Jellyfish and young chefs

Yesterday was hardcore. A degustation lunch and a dego dinner in one day. Needless to say, I pushed through and managed ok. The first was at the brand spanking new Jellyfish, John Kilroy's newest venture under Friday's at the Riverside. It was a media launch, which is not always the place to make up your mind, but so far so good. It's totally different in feel to his other place, Cha Cha Char, which always feels a bit boys club to me. It has spare, clean lines, a minimal palate of white and charcoal with a glass wall allowing unimpeded river views. I admit, I went with a good dose of cynicism-as with Chinese, I find seafood restaurants to be constantly disappointing, but was very excited in this case to be proved wrong.

There will be eight fresh daily fish on offer, depending on what's fresh, cooked in different ways, depending on the type- (fish, as Kilroy pointed out, don't all respond to the same cooking methods- some suit grilling better than frying etc). We tried a few different things from the menu, and I couldn't fault anything-all were beautifully cooked, looked gorgeous and tasted seriously good. (I left my menu on the table or would list a few) Kilroy says that he'll try to keep mains between $35-39 which is pretty good for fresh fish.


A few hours to digest and it was off to the Courier Mail Young Chef's Dinner at Restaurant Two. This was the chance for six of Brisbane's best young guns to show off their talents each cooking a course for invited guests including Brett Graham from the michelin starred The Ledbury in London and Xavier Pellicer from Abac in Spain. (Ok, I know this is the 3rd time I've mentioned Pellicer, but really, I'm not obsessed!) All six courses were exceptional, no mean feat when you're serving around 70 odd people at the same time. For me one of the standouts was the dessert-only because by that stage of a degustation it takes something pretty special to re-ignite the palate. This was it though- a very un cloying rectangle of white chocolate mousse with a layer of white chocolate showing off small circle of salted caramel served with slightly spiced morello cherries and a teeny pinch of basil powder. Fabulous. The chefs, all in their twenties and from hotels and restaurants all over Brisbane obviously have big futures ahead of them. It was back to reality today with a cup of the Courier Mail cafe's tomato soup for lunch. :(

Masterclass Weekend Highlights

Despite feeling pretty average this morning, I dosed myself with cold drugs and headed off to the first day of the Masterclass weekend.

Interesting points and dishes for me were:
Martin Bosely- who pointed out the duh! factor in chefs propounding 'seasonal eating'. 'Many chefs think it's something new but its just normal to cook and eat whatever is best and in season'' Bravo! I think we've overdone the 'regional' eating too. If I hear one more chef pontificate about how their style cooking 'eating seasonal, regional food'', I think I'll vomit! It should just be the norm by now.

Bosely, who specialises in seafood, never uses seafood stock- it doesn't have enough fat, he says plus it's just hard to make a good one.

Loved Michael Richard of Citronelle in Washington's 'Beluga pasta'. He made it as a sort of tongue in cheek present for a friend with health problems whose doctor had banned real caviar. It's Israeli couscous, cooked in butter, onion, stock white wine and squid ink served with lobster,hollandaise and a poached egg. I suspect his mate's Doctor still wouldn't approve, but it was divine and so clever, served in a little caviar style tin.

Everyone's but everyone's doing sous vide. We had some different demos on how to do it, from the special sealing machine thingys to DIY with glad wrap.

Xavier Pellicer (who has a team of 35 in his kitchen to serve 55 odd customers!)made a fantastic deconstructed Spanish Omlette which, although horribly time consuming and fiddly proved the point, that you CAN have that type of super modern gastronomy that still eats like comfort food.

George Calombaris was good value- but as he told us he only uses Greek olive oil made me wonder. Surely it's not going to be as fresh as the local stuff (and what about all those air miles and talk of regional/seasonal hey?)plus if you're doing 'new Greek' in another country why do you need to use old country olive oil? While I got the deconstructed Greek salad, I didn't really get why it was served in one of those jars with the seal you'd normally store rice or something in?
The olive oil chocolate mousse I thought was kind of interesting, but I didn't really like the texture and I thought you could probably only eat about the amount we were given as a tasting- a spoonful. I think it would get very sickly. By far the best dish was his lamb neck--a lighter, more modern version of a Greek classic that was melt in the mouth good.

Not sure I'll make it tomorrow- need to go to bed with a hot toddy and stay there. All in all, a very worthwhile day out though

what chefs eat (not pretty)

I once shared a house with a chef who worked in a fairly salubrious restaurant cooking beautiful meals all night who'd come home having stopped at Hungry Jacks drive through or the dodgy kebab place on the way home and devour this rubbish with relish. I know another who had a penchant for those microwave chicken rolls you could only get a petrol stations.

Not quite in the same gross league, but today I met Xavier Pellicer, of the two Michelin starred Abac restaurant in Barcelona, (who by the way is a lot dishier in real life) who mentioned that one of his favourite comfort food treats was chocolate spread on bread with olive oil and salt. Put it in the microwave for ten seconds he reckons. Hmmmm.

Pellicer is known for his cutting edge cusine combining traditional Spanish flavours with the techniques of molecular gastronomy (or techno-emocional cuisine as the very precious choose to call it). He's appearing at the Brisbane Hilton Masterclass this weekend and apart from his dubious liking for chocolate-salt sandwiches, should be great value. I was really impressed by his dedication- he's doing all his mis en place himself, including deboning some 200 red mullet. Bet you wouldn't catch Ramsay doing that.
Apparently there are still tickets left for Masterclass, go here to check out the programme.
http://www.qldmasterclass.com/

It's a draw Mr McLeod

Brett's Wharf chef Alastair McLeod of Ready, Steady, Cook fame and I favour our strawberries from different parts of the South East and staunchly claim 'ours' are the best. I'm a Bayside girl and always look out for those big beautiful late picked beauties from Paul Wruck's Wellington Point farm, while McLeod gets them from the Twists near Caboolture.

I was having lunch at Brett's yesterday and Alastair sent me back to the office with a container of Twist strawberries, determined to prove his point. It was interesting watching a colleagues reaction when I gave him one-he sort of popped it in his mouth in a half-hearted automatic sort of way, then his eyes started to bulge as he really tasted it- that forgotten, 'real strawberry' flavour we all knew as kids. 'Oh my god,
he muttered, mouth still full. And yes, Alastair, I concede they were excellent.
What I'm really happy about(very selfish I know) is that these kind of 'picked when truly ripe' strawberries don't travel well, so we Queenslanders get to keep them all to ourselves!

Taste for the Love of Cooking

It was a fab do at Taste (http://taste-online.com.au)in Fortitude Valley last night to celebrate owner Jodie Macaulay's recent win of a Global Innovators Award at the Chicago International Homewares Association show. Well deserved too, as any keen foodie who's been into her vast shop of culinary equipment for a vegetable peeler and come away laden with bags of must-have kitchen items will know.

Macauley always put on a great show at Taste, after setting up in Brisbane just 2 years ago, with great products and cooking demos. She really is an innovator, filling the yawning gap there once was in Brisbane between chef-supply shops and chain store kitchen ware shops. She always seems to have something new and interesting.

In Chicago, she was competing against the best of the best in the show, including ancient luminaries such as Galleries Layfette, so a big, big well done to her for representing her adopted state so well.

It was amusing to watch the glamourous punters trying to look like they weren't waiting to snatch up a piece of the Beccofino pizza as it was pulled out of the wood-fired oven, yes me included. I've yet to taste a more authentic pizza in Queensland, or Australia for that matter than those made at Beccofino. At the next table, doyenne Suzanne Quinter whipped up Moroccan chicken, spiced potatoes and more using products from her range (My fave is the preserved lemon aioli), there were sweet litte cupcakes from the Cupcake Parlour, tastes of cocktails made on Grey Goose vodka, hot Raclette being spread on crisp bread, knife demos and more.

A great function as usual with a goody bag given out to attendees who were all customers and supporters. Very classy. I'm sure I'm not the only female there though who wants to know where did you get those killer heels Jodie?

Forget Buy Australian Made, Buy Queensland Made

According to the ABC the Western Australian government have introduced new labelling to indicate locally produced food products.
''The "Buy West, Eat Best" campaign is designed to allow shoppers to identify products that have been grown, farmed or fished in the state,'' says the ABC and so far over 200 retail outlets have supported the campaign. Eating locally not only supports our neighbour farmers but cuts transport emissions. (Eat local AND organic and you'll be even kinder to the environment.)

It's a slightly gimmicky, but nevertheless worthy marketing campaign and one I reckon would be pretty interesting to tackle here in Queensland. The WA'ers have around 50 named local producers who have gone with the new labellling. I think we could easily reach that number just here in our SE corner of Queensland! To the right are some of my own fave QLD products- there are many many more I know, so let me know your faves.

Corkage and Cakeage

Who can remember when corkage was first introduced? Showing your age then! For readers who don't have the benefit of BYO where they live, let me explain. BYO, (bring your own) is a bit of an Australian institution. It's when restaurants allow you to bring your own wine and it is a tradition that stems from the days when a very limited number of liquor licenses were sold. In my comparatively puritan State the tradition is particularly strong- it still takes lots of time and money to get a liquor license, so many places don't bother and the suburban BYO is alive and well.

Unfortunately, gone are the days when you could guarentee a cheaper night out if you BYO. Most places now charge 'corkage' ( a ludicrous term in these days when almost all wine is screwcap) which can be anything from $2 a head to $10 a head. This is to cover the opening of the wine.. labour costs such as serving it and glass useage. It's fair enough I guess but some restaurants honestly just seem to be taking the piss.

The latest charge is 'cakeage', which is a fee added to the bill if you bring your own cake. A birthday cake for example. Yesterday a James Street restauranteur was telling me about the irate barrage of emails he got from a customer after she was charged $6.50 per head cakeage. While $6.50 does seem steep, he pointed out that you wouldn't bring your own beer to a pub and ask the barperson to open and serve it for you. He also pointed out that 1) He will make a cake on request and 2)He loses income if people in effect bring their own dessert. 3) He adds, cream, fruit and ice-cream to the plate. He said the whole trend of people bringing their own cake is nothing but a bugbear for restauranteurs, there's also the issue of public liability if anyone gets sick from the cake. He's thinking of banning the practise altogether.

I think cakeage and corkage, are both necessary evils. We as diners need to remember that it's one thing to want to save money when we eat out, but this is someone's livelihood. Perhaps just don't BYO cake and champagne on the same occasion or your celebration might be spoiled by a big bill.

Tanbah

While it sounds a bit like a place you'd go to get a fake tan, Tanbah http://www.tanbah.com.au is a newish venue in Felix street in the CBD. The feel is a little bit moody, with long swathes of curtains, subdued lighting and dark fixtures, but very cool. The kitchen is currently chef-heavy, with Mark Maric, former of Lure and a protege of Neil Perry's and Sian Bressoles who last worked at Stone. Bressoles is waiting to go to the new West End venture owned by the same people but the opening date keeps being put off (don't you just LOVE builders?. Anyway, with two accomplished head chefs in the kitchen, you can be guarenteed of getting a good meal.

The menu is modern Asian, a cuisine I've always thought suits our Queensland lifestyle particularly well. An amuse bouche of succulent prawn topped with a deep-fried beetle leaf and a tiny wonton cup with a delicate runny sate sauce was apparently made by the twenty year old apprentice who is obviously a talented young lady and started the meal off on a high note.

As a main, I vacillated between the gold band snapper which came with a prawn dumpling, braised wombok & soy chilli broth but in the end went for the Roasted duck breast with Asian mushrooms, asparagus, lup cheung & chilli caramel sauce while my companion had the spatchcock. Both were lovely, I'm a big fan of exotic mushrooms and of course the sweet-savoury-spicy balance of Asian flavours goes so beautifully with duck.

The dessert too have an Asian accent, pandan creme brulee and Wolf berry creamed rice, palm sugar crust with dragon sorbet. Apparently wolf berry is some kind of dried berry from Asia, slightly tart. It was hard to decide, so we didn't, we had it all, in a sharing plate that also included Passionfruit & chocolate tarte with a Szechuan pepper tuille and sticky banana & coconut pudding with wild honey parfait as well as a Ginger & mango tiramisu with vanilla bean cream.


All absolutely and wickedly divine, but perhaps a little ambitious on my part- it's against my principles to leave any dessert on the plate, but in this case, even with my lovely dining companion doing her share, it just couldn't be done.

A loaves and fishes type miracle- but with cake

I'm not a religious person but I think I witnessed a miracle yesterday.
On the way to work, I stopped and bought an orange and almond cake from Pamela's Pantry. I don't know, I just thought it would be nice to have a treat. As the clock hands moved towards the earliest legal morning tea time, I reached for my cake to take it to the traditional communal cake spot, the Features area's fridge. However, I found there was already a cake waiting- also an orange and almond, from Joceleyn's Provisions. (see the gorgeous pic above) No-one knew who had bought it in, whose birthday it might be or where it had come from, but journalists, never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth starting hoeing in.
Mouths still full, as we decimated it, a colleague walked in with a chocolate cake, to celebrate his birthday. We commented on our good fortune and took a slice of that as well. The feeding frenzy over we all returned to our desks, but coming back later for a coffee (ok to pick at the crumbs!) I found yet another cake had appeared- this time a Jocelyn's chocolate cake with pretty little sugared violets. Again, no one claimed it and the mystery thickened further when yet ANOTHER Jocelyn's cake appeared sometime late, a very moreish Jaffa cake.

No one had seen anyone put any of these cakes on the fridge; they had simply appeared and no one claimed them. We are a fairly small department, yet we managed to eat all four cakes. (I saved mine for today) and were revelling in our communal piggishness when four dozen assorted Krispy Kremes doughnuts appeared. You'd think we'd be hitting our sugar high by then, but no, they disappeared post haste too.
(Apart from yours truly who believes doughnuts, unless they are hot and straight from the oil and just sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar are the work of the devil.

It's going to be an austere day today cakewise- unless I can somehow manage to weave a miracle and multiply my very small orange and almond cake.


Brisbane's Best Cakes (in no particular order)
Cakes by Judy C
Jocelyn's Provisions
The Welsh Lady
Cakestar

Kathmandu Newa Chhe'n

Did you know that the Nepalese flag is the only one in the world that's not rectangular or square in shape? Me either. Neither did I know about Nepal's many ethnic minorities, including the biggest, The Newa. According to Wikipedia the Newal are the indigenous people of Nepal's Kathmandu Valley and the term Newars applies roughtly to the descendants of citizens of Medieval Nepal.
Suraj Shrestha is Newl and his restaurant, Kathmandu Newa Chhe'n in Brisbane's Paddington serves up typical Newar cuisine.
Those used to Indian food or who like their spices won't find it too strange. Spices that feature heavily include mustard oil, cumin, sesame seeds, turmeric, garlic, ginger, methi, bayleaves, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, chili and mustard seeds. Lemon and vinegar are also used for flavouring.

One of the NGC members and I recently went there, and over-ordered so wildly, we didn't make much inroad into the food, leaving an embaressment of half eaten dishes all over the table. At the end of this feast, after I'd slipped my shoes back on (we were in the purple room, where you sit on cushions on the floor) I went to pay and got the staff in a bit of a panic when I queried my bill. It wasn't that it was so exxy, just the opposite. I can't remember the last time I paid $50 for two for a meal (1989?).

Last night with no food in the house and no inspiration, I decided to try their takeaway. Sherpa chicken for the 9 year old, goru ko masu for me, plus some pappadums, raita and veggie and mango pickle. The Sherpa chicken, cooked in a creamy sauce with coriander, lime leaf and a little lemon juice was actually a surprise, quite complex and delicious, although flecked with hundreds of tiny pieces of chilli which just sat at the border of the nine year olds heat tolerance. All dishes come in 'mild' with no chilli, 'medium' ('a bit of a bite') and 'Hot' ('As hot as you like it') but the terms are very subjective, varying with who's at the stove at the time. My Goru, slow cooked beef with cardamom, cumin, coriander and cinnamon was perfect for a cold and rainy night, and had just enough chili to tingle an adult's tastebuds. The pickles however, didn't so much as have a 'bit of a bite', as ferociously attack our tastbuds until we wanted to rip 'em our ourselves.

It's interesting that menu, which also contains vegetarian and vegan dishes also has a good share of beef and other meat. The Newa'a people are, after all, a mix of Hindu and Buddhism, the former forbidding the consumption of beef, the latter of all meat. However, it seems the Newa'a practise either Vajrayana Buddhism or Tantric Hinduism. Both are characterised by the reversal of the values of orthodox Hinduism and Buddhism- so while normally, sexual abstinence, vegetarianism, non-violence, and teetotaling are practised, the Newa'a can 'copulate, eat meat, sacrifice animals, and consume fermented and distilled drinks ritually.'

I suspect there's a bit of catering to Western palates that goes on at the Newa Chhe'n, but it still offers an intriguing and good value menu.

Kathmandu Newa Chhe'n
72 Latrobe Tce
Paddington
3369 7272
(closed Fridays)

F**k me, what's happened to Gordon?

It's only a matter of time before Gordon Ramsay starts referring to himself in the third person. I caught a few episodes of that woeful 'Hell's Kitchen' and all I could think of was, is he embaressed? I don't know if it's because the Americans have got their hands on him or he's just been told he's god for so long he believes it, but it was truly cringe-making seeing a chef of his calibre bought so low. I'm sure he's getting paid mega-bucks, but F**k me Gordon, how could you??

I would never have believed if I hadn't seen it myself, but GR has become a pompous twat of the highest order. Last night, on the final episode of Hell's Kitchen he announced with much gravitas to the winner Michael Wray that if he wanted he could forgo his prize of his own restaurant and come to work in 'one of the world's best restaurants, under me'. Wray (who I thought was very odd, (but my appreciation has soared now) apparently declined both prize options and instead opened his own speciality knife company!

I met Ramsay more than a decade ago one night at his then only restaurant Aubergine. I was dining with a friend who was an aquaintance-he and Gordon they both cooked on boats in the South of France and after service he came and had a drink with us. Even then he was fond of the F word, but he was charming and funny and needless to say, his food had blown me away.

After being subjected to back- to -back Ramsay, with that other show where he went around fixing people's restaurants, (which was mildly entertaining for about two episodes) then Hell's Kitchen, apparently another one 'The F word' is about to start. I just can't watch. It would feel akin to slowing down to peer at a car-wreck.

An expensive habit

One of the reasons I never do a budget is that I'd be scared to see how much I spend on wine per annum! It was so much easier when I was young and the point of buying wine was to get as much as you could for your buck. Wine came in cardboard boxes, or for special occasions, in bottles with names like 'Passion pop'.

Gradually my limit per bottle has snuck up. When I first came back to Australia nearly ten years ago, my average spend was $10. Today, it's $25-28. (I don't know why I've settled on 28 except it seems so much better than $30).

In all that time, the steepest prices rises seem to have been in the last few months.
I suppose like everyone else, the grape growers are being hit by the drought, as well as rising fuel costs.

I've decided that the only option is to drink less often- keep my wine drinking to weekends only. Either that or go back to the Passion Pop.

I'm interested to see the habits of my fellow winelovers and where my own fit in, so have created the below poll.

poison or paranoia?

Not sure, but think I might have been poisoned. The only other time was ten years ago. I was in Mut, an Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert and I ate at one of the only two restaurants in the Oasis. (fittingly, I think it was mutton) I woke up a couple of hours later, felt like crap, vomited a few times, but was ok the next morning.

Before and since, I've eaten in a multitude of dodgy places, from roadside stalls in rural Vietnam to marketplaces in Malawi and Morocco and a hundred places in between and never been struck down. I even came out unscathed when practically every tourist in the village succumbed in Turkey. (Well, they would eat all choose to eat at the town's only 'Englische' restaurant!) However, it seems, that in Brisbane, Australia, my good fortune has come to an end. My previously iron stomach has succumbed to a bout of suspected food poisoning. I say suspected, because to be fair, I'm not sure, but I've never, ever had a gastro bug in my life.

It's remarkably difficult in a country with some of the strictest libel laws in the world, to actually prove anything. The burden of proof is on the sick person- they need to notify Queensland health immediately, provide stool samples, which will be cross checked with food from the restaurant. It's an expensive process and ultimately, does it really achieve much?

If I thought that this place I picked it up, which has a good reputation was likely a serial offender and had I been sicker than I am, I might do something about it. If I could be bothered going to the doctor or paying their extortionate fees that is.

All it takes is one mistake-one worker not washing their hands properly or leaving the chicken out to defrost too long or cross contaminating something though and if people are more motivated than me to do something about it, it can be the end of a business.

With our new 'name and shame' laws, if a business CAN be proven guilty of not taking undue care resulting in customer illness, they can be named here http://www.health.qld.gov.au/industry/food/prosecutions.asp
Thus far, it seems it's only a single one who've been taken all the way- been found guilty, fined and prosecuted.
They stay on the file for two years, the business gets its name taken off.

I have to feel sorry for this particular restaurant, Harem. I drive past it often and I think times have been very tough for them- it looks to me like they have had a lot of quiet times, after being pretty popular before. They're still hanging in there though.

Anyway, it's day four, and after a night and day of vomiting, and a couple of days of nausea, I figure that whatever it is, gastro or mild case of food poisoning, it's helped shed a couple of much needed kilos.