Shinboners
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Posts posted by Shinboners
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Would be good to see the red guide here in Australia some day.
Red guide = Michelin?
Speaking of Michelin, every year or so, I get a call from someone saying that he represents Michelin Australia and that they're looking for restaurant reviewers for their Australian guide. They always say, "You've heard of the Michelin Guides for Europe? We do it for Australia". Naturally, there's always some hook - you have to pay money to take part in the reviews.
I'll look forward to their call next year, and I'll grill them a bit more about it.
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This is taken from Sunday Life, the Age supplement, November 20, 2005.
Matthew Evans is the chief food critic for the Sydney Morning Herald.
He made a few points - Sydney does top end dining better saying that if you can charge more you can get better ingredients, Melbourne service is better, Sydney dominates the top 20 but if he went to a top 50 or 100, Melbourne would dominate, and Melbourne is more affordable.
He did his list alphabetically as he didn't want to rank them.
My main gripe - the Australian food world does not begin and end with Melbourne and Sydney.
Here's the list:
Becasse (Sydney)
Bilson's (Sydney)
Buon Ricordo (Sydney)
Cafe di Stasio (Melbourne)
Circa, The Prince (Melbourne)
Claude's (Sydney)
Est (Sydney)
Ezards (Melbourne)
Guillaume at Bennelong (Sydney)
Icebergs (Sydney)
Jacques Reymond (Melbourne)
Marque (Sydney)
Omega (Sydney)
Pier (Sydney)
Quay (Sydney)
Rockpool (Sydney)
Silks (Sydney)
Tetsuya's (Sydney)
Vue de Monde (Melbourne)
Yoshii (Sydney)
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So it seems we don't really know the answer yet.
Especially when there are women who have drug and alcohol addictions, and have poor diets, and they still give birth.
There are so many different cultures with different dietry structures, and bhilden are born in these cultures every day.
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. I gave up coffee because my body refused it, I couldn't even stand the smell.
Smell can make all the difference with food. My partner adores seafood, but when she got pregnant, she couldn't handle the smell of it. It was the same with pork.
I ate raw fish, meats and eggs but only when I knew their source and was sure of their freshness. If I had been living anywhere except Japan I may have avoided these more.People are told here to avoid smoked salmon. And yet, in the book "How To Eat", Nigella Lawson writes of eating plenty of smoked salmon throughout one of her pregnancies.
Like a lot of what happens during a pregnancy, it's a risk management exercise. You were able to eat raw seafood because you were certain about its freshness. If my partner and I were 10 years younger, we might have taken the same risk as we know the quality of seafood in Australia is very good (provided you know where to look). But we decided that it wasn't worth the risk, so we gave things like sushi a miss.
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Garlic is a blood-thinner. I wonder if that has something to do with it.
Now that you mention that, this was the reason the naturopath gave us for avoiding garlic.
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My partner and I had a baby this year. She gave up raw foods, rare meats, things like oysters, mussels, and clams, and alcohol - and I gave up on them too (well, except for the rare meat). We also had to give up on ham, although that was fine if you cooked it. Interestingly, we chatted to the mother of one of our friends and she said back in her day, they happily ate raw oysters simply because no-one thought there was any problem with it. Here in Australia, we get a pamphlet explaining what foods you should avoid and the key reason is to avoid listeria infections.
Still, try as you might, some foods you should avoid get through the cracks. We avoided raw eggs, but without thinking, we ate hand made mayonnaise (raw egg yolk) and a chocolate mousse (raw egg white).
We spoke to a naturopath and she said that we should give up garlic (I can't remember the reason why), although to her credit, she also said that there were millions of people around the world who still ate garlic throughout pregnancy with no ill effect.
One of my best friends is planning to have a baby. She's a vegetarian, and all and sundry are telling her that she should start eating meat for the baby's sake. But there are plenty of vegetarian communities around the world that have no problem with making babies.
In the end, it wasn't a problem for us to give up certain foods for 9 months. We still ate very well. During the pregnancy, we went to Tetsuya's, and she had to pass up on his signature dish (the confit ocean trout) because the cooking temperature of that dish doesn't guarantee the elimination of bacteria. She probably would have been fine, but we didn't want to take the risk. Any regrets she might have had on giving up on that fine dish would evaporate with seeing our little baby girl smiling.
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Shinboners PCL is absolutely right both need to be sacrificed. However, don't drink the CIENA whatever you do...it could turn you off wine for ever
PCL should probably give his butchers a call to see what cuts he can rustle up for a BBQ.
As for the Ciena, I'll have to defend myself and say that someone gave that one to me.
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To be fair, Shin suggested the sticky. I'm not much of a sticky person usually, and would normally defer choice of one to someone else. Must work on that this festive season!
And I'm going to have to confess that I know next to nothing about stickies. I enjoy them every now and again, and I only talked Pein into it because I know I enjoy muscats and the name of the one on offer had a pretty cool name.
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Always happy to accommidate food lovers. Don't think Tim has been in yet either!!
drop me a line robin@interlude.com.au
I didn't expect a reply! Thank you very much.
I will certainly send you an e-mail in the next day or two. I'll have to have a chat with Pein and check the eGullet policy on organising dinners. And there's one or two other things that I'd like to ask you as well.
Again, thank you for the reply.
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Sounds like you guys need some dinner partners!
Next year, I'd really like to get a bunch of eGulleters together for a dinner at Interlude.
I'm very keen for a return visit and I know PCL hasn't been there yet. Robin Wicken's food is sublime (and hello to Robin if he's reading....want to do a special deal for us?
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I went to La Parisienne today. I bought their venison sausages (very good flavour, but slightly too salty), pork sausages (superb), and boudin noir (in the freezer).
Going into Christmas, they're going to have a few specials for sale including foie gras, duck sausage, escargot and pesto tarte, and saffron fish soup. I can't wait.
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Congratulations on the little one!
Thank you.
One month old and she's already been to Pelligrini's twice and into her first French restaurant.
Did they make you uncomfortable? I hope they were moved to a table by the door, the toilets or the swinging doors down the backI was more bemused than anything else. Any other place and people look at babies with gushing faces. In a restaurant, and you feel the fear that they're worried that a crying baby will ruin their evening (and in the case of these people, they were part of a large table, so it was probably their big night out).
In the end, if our daughter cried a lot, we would have left early. We want to enjoy our evening, but not at the expense of others enjoying their night out. But to give out such a negative vibe when our baby was sleeping, well, I think that's being very narrow minded.
I can't speak highly enough of the two waiters who took care of us at Aux Batifolles. They made us feel absolutely welcome.
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A few months ago, some friends brought over a bottle of 2004 Pillarbox Red. It's a cabernet shiraz merlot and it went down very well with the chocolate souff....um....mousse....that we had for dessert. It says something that I still think of that wine. I can't remember much of the bouquet, but the flavour! Plenty of chocolate-coffee flavour (which I adore), but it was very smooth.
I just took a peak of what's left of my collection. 10 bottles made up of the following:
'96 Penfolds St. Henri Shiraz
'97 Joseph Cab-Sav-Merlot
2 x '98 Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz
'98 Knappstein Shiraz
'98 Blue Pyrennes Cab-Sav-Merlot
'99 Henschke Kyneton Estate Cab-Sav-Merlot
'00 Tahbilk Cab-Sav
'02 Brown Brothers Cienna
'02 Honeytree Estate Cab-Sav
I think I need to have a BBQ soon.
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A few older people enter Aux Batifolles, take a quick look at my table and their faces register a mixture of shock and disgust. Is it because....
a. The chopped up meat on my plate is raw.
b. We're holding hands, and shock horror.....we're an interracial couple
or
c. In my arms, our baby is sleeping.
If you answered c, then give yourself a pat on the back.
Still, it's an interesting issue. When are babies acceptable at restaurants? I'd have no trouble taking our daughter into a Chinese restaurant or any of the places down Victoria Street. But I'd never take her into the Grossi Florentino, Pearl, Vue de Monde or places similar to this. But where does Aux Batifolles sit? We had last minute baby sitter problems, but I felt that A.B. would present no problems. The staff didn't mind, it was just the other customers. Even then, our daughter was asleep (provided it was in our arms).
Anyway, onto the dinner. I went old school last night with an entree of steak tartare, duck confit and a grilled duck breast, and a creme brulee. I was very glowing with my review of my first visit to Aux Batifolles, but this time, the dinner was much more patchy. Maybe the kitchen had an off night, or maybe because we got their so early (6.30ish, first diners in), they hadn't really warmed up yet. Who knows? But it was a few little things that made the difference between brilliant food and acceptable food.
The steak tartare was superb. The meat was a touch below room temperature, it wasn't too finely minced, and it came already mixed with gherkins, chopped shallots, capers, and a couple of other condiments. An egg yolk sat on top, and when mixed, the texture and flavour was delightful. It was a very generous serve - another spoonful or two of eye fillet and it could have easily been a main course.
My main was a mixed bag. The grilled duck breast was overcooked by a few minutes, thus losing both the lovely red colour and losing a bit of tenderness. The skin wasn't at all crispy, and overall, I found it disappointing. However, the confit duck leg was excellent. The skin was crisp, the meat melted in the mouth, and the flavour was spot on. It came with a sauce flavoured with Iranian figs. The sauce had a great flavour (and the figs were oh-so-sweet), but it was probably a bit too strong for the duck.
Onto desserts and the creme brulee was a big disappointment. The custard wasn't properly set, and as a result, when the surface was caramalised, the whole thing sunk into the bowl. The flavour was fine, but the way it looked, and the texture were poor.
My partner had two specials. The first was the escargot, the same as what we had on our previous visit. The snails were braised in a mixture of herbs (very Chinese in flavour), and tonight, it was every bit as good as our first visit. Her main was a pork loin with a sort of mango (?)-coconut chutney. I didn't think that much of the chutney, the flavouring just seemed to have a bit too much bite to it, but the pork loin itself was excellent. It was very tasty, moist, and tender. She finished off with the profiteroles, which are better than most but still well behind those served at France Soir.
We had a generous side of French fries. They were very good, probably not quite as good as the ones PCL and I had at L'Oustal the other night.
The service was again, excellent. The food came out at a nice pace (we spent 2 hours there), with the only slip up being my dessert coming out well before my partner's.
I still think that Aux Batifolles is worth going to. The sheer enjoyment from my first visit is still strong in my memory. But last night showed that if one or two things slip, then the food can be less than what it could (or indeed, should) be.
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The chicken liver/foie gras pate was more like a mousse, as noted by Shin. To me, diluting something as precious as foie gras in mousse largely dominated by chicken liver might be trying a little hard, but like as Shin said, if that's what the local population want, then so be it.
I thought you first said it was more like a mousse.
Anyway, to expand on my comment, I reckon that foie gras in an unadulterated form might be a bit too strongly flavoured or rich for the locals. So they may as well (for want of a better phrase) water it down. Hopefully in the long term, people will demand more of the pure product. With any luck, sometime in the future, we'll just be able to order foie gras and a few toasted baguettes.
I also noticed that one of the specials (off memory, it might have been the confit duck) came with a roquefort sauce. Now, I've never tasted roquefort, so I might be very wrong on this - but the flavour may be too strong for the locals. Putting into a sauce as an introduction isn't a bad way of trying to get people hooked onto it. Again, regulars may start to ask that roquefort be included as part of the cheese selection.
Of course, the flipside of this is that people may be content for these diluted tastes. However, with diners becoming more open to what's on offer (for instance, you would never find things like chicken livers on Melbourne menus around 5 years ago), I suspect that we'll see more and more of the unadulterated product on offer in restaurants.
Don't worry shin, we'll teach you all about pinots in good time.Now, is that before or after you try and teach my about the joys of camping?
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Any idea what we will be making (charcuterie-wise) ?
Not yet. We're trying to figure out time frames at the moment. We'll send you a PM in the next few days with a few ideas.
It is funny, the first and only time I had lamb belly was also in a French restaurant (Albert Street Restaurant , Morninington, very, very, very good BTW) Chef Pierre Khodja cooked this lamb dish ( memory is a bit vague now , it was about a year ago) but what stucked in my mind is this belly thing, it is cut in 1 inch cube, crumbed, deep fried, there was a slight hint of cummin, it was sticky and soft, gelatinous. I could have more.That sounds almost identical to what I had.
I could easily have sat down with a bowl of these things whilst watching the soccer last night.
I'm going to try and track down a recipe for this dish.
nice review, John Le____n , you better watch out
Aw shucks.
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PCL can write about the wines in more detail.
From the scrappy notes written on the back of the receipt, it seems we had the following:
Dominique poztet cabernet/merlot. I had a glass of this. The bouquet was lovely, it really filled the nose. And it tasted great too - full bodied, really rich chocolate flavours.
We shared a carafe of (apologies if I got this wrong, the writing is quite doctor-like!), chateau quiot g.m.s. It took me a while to figure out whether I liked this wine or not. Part of the flavour was like the previous wine, but other bits reminded me of a pinot noir. I am not a fan of pinot noir - to me, they taste too much like cough mixture (as I quickly duck my head as the pinot noir fans take aim at me).
PCL had a hugel riesling (from Alsace) and he had a muscat di beaume venge for dessert.
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Can anyone point me to recruitment websites or anything related to finding employment as a Chef in Aus or NZ? All help and advice appreciated.
Thanks
Emma
London
There's a user here under the name "The Chefs Office". I'd suggest that you find one of his posts and send him a PM.
He has a website (taken from his signature) with some info that you'll find useful:
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Albert Park is not a place I often visit. Whilst it’s a beautiful part of Melbourne, I feel like an outsider amongst the comfort and wealth. Slipping into L’Oustal on a Tuesday night, I watch two of the staff chatting with friends who are enjoying dinner there. If L’Oustal’s aim is to be a second dining room for the locals, my impression is that they are achieving that with ease.
The restaurant seats around 40 people and it gets to about half full during the evening. The friendly and professional attitude of the staff results in a liveliness and warmth in the room. Watching the guests come and go, they all seem to be friends of L’Oustal’s staff.
We open our dinner with a plate of charcuterie. A plate with five selections plus Cumberland sauce and pickled gherkins arrives. The highlight of the plate for me was a subtly flavoured tripe sausage and pork, bacon and pistachio terrine. There was no initial punch of flavour, just a slow introduction of taste on the tongue. The other selections was a pork rillettes that was too fine for my liking, slices of salami, and a chicken and foie gras mousse.
The mains were excellent. I enjoyed a lamb rump and crispy lamb belly served with spring vegetables and sauternes sauce. The lamb rump was served rare. It was tender and sweet, the flavour of the lamb allowed to shine without any interference from herbs and spices. But these slices of rump were trumped by the belly. The belly pieces were cut into cubes, rolled in breadcrumbs, and fried. The meat had a texture similar to duck confit that contrasted well with its coating. Again, there was enough taste to let you know it was lamb, but not so much that it was overpowering. It was a wonderful balance of flavour and texture. The meat sat on a bed of broad beans, celery, and spring onion with a well flavoured sauternes sauce.
After a warm Melbourne day, a cassoulet should be the last thing you would want to eat for dinner, but nonetheless, that’s what Pein ordered. I had a taste, and the thing that struck me was the lightness of it. All the components of a good cassoulet were there, but without the richness.
Our mains were accompanied by some very good French fries. They came out hot (something that seems to be happening less these days), were fluffy on the inside and nice and crisp on the outside.
I finished with a crème brulee. The texture of the custard was good and the top had excellent caramalization, but the flavour probably lacked a bit of oomph. Still, it’s better than most of the crème brulees around town.
Overall, the food at L’Oustal shows a wonderful lightness of touch. The restaurant has a warm feel, and the service was excellent. We chatted to the people dining on the tables next to us. They were regulars and very affectionate about the restaurant. I came into the restaurant feeling like an outsider, but left feeling as if I was part of the family.
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The TV channel did warn that it was going to be graphic so I can't see what all the fuss was about. He also looked genuinely distressed when doing it and very strongly made the point that if you're going to eat it you should be prepared to kill it.
Thomas Keller wrote in the French Laundry cookbook about the first time he slaughtered a rabbit. He also said it was distressing, but the result was that he respected the animal, and it motivated him to cook the meat to the best of his ability and to never waste it.
He made the point that to a line cook, if a bit of meat is overcooked, they would have no hesitation in throwing it away and starting again with another piece of meat. By contrast, Keller said that his experience with the rabbit ensured that any bit of meat he was cooking had his full attention.
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When I was much younger, my dad showed me how to slaughter and prepare a chicken. I had no problems with it, and I was always happy to eat chickens prepared this way. However, my sisters refused to eat these freshly killed chickens - and yet, they're always happy to eat chicken if it's been purchased from a shop.
Stranger still, my sisters are happy to eat lobsters, crabs, and fish that were killed only moments before cooking.
Go figure.
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I also been reading the charcuterie chapter, with all the rillettes, liver parfait, sausages, terrine, it is making my mouth water, might attampt one of the recipes or I will head down to Le Parisienne soon.
It's inspiring reading, isn't it?
I'm really looking forward to the Ruhlman book that Tim White posted about earlier.
I don't know whether it would be easy to organise, but I reckon we should all spend a weekend preparing some charcuterie and then the following weekend, get together and taste the results.
Haven't seen Greg & Lucy Maloufs' new book around , is it out yet ?It certainly is. I've seen it at R**d*ngs and the Hill of Content with a RRP of $69.95. The book is stunning.
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it certainly was one of the most memerable chooks I had, it was juicy, full of chickeny flavour
That's the thing that struck me about last night's chicken - the flavour. No lemon, no chicken, and not too many herbs - it was just near pure chicken flavour.
I kept the leftover bones to make some stock later.
Shin , how did you do yours ? may be we should start a new topic on chook roasting ?The Zuni Cafe chicken only works for smaller chickens. I'll check the weights later, but you're looking at 1.2 kgs to 1.4 kgs.
The day before roasting, you remove that bit of fat from inside the chicken, then wash and dry it. You make an incision on the breast side and slip in a few sprigs of your herbs of choice, then you sprinkle a generous amount of salt on it. Leave it loosely covered in the fridge overnight. Oh, and you do not need to truss up the chicken!
Before cooking, leave the chicken out for a half hour or so (that's not in the recipe, it's just something I did). Pre-heat the oven to 240 degrees. Also, pre-heat your roasting tray - the tray should not be too big for the chicken. Put the chicken, breast side up, on the roasting tray and into the oven. After about 20 minutes, you should see the skin start to blister. If it's not, turn up the temperature. If the skin is starting to char, turn the temperature down. When the chicken has been in the oven for around 30 minutes, take it out and turn it over. Then it's another 10 to 15 minutes in the oven. Turn it around once more for 5 minutes to crisp up the breast side. Take it out, drain off the juices, and then let the chicken rest for a little while, and then carve and serve.
Late last night, I was flicking through the Bouchon cookbook, and I found that Thomas Keller does a similar thing with his roast chicken - use a small one and roast at a high temperature.
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I like the Rogers one for her discussions on technique (I don't use her recipes),
Tonight, I cooked my first recipe from Judy Roger's "The Zuni Cafe Cookbook".
I usually get a sense of satisfaction after cooking, but every now and again, I get a sense of achievement and total happiness - a feeling that life (okay, maybe not life, but cooking) couldn't possibly get any better. Thanks to trying out the Zuni Roast Chicken recipe, I got that feeling tonight.
I got a 1.2kg chicken from the Chicken Pantry at the Queen Vic, followed her instructions to the letter, and finished up with the best roast chicken that I've ever tasted. The meat turned out moist, the skin was crisp and tasty, and the chicken tasted as chicken should. Add a salad and a few slices of ciabatta, and it was the best dinner I've managed to cook in a while.
Best Cooking Technique Books
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
In Australia, Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion" is the Bible. I'm always referring to it for information on ingredients, techniques, and recipes.
I'd also nominate Anne Willan's "La Varenne Pratique" as a great reference for cooking techniques and information on food.