Shinboners

The other half the kids went away for about a week and a half, so I did a bit of dining. I can't be bothered doing detailed reviews, so here's a quick run down. Libertine - went there for their cassoulet night. I'm a fan of Libertine, and I was happy with everything except the dessert (I simply picked the wrong one). We went on a Wednesday night, and the downstairs section was full, so it's nice to see them doing well in tough economic times. Mario's - I haven't been to this Bruswick Street institution in many years. I simply had an eye fillet, and at $25, it was good value. As usual, the atmosphere was great. The European - This is a place where I've always had great dinners, but this time, it was disappointing. The food just lacked that little bit of sparkle. I went for the roasted rib eye as my main, asked for it to be medium-rate, but it came out medium to well done. Not much flavour in it either. The tiramisu was good though. Oyster Little Bourke - Outstanding. I enjoyed a truly great rib eye, cooked as to my preferences. A nice mixed leaf salad to go with the steak, and I was a very happy camper. The only thing I didn't like where the pont neuf potatoes, but that's just a personal prefence issue (I still ate them all though). An excellent tiramisu rounded things off nicely.

Wednesday is cassoulet night at Libertine. I went with a friend last night, and with the cold weather in Melbourne, it went down a treat. The beans were nice and creamy, the confit duck was as it should be, and the sausage was full of porky goodness. It was very enjoyable.

You can find an old MPW cooking show on youtube. There's a thread on the UK board that has links. He cooks lunch for his various mentors (Koffmann, Roux, Ladenis, and Blanc) and Keith Floyd.

Cutler And Co. got reviewed in the Age today. Larissa Dubecki gave it 18/20. http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainmen...8261503865.html

MPW is from Yorkshire, not Lancashire. There's a bit of a rivaly between those two counties - everything from the War of the Roses to Mancheter United vs Leeds "stuck in the old third division ha ha" United.

I have now booked for dinner at Cutler And Co. next month. I can't wait. The website says that they're open for lunch on Friday. I think I'll have to give it a try, courtesy of Kevin Rudd's handout.

Last year was a bit of a golden time for high end cookbooks. I think most of us would have been happy for just one of these books to be released in a given year, but to have all three released within a month of each other was extraordinary. For me, I'd rate the Blumenthal book as the pick of the three books, followed by Keller, and Achatz in third. To my mind, Blumenthal's combination of biography, recipes, science, and the production values in the book make it one of the most outstanding cookbooks I've ever come across.

How is the Cutler and Co. menu structured? Is it similar to what they did at Three One Two? And has he taken many dishes from Three One Two over to the new place?

Thanks for that report pastrygirl. I hope you had a great time in Australia and that you'll return soon. I'm sorry to hear that your night at Bistro Guillaume wasn't as good as it should have been.

It's interesting how the blogger noted that after a perceived negative review of the Stokehouse, she gave it 15/20. Today, she gave what I felt was a negative review of the Flower Drum, but scored it at 16/20.

That wasn't too bad, I liked Matt Moran - is that still on? ← The second series had finished last year. I don't know if they're going to do a third series.

Larissa Dubecki has now had the job of restaurant reviewer for the Age for the past month or so. What do people think? For me, Dubecki has always been a very good journalist. She argues well, has a good style, an eye for detail, and you're not left wondering where she stands on an issue. Following on from Lethlean would not be an easy gig. Her first few reviews could easily have been written by Lethlean, such was the similarity in structure. But in the last few weeks, she has started to find her own voice. I was very impressed at how she described a dish she had at Jamon Sushi (the dish was an oyster on a slice of nashi pear) as "like being inland on a hot day and having a cool whispter of the ocean flutter in your ear". But for some reason, she seems to be missing something. Personally, I think it's this. If you look at Matt Preston's reviews, it's obvious how much he loves the food industry. Late last year, I remember Lethlean writing a story on how he spent a day trying to make blood sausage. As professional as Dubecki is, it seems to me that she doesn't quite have the same passion as Preston, and I can't imagine her trying to do what Lethlean did.

In regards to Ramsay, he's done all the hard years working his way up through the kitchens. If he finds it easier to make money with his branded restaurants, TV shows, books, and so on, then good luck to him. And that's nicely summed up. It's really up to the diner to make up their own mind on why they go to a particular restaurant and whether they're getting value for money. It's very naive to think that Ramsay will be behind the stove of all his restaurants.

It's not PC to be wealthy enough to get into the Qantas First Class Lounge? Still, it sounds great and I'll keep your travelling tip in mind. Anyway, I would think that with the cost of a first class ticket/Qantas Platinum membership, if you timed your flights properly, it might be cheaper just to catch a taxi to Rockpool, have lunch or dinner, and then catch a taxi back for you connecting flights. On airline food though, the stuff you get in cattle class is dreadful. But in the few times I've received an upgrade (it was with Cathay Pacific), the food has been very good.

Excuse my ignorance, but how can you be semi-vegetarian? Either you're a vegetarian or you're not.

Many of the Australian airports are owned by infrastructure funds (like Macquarie Airports), so the overriding factor is to get as much money out of the airport users whilst trying to minimise their own costs. So, when it comes to Australian airports, expect to pay a lot for crap food.

I would think that Chef Ripert deserves the benefit of the doubt. Reading his books, it's clear that he has an absolute respect for Maguy Le Coze, he writes with affection about his own mother's cooking, and he devoted a chapter in "On The Line" on the development of a dish by Soa Davies (the dish went straight onto the Le Bernadin menu, and ironically enough, the dish contains a red wine bearnaise). Oh, and On The Line was co-written with Christine Muhlke.

The facts may say otherwise, but I do think there is some value in keeping a long held, if incorrect, belief. If you teach someone to cook and tell them that you sear the meat to get those nice caramally flavours and go on about the maillard reactions, peoples eyes will glaze over and they may miss the step. But tell someone that if you seal the meat to keep in the juices, then they'll remember it because everyone loves a juicy piece of meat. And I'd also think that most people, when they're being taught to cook by their parents, are told that searing the meat will seal in the juices. IT's something that we've all been taught since we were teenagers, and so, it's a belief that is hard to shake off. As ulterior epicure pointed out, there's the story of Italian cooks saying that you need to put in a cork when you cook octopus. Now, I don't know whether that has any effect on the tenderness of the octopus, but heck, it makes a great story and adds that bit of romance to the food. That's fair enough. But in the end, it's only a food show. And sometimes, it is a good thing that they say things that we think are incorrect - and you can enjoy some feisty discussions with your TV watching partner or laugh at the wrong info. That's the responsibility of the people who are providing the information, but as a reader of blogs/websites/media, we also have our own responsibility to be aware of our own prejudices. Take someone like Anthony Bourdain. As someone who loves meat (and the nasty bits), I'm far more likely to agree with him and his view of the facts than someone who is a vegan. In our local paper, they had an article a few weeks ago about people who had, um....different.....diet regimes. One person only ate fruit and another primarily ate raw meat. I thought they were a few sausages short of the full BBQ. But to these people, their diets are based on facts. So, who is right and who is wrong?

In the end, I'm not sure why it matters anyway. Actors, sports stars, and musicians are all used to promote products. Even if you argue that Colicchio is a chef, and thus has a greater responsibility when choosing what food products to promote, the thing is, that for us obsessed foodies, his ads won't change our minds. For the rest of the people who aren't obsessed about food, they're more likely to know Colicchio for his TV appearances (thus putting him in the realm of being an entertainer than a chef) than for his restaurants. Ask Joe Public about Colicchio and I reckon they're far more likely to answer, "He's that guy on TV" than "He's the executive chef at Craft".

Fair enough. I've enjoyed Donovan Cooke's food as well, but I think that chefs like Andrew McConnell, Justin North, Shannon Bennett, Tetsuya Wakuda, etc. could give Cooke a very good run for his money.

Ruhlman has the right to stand by with what he thinks is right. But credit to him for removing something when he gets proven wrong. What happens if a chef gets one fact wrong in a show, but all his other facts correct? And how would you know what is right and what is wrong anyway? Do you know everything about food? If you go back to the "searing meat to seal in the juices" theory, it was accepted as fact for many years.....until McGee proved it to be wrong. So what may be fact this year might be proven to be not fact somewhere down the track.

I wouldn't have thought that how you, me, slkinsey, or anyone else's opinion of the taste of diet coke would matter. The key issue would be Colicchio's opinion of diet coke. If he enjoys diet coke and likes the taste of it, then the advertisement is consistent with his view of the value of taste. If he doesn't like the taste of it, then he's just motivated by the money.

Okay. So, Paltrow doesn't approve of jamon because it's not kosher. And yet, she eats shellfish, which I'm sure isn't kosher either.

I'm hoping that with the new cookbooks that are getting released in future, we'll see more books like "Food For Thought" (Alan Murchison), "Black Pudding And Foie Gras" (Andrew Pern), "Au Pied de Conchon - The Album" (Martin Picard), and "Alinea" (Grant Achatz) where the chef/authors create the book for as much a labour of love as it is for a promotional exercise.

I went by Cutler And Co last week to have a peek. It looks like they might still be doing some work on the interior. Unfortunately, they didn't have a menu out the front - hopefully they'll have one up soon. There was a short piece in Epicure the other week where another company called "Cutler And Co" has received countless phone calls asking for reservations at the restaurant.