatting and laughing with children's giggles that made this place a Brunswick cafe. Now it just feels colder. More...Sydney. Sigh.

In the afternoon, I decided that visiting a new place was in order. The Maling Room in Canterbury has been well lauded for a long time now. Built in an old post office, I was immediately intrigued by the choice of three single origin coffees alongside the house blend (though it would have been nice to find out what the house blend beans were). The girls all decided to order Bolivian San Juan cafe lattes while I opted for a Costa Rican Herbazu piccolo. With the help of Himalayan pink salt, we all managed to corroborate the tasting notes: honey, vanilla and toffee in the Bolivian, and balanced with a sweet citrus flavour in the Costa Rican though I did question whether the body of the coffee could be considered complex.

We all agreed the barista, with his two Synesso machines, was indeed as good as the reviews made him out to be. The only thing was that he must be too good because the rest of the staff, as many as there were, did not imbude confidence in their knowledge of coffee. The shop layout is also peculiar in that any queue at the cashier will immediately block the coffee bean retail cabinet and the customers will either be standing next to the coffee machines, thereby blocking the coffee service, or they will be blocking the doorway leading to the lounge area of the cafe.

The barista admitted that, despite the Columbian Del Obispo having been sold out for the day (not surprising since the advertised tasting notes listed the bean as "full bodied, with buttery notes, and hints of blackberries & dark chocolate"), he was hesitant about it. He explained that Gwilym Davies (yes, The Gwilym Davies, he who wowed FH in England with his coffees without even trying) balanced the bean with another in order to create a balanced blend for his coffees. I got the impression that the barista was much happier with the Costa Rica Herbazu than any of the other single origin coffees the cafe had on sale.

Coffees - 4 stars, including .5 star for diversity in single origin coffee offering;
Service and atmosphere - 3 stars; we love the old post office feel and look forward to being able to get the lounge section when we return another day, but service is on this side of naivety and the shop layout besides the seating arrangements leave something to be desired. As well, the line "stovetop coffee is not great as we all know" is probably not something you would say to a customer who is enquiring which bean would be recommended for stovetop coffee. If it is good enough for the Italians...

LS Caffeine Favourites of 2010 thus far (in no particular order):

* Merthi Mountain Karnataka (or K something, I even forgot it was a weekday once I smelt this coffee), in a strong latte at Eclipse - think my subsequent verbal gushing endeared me to the barista;
* Cheeky Monkey 2.0, in a long mac at Eclipse - this managed to convert a tea drinker to coffee;
* Costa Rica Cantine, in a short mac at Seven Seeds - yes yes I know, Seven Seeds?! But hey, if they could successfully come up with a Neopolitan Blend then anything is possible;
* Iced coffee at Brunswick East Project - the gang here are careful to ensure that at least one of the two/three single origin coffees of the day will suit this treatment :)

Sometimes You Have To Get Out

We first encountered the DR gang at the St Ali's Laneway Festival. Whether they had been engaged by the St Ali team or by SBS that had organised a free food blogger photography exhibition in one of the spare garages, we will never know.

The sign was simple, the offerings short but not so simple. The technology used and choice of containers even more impressive, especially given that a corrugated iron shed was being used as the makeshift bar.

When the resulting photos were shared among the Foodie Team's friends, a discussion frenzy ensured. Where is this bar? What sort of cocktails would require liquid nitrogen? (The southside sorbet, which PN proclaimed to be "yummy") When is it open? How many people can turn up at the same time? Are any of the bartenders single?

Then a friend confirmed the date that she was moving abroad. We had our perfect reason to make reservations.

It was the first Easter Saturday I had ever gone out for the night with a group of girls (and two boys, who both decided to be teetotalers for the night). The girls were well dressed for the occasion, and the boys had been briefed to make sure decent photos were taken. I had been warned at the time of booking that the bar does not have a kitchen, but "something can be organised". Nevertheless, half the group opted for an early dinner before joining the rest of us (the advance party, I called us)

What struck me about DR:

1. One of the smaller bars I have been to, yet not surprising given this is Melbourne.
2. For a small bar, it has a very big space for a big group like ours. I can see why reservations are critical.
3. The "taste spectrum" map at the front of its menus (chained to the bar). It makes ordering for test tasting very easy.
4. All the bartenders have beards!
5. You never know what vessel they will use to present each cocktail...

6. Listen very closely to the instructions that come with your cocktail to make sure you know how it should be drunk...
7. It may have no kitchen, but it will help you organise pizzas from Crust Pizza. Yum!
8. Try not to drink too fast. Prices do differ based on ingredients used, but they are all very, oh so very very good. Olives are free.
9. Try the cocktail on the blackboard at the bar. It is not in the menu, it will be cheaper than any other cocktail offered and it will still be delicious.
10. Try not to be TOO loud and indiscreet with the cameras. Even if the bar design means that photos are inevitable.

Der Raum - 438 Church St, Richmond. A small Melburnian jewel that has won more awards than Meryl Streep and Daniel Defoe's award nominations put together. The great drinks, the attention to detail in everything from the bar design to the way the drinks were served and the attentive customer service tells you why it won and deserves those awards. Cocktail lovers, you have been informed.

PS Yes the Foodie Team did check out the SBS exhibition, and notes were taken of bloggers whose photos were of such a quality that the Foodie Team should check out their blogs...

One Reason Why We Are Fond of Easter

Open That Door and You Never Know

It's a door I have always been fond of. A door that is as familiar to cocktail lovers as the door of Yu-u is to those who like their Japanese food in an alternative manner and the door of Cookies to those who like delicious modern Thai food available with drinks of all forms at all times of the day.

I love leading friends through that door. Stairs that reveal no secrets, then hip hop music from the Green Room, then more climbing, then a red rope and a man ready to lead you to your no-booking-required private table. Menu? What menu? Tell them what you want, or what you want to challenge them with for the day (intriguing key words like "fruity with a little kick, but no grapefruit" or "tonic, fruity" should get their brain cells going), and they will whip up the cocktail of your desires or the cocktail that meets the taste profile you have just provided.

Then they leave you alone to your private conversations. They make sure you enjoyed the concoctions they had designed for you, even bringing in a little tray of salt so that "your tastebuds get stimulated and refreshed, and the flavours of those drinks will also be enhanced". The very soft background music and the soft & comfortable yet intriguingly designed furnishings make for wonderful conversation space.

Gin, riesling, lemon juice, touch of peach. Mmmm outstanding, who would have thought that "gin, sweet & sour" would produce such delectable results? I really should remember to open that door more...

New Gold Mountain, on top of a flight of stairs behind a door on a lane off a major road in Melbourne CBD. I would say more but I think I have already said too much...:P