A Few of My Favourite Things !

We have been awaiting the opening of Old Town Kopitiam in QV for the last few months, especially after spending a couple of weeks in Malaysia recently and reacquainting ourselves with the joys of kaya toast. Finally made it there for breakfast this morning, which actually turned out to be lunch when I couldn’t get out of bed before 10:30am. This also meant that we had to forgo the kaya toast in favour of something more substantial – roti chanai with curry sauce, Siamese Laksa and ban chang kueh. All great and we’re heading back really soon to try the rest of the menu.

I finally got to eat at Cumulus, 9:30pm last Thursday night…and I was smitten!

My photos are all dim and blurry so I haven’t taken the trouble to upload them here. My favourite dish of the night was the scallops wrapped in speck, capers & raisin vinaigrette. This was followed closely by the crispy school prawns sauteed with chilli & garlic – imagine having a bowl of these in front of you while watching the Saturday night movie! – then tuna tartare with crushed green pea salad (my husband’s favourite), the boudin noir, smoked tomato & parsley salad and finally the silk purse from a slow’s ear, ravigote & green sauce.

As you can tell, I was already delighted with the meal so far however I was also getting quite full so skipping dessert wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. However, my husband overruled me and ordered two – the coconut sago, meringue, coconut sorbet and the petit fours (hazelnut chocolate, salted caramel) – and boy am I glad that he did! The coconut sago turned out to be one of the loveliest desserts I’ve had in a long time. So much that I popped into Laguna the next day to buy a pack of sago to recreate it at home.

One of the best aspects of the meal for us was being served by the staff at Cumulus. Not only were they knowledgeable but they actually appeared happy to be there, somewhat of a rarity these days in the customer service field.

Here’s my version of the Cumulus dessert. Sago drizzled with coconut milk sweetened with a palm sugar syrup served with softly whipped egg white and Serendipity’s Coconut & Kaffir Lime sorbet:

This post is SO late that the lovely Suj’s “I’m in my 8th month of pregnancy” tummy has become a gorgeous 2-month old daughter. I’m not sure where her appetite is at these days but during her pregnancy she was indulging her hormonally-directed food cravings with varied meals of Nandos, Hungry Jacks and Yum Cha. This very belated post is about a meal she & hubby had back in April this year. Thanks for your contribution!

Today Ben and I finally thought we would try out a relatively new place in Glen Waverley on Springvale Road called Yum Cha Inn. We checked out the menu, and it seemed an interesting concept where the yum cha menu is on a sheet of A4 paper and you get to select how many serves of each item you would like to order. The idea then is your order is made up for you and brought directly to your table, so the food is nice and hot off the steamer, stove, oven, etc.

So Ben and I went through the list and picked our favourites like the “siu mai”, and “har gow”, “char siu sow”, “loh bak gou”, another scallop dumpling (my Cantonese fails me here) and custard tarts (”dan tart”). And proceeded to wait in anticipation.

And we waited.

And waited.

Finally a dish appeared about 30 minutes later, it was “ham sui gok” and I thought, huh, did we order this? Perhaps we did, perhaps my English interpretation of “char siu sow” was actually “ham sui gok” so I thought ok, never mind, we’ll accept the dish. And we ate it. It had just the right amount of pork filling inside, not too much and not too little. The pastry was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside with a delicate sweetness that offset the savoury filling.

And then we waited again.

Finally another two dishes appeared, a green-coloured dumpling dish and another with beancurd. Now I was definitely certain I didn’t order these and so we checked with the wait staff, and sure enough it wasn’t our’s. My heart sank as I realised we’d have to wait again for the rest of our meal.

An hour after we had walked through the door, I finally asked about our order and made it quite clear that the wait had been unacceptable. We were assured our order was only 2 minutes away and they apologised for a mix up in the kitchen. Strike 1, they had not kept the customer informed regarding the unusual delay.

We finally got our dumplings and remaining order, except the “loh bak gou”. Upon enquiry we were told they had run out of that particular dish. One would have thought that they would have informed us earlier so we could order alternatives. This was strike 2. Our “char siu sow” then surprisingly made an appearance! We were informed the “ham sui gok” we had earlier wasn’t actually our’s. Oh well, so be it, they had made the mistake and it was not our fault that we had already eaten it. Pretty sure they charged us for it anyway.

When we did make alternative orders of “char siu bau” and the lotus wrapped steamed glutinous rice to replace the “loh bak gou”, the order only took 5 minutes to arrive at our table, proving that the 50 minute wait was simply unnecessary.

Apart from the terrible wait time, the food in general was only fairly average. The highlight was the very flaky pastry on the custard tarts which I loved.

The restaurant gave us complimentary drinks and took 10% off our bill to compensate for the very long wait we had to endure. However needless to say it will be a while before we will venture into Yum Cha Inn again.

Thanks to Ed, we were saved from having to pay the $30 entry fee to the Taste of Melbourne. I’m guessing that there must have been a lot of complimentary entrance tickets floating around as there was a large sign outside reminding people to validate their free tickets prior to entering. Despite getting in for nothing, we still spent $60 on the “crowns” in order to purchase food so not a cheap lunch but a good opportunity to have a little taste from each restaurant.

Friday afternoon turned out to be a great time to go as we didn’t have to queue at all. The busiest stand by far was the Press Club/Hellenic Republic & Maha one, probably as a result of George’s high profile after Masterchef Australia. Or possibly because it was three stands in one. Indeed, as we waited for our Lamb Kustilji we continually heard ‘Masterchef’ or ‘George’ being dropped in every conversation. The man himself was there behind the counter but he didn’t seem especially friendly. On the other hand, Shane Delia was all smiles and “yalla, yalla!”, welcoming everyone to their stand.

Maha’s Lamb Kustilji: crispy lamb ribs, roast nuts & spices, lemon & yoghurt. A really fun, stand up & eat kind of dish.

The Press Club/Hellenic Republic & Maha stand:

We had a quick chat to the lovely Frank Camorra at Movida, who recommended his slow-cooked cuttlefish with chorizo & chickpeas. I personally would have preferred to try the braised beef with spanish paprika, saffron & potatoes but A. happily slurped down this dish.

I was really excited about Nobu’s black cod with miso, having read so much about it. And thankully, it was everything I expected and more.

One of my absolute favourite “sandwiches” is the char siew pau so when I saw Circa’s BBQ She Wagyu, steamed bun, pickled carrot, spring onion & hoisin I was imagining a classy cross between the humble char siew pau, pekind duck pancakes & banh mi, if that makes any sense at all! It had good strong flavours and came SO close, but in the end it just wasn’t quite there yet. Maybe it was the steamed bun not having the right texture – it was neither fluffy enough for a pau nor crunchy enough for a baguette – or maybe there was too much of the hoisin sauce…something.

Our next stop, Verge, for the milk chocolate delice, coconut & basil, salted caramel popcorn which looked so beautiful I couldn’t go past it. Rich, rich, rich! (whisper: actually I preferred the brownies below)

Lots of stands that you could sample goods at, chat to the producers. We didn’t have a lot of time away from our son but even so we managed to do two rounds of the Exhibition Building and covered most of these. We bought outstanding brownies from Dello Mano, a Brisbane-based company. Each 50g little square was $6 but pretty delish, although
A. loyally agreed that mine were as good if not better =)

There are actually queues forming in Melbourne! We are used to seeing queues in Paris or Tokyo but today, for pretty much the first time we remember, there was a queue to get into Koko Black in the Block Arcade and the new Lindt Cafe on Collins St. The Lindt store is so new that it hasn’t made it into their website yet.

The Lindt Cafe is set in a beautiful building – high ceilings with a little balcony that runs along both sides and across the back of the second storey, book cases set along the entire length of it. My idea of heaven really – a chocolate cafe below and books above. I wonder if you’re allowed up there. Anyway, no cakes or chocolates this time as I’ve tried a few from the Sydney store. But the macarons (which they call delice) tempt me and so I ask for the hazelnut, milk chocolate and roselli. As an afterthought, I say “You should give me the broken passionfruit one too” and they do. Mmmmmmm, thin crunchy shell with a chewy interior then the creamy ganache.

I’ll make them soon, hon, I promise…

This place deserves a post of its own. Serving the kind of food that we travel for, Ibu Oka in Ubud is patronized by locals as well as tourists. They do one dish and they do it incredibly well – Babi Guling. You point to what everyone else on the communal table is having and it’s plated and served in about two minutes flat. Help yourself to the prawn crackers in the basket and everything just gets tallied up at the end of your meal.

Too good and had us licking our lips for the rest of the trip. It’s a pity we didn’t get to go back for seconds =(

Breeze: Just stopped for drinks here one evening to see the sunset but too cloudy…

Cafe Warisan: Reputedly the best French and most romantic restaurant in Bali if you believe the Luxe Guide. Go during the day if you want to see the rice paddies although I’m sure the food is great either day or night! Be warned however that the whole crew is moving to Mentis in September 200. Warisan will continue trading under a different owner with different cuisine.

Scallops with seared foie, shimeji, puy lentils and sherry jus – just awesome! Easily the dish of the night.

Crab millefeille, crab emulsion, leek, soft shell crab tempura – pretty good too

Sole Meunière, creamed spinach, potato – hhhmmmmm, I really expected more from this dish.

La Moelluex- okay, I recently made one that beat the pants off this!

Nammos Beach Club at Karma Kandara: Wow, a private beach where you have to pay for entry – that’s something that Aussies are just NOT used to. However, I have to say that the view of the Indian Ocean was stupendous and I would definitely do it again!

Something special…sigh!

Isn’t this photo convincing enough? The ride there is a little bumpy but I’m still wondering how much it costs per night to wake up to this:

Bumbu Bali: The kind of place where they all greet you when you arrive (kinda like the “Irrashaimase” of Japanese restaurants) and place a frangipani behind your ear. Go only if you want to feel like a tourist because the food ain’t worth it.

ONe more post to go after this…

So it’s been a few weeks since our return from a one-week break in Seminyak, Bali but I haven’t posted about any of the food we ate, although there a pictures aplenty. Of course, I know this means I will probably have forgotten the names of most of the dishes, my mind being the sieve that it is. However, I shall do my best to recall them. We based our choice of restaurants/cafes on friends’ recommendations, reviews and the Luxe Guide and there were hits and there were misses and there were dishes in-between. I think I shall just make it a chronological review so here goes:

Made’s Warung: Apparently a visit to one of the two Warung Made (Kuta or Seminyak) is compulsory for all visitors. They serve a mix of international and Indonesian foods. It was more than passable but we tried to pick places that concentrated more specifically on Indonesian food after this.

Nasi Campur

Rujak

Lumpiah

Venue @ the Moon: About three shops up from our hotel, The Kayana, so it was easy to grab takeaway. Their food was some of the best we had in Bali!

Kuta Mall: We just had to take a peek, and really that’s all it was. We dropped by at the mall in Kuta and did a little bit of shopping. Enjoyed the humidity while watching the waves rolling in and enjoying a plate of garlicky prawns.

Grocer & Grind: No food photos but a really cool place to hangout if you’re missing home.

More to come in the next installation…

Okay, maybe I’ve been looking at too many A-frames of late but this one really puzzled me. I initially thought that they had misspelled prosciutto but it seemed TOO wrong to be wrong, if you know what I mean. A quick query to the waitress and we were told “It’s like ham but halal”. I tried googling but to no avail so if anyone can enlighten me as to what ‘pusitto’ is, I’d be much obliged.

I made a batch of pasta sauce for my boys on the weekend and was putting labels on freezer containers when I suddenly stopped writing and wondered, is bolognese spelt ‘bolognese’ or ‘bolognaise’? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen both version and agonized several minutes over which was correct. Now that I’m typing it in, my spell check is indicating that the latter is incorrect.

That reminds me of the many cafe and restaurant chalkboards that misspell menu items. Here’s one from Equinox Cafe/Bar that made me stop short yesterday as I first spotted their version of this tuna salad.