Finally, a place for proper tempura

It is no secret that Tempura Hajime is not easy to find.  So much so that when we made the dinner booking, the instructions on what to look for at the stipulated address was sent to us via short text message.

This is one of those places that truly comply by the old adage of "do not judge a book by its cover".  The narrow door, the office-style entrance lobby, another door and then the little counter at which we would watch the chef cook and serve the tempura dishes.  The oil was impeccably clean, the ingredients had been freshly prepared and we would be the only ones in the place for the next hour.  Ah, the bliss that early weekday diners get to enjoy in Australia.

I never thought I could end up paying to eat tempura in the degustation format.  Even as we were picking our own individual sake and tea cups, and wiping our hands on the warm towels, I was still wondering what on earth I was doing.  Yes I did pout terribly when I initially realised that SL had dared to leave me out of this reservation, but then I had heard too much of this place to miss out.  Even if it was tempura degustation style.  Again, what on earth was I doing there, fan of the sashimi?!


Hmm, a palate cleanser of sashimi and a light chicken mayo salad.  Refreshing, rather unexpected actually.  Ah, the sake in a hot bottle to ensure its continued warmth, perfect on this rainy winter night.  Kampai!


Then the quick succession of tempura, followed with special instructions.  Dip in the lemon juice followed by a smattering of Murray River salt, or dip in the tempura sauce with freshly grated daikon, or eat neat.  In between enjoying the freshness and surprising lightness of the tempura we were eating (can corn taste this sweet on its own?  How can wagyu beef sushi tempura taste so...not red meat?!) we could not help examining the chef at work behind the counter.  I became absolutely convinced that the most valuable item in the whole restaurant was the stainless steel bowl of tempura batter in the chef's hand.

The one we enjoyed the most - shiitake mushroom and lobster encased in the one light coating of batter.   The scent  of this alone, when placed ever so carefully on the light oil-absorbing  paper for our taking, caused us to pause for quite some time before we remembered that it was to be consumed warm.  The sea urchin roe wrapped in seaweed wrapped in prawn meat encased in tempura batter (below) was, however, no shabby runner-up.

Amidst the quiet conversation and multiple "kampai"s (the shot of refresher soda served mid-way was a pleasant surprise), Beansprout happily took pictures of everything that came within sight.  Alas, it was made abundantly clear to us that we were free to take photos as long as they were not of the staff.

The rain was still falling when we finally staggered out of the restaurant, stunned that what seemed to be a few pieces of tempura had managed to so utterly fill our appetites.  I was very glad that I had so pouted like a child in order to get to this dinner.

Then the door closed, and became once again what would seem a normal entrance to innocent passerbys, but what to us would hold a very different meaning.

Food:  4 out of 5.  Sashimi from Melbourne all come from the one place, so freshness is really the only gauge to worry about even when the plate is served with a perfectly formed rectangular piece of omelette that has "Tempura" marked on it.  Definitely the tempura set the next time, just so that the sashimi actually does not distract so much *shock horror, so says the sashimi fan*  The dessert could also be a touch more Japanese instead of panna cotta - perhaps something incorporating white sesame seeds or umeshu plum?

Service: 5 out of 5, no question about this one.  The Japanese are such formal, polite, anxious to please people when they are at work!

Atmosphere: 4 out of 5 - we did really enjoy the feeling of being in a different world from the hustle and bustle of nearby Kingsway & St Kilda Road, and soft conversation suits us perfectly.  However, the (ever so faint) smell of frying oil that wafts across the room as the night goes on may irritate those with a more acute olfactory sense.

Value for money: 4 out of 5 - SL and I discussed this extensively when we left the restaurant, and agreed that the tempura set may have been simplicity in essence (incredibly skilled simplicity, the kind that makes you realise the skill of the chef that prepared them in the first place) but it was all about the experience as a whole in the end.  One is unlikely to find a tempura experience quite like this anywhere else in Australia anytime soon...

Birthday cakes

Somebody once said to me that sometimes cooking is about what everyone else is happy to eat, not what the chef is happy to serve for the day.

Baking birthday cakes falls into that "sometimes".

Flipping through the recipe books in search of the right birthday cake, I took into consideration the ingredients I had available to me as a result of this winter.  I also thought about the final destination - the palates that would end up tasting this cake.  I suspect Matt Preston would have described them as "conventional, conservative Western palates".  Unfortunately there are some things that I still cannot quite grasp, like making creams, marzipan moulding and piping skills. 

No upside-down pear and almond cake then, nor the yoghurt citrus cake served with cherry syrup.  There was no point trying to complicate things like victoria cakes or well-iced, fancy-shaped cakes (i.e. the ones that I saw at the last three birthday parties I was invited to - there is no way I am going to attempt making a cake that looks like a Japanese cherry blossom garden or a lady in a martini glass).  I only have a little domestic kitchen, not the commercial fridge or kitchen that Masterchef devotees were snapping up.

I went back to the suggestions that everybody had put to me.  Chocolate, they all said, you cannot go wrong with chocolate.

Dear old chocolate.  Dear faithful chocolate and cocoa, with good old fashioned vanilla extract and butter.  Dear old faithful, almost boring for this cook, products of the cocoa bean.

Back to the books then.  Just five to go through then to find the right chocolate-themed birthday cake.  Should tempering be involved?  Should we use Lindt dark chocolate or couverture?  Hazelnut or almond meal?...

The Show That Shifted a Debate and Ended Up in Canberra

If Masterchef were a politician, it would have already won the federal election.

We all know what the show has done for farmers' markets (can we still get anything decent after 10am?!), kitchenware sales, restaurant dining, cookbooks and cooking schools (what is the waiting time to take a class in the Agrarian Kitchen?)  No political party could take credit for such a directly attributable positive economic influence.


Then it was announced that the first major political party leader electoral debate would be held this Sunday evening.  Channel 7 and Channel 9 scrambled to ensure that they could televise the debate live.  Channel Ten did not move a single muscle.  Then the debate was "scheduled" to be at 630pm, a full hour earlier than the time its predecessors had been broadcast across Australia.

The reason (as we are all speculating)?  730pm Sunday is the time that Channel Ten has scheduled to screen the final episode of this year's Masterchef.  All the political pundits agreed that the earlier screening time was a smart move to avoid the black-out that Masterchef was likely to cause for all other channels, but still felt it was a risky move to have the debate on the same night as the season finale.  For the debate, that is, not for Masterchef.

To add salt to injury, Channel Ten decided that it will not broadcast the debate at all.  No, it will be the night for light entertainment and the most popular culinary reality show in Australian TV history instead. 

Then tonight we saw the three last surviving contestants cooking for the Governor General of Australia and thirty-two guests at her Canberra residence.  They took on responsibility for ensuring that the three-course meal turned out impeccably for Her Excellency, the veteran hostess of dinner functions, under the eagle eye of her head chef.   Finally, an episode that is reminiscent of the Great British Menu challenges BBC sets for their professional chefs.

One can only wonder what would have happened in Canberra if Jimmy had not plunged onto his own sword in last night's episode and got kicked out for not sticking to his specialty cuisine (I do not think that anybody was convinced for a second that the soapy-flavoured prawn bisque would fit into his envisaged cookbook about the food that his family cooked, and puh-lease the excuse that you cannot make curry look good on a book cover...)

After 33 serves of smoked trout, roast lamb and chocolate fondant, they sat and were judged.  Then... the two South Australians were (are?) left to "grab each other and scream like school girls", as Adam would have put it.

Adieu, Claire.  Adieu, Claire's Tears.  Alvin tried so hard, but no, Claire, you still take out the Crying Queen title for this season .

Will a South Australian-born Malaysian Chinese finally take it after Poh took the runner-up position last year, or will the very young ex-dishwasher Barossa dessert chap stand up to the challenge?

Let the house dinner party organising for Sunday's grand final begin! :)

*This blog is dedicated to SL who is out of the country and thus missing the entire final week of Masterchef...*

Thank you for the pain

Once again, Adriano made them weep in Masterchef.  The only man who can make the word "V8" really mean a weight-loss program - from too much stress and frustration, that is. Vanilla took on a sinister persona of multiple layers, made the contestants shake and chocolate melt.  Even the macaroon tower and croquembouche would have paled in colour compared to the devil wrapped in angel's clothing that was that cake.

What struck me about this challenge was not just the difficulty - all pressure tests in the Masterchef kitchen are tested at least twice by a trained chef beforehand to get the timing correct for contestants, so imagine the poor dude who had to make this dish twice.  That is EIGHT hours of his life, at the very bare minimum, gone and dusted, to make sure the dish could be done right in that time.  No, the marathon was not what struck me. 


It was the extreme opposite of yesterday's team challenge, which featured crustaceans in their glory.  Both teams opted for an Asian themed banquet, featuring XO mud crab in all its chilli-spicy glory (imagine the mess of shells afterwards), lobster steamed in spring onion & sesame oil, prawn congee (at least that is what THEY called it - every single person who had ever had congee would have baulked at the sight of it), lobster dumplings and prawn scotch egg with coconut & chilli sambal (no, not a dish I will ever attempt).  Both teams looked like they had real fun.  We all drooled watching the presentation.


Asian heat and seafood mess.  Sweet detail and layered exactness.  Aiyeee. I don't know about you, but I know that asking untrained people to be able to be good, nay, excellent at both savoury and sweet dishes that take professional chefs years to master pushes the boundaries so far that Masterchef is not just "a blend of Iron Chef, original Masterchef UK and Survivor".  It has almost gone into extreme human endurance and creativity.  Is this really the reason we watch it so devoutly?  To see whether people collapse or rise up to challenges that we would not dare to face unless we were obsessive with perfection and taste, persistent in improving our basic cooking skills and writing new recipes, and had a magazine-perfect kitchen?


Now excuse me while I watch stand-up comedians debate about whether food is indeed better than sex.  Paul actually is doing a pretty decent job for the affirmative.  No mention of  chocolate, vanilla or crustaceans either.

Beans of the Month - July 2010

Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?

This is what I asked myself after having my 3rd serve of Ethiopian Nikasse in three days.  It was gloomy, cold, windy - crazy weather to be sitting outside Proud Mary hugging a glass of siphon coffee, even if Roland had roasted the beans himself and it was the most fawned-about coffee I had encountered in the last week. 

Drinking this, I had to abandon my original plan of having a dessert (cocoa bread & butter pudding with rhubarb compote and amaretto mascaporne - I am now completely convinced that the Proud Mary kitchen has a dessert repertoire around amaretto mascaporne)  This is the most expensive coffee I have ever drunk - even more expensive than the last Jamaican Blue Mountain I had earlier this year (I have not drunk that catpoo coffee from Indonesia yet).  Damn Will Priestly, I thought to myself.  I HAD to bump into you outside Proud Mary and have you tell me to drink this today, despite the Tanzanian & the Columbian & the Burundi coffees on the board. 

This year's batch of Ethiopian Nikasse has also been praised at Seven Seeds and delicately promoted at Dancing Goat.   SL tried the batch roasted by Seven Seeds, and called it a "melon, fruity" coffee on the day I had Veneziano's Kenya Makwa, the "banana" coffee (which I think would have matched well with a banana & walnut cake).   Then I savoured the floral aroma and vanilla-orange-cocoa notes of the 5 Senses version as a one-day-only pourover at Eclipse. 

It is remarkable to see a batch of coffee beans capture the baristas' love so much like this one.  This is even more so when you consider the diverse coffees that have been available this month e.g.

• Guatemala Los Volcanoes (ah, will we ever forget the piccolo version of this?), 
• Kenya Mbee (all hail Toshi, the Great Roaster who have made this a remarkable passionfruit, vanilla dark tea coffee), 
• Brazil Carmo Estate (honey!  caramel!  almond!  lime!), 
• Bali Kinmani (earthey, chocolatey, almost malty), 
• Brazil CoE #21 (our fondness for the pourover version of this coffee got us an invitation to do a cupping session with Dancing Goat's Jesse at Market Lane).

Now this version of this ridiculously loved coffee, roasted more lightly than the other versions.  Definitely much more acidic compared to the 5 Senses version, more fruity, with that floral aroma ever so slight and not as tea-like as the 5 Senses version.

What a great month for coffee geeks, but what a horrible month for the wallet.  I feel so broke. *sigh*

In other news:

•  Toby's Estate is now open only on Tuesdays to Saturdays 830am to 2pm.  Obviously someone decided  that Melburnians drink coffee during the same times as Sydneysiders.  It's not the time that is the issue you new management, it's your new deco and menu we have a problem with.  Put Chris back on the bar with his good crew, and let the children back in!!!
• If you have not heard, Toshi is head roaster of Market Lane now.  Bring friends and try the Coffee Tasting Flight.  For a bit of fun, do what we did when we were there and do it cupping-style before reading the actual tasting notes that come with the Flight.
• Will is back from England with his World Latte Art trophy in tow.  To see what he does with normal coffees, he should be at Cafenatics Docklands (the one with the groovy wooden wall-to-ceiling mural) for the next week - I did not care that the Sumatran on the machine was supposedly defective given how perfect the piccolo was, with its lovely fern design on top.
• If anyone knows where Erin Samson works, please drop us a line.  We are curious to find this long-blogged-about lady barista who beat Shannon Hyde at the Danes Championships this year.

Looking for the Best French Toast in Town

I got pretty upset when Phillipa decided to take off the on-site baking function at il Fornaio as well as that much-loved French Toast.  I had only just got over Toby Estate's new French Toast-less menu, and then il Fornaio became almost twice as expensive as it used to be under old management (curses on you St Ali, curses on you!) 

Then ML alerted me to Fandango (next to the Auction Rooms on Errol Street, North Melbourne)

On a rare sunny winter morning, I decided to visit this outwardly small cafe, all the while wondering where I could end up sitting.  I almost giggled at "out the back" when I realised that I had to walk through the kitchen to get there.  I do mean walk through, as in stoves on one side and sinks on the other, with the possibility of an order being shouted through you when you are going through.

The back is actually very charming, with elevated brick pockets of herbs and flowers creating natural partitions between tables.  I had the table next to a large potted lime tree, and realised minutes later that I was sitting amidst groups of foodies.  The kind that discussed cooking the perfect baked and poached eggs at home, the menu philosophy of Von Haus and new hidden restaurants in Melbourne.  Hmm, I could be home :)

As recommended by ML, I decided to order the French toast with bacon, maple syrup and baked apples amidst the many options on the menu (beetroot fetta, big breakfast, avocado and salmon etc).  The sun was shining ever so indirectly into this life-filled backyard, it was a bit cool but not freezing cold, the conversation around was chirpy (and foodie-based, did I mention?), there was nothing on my schedule for the weekend (for once!) and I had my Saturday newspapers.  Was there anything more I could ask for?

Then the mountain...I mean my brunch came.

By the time I finished (leaving half a piece of toast behind with just a drop of syrup left in the little jug), I wished I had got more apple to cut through the salty smokiness of the bacon and the eggy sweet sourdough-based toast.  I wonder if it could have worked better if they served the baked apple more thinly sliced?  There was definitely just enough maple syrup though :P

ML, good recommendation.  Not sure that this is the best I have had, but it may possibly be the best in town at the moment.

Food - 4 out of 5.  Definitely want to visit again to try other options on the menu.  For the French toast, you may want to consider bringing a friend to share if you are not ravenous.

Coffee - order the banana smoothie, nuff said.  I accept that others may feel differently, considering that someone near me ordered a soy long macchiato after consuming his soy latte.  Supplied by Coffee Supreme.

Service - 4 out of 5.  Friendly and informal to suit the design and layout of this place, though one chap was rather stiff-mannered.


Value for money - not bad.  Not bad at all :)

Can we be Matilda Prestons?

On the fifth consecutive day of going out to dinner in a new previously unvisited restaurant, our minds wandered to Matt Preston. 

Here we were, just having dinner.  A dinner that normally would have sent tingles and excitement through our veins.  Yet we were tired.  Our palates were exhausted, our ability to describe and dissect totally failing us.  Staff recommendations had to be repeated, menus double checked, food stared at for a bit before the realisation that we were eating it hit.

How does he do it, we wondered.  How can he keep his palate and senses sharp on a full time basis, and still muster enough energy to write about it afterwards?!  Does he not get tired of all this eating out in strange environments, of sitting in tight chairs and claustrophobic bars (this is Melbourne we are talking about), of searching for hidden doors and walking up (and down) narrow stairways, of having to deconstruct all the food before him to decipher the reasons for their successes/failures, to scrutinise the service and customers to work out whether people were enjoying themselves?  How does he do it?!

We are very far away from being Matildas Preston, I am afraid.  Our palates are as yet amateurish, our sights narrow, our endurance short.  We admit, we are good at the taste sprint, but alas we still have far to go before we can go for the Melbourne marathon, let alone interstate and international spectrums.

Cheers to Matt and all those food writers, the ones who review restaurants for a living, the ones who try to make life just a bit easier for gourmets and gourmands.

*clink*

"hmm, I don't know about you but I like this.  Just the right amount of lemon sorbet to vodka to prosecco blended with a touch of cream.  Oooh, and the sugar-coated lemon slice really intensifies the alcoholic sweetness.  This layered chocolate mousse cake is lovely isn't it?  Looks great, the layers of chocolates are distinct, and so fluffy..."

Gewurzhaus

342 Lygon St, Carlton
Tel (03) 9023 1028

My eyes lit up when I saw this shop.  It's a new shop in Lygon Street, Carlton.  It 's about 3 weeks old.
A spice shop!  The shop 's very aromatic from dried herbs and spices.

What actually lit my eyes and I was so excited 's salt... many variety of salts both single origin salts and flavour salts.  The best part 's I can try before I buy :D  I think Merlot salt has a very soft aromatic characteristic.  While truffle salt should be good with simple dish as omelette or mashed potatoes.

Cuter & Co

55-57 Gertrude St,
Fitzroy, 3065
Tel (03) 9419 4888

I want to go there!... I told FH and LS everytime we pass this restaurant since it opened in 2009.  If my memory serves me correctly, I told them the first time when we walked back home from Gigibaba in Smith Street.

FH booked the place during my Melbourne visit.  So FH, LS, Beansprout, and I went to Cutler&Co on one Saturday evening in July.  Thanks FH! xoxo

Brioche served with Murray River salt and Warrnambool butter.

We all had Mandarin duck ($26) as entree.    crisp leg, smoked fillet, foie gras cigar.  It 's nicely done and we agreed that it's the most delicious dish of tonight.  The cigar 's crisp on the outside and foie gras 's very smooth.  Chared fennel 's nicely compliment the dish.  But what I love most 's the deep fried bit :D

LS and me both had slow roasted pheasant, Brussels sprouts, chestnut and quince ($48).
I loved the taste of this dish.  It seems too much but I enjoyed every bit of it.  There 're 3 parts of pheasant used in this dish; breast, thigh, and drumstick.  The texture and taste 're different.  They 're compliment each other and prevented me from getting bored of eatting the same piece of meat.
Eating brussels sprouts also fun, really.  I equally love braised half brussels sprouts as well as fried brusels sprouts leaves.  The fried one tastes like fried shredded chinese cabbage :D

FH and Beansprout's main course were roasted sucking pig, mustard fruits, braised greens & pearl barley ($43).

For desserts, we shared two dishes ($18 each).  Violet ice cream, chocolate garnarche, sour cherry (left) and Steamed quince and suet gingerbread, rosemary, chestnut ice cream (right). 

Passionfruit chocolate's fabulous.  The sweet and sour of passionfruit 's well cut through the bitterness of chocolate.