A Few of My Favourite Things !

We celebrated dad’s birthday, 2 Saturdays in a row.

The first time around, we happened to be having a family weekend away in Healesville. I had made an early dinner booking at the local Toolanghi Pub when I realised that Innocent Bystander (IB) had a kids menu. Taking that to mean children were welcome, I swapped our booking over to an early dinner at IB instead. We poured over the menu at our lodging that Saturday afternoon and the consensus was that we had to try the Tomahawk Steak. There was only one problem: there was a one hour cooking time and we had two toddlers coming to dinner with us.

Not. A. Good. Mix.

We tried to resolve the problem by pre-ordering and were given three reasons that it could not be done:
1. There’s a limited number of steaks so diners can’t pre-book them (We were coming at 6pm, the earliest time the steaks were being served. We would not have missed out)
2. Diners may turn up late and we can’t serve the steak cold (we are staying 5 minutes away and have 2 toddlers to feed. We will even turn up early for it)
3. We have not done it before and so cannot do it now (can’t argue with that).

We accepted that for all three reasons, we could not pre-order the steaks so plan B came into effect. Four of our party would be seated at 6pm to order the steak and the other two adults would bring the two toddlers an hour later. It worked a treat!

It’s a large open space where noise bounces off everything. Great if you have children and need that to hide their loudness and great for groups or a casual dinner date. The waitstaff are mostly of the friendly variety and you can watch the chefs “doin’ their thang”.

The Tomahawk Steak arrives, shaped appropriately like its namesake, accompanied by shallots, pumpkin, broccolini, mustard and lemon wedges.

It is only served medium rare but ours was probably closer to a medium. At the end of our meal, my 2 yo was happy to gnaw on the handle of the Tomahawk – mmmm. The broccolini was a hit with my 2 year old, but neither boys were not enamoured of the kids menu Wagyu Burger.

Our prosciutto and rocket pizza crust is thin and puffy perfection and half its deliciousness derives from watching the pizza chef tossing the dough into the air. The sashimi is good (a little cold maybe?) and mum loved the dressing on it, but above all that, it’s the parmesan and truffle frites which are not to be missed.

We returned the next morning for a 3/4 cappuccino but left with something that resembled a macchiato, as it was more like a 1/3 coffee with a dash of milk. Nevertheless, the in-house baked goods were impressive enough to overcome my coffee disappointment. The caneles were some of the best that I’ve had in Melbourne and they serve an excellent baguette.

My father-in-law called several times this week to remind us that he had some fresh figs for us. The birds would have started attacking them so he had to get them off the tree in a hurry, and knowing my lot for figs, made sure that some were saved for our household. The last harvest resulted in a fig & ginger jam, but this time they went into making little fig tartlets and some saffron-scented figs. I I had any left , I would certainly be devouring them with some prosciutto but alas, they are all gone. These organically grown figs were ripe enough that they wept a little juice onto the plate and would split if pinched too hard – perfection.

Fig Tartlets

8 fresh figs – sliced thinly
1 cup almond meal
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup icing sugar
1 egg
80g unsalted butter , melted, cooled
2 tbs Pedro Ximenez sherry
zest of 1 lemon
mini tart shells

1. Mix all the ingredients (except figs and casings) together well and spoon into tart casings.
2. Layer fig slices on top.
3. Bake at 175C until tops are golden brown (around 25 minutes).
4. Serve warm or cold with cream or ice-cream

Saffron-Scented Figs

a pinch of saffron
1 tbs honey
250ml water
1 cinnamon stick
fresh figs (you can substitute dried figs)

1. Put all ingredients (except figs) into a pot and bring to boil.
2. Turn heat down and simmer until the syrup thickens slightly.
3. Add figs and continue simmering, basting figs occasionally, until figs are soft (around 15 minutes)
4. Spoon over yoghurt and serve for breakfast or snack or dessert

My husband is a pancake man, but I’m definitely a french toast kind of girl. It would undoubtedly feature in my ‘last meal on earth’ list if I had to make one. I love cooking french toast for my two little boys too, although my 3yo tends to take after dad more in this respect and would much prefer that I make pancakes. I’m a shocking cook in the mornings however, trying to get breakfast done, heating up a milk bottle for Z (the 1yo), getting both E & Z dressed, getting myself dressed, that I regularly burn things (or come really close) if they are cooking in the pot or pan.

I have discovered a good way for making french toast that avoids this problem by cooking them in a jaffle maker (aka sandwich press). One egg and a splash of milk into a bowl with a flat bottom, soak the sourdough bread for a few minutes while I dress the boys. Pop the bread onto the jaffle maker and turn it on, then I can walk away for a few moments to get other things done without it burning. I flip it with a fork as I walk past to the kettle and a few minutes later, breakfast is served. I love adding spices to my french toast so that my boys get to enjoy different flavours. It’s often cinnamon or nutmeg but even something more unusual like cinnamon and ginger powder goes down a treat.

Even better, the cleaning consists simply of wiping it down with a sponge – that’s it.

Looking for a child-friendly place for brunch, a friend recommended the Auction Rooms as a great place that had room for a pram. So, we wandered up to Victoria Market, purchasing some groceries on the way, then made our way to Errol St in North Melbourne. Not quite knowing where Errol Street was, we asked directions from three blokes chatting in from of a pub. Two of them, who appeared to have already well on their way to being sozzled, informed us to keep walking in that direction but that Errol Street was 2km away. Fortunately, their estimations were quite a way out and we were there within 15 min., stumbling upon it right after passing Fandango.

My idea of a perfect breakfast – miso soup with silken tofu, fried tofu, carrots, shimeji mushrooms, wakame, one beautifully-cooked still-runny poached egg and a riceball on the side. Ahhh, bliss on a Saturday morning…

We don’t have a tradition of celebrating Shrove Tuesday or have an actual need to use up ingredients before Lent but as A. is an ardent lover of pancakes, I made some in honour of this day.

The pancake (yes, just a single one as he was rushing to a meeting) was served with some strawberries that we had picked up from a farmer was filling up at a Seymour service station at the same time and honey from the Milawa Mustard store.

PS- try not to acciddentally shake in too much bicarb soda or the batter will be bitter!

We stopped for breakfast at Cafe Andiamo on our way home from a long walk along the Yarra River this morning. An order for poached eggs on toast was placed with our waiter but what came out could have passed for hard boiled…

A. says that cafes which cannot cook eggs shouldn’t be serving breakfast. I suspect that Jamie would agree wholeheartedly.

Cafe Andiamo
36 Degraves St
Melbourne 3000 VIC
Phone: (03) 9650 8060

LIVESTRONG Day, an event initiated by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, provides an opportunity for us to raise awareness about cancer issues in our local communities and on a national level.

There are many LIVESTRONG Day events open to the general public, however Barbara organised a food blogging event called A Taste of Yellow that requires participants to make a dish containing something yellow.

I had plans to bake something, cook something for this event but getting home late last night after watching the amazing Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai show, we wanted something comforting and easy. What better way to end the night than with a toasted cheese sandwich.

Very simply, place some slices of lovely pale, creamy French Comt̩ Рa cheese made from the unpastuerised milk of Montb̩liard cows Рbetween 2 slices of dark rye bread and toast until melted.

Jian Bing – a thin, crispy crepe sparsely filled with an egg, some green herbs, brown sauce and chilli, fi you like it hot. Just fatastic and my favourite breakfast in Shanghai.

Having a breakfast of toufa with the locals

This was our first breakfast in Shanghai, savoury tau fu fa accompanied by a yu tiao and milky coffee, followed by a spicy noodle dish. Enjoyed the tau fu fa but I stuck to the hot weet version for the rest of the trip. The noodles looked great but were a little bland. The rest of the crowd were ordering yu tiao and siao long bao so this may not have been a speciality of theirs.

Going for a walk later on that day down Nan Jing Lu, we stumbled across an extremely busy little alley that had the most heavenly smell of food cooking. A detour was in order here and we came across some unusual and delicious foods.

We managed th snag the last of this batch of fried beef dumplings (not sure about name). Really delicious and the line of people waiting to get their hands on one was justified.

Steamboat-style meals are also available. Great if you want to pick and choose.

We saw these siao long bao stalls everywhere and the great thing you could always see a small huddle of workers, with disposable face masks on, moulding these. The dumplings then went straight into the frying pan. How much fresher can you get? Sold in portions of four, the trick to eating these was to make a small bite into the skin and allowing the very hot steam to escape then slurping some of the juice out before eating the meaty part. HUGE queues everywhere for these! I think the Shanghainese must literally live on these dumplings. (Warning: Don’t get the ones on the streets immediately outside the ‘Old Town’ area though as you pay tourist prices for inferior food).

Lots of smoke coming from these portable barbeques:

…more soon…

Adventures in Shanghai – Part 2
Adventures in Shanghai – Part 3
Images of Shanghai

On Saturday morning, we wandered across Carlton Gardens to Brunswick St in search of some coffee. that’s how we stumbled upon Mario’s, which we now know is a bit of an institution having been on Brunswick St for over 20 years.

The french toast was made with a multigrain bread, which gave it an unusual crunch, and served with real maple syrup. We also had bacon on the side to off-set the sweetness of the maple syrup.

The prices are really reasonable here and they do a fantastic cofffee.

Mario’s Cafe: 303 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065