PCL

I've made a bad habit of attempting to write multi-part reports and have been failing dismally in succeeding. I think my time management skills need to be reviewed! But I hope the fragment I did manage to post conveyed enough of how I felt. To echo Shinboners, there isn't much more to say about Interlude's potential and capability to excite and astound. The courses that followed what I wrote about finally totalled 16, ranging from caviar (Osetra) to ox-cheeks to smoked squab, all very unsupposing and obvious ingredients, but all imbued with the indelible WTF factor. My first visit basically ended with a cleansing ale, chatting to Robin W, and a determination to return.

By all means personal content such as issues relevant to the reviewer/visitor, such as your (Shin's) concerns about baby-friendliness, but you can go too far. I don't have an issue with personal content, just when there's too much with no qualification or little relevance.

Fine, if in context, I agree. But to spend a paragraph on the fitout and how much it cost, and how expensive the cutlery is, and in this case, for a 3 hat restaurant, well, you could perhaps interpret it as pandering. Durack I like. Read him every week whilst living in London.

So what do we think about the Melbourne reviewers then, now that we're on the topic? Preston, Lethlean et al. I find that sometimes, there's too much personal rumination going on in the Melbourne columns. A lot of me, me, me, how i feel dum dee dah. But to be fair, there isn't much fluff that I can think of. But the description of cutlery in one particular place and how it enhances the experience, well, it's going into lifestyle reporting rather than the issue at hand, or in the plate rather.

Well, TCO, come and eat here for a bit... we are planning to do some eG lunches/dinners in the very near future. I think Melbourne needs someone like an Evans!

Ying Thai it is. What a find. I'm so pleased. I'm also pleased that Longrain is only a block away from work. Lunch specials do they do one Yoda wants to know.

Ice broken... Thanks mouse. Great review. If only my weekend's dining out was so memorable. More on that later. I think I have also found a good way to pitch 'original' thai vs Longrain thai... there's a little place near the corner of Victoria St & Punt Rd, a small nondescript neighbourhood thai joint... so underrated, great control of chilli / spice / herb / flavours, closest to Bangkok street food I"ve found thus far. Could be a lunch evening combo....

Good topic. SImply because I had a small 100gm block, mi cuit, vac packed, and sat in the back of the meat compartment in the 'fridge for 3 months. Cut the pack, trimmed off some grey bits, brought to room temp, no worries. Still alive.... me, that is...

I read that in the Zuni Cafe cookbook. Was camping out over the Christmas/New Year season and I extended the practise of tasting to things being cooked over the fire/coals. A bit difficult at times with smoke and sparks and sometimes lack of light, but generally, I believe my campfire cooking has improved too!!

I like Thomas Keller's advice: Slow down and think about it... or words to that effect. Moving with deliberation is so important.

I have a Global chef's knife and I've used it professionally and now just at home. I use a 'normal' steel (by Wusthof actually) and I sharpen with an oil stone that i've had for years. No problems.

I can't stand the original recipe chicken shit. When I was a boy in Malaysia, the KFC, or Kentucky as it's better known over there, was always crispy and tasty. Only the Zinger burger product comes close. What got me though, about this whole little misguided, pun intended, adventure, was that the kind soul at KFC, that innocent adolescent working for peanuts, would be more up to date, and spoke with more authority than one of the country's premier dining guides. Blah blah about liability and so on and so forth, but is it really too much to ask that someone rings around all the places in the guide to make sure that hey!!!... they're still trading!!!!! I mean, it won't stop the press, but perhaps a cute little errata/corrections/update sheet inserted into the back cover might be good?

My 2cts worth: Every steakhouse in Melbourne I've rocked up to, and to name two, say, Lazar's and Vlado's... and every self respecting pub... would serve up the sirloin/New York Strip alone, no bone, no fillet, as a Porterhouse. And come to think of it, Gaucho's in Adelaide do the same. And to think of it even more, most pubs and also that restaurant in the GPO in Sydney, um, Banc?... would serve up the latter description of a Porterhouse.

Hi Gang, first post of 2006 for me, so Happy New Year and hope you've all had a good and safe holiday. Now, I received a copy of the 2006 Melbourne GFG in my stocking. I'd never ever bought it for myself, and can honestly say, it's the first time I've ever owned one. So it was good to see old favourites talked about and it proved a winner in terms of conversation starters with friends. Happy happy so far. Then last week, Mrs PCL and I decided to pack up the car and head out bush. Through Lake Eildon, Mansfield, Bright and on to the High Country, descending into Omeo, Bairnsdale, then Sale, then home. I'd brought the Guide along for some light reading, but never got around to it. Got hungry on the way back from Bairnsdale yesterday and decided to take a look to see if anything was worth stopping for. Sale was coming up and I decided to hunt down the F&C fish and chippery listed in the Guide on page 237. Finding the address was easy enough, on the turn off to head back to Melbourne on the A1 Princes Hwy. No restaurant. Called the number, no service. Drove into KFC, finally defeated, asked at the counter, and was told, the place closed down 6 months ago. Now, I'm sure that the Guide gets checked and checked and can't be faulted for the occassional error. But this, I thought, a little strange. If it's in there, and then closed, why? Maybe they should do a piece on such phenomena in epicure. Who knows. Disappointed as I was, I decided to share, and see if anyone else has any experiences with the Guide, Melbourne, Sydney, wherever, so long as it's Aussie.

I dined at Interlude on the 1st December and have been meaning to post my thoughts for a while now, working the experience over in my mind. It’s taken me some time to get this out, but simply put, I had to think about it. It’s not my fault really, there was just quite a bit to think about (and with the approach to the silly season, lots and lots of work!!). It's a work in progress, but I thought I'd better get it up to provide momentum to my procrastinations. 16 courses worth, along with some tough metaphysical issues. The fact that it was a birthday present from my wife may have veiled how I really felt about things, the food of course, not my wife, but that’s another story. One might even say it felt like standing on an edge when we walked out the door, finally, at well past 1 in the morning. It could go either way, I thought then: I could simply like this place, or I’d adore it. A few of you might remember the degrees of emotion I expressed after a single visit to VdM, also on my birthday. But so what, you grow up, isn’t that the point, and it seems, a year on, Melbourne has too. We went to VdM looking to be impressed and ended up with a fight on my hands. And it cost us $500 for the privilege. We went to Interlude just to see, and was taken on a journey. Sometimes, you just have to surrender. The small spoonful of Caesar Salad stirred up soft-focus images remembered from The French Laundry Cookbook, and then the impossible happened: it expanded like a zip file, spilling onto the palate everything a Caesar Salad should be, but in this case, isn’t. That’s what cos lettuce ice cream sitting on a crisp slice of parmesan and soft anchovy dressing are supposed to do to you.on a warm humid Melbourne evening. When the next couse of marinated octopus with an eggplant semi-freddo arrived, there wasn’t much to do but tuck right in. In a flash, it all made sense. The eggplant, lightly spiced and pureed, insinuated itself into the aftertaste of previous course’s parmesan, both salty elements with similar profiles, carrying over into the octopus. Each element of the composition held its own without standing out, with undertones harmonising. A zucchini gazpacho signalled the end of entrees, and by lacing the chilled soup with slices of smoked eel, it was possible to discern a continuity of flavour through each course without direct repetition. Clever. Even dish temperatures somehow made sense, starting with cold, to room temperature back to chilled, but not quite cold. Like a musical scale. Fish came up next, red mullet fillets (so classical, didn’t even know we could get our hands on red mullet down here, and yuh, I’m supposed to know my fish…) with ratatouille and a bouillabase custard. It was the first time I’d seen ratatouille in such small perfectly brunoised elements, and not a hint of having been baked. The tiny dices of vegetables were crisp and exploded like sherbert powder, and when mixed into the custard and scooped up with morsels of fish, it became as close to a deconstructed dish as I could imagine. Apart from the fish, everything had been inverted, a semi-dry bouillabase sauce, an unbaked ratatouile. I realised that I had been transposed. Settling in again to the next movement, a piece of sweetbread arrived with the dreaded foam. White, frothy, miniscule bubbles, set against bright green pureed broadbeans. The froth was announced as tobacco froth, distilled if you like, from a fine cigar. It immediately brought back the chapter in A Cook’s Tour when Anthony Bourdain visited the French Laundry and was presented with a similar concoction. Given that I’m an unashamed fan of Phillip Morris products, acceptance of my fate was not an issue. The foam, small pile of smoked tofu and sweetbreads worked a treat, introducing to the palate a new series of sensations. Classical preparation, with intensity provided by the amazingly flavoured bean puree. And yes the foam… it provided a pleasant buzz, escalated heart rate, and a diffusion of calm through the body. I’m sure that won’t work for non-smokers and the buzz might be altogether different, but my wife seemed to enjoy it too. In keeping with the classical theme established, we moved onto skate. That’s something you don’t find on Melbourne menus very often, except for the odd seafood joint (Claypots comes to mind). This was heralded as a classically dressed skate, but the presentation and composition were anything but. Strips of skate flesh, infused with the poaching liquor, strewn delicately around the plate to be dipped into a ‘beurre noisette’ unlike any beurre noisette I’d ever seen. How browned butter may be transformed into salt and pepper-type crystals escapes me, but how joyous it was to dip each strip of flesh into the powder, rolling it around before flicking each one into the mouth. It reminded me of some Asian preparations of fish, where fillets or more commonly, whole fish are dry rubbed and grilled. Two worlds apart, but I can’t help but feel there was a commonality…end part 1

If I remember correctly, Wagga is right smack bang in the middle between Melbourne and Sydney no? Therefore, it should not be too difficult to get some things sent to you. Mail order via the internet can work wonders. I know people in Ruffy, South Gippsland in Victoria who order every specialty bit and piece in. At the farmer's market in the Collingwood Children's Farm here in town, most meat producers there ship their product around the states by express post, and if ordered in bulk, it works out the same as buying retail from a wanky snooty butcher (sometimes you just have to!). Which brings me to another point, what about access to local producers in the vicinity? I am not familiar with what is produced in your area, but is that even an option? Intruiging topic! I'm very interested to see where this goes.

Bux mentioned grinding salt at the table, but most of the contributions here seem to mention only fine or flaked crystals. Does grinding coarse salt make a difference? I don't think so. This is how I got to this conclusion: Bought a canister of Baleine and got the medium grain product instead. Realised when I got home. Instead of returning it, I resolved to use it for 'in-cooking' use, meaning dissolving into foods, deep seasoning, pasta water etc. Ground some up in mortar and pestle and used it to roast a chook. Bright idea! Got another chook a couple days later, spatchcocked it. Salted one half with ground salt, and another half with Maldon for the crunch. Could taste no difference apart from crunch and no crunch. Repeated with finger test of Baleine fine, Maldon, and Baleine medium. Medium actually tasted saltier i think, once crunched with teeth.

Apparently can be quite good. I've been told that it depends on where you got it from, as in an export wine, of which there aren't many and are usually fairly ordinary, but if it's the local German 'stash', then it can be very good.

Better add my 2cts worth then too. BBQ King for me, was greasy. Greasy. Greasy. And I got the message, loud and clear.

Bruno? Bruno who? What city? What food? Why don't we know anything about this chap? Hmmm... where's Bruno...

Gee, not much happening on the Sydney Chinese food scene so it seems.

Ooookay... ignoramus here... what does unroasted coffee taste like? Do you just dry the beans out then grind them? Confused now...

Thanks a bunch. Seems like I've got all I need to know?? One more thing, do we have agreement on the ratio? Are we talking 1 heaped teaspoon per pound of coffee? Let's see, one pound is like just under 1/2kilo.... cool. Thanks again.

I don't really pay attention to the hats. Having said that, sometimes you find that your favourite place hasn't got what you think it should get and then you get disappointed and angry and hard done by. And that's where I think it really gets interesting, the hat thing simply provides for good conversational fodder.

Dim, In terms of signature dishes, I highly recommend the pei-pa duck, roast squab, whiting as mentioned earlier, and the pork. If you ask nicely and have some time, they can do you a red cooked pork belly, but best to order that in advance. The beef fillet rivals Flower Drum in my opinion, but the staff themselves would deny it out of respect and deference. Ask for the sauce to be served on the side and ladle it on to taste. As for the CBD branch in Cohen Pl, I happened to pop in there for lunch today on a whim with a colleague. $40 per head, 'Executive Lunch' comprised the following: - sang choi pao - salt and chili whiting - king prawns (in a sweet/sour sauce, light, not cloying) - beef fillet with pepper sauce - fried rice with prawns - coffee/tea which we skipped due to time constraints Verdict: good value for a hearty lunch. Can't answer questions about the menu, as although I've had dinner there once or twice, we've never ordered from the card.