Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Hopefully everyone has realised by now that good food is all about love. The food is only as good as the love and care that has gone into it. It’s not about how exclusive and trendy the restaurant is, or how many types of purees there are on the food or how artful it is.

Why is this the best lasagna in the world? It’s because it’s made by one of the person who loves me the most in the world. And, that, is worth everything.

Josh first made this for me about three dates into our relationship. That was the day I distinctly remember as the day I totally fell in love with him. It was a lovely summer day, his plum trees were full of red plump fruits, the sky was bright blue, his roses were in full bloom and the bees were going crazy on the flowers, and I had the best comfort food in the world, lasagna, without the luxury of having an Italian mother.

This is the way Josh makes his lasagna:

He would heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil, to which he would add half an onion that has been carefully diced. He then adds two chopped rindless bacon.  He would slowly cook it until the onion goes all soft and translucent and the bacon slightly coloured. Then, he would take about 300 g. of good minced beef (not the fatty horrible supermarket one) and two cloves of crushed garlic and add that to the mix.

He would stir until the mince browns and all the juice evaporates. He would add a can of diced tomatoes and two tablespoons of tomato paste (he usually buys those sachet ones that individually contain two tablespoons per serve).

He would then pick leaves from two or three sprigs of fresh oregano and add to the mince sauce.  Sometimes he would put other fresh herbs in. He likes to grow rosemary, sage and thyme together because the combination amuses him (greensleeves, geddit?) When we have some fresh parsley growing, usually in summer, or I bought a bunch from the market, he would chop a handful of parsley stalks in, reserving the leaves for later.

He would then turn the heat down to simmer and let it stew over for twenty minutes. This is where patience comes in. He doesn’t rush. There’s no rushing, no shortcuts to good food for him. He would give it a stir once in a while but mostly just let it sit there, bubbling.

After twenty minutes, he would chop up the reserved parsley leaves and add that to sauce and stir it through. He would get his old faithful glass baking dish and spoon the mince sauce onto the bottom of the baking dish and layer instant lasagna sheets on, ensuring every inch of the sauce is covered, breaking off bits of the sheet if he has to. He would repeat this until the baking dish fills up. There’s no bechamel sauce. No creme fraiche. No cheese in between the layers. Just the mince sauce that had been patiently stewed until it’s just right and the pasta sheets.

He would cut a few slices from a ball of good quality mozzarella cheese, not a fresh white ball, the normal pale cream diseccated one that you get from a deli (or a supermarket with good selection of cheese) and top off the last layer of the lasagna. He would grate a thing sprinkling of parmesan cheese as well. There’s no buying of pregrated icky supermarket cheese, of course.

He would then carefully cover it with a layer of foil, then off it goes into the oven at 180′ c for another good twenty minutes. He would then uncover the lasagna and turn the heat up to 220′c and bake for another ten minutes until the cheese is golden brown.

He would then cut up a good section and plonk a good portion of it for his hungry wife (who would usually be very hungry by now because he needs at least two hours to ‘make it properly’) Sometimes he would do up a nice green salad with various ingredients that take his fancy (I once discovered strawberries and pineapple in his ‘green’ salad, ‘it’s half way fruit salad, isn’t it awesome?’) to go alongside the lasagna.

There’s always leftovers to take to work the next day.

(our ‘lure’)

Pim and Hong came over to Melbourne. And of course one of the top ‘to-do’ list is eating out on Lygon Street, the Italian heart of Melbourne (Seriously, do I sound like a food journo yet? Can I quit my IT job now?)

I love Lygon St. Sure it’s a bitch finding parking there on Friday/Saturday night but I just can’t get enough of it.

(awww, first date I’m sure)

On that night, I could swear all of Melbourne were on Lygon St. Every single restaurant was packed. We couldn’t get a seat at our favourite restaurant but let’s face it pretty much every Italian restaurant on Lygon St. served more or less the same thing. Pim and Hong had wanted ‘a good spaghetti meal, maybe with vongole’ so as we walked past Pasta Rustica, a nice Italian gentleman managed to lure us in (I’m loving how they all hire men with Italian accent to stand outside the restaurants and talk you into them).

So we went in. Intent on a good pasta meal, we all went for pasta options. Entree size, of course, because let’s face it we are not Italian. Entree size is definitely plenty!

(Linguini Vongole – $19.90 entree size)

Pim got her wish with Linguini Vongole – linguini with clams, white wine, tomato and caper sauce. It was on the specials board. I can’t imagine it ever leaving the specials board actually since it’s one of those really popular pasta dish. The sauce was very good with just a slight toss of chopped fresh tomatoes. Read the rest of this entry »

(Gyu No Chikara, Ueno, Tokyo)

We stumbled upon this place while walking around Ueno area in Tokyo. What drew us there was a TV that sat in front of the restaurant playing a program (in Japanese, of course) about how a good gyudon is made. It took us quite a while to realise that the program was about the gyudon shop that we were standing in front of.

Gyudon, in case you don’t know, literally means beef bowl. It is a all-in-one rice dish which is topped with beef and onions cooked in thin sauce concocted from soy sauce, dashi, mirin, etc. It’s one of my favourite Japanese dishes (I have a feeling I repeat myself a lot, don’t I?) so we decided, why not? And walked in.

(Original gyu-don – 800 yen?)

We were confronted by yet another vending machine and thankfully this time the vending machine had tiny little pictures in on each of the button. So we sort  of guessed our way (again!)

Josh settled for the plain gyudon. And I settled for a gyudon that looked like it had poached egg and saffron threads on it. We sat at the counter (this place was also counter- only) and was confronted by the usual array of chopsticks, tea cups, fresh garlic and pickled ginger. It seemed like one of the ways to eat gyudon is crushing fresh garlic into the rice (garlic crusher provided).

(My gyudon, with what I thought was chilli sauce but I wasn’t sure)

Our food arrived a few minuites later and oh. my. god. It was delicious! It was one of the two gyudon meals in Japan (another was at the chain Yoshinoya, which, while good, was nothing compared to Gyu No Chikara) . The meat was tender and the sauce was just perfect. I loved the poached eggs with gyudon. Our rice bowls were also accompanied by a little bowl of soup with colourful bits of some sort of fish sticks and seafood. We washed our meals down with free green tea.

(I stirred the poached egg through the rice, yummy!)

My dish seemed to have some sort of chilli sauce to it but it didn’t taste spicy. The red threads seemed like saffron thread but didn’t taste particularly saffron-ish. Frankly I really couldn’t tell what I ate! I preferred Josh’s plain gyudon but nonetheless each gyudon was perfect in its own way.

Oishii ne!

Gyu No Chikara, somewhere near JR Ueno station.

I bought these at the Arts Centre Sunday market. They all looked so pretty I couldn’t resist.

(raspberry white chocolate cupcake with raspberry icing – $3.50)

If you look carefully, you’ll see that the pink sugar flower had glitters on it. Sometimes I wonder if it’s safe to eat. But it’s just so damn pretty! Who cares if it kills you!

(Vanilla cupcake with strawberry icing – $3.50)

I actually took the train home with little takeaway boxes with a cupcake in each of them. I was extra careful all the way on the train ride, only to knock one of the boxes over in my own kitchen!

The cake texture was nice and fluffy. To be honest, I’m really not that much of a sweet tooth and I just find the any cupcake icing too rich and sweet. Nothing against Cupcakes to Go’s cupcakes. Even the Crabapple cupcakes were too sweet for me and I had them at my wedding. The strawberry icing was very strawberry-ish though. It smelled wonderful. I guess I love cupcakes for their prettiness rather than their taste. Josh loved them. He’s a total sweet tooth.

(the noodle box type container that each cupcake comes in)

(of course I dissected them, I’m a freak like that)

The Arts Centre Sunday Market, 100 St. Kilda Road, Melbourne City

The market is located over two levels, along St Kilda Road between Hamer Hall and the Theatres Building as well as in the Undercroft of Hamer Hall, beside the Yarra River.

This dish is based on the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef book. Have I mentioned I absolutely love Jamie Oliver? Maybe not.

(served with soft polenta)

It was quite easy to make. Basically, you put two chicken breasts with various ingredients in a foil bag and bake them in the oven until it’s nice and juicy.

For two people, you’ll need:

1. 2 chicken breasts – about 500 g. (if they are skin on, use less butter)
2. 4 button mushrooms, sliced
3. 4 Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced
4. 3 dried porcini mushroom slices
5. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
6. 1 tbsp of butter
7. 4-5 sprigs of thyme
8. 1/3 cup of white wine
9. 1/2 tsp of Vegeta gourmet stock powder
10. Good pinches of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220′c. Line a baking dish with two pieces of foil (about the size of a shoe box). Place chicken breasts on the foil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, stock powder, garlic and thyme leaves. Top with butter, mushroom slices and pour the wine over the chicken and mushrooms. Fold the rest of the foil over the chicken to cover them and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Check the chicken breasts half way through and turn them over so they cook evenly.

I served them with polenta which was just cooked in vegetable stock with butter and grated parmasan added to it. Simply cook 1 cup of polenta according to packet instructions and add butter and cheese.

Note: Prices are guesstimates from my hazy recollection. All dim sum were about $4.20.

(I think this was taro roll or wu kok – $4.20)

After a bout of Twitter exchange bitching about how hungry we were, how hung over she was, and how much I wanted dim sum, Nat had decided that we were going to actually go to Vegie Hut in Box Hill. Nat had been raving about Vegie Hut as a vegetarian paradise for quite a while. Everything there is vegetarian (despite being called ‘beef’ or ‘chicken’) Time we gave it a go!

(fried vegetarian scallop dumpling – $4.20)

Being a vego, she misses out on all the good dim sum (yes, she does!) but fear not! We discovered to our delight that Vegie Box does vegetarian dim sum every Sunday.

(veggie pancake of some description – $4.20)

We dropped off Nat and Mat at the restaurant while we went in search for parking (swap meet was on, ick). We were running pretty late as the kitchen was about to close (I think it was almost 3pm). They had ordered some dim sum and fried noodles . The taro rolls (I think they were anyway, I’m working backward by almost a month here) were nice and crunchy. The veggie pancakes were  really good. The filling included glass noodles and various veggies. The scallop dumpling was strange to me but not in a bad way. Didn’t really taste like scallop but close enough.

Because we ordered more than two dim sum, some plain rice congee was served as the starter free of charge. It was anything but plain. The stock used to make the congee was very flavourful and sprinkling of salted daikon and herb made it quite special. Nat loved it because it made her feel better almost instantly.

(soup dumpling (xiao long bao) soup with vegetarian shark’s fin $4?)

Mat ordered soup dumping soup. I didn’t think too much of it especially the fake shark’s fin bit. But Mat really liked it (but you know, he’s a vego. Can’t really trust him. He’s not used to flavours. Haha.)

(Stir-fried rice noodles with beef aka beef chow fun – $8.00?)

The rice noodles were stir-fried in dark soy sauce with some mock beef. It pretty much tasted like other beef chow fun* dishes you get at other dim sum restaurants. Wasn’t anything special. But it was special I guess because it wasn’t really beef. If you have never tried Chinese mock meat dishes, give them a go. They are quite amazing. I also liked that Vegie Hut food, although weren’t any less greasy than your usual Chinese place, didn’t feel quite as heavy as usual.

(Sizzling Szechuan ‘Beef’ – $13.00?)

Nat recommended a sizzling dish so I ordered the sizzling Szechuan beef. I asked the waiter if the dish was spicy, he said yes. I would eat my hat if there was any real chilli being used in this dish! But it was good nonetheless. It wasn’t exactly sizzling though.

(special fried rice – $8.00?)

Josh likes his special fried rice so we ordered one. Nothing special saved for the fake char siu pork. To be honest, if you weren’t paying attention you wouldn’t have realised it wasn’t real pork.

We also had some tea (quite nicely brewed, worth a mention) and the waitstaff were very sweet to us. We were the last table to leave and we stayed well past closing time. They didn’t pressure us to leave at all. They were quite happy to let us stay. For that, I tipped well. We left with very full happy tummies. Will definitely go back.

Vegie Hut, 984 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill
Yum cha specials every Sunday

* see my version of Beef Chow Fun

I knocked this up really quickly one night when Josh was feeling a bit sick. I had quite a few veggies lying around in the fridge, and what is minestrone soup if not an excuse to use up your veggies! You should be using whatever vegetables you have on hand. Anything from cabbage to swede will do.

I use pre-made pasta sauce in this recipe for two reasons: 1) because Josh was in an ‘omg-I-must-have-food-now’ and 2) I didn’t feel like stewing the vegetables for long. I was aiming for a soup with mellow broth but with vegetables that still retained their colours and flavours.

A small batch of soup, perfectly for two:

1. 1/2 an onion, diced
2. 1/2 small carrot, diced
3. 1 small stick of celery, diced
4. 1/24 red capsicum, diced
5. 1 clove of garlic, crushed
6. 1/2 zucchini, sliced
7. 5 long beans, sliced
8. 2 cups of your favourite pasta sauce*
9. 1 cup of water
10. 1/2 cup of canned mixed beans**
11. a large handful of pasta (I broke up some spaghetti)***
12. 1 big handful of baby spinach leaves

In a saucepan, sautee the onion, carrot, capsicum and celery with a bit of olive oil on medium-low heat until softened. Turn the heat up, add crushed garlic, zucchini and green beans. Stir constantly for a few minutes. Add the pasta sauce and water. Bring to boil. Add the pasta and turn the heat down to simmer. Simmer for 10 or so minutes until the pasta is tender. Add the spinach leaves and stir for a minute until the spinach is cooked.

Grate some parmasan or pecorino cheese on top. Serve with buttered fresh crusty bread.

* I used Dolmio’s Extra Garlic
** I used the Safeway homebrand three-bean mix here because it’s the only canned mixed beans without kidney beans (Josh is allergic) but feel free to try whichever brand that takes your fancy.
*** I’m led to believe leftover broken bits of long pasta is the traditional. I think I prefer short pasta. Easier to eat.

We went to grab a quick dinner the Grand Hotel’s Lounge Bar before heading out to a party in the area. The Grand Hotel also has a dining room but we thought we might save that for a more special occasion.

I have been to the Grand before and the food was always fantastic. It is definitely one of my favourite Melburnian gatro-pub.The menu wasn’t overly large but everything was done really well. I was actually looking forward to sampling their Nicoise Salad but sadly on the night, it wasn’t on the menu. The place was quite packed on the night and we grabbed the last table available (it was Saturday night, 7-ish) but the tables did start to become free a bit after. There were a few people just having drinks but many of them were there for the food. I recommend a reservation if you want to go there on Friday or Saturday night.

(Veal meatballs with semolina gnocchi – $18.50)

Josh was a bit more decisive and went for the Veal Meatballs with Semolina Gnocchi ($18.50) The gnocchi was awesome. It was creamy and went perfectly with the meatballs and the sauce. Definitely a must-try. When I went there last year, it was served with something else which was equally yummy. But the gnocchi was definitely the highlight.

(Braised Lamb Shank with Mash $24.00)

I couldn’t decide what I wanted (I was so set on having the Nicoise Salad) so when the counter person recommended the Braised Lamb Shank with Mash ($24.00), I went for it. The mash was beautifully silky and buttery and complimented the melt-in-the-mouth lamb shank really well. But definitely the gnocchi! Yum! Read the rest of this entry »

Last post on my Central Australia trip. Yay! Are you guys bored of reading about it yet?

(Bush food – an Aboriginal survival presentation at Alice Springs Desert Park)

We spent the last two nights in Alice Springs before travelling back to Melbourne. We drove from Alice Springs to Adelaide (yes in one day) before a stop over in Adelaide and then back to Melbourne the next day. I don’t think I can ever drive that much in one day again.

(Joshua’s kinda carbonara)

Just some quick pictures of a few meals that we cooked ourselves in Alice Springs as we were back to having a fully equipped kitchen. We did a round of fresh food shopping at Coles in Alice Springs, which was rather big and very stocked.

(the carbonara sauce, recipe here)

Josh made spaghetti carbonara, his usual way with mushrooms and capsicum. We had it for lunch back at the apartment one day.

I made stir-fried beef with onion, chilli and snow peas (recipe here, just add snow peas).

The snow peas were nice at the supermarket so I bought them instead of green beans. I served it with rice and omelet soup.

(omelet soup)

Omelet soup!?! Yep. Omelet soup. I might talk about it sometime later to include recipe but now is not the time.

Also made some more pasta sauce (with broccoli, zucchini, olives, bacon and capsicum) using the Leggo’s stir-through sauce for lunch on the road.

(rock wallaby)

And that concludes most of the foods that had been consumed during my time away from home! I shall leave you with some pictures of a cute rock wallaby at the Heavitree Gap resort in Alice Springs and Adelaide’s West Beach.

More Melbourne eating from now on!

This is the second last post on all, well, most, food we consumed when we went for a road trip to the Red Centre. Yay! Almost done. I have been eating some totally fantastic food in Melbourne and want to get on writing about them!

(I’m into taking pictures of table setting right now, bear with me)

<Start Non-food Babble>

So we were now in Alice Springs at the very centre of Australia. I liked Alice Springs for its touristy-ness. I booked ahead for a two-bedroom cabin at a caravan park near the Gap as I was hoping for a place as nice as the one we had in Adelaide. No such luck. We got there at about 8pm, only to be told that they only had us booked down for one (tomorrow’s) night instead of two! I was so annoyed so I asked that they cancelled the booking for the day after that.

As it was peak season in Alice Springs, I had to ring around before I ended up with accommodation at the Swagman’s Rest. I was a bit hesitant at first because the rate we were quoted was much lower than any other place I have tried ringing (but they were all fully booked) especially for self-contained units (i.e. with fully equipped kitchen). But it didn’t seem like we had a choice. But once we got there, everything really exceeded our expectations. The room was clean (though Mum disliked their choice of air freshener) and the kitchen was well equipped.

<End Non-food Babble>

So that night, after accommodation drama was over, we decided to hit the town for some dinner. Last time I was in Alice Springs (being my single, out-going party girl self), I desperately wanted to hit the Bojangles Saloon and see what was there as I didn’t have the chance last time.

(Inside the dining room)

But noooo. I had my mother and husband who completely vetoed the plan! Somehow we ended up a ‘traditional English pub’, the Firkin and Hound in Alice Springs CBD. It was a typical pub with the dining room at the back. I guess I have been living in Melbourne/Singapore for too long. I was completely thrown off guard when we walked in through the pub and discovered that people were still allowed to smoke there! The smoke kept wafting to our dining table and we had to move. Ewwww.

(garlic pita bread – $5.00)

The menu was actually your regular English pub menu. Mum wanted some garlic bread but they only had pita bread available which you could either have with garlic, cheese and something else.

When it was served, I thought they had brought us cheese instead because it was rather cheesy. I then later noted a tiny hint of garlic. They seemed a bit hesitant with their garlic here, I guess. It was rather good though. The bread was fresh and warm. The cheesy topping was quite good, despite being not-so-garlicky.

(soup of the day: cream of broccoli – $6.00)

It was a cold winter night and I wanted some soup. I asked the waiter (‘serving wench’) whether if it was possible to finish a soup and a main. She hesitated and said ‘for most people, probably not.’ My husband, being a helpful soul, replied ‘Her appetite isn’t exactly normal!’ Err.. thanks, mate.

So I ordered soup of the day, which was Cream of Broccoli. Despite being $5, it was huge! I was expecting a dinner roll with the soup (because the waiter came and asked whether I wanted a roll or pita bread with the soup) but I got a whole baguette! The soup was just slightly salty and rich but it was absolutely perfect with the hot crusty bread roll, baked to perfection.

(rack of lamb, served with mash, steamed veggies and rosemary gravy – $18.90)

For main, Mum decided on the 400 g.  scotch fillet. Josh went for the rack of lamb. And I, who has a personally rule that when in a typical pub, order a meat dish because the vego or carb options are generally not their forte, went for mixed grill. After the soup though, we were beginning to feel a bit of tripidation due to the meal sizing here.

(steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower with mashed potatoes)

Let’s just say I’m rarely wrong about food, the mains were friggin’ HUGE. If I were the waiter, I would have said ‘there is NO WAY you could finish the soup AND a main’ in no uncertain terms! Haha. But who am I to blame? I did really want the soup. Josh’s rack of lamb was quite nice and I rather liked the gravy, which was very rosemary-ish.

(400 g. scotch fillet – $27.00)

Mum had learned her lesson this time and asked for the steak to be cooked rare and according to my fail-safe rule of steak ordering, a perfectly medium rare steak was delivered.

(medium rare!)

Mum rather thought while the steak was all right, the scotch fillet that we bought at the supermarket and cooked ourselves was better. I didn’t like the way they piled the chips on, plonked the steak on top and covered it with gravy, resulting in some very soggy chips.

Her steak also came with salad, which was very pretty and tasty. So did my mixed grill.

My mixed grill. What can I say about my mixed-grill? Once I got over the shock at home big it was (it consisted of a fried egg, four middle rashers of bacon, one big lamb chop, one big piece of steak and a rather large sausage), I began to notice how horridly cooked everything was. It seemed like everything was cooked on some filthy public barbecue that hadn’t been cleaned in a century.

(mixed grill – $17.90)

I did ask for my steak to be cooked rare as well. I got a touch piece of hide, basically. It was so well done it was like chewing on an old boot. I guess my rule just failed here! The lamb chop was pretty much the same. It wasn’t really edible. Honestly, it seemed like someone had ordered a plate of mixed grill, sent it back and they regrilled everything and served it back to me. That was pretty bad.

Ah well.

Despite the amount of food served, they wouldn’t allow leftovers to be packed away (Mum’s steak would have been nice in a steak sandwich the next day). If you’re after a really big and cheap meal in Alice Springs, here it is. Just don’t order the mixed grill!

The Firkin and Hound, 21 Hartley St., Alice Springs NT