Shinboners

Someone with a far more accurate memory than me might be able to confirm a story (I may have read it in Epicure in the last couple of weeks) where it seems that people will soon be allowed to import unpasteurised cheeses.

The Crown factor weighs on my mind too, but I'll be making an exception for The Brasserie.

I haven't been yet. I'm tossing up where to go next month - The Brasserie is an option, but then again, so is Sel de la Terre. I'll have to check the menus first to see how much they'll cost. Do let us know what you think of The Brasserie. I've already written off Reserve as an option - it's just a little bit too pricey for me right now. Tomorrow night, I'm heading over to Eno-teca for drinks, and afterwards, going across the street to hopefully (very hopefully) get into Ladro. I went to Eno-teca last week to have a coffee at lunchtime and returned in the evening with my fiancee for drinks. It's a nice little place with wines and provisions for sale, quite a lovely place to spend an hour or two.

I'll defend Jamie by saying that his shows and cookbooks have encouraged plenty of people to learn how to cook for themselves. That can't be a bad thing. Whilst I don't own any of his cookbooks, I did learn plenty of tricks and ideas from watching him on television. However, I don't think his book should be in the top 5.

I was just watching the Today show and Luke Mangan had his top 5 cookbooks of 2004. They were: 1. The Cook's Companion - Stephanie Alexander 2. Modern Italian Food - Stefano de Pieri 3. Grossi Florentino - Guy Grossi 4. My Vue - Shannon Bennett 5. Jamie's Dinners - Jamie Oliver

I went through a few years where it seemed that I had too many friends who were vegans, and many of them were trying to convince me to give up meat and dairy. So, I was lent quite a few vegan cookbooks, and having skim read them, they are full of ideology. I had many arguments with the more fanatical vegans and lost a few friends. Read any cookbook (of the non-vegan variety), and inevitably, there will be information on selecting ingredients and how to treat them to get the best out of them. As Anthony Bourdain pointed out, Fergus Henderson shows more respect to the vegetables he's cooking than the vegans who held a dinner party for him. I figure that if a writer can't give basic advice on how to pick and treat their ingredients, then having the love of and getting the best out of food isn't the first issue on their mind.

The Australian Institute of Sport also puts out cookbooks. As a side note, by far the worst cookbook that I've seen is one called "Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine". There was a copy in Readings Hawthorn and it's one of those vegan cookbooks. On the back, where all the mini reviews are, the recommendations come from scientists rather than other cooks. There's a big section that argues (with some very dodgy science) against eating meat, all cooked foods, and certain other vegetables. The author talks about the "spiritual journey" and promises that this cookbook will cure all sorts of ills. Then there are the recipes. It seems that all you need is a dehydrator and a food processor. Soups are nothing more than a selection of ingredients, chopped up in a food processor and then mixed in with water. Come to think of it, that seems to apply to most of the recipes in the book. They have names like "cheeze" and "mylk" for their cheese and milk substitutes, and they have repeated comments like, "This is very tasty", and it just makes me wonder, what's the use of a long life if you can't enjoy what you eat?

For "fusion" food in Melbourne, I'd go to Ezards at Adelphi. Check www.ezard.com.au. You might also want to check out Pearl. Australian food with Asian accents, and the quality of the produce that they use is extraordinarily good. www.pearlrestaurant.com.au Onto something like El Bulli, I think that the closest Melbourne might have to that would be Reserve (in the city) and Fenix (in Richmond). I only know this as these two were mentioned in the Age Good Food Guide as doing molecular gastronomy, but I haven't been to either restaurant. Finally, one of the chefs at Lake House (Daylesford, country Victoria) did a 3 month stint at El Bulli, but I doubt he'd be bringing too much from his time in Spain to what he does at the Lake House.

"My Vue" would shiver in the shadow cast by the French Laundry cookbook - not that it would be alone in that regard. Anyway, now that I've got my computer back up and running, I can write up my review of Vue de Monde. After we had the dinner, I got onto the Vue de Monde website and wrote down the dishes we had. The only ones I couldn't find the details of were the fish course and my dessert, so my comments on these will be sketchy. My partner and I went on April 17, and here's a rundown on what we had (the order of dishes will probably be a bit dodgy though). I know we started off with asparagus purée set with duck egg white, oven baked in the shell,topped with it's own yolk. Now, as someone who was brought up with salted duck eggs in congee, tasting a duck egg like this was a revelation. The lack of salting in the duck egg gave the flavour a richness that I had never previously experienced. The asparagus was sweet and provided a good counterpoint to the flavour of the duck egg. I'm pretty sure that our next dish was Strasbourg foie gras wrapped in brioche and baked, accompanied with cinnamon apples and dressed with walnut oil. When we ordered, the waiter asked us if we were vegetarians, if we had any food allergies, and if we had any special requests. I asked for a course that contained foie gras (as I had never tasted it before). Sometimes when you look forward to tasting something for the first time, it can be a disappointment. In this case, I got a feeling of familiarity (wow, this tastes like liver!) and wide eyed joy (sure, it tastes like liver, but it's so much more rich, smooth, and subtle). It put a very big smile on my face. Next in line was a Ferron Arborio risotto, infused with ceps and finished with a cep essence. Put a menu in front of me, and you can guarantee that risotto will be a dish that I won't be ordering - I've never understood the fuss over this type of rice dish. So to have this dish put in front of me gave me a little bit of trepidation. After eating this, I'm still not likely to order risotto, but only because it's not likely to match up to this one. The rice was like little clouds, the flavour of mushrooms filled my nose and mouth, both my partner and I ate this course very slowly to take in as much of it as we could. We started to giggle. My notes are unclear, but I am fairly sure that the next course was roasted trout with vanilla sauce. It wasn't the extraordinary experience of the previous courses, but the quality of the dish was still very high. We then moved onto the crown of rabbit with cauliflower puree, a crayfish sausage, pomme Anna and ventroche dressed with a rabbit veloute and caper butter. Sublime, just sublime. We were reduced to a giggling mess, just in awe of just how good food could be. I remember eating little bits of each part of the dish, just trying to figure out which bit was the most heavenly. The flavours were bursting on the tongue. We could have just cried with joy. My partner, as she always does, had chocolate for dessert. In this case, it was an interpretation of Michel Bras' classic self-saucing Valrhona chocolate biscuit with pistachio ice cream and cream anglaise. She always has the first taste, then offers me a bit to taste. In this case (and so far, the only time), she refused to share. She still talks about this dessert. My dessert (and my memory is very ropey here) was a buscuit with ginger sauce, possibly a cinnamon ice-cream and sprinkled with five spice. It was recommended by the waiter, it was unusual, and it was very good - but unfortunately, didn't blow my mind as the chocolate dessert did for my partner. I can't remember the wine we had through the night, nor the two dessert wines we had. However, I do remember asking the sommelier to suggest a second dessert wine and he gave us a sublime pear flavoured wine - it was a perfect way to end the dinner and kill time as we waited for our taxi. For me, Vue de Monde was comfortably my best dining experience in 2004, and sits comfortably in the top 5 of my time. The service was excellent, the food was sublime. We went to bed that night, in a dreamlike daze, wondering if the night was as great as it seemed. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep with a big, dopey smile on my face and I know that I woke up with one. My parter and I chatted the next day about it, just recounting the meal and our emotional reaction to it. We still talk about, and smile about, that night at Vue de Monde.

If I was going to show a visitor the different varieties of experiences that Melbourne has to offer, and if money was no object, here's where I would take them. Pelligrini's Espresso for coffee (making sure that it's Paul behind the machine). i Carusi for pizza The bratwurst shop at the Queen Victoria market for a bratwurst in a roll Pacific Seafood BBQ House in Richmond for some Chinese food The Flower Drum for some haute Chinese food Grossi Florentino for Italian Babka Cafe in Fitzroy for breakfast Max Brenner for their hot chocolate The Terminus Hotel in Richmond for a beer and a big bowl of shoestring fries Abla's in Carlton for some homely Lebanese cooking Melbourne Supper Club for a glass of wine Casa del Gelato in Carlton for gelati

I've flipped through it too and it appears to be a very well written cookbook. Of course, you never really know how well written a recipe is until you try it, but from my reading, the list of ingredients and instructions seem to be very thorough. I think many of the recipes wouldn't be out of place in a Jill Dupleix or Bill Granger cookbook.

If Dell ever get around to sending me the spart parts for my other computer so I can access my files, I'll post up my review of Vue De Monde from my dinner there in April 2004. Contrary to PCL, my night there was wonderful. I could write from memory, but I think I'd make a few mistakes with listing down the food we had. In the meantime, as a taster, we got a brief overview of Bennett's food philosophy, but I pretty much forgot it straight away. We were originally going to have 5 courses, but after some smooth talking from the waiter, we ended up going for 6 - which we were greatful for. We found the service to be superb - the waiters were humourous, they looked after our needs, and by the time we got around to the second round of dessert wines, we were happy to trust the sommelier (he just chatted to us for a few moments and returned with a superb dessert wine). I can understand why Bennett's food will polarise people. What he does is ambitious, and on a given night, I think he'll either crash through or crash (especially with the size of his kitchen). Having said that, I would expect him to crash through much more than he crashes. Reading his cookbook, he does seem to live on the adrenaline of cooking. So with that in mind, I think that on a given night, if things don't click, it could turn into a very disappointing experience. I've dined at Vue de Monde three times since its opening, so I've seen and tasted how the restaurant has evolved. During my first and third dinners, the food was so good that I was reduced to giggling with joy. If he stays in Melbourne over the next decade and longer, I think he has the potential to blossom into a truely extraordinary chef. As a final comment, I'm a pretty avid reader of PCL's posts. I have nowhere near the knowledge of food that PCL has. I can pick out some missteps in cooking, but I couldn't do it to the same level as PCL. So, anyone who decides to dine at Vue de Monde based on my review should keep it in mind that I'm a very keen amateur rather than someone with a truely deep understanding of food.

Try www.mcgills.com.au

Okay, every month on the 17th, my partner...er, fiancee....and I go out to dinner to celebrate our monthly anniversary. Add to that her birthday, and we try 13 restaurants every year. Here's my ranking from best to, well, not worst, but least best. 1. Vue de Monde - just a perfect night of eating and atmosphere. 2. Grossi Florentino - read my report in another thread 3. France Soir - very good food, lovely atmosphere, my fiancee said that it does feel like Paris. 4. Interlude - memorable dishes, service is a touch bit too formal for me. 5. Bottega - simple food superbly presented. 6. Pearl - a touch bit too pricey, but the quality can't be questioned. 7. Moreton's Brasserie - we went there twice. It's almost like a comfort restaurant for us. Warm and welcoming, the food is solid. 8. Abla's - we went for the fixed menu and the feast was memorable. 9. Tea House on Bourke - I'm Chinese, and so, we went for dishes that my parents would have cooked. It was all very well executed. 10. Public House - plenty of small dishes, maybe a bit too small. Service was good though. 11. La Luna Bistro - good food, great value, very friendly. 12. Pireaus Blues - I'm not a huge fan of Greek food, but the seafood platter was fantastic. 13. Toofey's - this place was a long way behind Pireaus Blues. The food was very good, but the memory of the night was marred by some very bad service. The staff just weren't friendly, they took an almost snobbish attitude towards myself and my partner. It's a shame because the first time I went to Toofey's (a few years ago), the service was excellent. I also buy a ridiculous number of cookbooks during the year, so here's my top 10. 1. Les Halles Cookbook (Anthony Bourdain) - if you read it, you'll understand why. 2. Nose To Tail Eating (reissue) (Fergus Henderson) - for those little gems you find in his writing 3. My Vue (Shannon Bennett) - uncompromising in his approach 4. The Cook's Companion (Stephanie Alexander) - an essential reference 5. Bouchon (Thomas Keller) - gastroporn at its finest 6. Something Italian (Maurizio Terzini) - simple, effective, great story 7. Modern Italian Food (Stefano delPieri) - love his essays 8. Casa Moro (Sam and Sam Clark) - just getting into it, but so far, it's every bit as good as their first book. 9. On Food And Cooking (reissue) (Harold McGee) - a great reference, lovely to dip into 10. Spirit House (Brierty and Fear) - Thai food made simple.

Oh, and we followed up the Grossi Florentino with a small get together with friends for a Christmas-Engagement dinner at the Rathdowne Tavern on Saturday night. We just stuck with mains. I had a rib eye steak. It came with some sea salt crystals and a lemon wedge, and it was very good at $25. The only thing was that I asked for medium-rare, and it came medium. We also had string fries and they were excellent. I got a little taste of another guest's lamb, and that was also very good. My vegetarian friends were also impressed with their dishes. On Sunday night, we went to the I Carusi in St.Kilda. Started with some warmed olives marinated in herbs and chilli. Off memory, it was $6, but it was a very generous serving - we didn't finish it. It also came with a small herb pizza. My main was a pizza topped with potato and caramalized onions - it was sublime. My fiancee had a pizza topped with salami, artichokes, tomato, cheese, and herbs - it was very impressive. We had fun checking out what everyone else was ordering. Along with some ginger beer, we spent $45. Whilst Christmas shopping, we popped into Max Brenner for some chocolate. Unfortunately, they ran out of toffee for the Danish (?) chocolate drink, so we settled for the Italian chocolate. I'm not that much of a fan of milk chocolate these days (I very much prefer dark chocolate), but nonetheless, the drink was very enjoyable.

I got "Casa Moro" in the post this week. In short, if you liked "Moro", you'll also like "Casa Moro".

Is that the same (Aust. issue) of the Nth American "The Whole Beast"? It's a fantastic book...... ← I picked up "Nose To Tail Eating - A Kind Of British Cooking" (Fergus Henderson) from Readings (Carlton) today. It was $45. I did some cross checking with the reviews on Amazon, and although the titles, cover, and format are slightly different, the text is the same. I would think that the other key difference is that the one I've got has got metric whilst the US version would have imperial measurements. I've also seen "The Whole Beast" at the Hill of Content.

I've got a special occassion coming up, and I've got Vue de Monde on the top of my list, although I should point out that it's a list of one. Who has any other ideas? I'm looking for the usual things - wonderful food, wonderful service, great atmosphere - but also somwhere where the staff might be able to help me to organise something extra special. Oh, and I'm also open to suggestions for Sydney restaurants as well as Melbourne ones.

I keep on looking at "Falling Cloudberries". It's a beautiful book - great layout, wonderful photographs, but I'm just not that interested in Greek and Cypriot cooking (either cooking it or reading about it). The book does have sections on South African and Finnish food, and another section on home recipes from around the world. Also, Stefano del Pieri is about to release his new book, "Modern Italian Food".

I'm not sure how many people here know their sports, but Matthew Hayden, an Australian cricketer, has released a cookbook. Oh well, if it gets the sports nuts off the couches and into their kitchens, it may not be such a bad thing.

I've been looking forward to Shannon Bennett's cookbook and it's now been released. I picked up my copy two days ago. It's a hardback, 426 pages, and costs $60. It has a short forward by Paul Bocuse - nothing too enlightening, just a few kind words about Bennett. The first section is an overview of Bennett's journey in cooking. It's often humourous, sometimes egotistical (his Swedish model girlfriend), but balanced with some self-depricating comments (his London greengrocer winding him up). But all in all, he gives a good overview over why he loves cooking and the pressures and pleasures of his profession. I get the impression that he thinks very deeply about the relationships in his life - he's well aware of the family and friends that have supported him, but also the personal sacrifices he has had to make. There were two very poignant stories on the personal losses that chefs endure - for him, it was losing touch with school friends, and in another, he tells a story of hearing his head chef apologising to his (ex-)girlfriend about working too hard over the phone. The rest of the book is divided into sections based on ingredients: The Tomato, The Potato, The Mushroom, etc. - 18 sections in all. Each section starts off with a discussion on the ingredient, a few personal views, some tips, even some history and stories. He then follows up with around a dozen recipes based on that ingredient. There is a short comment on the recipie, the usual list of ingredients on one side, and the recipe on the other. The instructions are quite clear, but then again, you never really know until you actually cook the dish. For myself, I bought this book because I'm a fan of Bennett's cooking rather than with the intention of cooking from it. However, after reading some of the recipes and his comments, I will be giving it a good crack. There are colour photographs of some of the dishes, but more impressively, there are pictures of the artwork by Tom Samek which are on display at Vue De Monde. I've picked up a few other cookbooks, but of the recent releases, I've got "Spirit House" by Brierly/Fear (I've cooked a few recipes from it, all have worked well) and the Cook And the Gardener (Hesser) which has, so far, been quite entertaining. There have been plenty of other new releases: Bathers Pavillion (Danserau), Falling Cloudberries (Kiros), Moroccan Modern (M'Souli), Bistro (Johnson), and the new Cooks Companion (Alexander).....any opinions on these?

What do you have against Hill of Content? As for Borders, I did buy a cookbook from there once, and yes, I did feel dirty for doing so. However, there were special circumstances. I had spent a year trying to track down Christine Manfield's "Paramount Desserts", and nobody had it as it was out of print. For some reason, I went into Borders and I found a copy - so I got it. I even managed to get them to give me a discount as the cover had a bit of dirt on it. About six months later, the book was re-released in paperback.

The Hill of Content bookshop (86 Bourke Street, Melbourne) also has an excellent section on cookbooks.

The butcher I bought mine from has a corner stall next to a door at the Queen Vic. Everyone that works there is Vietnamese. Ah, opposite their stall (on the other side of the door) is that butcher who is forever selling trays of meat for discounted prices - I hope that helps you to track down the stall I'm talking about. I'll probably be at the Queen Vic on Friday, so I'll try to remember to take down the stall number and I'll post it here for you.

For some (well, read that as non-Asian) butchers, beef brisket is the beef flank cut. Your best bet is to go to a Vietnamese butcher - the ones in Richmond or Box Hill are probably best as they seem to have cuts with that lovely layer of fat on it. I have bought the cut from the Victoria market which I got for $4/kg (still in the freezer though - I haven't had time to braise it).