ChrisTaylor

Vue de Monde is exceptional in the sense that it's by far Melbourne's most expensive. I mean, even Jacques Reymond doesn't try to sting people that much. And they were doing it even before they relocated to the top of the Rialto and offered diners a view of the city ... or a chance to wind up on the front page of The Sun after parachuting from the balcony, Bondstyle. I don't think $175 is unreasonable in terms of price to pay for lesser cuts of meat. I mean, a lot of what Attica serves revolves around some 'humble' ingredients (pig's tail or what is maybe their signature dish, 'the potato cooked in the earth in which it was grown' [think hangi-style ... in cans]). And I'd say Attica--which is, if I recall correctly, $180--is worth every cent.

Tetsuya now charges considerably more than $175. $175 is about average, I think--maybe the high side of average--for a degustation at a fine dining restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne. Maybe it's more expensive than Ko--I've never looked at the prices for the US mothership(s)--but in Australia it's a price tag you can get away with. Being a huge fan of the Momofuku book but living too far away from the other Momofukus to visit them any time in the next couple of years at least, I'm tempted to make a trip up to Sydney at some point just to visit Seiobo.

I'm looking at Escoffier's recipe for demi-glace (which I'll be using as a base for his Madeira sauce). He mentions finishing the sace with 'one-tenth of a quart of excellent sherry'. What kind of sherry would he be using? Or rather, what kind of sherry should I use? A fino is going to a very different outcome to, say, an oloroso.

Well, yes. You need to consider who is scoring the restaurant. Cheap and cheerful is what many people like. Urbanspoon is great in that it conbines a crowd-sourced score with amateur and professional reviews. You can look at a review to see what makes people give a restaurant a low score--maybe it's the bill.

Yes, buttermilk is widely avaliable here. Typically sold with the goat's milk and other non-standard milks in the, er, milk section.

Oh yes. That, mm84321, I want for my breakfast.

Check out USA Foods. They probably stock a lot of the products you miss. For the last teachers' morning tea I was responsible for I served everyone lots and lots of icecream.

The fried chicken is good but, honestly, I don't know how good it'd be (and I used a good bird) without the octo vin. The octo vin really lifts it to the next level in the way I don't think a spiced brine/coating/etc could or would. Ever. I think next time, tho', I might not buy a whole chicken: maybe a bundle of legs would be better.

A modified Mojito--a half quantity of pimento dram in place of the simple. Probably went a bit too heavy on the lime, altho' the pimento dram very much has a place in the flavour profile, without pushing aside the citrus or mint.

Just made the vinaigrettes (octo and fish sauce). I could see the octo working nicely with, say, some pork belly.

I have started to open this book every week or two. Today I've got a couple of dishes lined up: I just portioned and brined the chicken for the fried chicken w/ octo vin. I'll also be making the fried cauliflower and dashi-braised daikon radish.

There have been reports that some organic produce is higher in certain elements (I think arsenic was one of the culprits), and I believe it has something to do with how the produce takes up nutrients from the soil. I have not read any reliable reports that organic produce is higher in nutrients, but personally that is not why I buy organic produce (not that I buy everything organic) - my reasoning has more to do with a concern over environmental degradation caused by excessive pesticide/herbicide use. Regarding fish farming, it can actually be very damaging to the environment and to wild fish stocks. 'feeder fish' are being over fished in order to feed fish on farms, intensive farms can create disease pits which have the ability to infect wild populations and the farms themselves create infertile wastelands (prawn farming practices can extremely destructive to habitats). What's a seafood lover to do? We try to buy organic meat as much as possible for two reasons: firstly certified producers have a higher standard of animal welfare (at least in Australia); secondly, we have done side by side tests of organic vs conventional chicken, and there is a taste difference. The last surprised me, because I wasn't expecting to notice a difference. I certainly can't say I noticed much of a difference in the taste of organic produce (a few farm stands notwithstanding). If concern for the environment is driving all this, then probably we shouldn't be eating beef or seafood at all. It's a conclusion we--as in people who really enjoy meat and seafood--probably don't want to hear, but it's a surer bet than fish gathered in even the most sustainable manner (and who knows what that is?) or beef from even the smallest and most expensive of organic producers. Funny you mention the organic chickens. The Age recently reviewed a number of readily avaliable brands of chicken. It wasn't the most scientific of studies, altho' they did a reasonable job of keeping things fair, but the conclusion was that there wasn't much in it. Even the best chicken--which was merely free range, not organic--still received a score that was, I think, indicative of mediocrity. If you ranged a variety of pork producers and gave the best one a score out of 67/100, you'd be right in wondering if Australian pork was shit and that choosing 'the best' really meant 'choosing the best from a bad bunch.' I've paid good money for Saskia Beer chickens and many other kinds of chickens, from the corn fed ones you can buy at the supermarkets to free range ones from the markets. And, honestly, most of them have been okay, but there's no real reason Saskia Beer's chickens should cost me three times as much as the Lilydale or Macro free rangers that serve as my go-to chickens. I know that if I go to Queen Vic market and throw down good money on some grass fed beef then I'll get my money's worth. It costs more than some cheap and nasty rump but it's much better than that cheap and nasty rump. There's a very pronounced difference. The difference with chicken, if it's there (and I reckon I've noticed it more with corn-fed birds), is nowhere near as pronounced and raises questions about whether, from a customer's standpoint, this bird is really worth damn near three twices as much as that one. Even if you can tell the difference between the two, I'd argue that anyone who says it's really three times as good is just trying to justify to themselves that they just threw down the best part of $30 on a chicken.

Er, odd typo. I glanced at the recipe for the Mai Tai again. Used lime juice in there, not pineapple. Of course. Can't remember why I purchased the pineapple juice then--possibly because it was in a bunch of recipes in the 'tropical' category of both books. I don't know if I'm interested in tropical drinks. This is a new area for me. Altho' that Falernum recipe is easy enough for me to want to make my own (I admit to cheating with orgeat, purchasing a similar Italian product in its stead).

For those who've tasted Falernum before, is it something worth acquiring?

Regarding farmed fish, surely farming--kind of like paper companies planting their own little forests--fish is better for the environment than overfishing wild salmon, tuna, etc. My concern--and understand that I'm not shitting on the concept of 'organic' food here, it's just a concern--is that oftimes, organic food is marketed, by both companies and the people who swear by it ('it tastes better', 'it's better for you', 'it's all natural') in a way that makes it sound very much like alternative medicines. The fact that already we've had the 'links' between autism, GM food and vaccines brought up drives that point home. As someone actually on the big scary spectrum, I'm always, always, always amused by the 'vaccines/bad food did it' line. I'd love to see some double-blind trials showing that people really, truly prefer the flavour of organic beef, eggs, wheat, etc. It doesn't shock me that people often say nice things about the flavour organic meat--altho' I wonder if it's less to do with the fact that this steak is organic than the probability that someone who is determined to jump through all the hoops to get an 'organic certified' sticker is probably also prepared to put a bit of extra effort into what he/she feeds the animals, how much 'free roaming' space he/she gives the animals, etc. I'd also want to see actual scientific evidence--not just some quack from a news website--that says organic oranges are better for me than nonorganic oranges (or apples or tomatoes or potatoes or chicken thighs or eggs or rice) before buying into the idea that organic equals healthier. I'm far too cynical to just play along with the idea that oh, man, chemicals are bad and big food companies are evil, therefore the small producer that charges thrice the going rate for Roma tomatoes is a saint.

I wanted to try a Zombie but was confused to find three very different versions between my DeGroff and Regan books. I understand why there are different recipes, but it's hard to know where to begin. I settled on a messed up version of Dale's Zombie: instead of orange juice I used pineapple juice, as per Regan's suggestion (not because I have anything against oranges--it's just that I struggled to find straight pineapple juice, so I figured I'd better use it in something other than Mai Tais). The other problem was my lack of Falernum, something that's really obscure in Australia: I used some pimento dram instead. It's pretty good. Does it taste like what a Zombie should taste like? I have no idea. Maybe that doesn't matter.

Ignore him and he'll go away. There are liars all 'round the internet. A guy on another forum I frequent, he's flown every jet fighter ever invented. Taught paramedics how to drive. Run companies. Been in meetings with numerous US presidents. Has killed and shagged more people than James Bond has even fantasised about killing and shagging. He's full of shit, yes. And you know what calling him out, trying to pull on all the little threads in his flimsy stories achieves? Nothing. Post your photos. Ignore him. He'll either go away or settle down. Maybe this guy is full of shit. Or maybe he's a 'real' chef with conservative tastes. Or maybe just the belief that if you're not doing it his way, you're doing it wrong. I mean, all of us, on some level, want to be that beautiful extra special pretty snowflake everyone admires. It's just that some of us put in that extra bit of effort.

I have no idea what a bacon press is. I just had a mental image of someone taking a thick slice of home-cured pork belly and compacting it with a tortilla press. If your burgers are swelling up to the point they're no longer patty-shaped, instead turning into something more akin to a meatball, there's maybe an issue with your burger-making technique. What is your recipe for burger patties? Roughly how heavy/what size is each patty? I assure you there is a way around that problem without needing to resort to anything fancy. Even if getting 'fancy' means you get to use something called a bacon press, which is pretty awesome.

This. Correlation does not equate to causation.

I ordered a beef brisket. Looks like something Texas BBQ-themed is on the menu.

I've never seen a fresh passionfruit in the US, sadly. I make sure to eat my fill whenever I travel outside of the US. I found that amazing when you mentioned on my foodblog, and I find it amazing now..I don't know why, I know not everything's common everywhere, but passionfruit are like weeds here..my new house has a huge passionfruit vine that's completely taken over the clothesline and drops fruit everywhere..I keep having to chuck them out! I find this really surprising too. Especially given oftimes, when you look at the label at the supermarket, the passionfruit are imported from South America. You think they'd be sending some up north.

How much salt/sugar did you use? Are you sure the sugar/salt isn't just absorbing it? Too, er, does the container have a leak?

Looked around for my first chance to use orgeat and settled on Wikipedia's recipe (which I think is based on the Trader Vic version) for the Mai Tai. It's not bad. In fact, it's maybe even good.

The pork is nice. Next time I buy wild boar tenderloin I know what I'll be doing with it. If you happened to have access to warthog--if you were South African, say--I'm sure warthog would work exceptionally well in this dish. Possibly better than boar. Incidentally, when making the curry pastes it helps to know your dried chillies. 'Long hot dried chilli' is about as non-specific as it gets. The ones I bought were far too hot--the heat dominated the other dimensions of the dish's flavour profile.

Yoghurt works nicely with camel meat.