Shinboners

Chef Robin can correct me on this, but I swear I once saw lambs brains (crumbed and fried) on his menu sometime last year. btw, I should add that intestines were old another favourite from the family dinners. I also remember going to Sydney with the family and going to a Chinese restaurant where they served a sublime dish of stir fried bone marrow. I had this particular dish when I was probably no older than 8 or 9 years old and I still remember it.

Being in the first generation of Chinese in my family to be born here, I grew up eating offal. Tripe, liver, kidney, stomach lining, pigs trotters, tongue - you name it, we ate it. I didn't like all of it though. The flavour of kidney and liver was too strong for me. But I loved the texture of the offal, whether it was the silky smoothness of tripe and pigs trotters or the crunch of pigs ears and the stomach. Dried chicken giblets (often cooked in a soup) were another favourite. Since then, I've learned to appreciate liver and kidneys. My only problem is that I only eat these things when I go out. I really should cook them at home. It's not as if I don't have recipes for them. Just recently, I got a copy of Marco Pierre White's "White Heat". In it, he has Pierre Koffmann's recipe for braised pigs trotters. It looks stunning in the phote. But the recipe looks like one that would need the entire weekend to accomplish. Anyway, so does anyone want to go to one of these offal dinners at the Homestead?

For Bill Granger cookbooks, I'd go for either Bill's Food or Sydney Food. Both are excellent. Bill's Open Kitchen is good, but by that stage, it starts to get a bit too familiar. If you live in Australia, head over to one of the larger Post Offices. They sometimes have these cookbook packages where you get two cookbooks for the price of one (or near enough to one). They have a Bill Granger set and a Jamie Oliver set.

Oh well. We did our best to try and convince you to move to Melbourne. Good luck with Sydney! I hope you have many wonderful foodie experiences there.

There's always a few exceptions that prove the rule. Near my best mate's place, the fish and chip shop is run by Asians and they're not too bad. Their steak sandwiches are great. Over on Glenferrie Road, they've got one of those "Bottom of the Harbour" fish and chip shops. I remember going there when they had the original owners. The fish and chips were excellent, the seafood was superb (if overpriced), the staff were great, and the place was always full. Since then, the original owners sold them off as franchises, and Chinese bought the one in Hawthorn. To them, it's just a business rather than a passion. So, the fish and chips aren't as good, the seafood looks dreadful, the service is non-existent (I have never seen the two owners smile), and thus, the place isn't as busy as it once was. I once got given a crumbed piece of fish that had been reheated from the previous night - I haven't returned since.

Bubs Seafood in Nelson Bay, NSW. Best fish and chips ever. Unfortunately, my local fish and chip shop (out here in the 'burbs) is rubbish. I suppose walking in and seeing Chinese behind the counter should have tipped me off. You see, us Chinese have no history of fish and chips, so we're really not going to be terribly good at this kind of food. Then there was the vat of industrial batter that should have made me walk straight out.....and if not that, the smell of oil in the air should have done it.....but sometimes, hunger takes over from logic, but I'm never going in there again. And to add to the others, what is a "Melbourne floater"? I've lived in Melbourne all my life and I've never come across one.

Speaking of competition, I'd be interested to hear the Chefs Office reading of the jobs market in Melbourne. For these fine diners, they're going to need good staff. Is there going to be enough good staff here to go around? I think I'll leave this one alone. I don't have any problem with Sydney people setting up in Melbourne per se. But I do wonder if some of these places are offering anything that we can't already enjoy here. As I posted earlier, I'm very happy that Longrain has opened in Melbourne because I don't think anyone else is really doing anything like they do. I'd also be happy if a branch of Billy Kwongs opened here too.

It has been reported in today's Epicure that the Crown complex is in talks with Neil Perry about opening a Rockpool restaurant in Melbourne. They are also talking to Armando Percuoco from Buon Ricordo and Guillaume Brahimi of Guillaume at Bennelong. It'll be interesting to see if any of this comes to fruition. From the viewpoint of Crown's business, it makes some sense. Get a few well known brand names and keep the tourists happy. But from the viewpoint of Melbourne dining, I'm really struggling to see the point. At least with Longrain, they filled a gap in the market. But would a Melbourne version of Buon Ricordo do anything that the Grossi Florentino, Cafe di Stasio, Becco, Bottega, etc. couldn't do just as well? Likewise, I really can't see how Guillaume at Bennelong doing anything that can't already be had in this town. Rockpool is an interesting case. I've been their once and the food they served was stunning - we don't have anything like it in our town. But, I doubt they could charge the same prices in Melbourne as they do in Sydney. I figure that if anything had to give, it would be the ingredients....so if they did that, we would probably end up with Rockpool-lite (or XO south if you wish).

It depends on what you mean by Spanish food. To my mind, there are three broad trends. Firstly, there's the tapas craze. Plenty of places do it in Melbourne, but only a few do it well (and in the right spirit). For most people, tapas is their main (and often only) experience of Spanish food. Then there's the molecular gastronomy as inspired by el Bulli. Fenix and Reserve threw themselves into this, and I reckon that a few of the dishes at Interlude would fall into this category. Personally, I would have liked to have gone to Reserve and Fenix to at least give it a try (especially after Tim White's review), but I just never got around to it. Finally, there's what I would probably call "homestyle" Spanish food. I guess this is the food that a place like Moro (in England) would do. I haven't come across it in Melbourne, but I do like cooking the food from the two Moro cookbooks. I'm not sure what's happening in the rest of the world, but if any style of Spanish food is setting trends in Australia, it's tapas. Personally, since so much of it is poorly done, the trend will run out of steam and the everyday punter will be looking for something else to eat. Hopefully it'll shake out all the bad places and leave just the good ones around.

Thanks for that info Tim. I do have to say that after reading that excerpt from the Penguin website, I can't say that I'm too excited about the book - simple Chinese food from everyday things you can get from the supermarket? It sounds like it'll be a Chinese version of the Bill Granger books.

I caught a couple of episodes of the new Kylie Kwong TV series on the Lifestyle Channel. She's just going around China, poking her nose here and there, talking about the local food and doing some cooking. I didn't like her first TV series, but this one is much better - they've cut out many of those soft focus shots where she gazes into the mid-distance. So, it's probably fair to say that with a new TV series (and having Bill Granger and Neil Perry as two of her mentors), there's probably going to be a cookbook to go along with this series. I thought her first two cookbooks were excellent, so hopefuly if there's a third, it'll be of the same standard, but cover the Chinese food that she has enjoyed in China.

Happy birthday to Interlude. I hope you have a top night with the celebrations. The missus and I were talking about our dinner there, and thinking of our favourite childhood and comfort foods we'd love to see with a haute cousin. After going though a few options, the one that appealed to us the most was.....the twistie roll! Chef Robin, I don't know if you ever had them in England, but over here, the twistie roll was simply a buttered roll, cut in half and filled with twisties. Let us know if you ever come up with an Interlude version of it.

Over on the eastern side of Melbourne, we've got a few good options. There's the Penang Coffee House (395 Burwood Road, Hawthorn). The smell of fish sauce, garlic, and chilli that hits you when you enter this place tells you all you need to know. It's wonderful. About ten minutes away from where I live, there's a few places all within a couple of minutes walk of each other. The best is probablys Nyonya Hut on 240 Blackburn Road, Glen Waverley. A block or so down is (the shockingly named) Nudel N Wraps. I've heard that the chef there used to work at the Penang Coffe House. Across the road is this building that has a food court (and nothing else) inside. The court is host to a number of stands that sell food like Indian, Malay, vegetarian etc. It's not bad, but the other two places are better. Finally, I do like the Old Raffles Place on 70 Johnston Street, Collingwood (right opposite the Tote Hotel). A couple of drinks and a platter of entrees isn't a bad way to spend the early hours of the evening.

There was an article about WineStar in the Age's technology section a couple of years ago. It was about how the large retail companies like Coles-Myer and Woolworths tried to develop an internet retail presence of wine. But after pouring millions of dollars into the projects, they failed. Meanwhile, WineStar started small and spread through word of mouth. I'm acquanited with Bert from WineStar (he's a good North Melbourne boy), and hopefully he'll join in this discussion later.

Funnily enough, today's Epicure reports that Tim Saffery, the head chef at the Court House Hotel, will be leaving in two months. He's heading to The River (Moruya on the south coast of NSW). He's going to give it a go for six months, and if it works well, he'll buy into it.

I was driving around the other day and I spied another Court House hotel in Melbourne! So make sure you go to the one in Errol Street, North Melbourne.

and Glenn McGrath and Masterfoods, How could you ? in that heat ? did your bbq melt to the ground ? ← Sam Kekovich > Glenn McGrath. As for the BBQ, I stood inside under the air conditioner, and raced out every few minutes to keep an eye on things. Needless to say, everything got somewhat overcooked! Hey, I didn't say the food was any good, did I?

That looks superb Shal. I'm very envious of those who tucked into all that food. Wimps! I did the BBQ at lunchtime - just a few sausages, a couple of lamb chops (inspired by that ex-Rooboy, Sam Kekovich, and his TV ad), and a salad.

There was one Lethlean review last year where he wrote about taking his daugther and one of her friends to a dinner at Cafe di Stasio. He did write with plenty of personal information (especially about the kids), but in the context of the review, I thought it worked pretty well. It's not something you would want to read every week, but for looking at fine dining restaurants from a family perspective, it was a refreshing change. The only fault I could find is that both kids seemed to be well versed in the world of restaurants, so their experience probably wouldn't be typical of most diners. But then again, he's a well known reviewer, so it's debatable how much his evenings would match that of us mug punters.

I think a degree of personal context is needed. Certainly a good dinner can lift the spirits, and by the same token, a great day can end up with a downer due to lousy food and crap service. The personal ruminations certainly shouldn't crop up through a review, but a bit at the beginning and at the end is usually worthwhile in assisting in the perspective of an experience. In a few of my recent reviews, I made comments about how the staff and other diners reacted to us having a baby in tow, and whilst that situation wouldn't apply to many diners, it would still be of interest to some. Not only that, how the staff handle the issue of a baby reflects on their professionalism.

This bloke sounds like a culinary version of those gits on the Movie Show. You know the ones I'm talking about - they spend about five minutes talking and yet you learn nothing about what the movie was about, whether it was any good, or what sort of audience would enjoy the picture. However, they did let you know that they had a vastly superior knowledge of films and a far bigger vocabulary than us hicks sitting on the couch. Sometimes too much education can be a very bad thing.

Reading the topic heading, I thought that the Chefs Office was going to say goodbye to eGullet. Thankfully, it was only Matt Evans moving on from reviewing restaurants.

And here's part 2. We started off with a "yuzuaide", an icy liquid made from yuzu. It tasted sour, salty, and sweet, and the flavour reminded me of a cross between lemon and grapefruit, and it cleansed the palate very well. Next came the canapes, four in all. All were one bite jobs, with the two that stood out being French onion soup and deep fried mac and cheese. These two had flavours that stood out strongly, a kind of instant reminder of comfort food of adult and childhood years. The other two were a composed Greek salad and a buckwheat blini with creme fraiche and frozen shaved smoked salmon. The Greek salad didn't do much for me, but the blini would have been a star if it wasn't for the other two canapes. And now we go course by course. Caesar salad. As Pein said in his review, this was like a zip file. I suppose if you were to summarise Wicken's cooking in one course, this wouldn't be a bad one to choose. You taste all the components of the dish, each flavour works in harmony and reveals themselves in order, and it is all so balanced. Foie gras and roasted apple lollipop, with the apple in the centre and the foie gras coating it. Yes, it did look like a lollipop and you ate it like a lollipop. And back to my childhood memories, my lollipop fell off its stick. I can't remember if foie gras and apples were traditional partners in French cooking (I'm too lazy to look it up in my cookbooks right now), but whether or not they are, it worked for me. Pickled cucumber, mango puree, and several aromatics. This was a finely sliced piece of cucumber, the puree in the folds, and the aromatics sitting on top. The aromatics were not mixed together, but they appeared in distinct rows - a thread of saffron, then a few bits of crushed pepper, salt flakes, then the next aromatic after that. For me, it was the aromatics that were the star of the show, the cucumber and mango being the backdrop to these individual explosions of flavours as the aromatics hit the tongue. Superb. Whole black truffle. This was a truffle flavoured frozen ‘sponge’ rolled in chopped black truffle and filled with a liquid Madeira centre. It came with a couple of thin cheese (I think they were cheddar) crisps. This was an exercise in understatement compared to the pyrotechnics of the previous course. The Madeira centre wasn’t as strongly flavoured as I had expected, but it did give a good backdrop for the flavour of the truffle (which was very earthy and very warm). Chicken consommé and instant noodles. This was a fun dish. A bowl of intensely flavoured chicken consommé, served with a few chanterelle mushrooms and broad beans. You then took a bottle of herbed yoghurt and squeezed it into the consommé to make the “instant noodles”. Excellent. Bacon and eggs. No, it’s not the Thomas Keller dish. At Interlude, Wickens cooks an egg at 32 degrees for 2 hours. It is served with a bacon consommé and a piece of dehydrated bacon. Visually, it’s a fantastic dish to look at with its presentation in a wonderfully curvaceous bowl. Tasting it is even better. Like the other dishes, this is an exercise in bringing out flavours, and like the canapés, it’s also an effort to take the familiar and present it in a different form. I reckon that chefs can get a bit too clever with their food, but this dish shows how you can be interesting without going over the top. Tomato explosion. It’s back to the pyrotechnics, with a tomato ravioli that you put into your mouth and, as you’d expect from the dish’s name, it explodes in your mouth with a burst of tomato flavour. Just remember to keep your mouth shut rather than chew when you get one of these. Rare cooked pork shoulder with warm cider foam. I’ve never had pork like this before. The pork was so rare that it looked raw – maybe it should have been called blu. Eat the pork by itself and, well, it doesn’t taste like much with just the smallest hints of pork flavour hanging around somewhere on the tongue. Eat it with the cider foam and you start thinking of the best roast pork and apple sauce dinners you’ve ever had. The texture of the pork was like jelly, and like the wagyu beef, it quickly melted in the mouth. Grapefruit in grapefruit. A grapefruit sorbet in a grapefruit foam. You have the same basic flavour, but its presented in two different formats at two slightly different temperatures. Try the sorbet by itself, it’s okay. Try the foam by itself, and that’s okay. Try both together and the flavours and textures lift up several notches. And it did a fabulous job of cleansing the palate. A chocolate banana bon bon with puffed banana rice, peanuts and cherries. This was a nice little bite before dessert. Like many of the courses beforehand, it was one bite and then flavours dancing on the tongue with the chocolate and cherry being the most prominent. There’s really not much more for me to add on Interlude. The food is wonderful. I love the way that Wickens takes the familiar and presents it in a new way, and I adore the sense of fun he has with his food. In the food world, there are few better ways to spend an evening.

Thanks for the review ozmouse. I can't wait to try Longrain. It's not a favourite of mine either, but since I can usually get to a restaurant by 6 to 6.30, it often works in my favour. And I would think that in the case of Longrain, it'll work in favour of the punters who are going there to eat rather than to be seen. Yeah, it sounds like Ying Thai. The last time I went there, the food was ferociously hot - so much so that I couldn't finish my food. Oddly enough, in previous visits, their use of chillis didn't bother me that much. Anyway, after building up my tolerance to chillis with bowl after bowl of Vietnamese chilli-beef soup, I'm ready to give Ying Thai another spin.

Keep your knives sharp. It'll make cutting ingredients to their proper size so much easier and so much more pleasurable. And don't be afraid of the cooking process. Be confident without being cocky. As Fergus Henderson noted, food has a habit of misbehaving if you're afraid that things won't turn out.