A Few of My Favourite Things !

During the course of our meal, we even had the honour of meeting THE MAN himself. Apparently Tetsuya is often away due to other engagements, however when he is in the house he does make it a habit to greet his diners. We were fortunate enough to have him come by our little table for two to say hello. We could also see heads from surrounding tables turning around and whispers of ‘That’s him. That’s Tetsuya‘. Boy, did we feel special!

Of course, he didn’t stay long. Just long enough to wish us a good meal and to recommend that we take our time and enjoy. Just long enough for us to get the impression that he is a down-to-earth and humble guy despite his impressive international reputation.

Long have we waited for this moment – the chance to dine at Australia’s best known and most highly rated restaurant, Tetsuya’s. This year, the Restaurant Magazine rated Tetsuya’s 5th in the world after El Bulli in Spain, The Fat Duck in Britain, Pierre Gagnaire in Paris and French Laundry in California. Time and again, I had tried to book a table only to be told that they were full for the night. This time, knowing that we had a trip to Sydney coming up I booked well in advance for our dinner on Friday 4th August.

We hurried by foot from The Rocks to Kent Street, eager for this culinary experience to begin. Finally locating its gated entrance, we walked down the driveway to be greeted by about four or five attendants who were presumably waiting to park cars. We were seated in a room with only 6 tables but there were at least 6 waiters for that section alone.

Warm Sweet Potato Soup with Feta & Rocket

Pacific Oysters with Rice Vinegar & Ginger (additional item)

Tartare of Tuna on Sushi Rice with Avocado

Tuna Marinated in Soy & Mirin; Soft Smoked Ocean Trout with Asparagus; Marinated NZ Scampi with Chicken Parfait & Walnut

Spring Bay Scallop with Wakame & Lemon

Tetsuya’s Signature: Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Daikon & Fennel

Ravioli of Queensland Spanner Crab with Tomato & Basil Vinaigrette

Roasted Breast of Quail with Soft Polenta & Shiitake Mushrooms

Seared Fillet of Veal with Wasabi Butter

Strawberry Shortcake; Beetroot & Blood Orange Sorbet

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with White Beans & Dates

Floating Island with Praline & Vanilla Bean Anglaise

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Orange and Chocolate Sorbet

Coffee

The whole meal was worth every cent but which dishes did I particularly enjoy: the tartare of tuna was easily the best I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, the barely cooked scampi, the confit of tuna which is marinated in oil then cooked in a very low oven, and oh the quail …smacking of lips… I was almost too full to have dessert by the end of the savoury courses but when they arrived, well that was another matter. I could have had an entire bowl of the strawberry shortcake although it probably wouldn’t look quite as elegant served like that! The lightness of the floating island surprised me, as did thin stripe of chocolate and raspberry within. We had a special dessert at the end of all that too – thanks, A!

Oh no! We were picking up some things from Safeway QV earlier this evening and on our way out of the complex walked through QV square. To our horror, we noticed that Lime Leaves, the modern Malaysian restaurant with communal tables, is no more. It has been replaced by Wagamama.

We’ve eaten at Lime Leaves about 4 or 5 times but I hadn’t gotten around to blogging about it and now it’s too late. I would never have ordered ‘hawker-style’ dishes because they are way more expensive ($16 to $20) and not as authentic as what you would get from somewhere like Penang Coffee House or Rich Maha. However we have been quite pleased by most of the other dishes that we’ve tried including the crisp-sealed calamari with wild ginger flower dipping sauce and the roast duck salad with nashi pear, green apple, sprout, carrot, mint and lime leaves. I cannot remember the other dishes and they are not on the menu that I’m holding but they were very good. And it’s one of the very few Asian restaurants (and in particular Malaysian restaurants) that leans more towards the fine dining end. As much as I love the grottier places around town, it’s good to have that choice available especially if you have friends or relatives who are, ahem, shall we say a little fussier?

Lime Leaves also had two of the best cocktails that we’d come across…sob, sob…

Well, the wedding reception itself was held at ZINC at Federation Square. I have to say up front that I’m not normally someone who enjoys the food that is normally served at reception centre BUT I was highly impressed by ZINC.

The entree of Prawn and Coconut Timbale made with fresh West Australian scampi(there seems to be a theme here!), shredded lime and spiced prawn sauce, did not make for a promising start. I didn’t enjoy the mouth-feel of the very mousse-like but bland timbale although A. thought it was fine.

Luckily I gave the main course a chance though. I had a roast eye fillet of beef with caramelised onion and red wine sauce and blue cheese and spinach tart. The steak was cooked to perfection – rare in the middle, beautifully tender – and the blue cheese in the tart gave it a gutsy flavour.

 
A. had the signature dish called a ‘Pair of Pears’. To be honest, I couldn’t actually figure out why this name until I went home and downloaded the photo – DUH! Roasted half-boned quail and chicken with pasta dura filling, handmade gnocchi, and lemon thyme jus. The pasta dura filling had a smoky quality that paired very well with the chicken. Overall a greta dish although I did think that the chicken was slightly overcooked.

 

For dessert, we were served an old-fashioned dark chocolate self-saucing pudding with vanilla ice cream. I certainly don’t feel as strongly as Ed about restaurants that serve vanilla ice-cream if it was really creamy vanilla-beany ice-cream however I was left rather uninspired by this one. But…the chocolate pudding, with its steamy, runny chocolate interior hidden by a crusty top, more than making up for it. The buttery shortbread was an unnecessary addition to an already rich enough dessert.

 

  

  

Some wonderful friends of ours, C & P, tied the knot last weekend! Before the wedding though, P had a quiet ‘Hen’s Night’ a few weeks back with some close friends and family. 7 of us gathered at Aurora Spa Retreat to have our cares massaged away while Prue was treated to their Guku Cocoon Signature Teratment and cocooned in Jellybush honey. Some of our group even caught a glimpse of Guy Sebastian before he was led off for his treatment!

We were then off to have drinks at Lionel’s – the idea being that we woudl be detoxing with the spa treatment, then toxing right back up again with champagne… – then dinner at Sapore. I don’t remember the details about our dishes but here are some photos to share. Our waitress a little put off when we wanted more time to look at the menu, but otherwise the food was perfectly acceptable. I started with oysters while P had salt and pepper calamari, then grilled West Australian scampi for the main while P had gnocchi.

 

 

 

Take a walk down Lt Collins Street, heading towards Elizabeth St. When you spot the Ay Tea House, turn right into Hub Arcade, mosey right down to the end and you will find the Chocolate Fire Cafe. Most of the produce seemed to centre around dried fruit dipped in chocolate but the very chatty owner is looking to introduce 6, yes count them, SIX new lines each week. Where Koko Black is dark timber, elegance and ganaches nestled neatly under a glass counter, Chocolate Fire Cafe is colourful and bright with the dried fruit forming straggly lines. They also offer pringles thickly coated with milk chocolate and plan to feature chocolate-dipped pretzels soon. I didn’t try the hot chocolate but the ower assures me that “…it’s very popular with the Asian students” and that some have claimed that it’s better than Koko Black’s, which was voted Melbourne’s best hot chocolate by the Herald Sun – big call!

My small selection of chocolate-dipped fruit took a loooonnnng time to purchase and for once this was not due to my indecision. The lady behind the counter resolutely kept her back to me, determined to show a very inexperienced new girl how to get a box ready for delivery before actually serving a customer in front of her. After waiting patiently for 10 minutes then asking her if this was a bad time and should I come back later in the afternoon, she replied huffily “Oh, are you in a real hurry?” then sent the new girl, who was absolutely clueless, to serve me. Hmmm, me thinks this area needs some improvements before they are ready to compete with all the other great chocolate places around Melbourne.

Go to Chocolate Fire Cafe if you have a really sweet tooth because you will need this to enjoy the combination of concentrated sugars in the dried fruit and chocolate. Or, go there if you want to test their claim about having the best hot chocolate. Koko Black is just around the corner so you could even do a head-to-head comparison!

Chocolate Fire Cafe
Shp8/ 318 Little Collins St Melbourne 3000
(03) 9663 5881

 

I had heard about Monsieur Truffe before but I only got the chance to visit his stall at Prahran Market two weeks ago. Charming us with samples of decandently dark truffles, the lovely Monsieur Truffe encouraged us to try the various flavours but we quickly fell for the chocolate caramalized almonds and brought a pack home with us. A. reckons that these are the best chocolate almonds around – big thumbs up!

A number of tea houses have popped up around the city recently, most of them selling just tea but there is one that also serves tea-based hot meals and desserts. We tried the pork noodles served in a tea broth and some tea-flavoured dim sum, serving it with a simple salad once we got the food home. the broth was lovely and had just a hint of tea-smokiness about it. The dim sum was okay, the skin being slightly too think for my liking. We also bought their plum jelly for dessert, but for the life of me I could not taste any tea flavour in it at all. We may think about trying the black tea jelly next time.

Ten Ren Tea (Melbourne) Pty Ltd
146 Swanston St Melbourne 3000

Okay, I think this is the final update on my trip. We had a brief stopover in Singapore on the way home &, of course, went in search of some good food!!! We managed to fit in kaya toast & nasi lemak for breakfast, spicy soup noodles from a halal food stall during a break from shopping and some noodles accompanied by really tender beef brisket from Lau Par Sat that was on the bland side.

Of all the meals we had though, the most memorable one from this trip was at Sin Huat Seafood Restaurant. I searched out this place after reading about it here. Despite the warning to show up either really early or really late to avoid the crowds, only two other tables were taken when we arrived. As there were only two of us, we only wanted to order the crab beehoon, however the chef/owner seemed a little put out and kept recommending other dishes that we might like to have as well. I love suggestions (which is why I like reading other people’s reviews), but when I’m made to feel like I have to order something…well, that doesn’t go down as well. We ended up with a half-dozen steamed prawns, crab beehoon and gai-lan knowing that there was no way that we were going to finish it all, with the chef himself all but admitting the same. But, hey, you don’t want to displease the guy who was going to be cooking your food, right?

The prawns were juicy and tasty and the gai-lan suitably garlicky, but the highlight was the crab beehoon, which was loaded with flavour. I did find that he was quite heavy-handed with the oil but maybe that’s why everything tasted so great. It was disappointing however to see half the meal being left behind because there was just too much of it. I was glad later on in the night that I hadn’t eaten more though because the food made us soooo thirsty!

 

Okay, I’m still catching up on our holiday adventures!

Instead of busying ourselves with tours of galleries and museums and visiting the Top 10 sites listed in guide books, this time we defiantly struck out in search of new foods to try instead. We visited La Maison du Chocolat, Laduree and Pierre Herme and tasted their intricately-decorated pastries for the first time.

Of the pastries, my personal favourite was probably the Plaisir Sucre for two reasons. One, the sensational chocolatiness minus any cloying sweetness. Two, the construction, as well as the differing textures, of the layers which consisted of a hazelnut dacquoise base topped with a milk chocolate spread, dark chocolate ganache and thin dark chocolate sheet twice over, whipped chocolate cream and finally another thin dark chocolate sheet. Maybe one day I will feel brave enough to try making it at home, as Keiko has done. The Surprise Yu dessert, stewed and raw apples with yuzu with yuzu cream enclosed in meringue and wrapped in orange cellophane, is also pictured here (back) but this really was not to my liking. The other pastry worth mentioning is the Isphahan (not pictured but you can see what it looks like here) from Laduree, fresh raspberries and lychee and rose-flavoured cream sandwiched between pink meringues – unusual and summery flavours.

Of course, we also had to try the much-heard of macarons. We picked a number of flavours from both Pierre Herme and Jean Paul Hevin, but our favourite by far was caramel à la fleur de sel (A: “I would go back to Paris just for these!”). Fortunately, A had the forethought to ask for two of these! The most unusual and strongest flavour was truffe blanche et noisette. Although the earthiness of the truffle flavour was certainly unusual and unexpected in a macaron, it did not prevent us from enjoying it.

This post has been a LONG time coming! I’ve been busy with work and also lazy about posting about our dinner here because these photos do not do any justice at all to the food. Let me quickly add that this is not a reflection on my photography skills although I have a long way to go in this department, but rather a problem with taking photos at close range with a disposable camera.

So, why was I using a disposable camera in the first place? Well, during one of our outings in Prague, we pulled out our compact digital to take a photo of ourselves in the snow. It was very chilly, and I can now tell you from experience that it is difficult to handle a camera when your hands are enveloped in thick, warm woolly gloves. It’s easy to have the camera suddenly slip from your hands to hit the hard, icy ground and become damaged…and for you to have to purchase a disposable camera so that you can continue taking photos on your trip…

We arrived in Paris from Strasbourg at around 6:00pm and immediately proceeded to promenade down the Champs Elysee, enjoying the ambience of this romantic city once again. After strolling around for about an hour, we started to look for a place to eat. We wandered over the Pont Royal to St Germain des Pres in search of dinner, but being Christmas night there were few people on the streets and fewer places that appeared to be open. We walked down a rather deserted Rue de Bac past one or two brightly-lit bistros that were silently waiting to be filled. As we turned onto Bd St Germain, we spotted red and white lettering on a black sign that read ‘L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon’. We crossed the road, not knowing whether we needed a reservation or even if they were serving meals that night, however we were quickly and warmly welcomed into the cosy restaurant to sit at the bar facing the open kitchen. We ordered a couple of degustation-sized meals and although the photos are not in focus, the food was certainly our main focus that evening:

La lisette sur une tarte fine au parmesan

La sardine au confit de tomates

La chataigne en fin veloute au fumet

La langoustine en ravioli truffe, au chou

L’agneau de lait en cotelette au thym

Le chevreuil, mignonette a l’aigre doux

Our waitress was most agreeable in helping us to make our choices (and relaxed about me taking photos of food & kitchen) and kept a close eye on our progress to ensure that each serving came out immediately after the previous one had been cleared. They didn’t rush our meal at any stage, but the pace at which the next dish was served was such that we wished there was more breathing space between. Our dishes were as good as you would expect from any top restaurant, but the goat was a real stand out for me as 1. it’s not something that I would normally have and 2. it was so tender and rich that it reminded me of liver, almost. This was closely followed by the langoustine ravioli and the anchovy tart.

PS – A big hello to David & Mark from the Orange County if you are reading this!