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Category Archives: lunch

so yes, it was hot in melbourne, but it never got too hot for pizza. one day in january, after a short spell at luna park —

[ the kid is still too short for most of the rides, but we did qualify for the ghost train (a dud), and then the mini-roller coaster in the shape of a large green dragon (rollicking god fun for the 105cm-tall set). after which she procured for herself the largest fairy floss in the world. it was roughly half her height, and weighed enough that it eventually pulled itself off the stick. she kept calm and carried on, slipped her arm through the mass of spun sugar, and fashioned herself a fine edible bracelet. ]

– and a large amount of gelato that melted before we even made it down the street, and a good bout of digging in the sand beneath the promenade, and the merry side-stepping of washed-up jellyfish on the shore, we stumbled, somewhat sundazed, into il fornaio, which hangs off the prince hotel on ackland street. i’ve always come by at the wrong time, too late for lunch service, and this time, alas, we were once again told we could have drinks only, or anything from the display case.

fortunately, the display case still held a handful of small pizze. i picked the prosciutto. the waitress was kind enough to put it in the oven for a spell, and it was just the salty, crunchy-edged kind of mid-afternoon snack you might wish for, just in from the beach with your legs all sandy.

some days later, we took shelter at the NGV international. for a while, we pretended to look at art, though really we were more interested in standing over the impossibly sleek airconditioning vents in the floor of the gallery. and then also, lunch. the gallery kitchen beckoned, from its hiding place behind the ground floor escalators. and you will see this picture, and yawn and say, ho hum. i couldn’t help it! i am completely powerless against the lure of a prosciutto pizza, but look! this one was also decked out with fat slices of field mushrooms and a smattering of olives and fetta.

ahh… such pleasurable little discs of modestly puffy, barely charred dough, their sharp flavours uncompromised by just a scant amount of cheese. it’s a rarity around these parts i tells ya. if they had been just three bites larger, they would’ve been perfect.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 25 February 2010 at 2:46 pm

permalink | filed under around town, lunch, trip

[ smoked ocean trout and avruga ]

no. i lie. the way to end a birthday is lunching at tetsuya’s the day after.

[ marinated crystal bay prawns with soy caramel ]

way back in march, the prospect of november birthdays prompted a flurry of emails and a flutter of stomachs, and a booking at tetsuya’s ensued. back then we laughed giddily — deborah and i — about fancy pants lunches, and stretchy pants, but as the months went by, i started to feel nervous about the prospect of sitting down and eating 13 courses of food.

[ confit of petuna tasmanian ocean trout with konbu, apple, daikon ]

i made a half-hearted attempt to train for the event, aiming to stretch my stomach to capacity, but all that happened was lots of my clothes don’t fit so good no more. truly, in the final stretch, those last weeks that galloped by, my greatest concern was that i’d have to excuse myself to vomit in the toilet halfway, hopefully not more than once.

[ seasonal green salad ]

and so, the morning of, right before i left my kid to a day of ice cream and ferry rides with her grandfather, i took us all to breakfast at le grande cafe, where i had a big serve of buttery, buttered brioche toast, and a pot of tea. did i mention the butter? in retrospect, it may have been a slight miscalculation on my part. but there was no time for recrimination; i had to catch the bus home to fossick through my wardrobe for a skirt with enough give.

[ terrine of queensland spanner crab with avocado ]

and you know what? it was fine. a cosy group of six scorpios-and-friends walked through the heavy steel gates, were greeted with big smiles and seated at a long sunlit table (diffused sunlight, through venetians) looking out onto the white pebble beach and the miniature waterfall.

[ grilled fillet of barramundi with braised baby fennel ]

the food was presented slow and steady, each a modest portion of perfectly balanced — sometimes literally — produce, so that there was enough time for tasting, and then savouring, and then shifting our bellies to find our balance. each course was formally introduced, and then we were left to enjoy the moment.

[ breast of duck with beetroot, treviso and pepperberry ]

and it was all very enjoyable, although some at the table may argue that a different word be employed for the opening gambit of a cold sweetcorn soup served with a daub of saffron ice cream; it was hardly challenging food. well, it was challenging for the kitchen, i’m sure, to send out these intricately arranged platters en masse, but for us long lunchers, the flavours were well-considered, classic pairings with no jarring, challenging ingredients and no didactic textures. (foams! soils! i’m looking at you!)

[ seared fillet of veal with wasabi butter ]

crab and avocado. prawns and brie. duck and beetroot. berries and white chocolate. bread and butter — but what bread, and what butter: tangy, chewy sourdough rolls, and pots of butter whipped with ricotta, parmesan and black truffle into ethereal yellow splendour which we could not stop eating. there were surprises, yes, like a sticky soy caramel (a regular sugar and water caramel with a dash of soy sauce — kikkoman, the waitress thought — added in at the very end) over prawns, and then later, over the cannellini beans and mascarpone that served as the “transition” between savoury and sweet. or the pink peppercorns hidden in the sharp lime curd sandwiching a chocolate macaron.

[ cannellini beans with mascarpone ]

and there were particular favourites that we wanted more of, and some that others vowed to recreate in sandwich form. though of course, it was hard to dislike anything when everything was cooked so perfectly. vegetable purees that were sublimely smooth, meat tender and juicy all the way through, seafood plump and moist, delicate tangles of exotic microherbs… and which pixie was it, whose light hands diced the pineapple into miniscule and perfect chunklets, and left it in the puddle of syrup at the bottom of the pineapple and amaretto sorbet? i would happily eat this every day.

[ pineapple and amaretto sorbet, chai bavarois ]

at one point, when it became clear that we were more than halfway through the meal, a sadness came over me, a sense of regret that the experience would soon be over. but we live in the now, dammit, and the fourteen nows that passed that afternoon were thoroughly relished.

[ summer pudding ]

we sat down and ate for just short of five hours, and i did not have to get up and go to the toilet after all (and so will just have to go by wayne’s account of the linen napkins upon which to wipe your hands).

[ lime and ginger creme brulee ]

there was much laughter, and talk of good food (Q: what is your favourite food? A: chips!), and the waiters, in their crisp, fitted white shirts and tiny gold fleur-de-lise pins, were smiley and attentive, and ready to call you “sir” even if you were a ma’am.

[ chocolate chiboust with lemon curd and coffee marshmallow ]

around five o’clock, the petit fours numbered three — a coffee and date friand, a maccha marshmallow, and a chocolate macaron — and tea was poured from cast iron pots. we talked about how full we were, and then picked off the little treats one by one.

[ petit fours ]

the sun outside was still beating down hot, but inside we were gloriously warm.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 November 2009 at 9:27 am

permalink | filed under around town, lunch

i’m hoping you were not so distracted by the blood and gore of the last post that you missed the bit about the delicious salad. yes, after three weeks away in the land of the free, deborah returned to brunch at le grand café at the alliance francaise. it’s like a bermuda triangle, is it not, this little section of clarence street with bécasse and plan b on the east side, and the newish le grand café forming the third point right across the road? you pop in, and then disappear for quite some time — who knows when you will re-emerge? last year, when we lunched at bécasse, we must’ve been there for almost three hours. wednesday, at the more casual outpost (yes! you can play a game of “count the stripy skivvies”, haw haw!), we lingered for around three-and-a-half.

we arrived early, 11am, because i’d been reading around the traps that it gets busy at lunchtime! and things sell out! as it turns out, we were maybe too early: quite a few of the menu items were still being prepared. but as we cast our eyes over the neat stacks of filled baguettes, the countergirl retrieved a tray of salad bowls from the kitchen and began filling the display case.

“is that the nicoise?” i breathed, in awe. atop the leaves, the fat slices of chargrilled tuna glistened like rubies. there were segments of hard boiled egg with sunny yellow yolks. later, as i dug down into the bowl, i would find tiny olives and halved grape tomatoes. such dainty treasures, shining in their delicate dressing. it made for joyous eating, and i did not feel in the slightest that i’d missed out on anything by not ordering the frisee with lardons.

the salad nicoise had come highly recommended by the friendly french countergirl. i got the feeling though, that she would’ve been happy to recommend everything. when we joined the queue the second time, for dessert, she spoke highly of the blueberry danish, perched up high on a mountain of pain au chocolat, as well as all the steamed puddings on display. if we’d have kept pointing, she would probably have gushed over each one.

ordinarily, i expect i would’ve gone down the path of chocolate. most likely the pot au chocolat with its helmet of mixed nuts, or the wedge of flourless chocolate cake, or the slender little beam of a chocolate brownie. however, i’d worked my way through an extremely sweet hot chocolate with the salad, and i thought that any more might knock me over.

so i got the blueberry pudding, and it was light and sweet, and served warm with a quenelle of slightly sweetened whipped cream… altogether pleasant, although i think that i might have preferred double cream.

the room was quiet when we arrived, with just a group of uniformed school boys in the banquettes by the wall, drinking coffee from takeaway cups, and eating croissants — some sort of french immersion class i suppose. the lunchtime crowd swept in, in a couple of waves, and then trickled out again as we lingered over tea (gunpowder green leaf tea, with jasmin, in a large round pot, with a removable strainer, le sigh of contentment). i resisted going up to the counter for a third time — the takeaway danish doesn’t always win — but i have begun making plans for pastry-fueled morning work sessions in the coming weeks.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 19 September 2009 at 10:25 pm

permalink | filed under cake, lunch

an innocent email on monday morning about the possibility of lunch snowballed, and by the time saturday rolled round, there we were — deborah and i — in our best walking shoes, primed and hungry for whatever the afternoon might bring us.

well. we did have a plan.

i’d been curious to try the new sopra outpost in potts point, and that is where we began. it is much swisher than the original waterloo warehouse: banquette seating, shiny red mosaic walls, an unsubtle soundtrack that made us feel like we were in a 60s italian movie (a slapstick comedy, at that), and — the deal-breaker, were there deals to be broken — fancy, custom printed, evocatively illustrated place mats on very nice textured paper.

they had them arranged just so on the bar, but we spirited a couple over to our table top with not too much recrimination from the waiter. (very efficiently, he showed us a particularly fetching one with a big plate of pasta emblazoned with “fratelli fresh”, and then he replaced the ones we had pilfered.)

much less efficiently, we made our choices for lunch; everything sounded so delicious. and then of course, it was.

there was an antipasto platter to start — four little mounds of: mushrooms and cumin; spicy caponata with surprise crunchy almonds; arancini with aioli; simply dressed green beans.

there was a risotto ala milanese, rich with the colour and tang of saffron, with tiny nuggets of meat folded in. there was a salad of lettuce and tomatoes in salad cream. and then…

there was a roasted bit of organic pork. i’d asked the waiter what it came with, and he said, “nothing. it’s just the meat.” and he added, as an afterthought, “there is a bit of cress on top”. it was just as he said.

and it was amazing. tender, flavoursome meat, fatty where it counted, crowned with a great arc of salty, crunchy crackling. sigh. even shared between two, it was more meat than i’d normally eat in a day. maybe even two or three days.

we ate, and ate, and at some point deborah said, “this is one of the best lunches ever,” and i could not disagree.

and you might think that after a meal such as this, there would be no room for dessert. and you might be right, to a point: no dessert was had where we sat, or even down the road at yellow, but once we had roused ourselves and propelled ourselves back towards the city through darlinghurst, and made the requisite stops for a meringue duckling (croissant d’or) and loaf of walnut sourdough (infinity bakery), we could not resist the lure of the mountains of gelato at messina.

just look at that chocolate sorbet — so glossy and dark (how would you choose between that and the chocolate orange sorbet?). and what about the crisp and bracing lemon sorbet? the pear gelato was much less peary than i’d anticipated, but the fig delivered everything it promised. we sat for a while, in the cool and dark, and watched as streams of lithe girls in long dresses sashayed in for scoops of this and that. we watched a child demand vanilla.

we finished up, wistfully, and made our way one block south, to the chocolate shop.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 December 2008 at 9:58 pm

permalink | filed under around town, ice cream, lunch

look at ‘em. like a bounty spring harvest from a garden of macaron. yes, it was full bloom at adriano zumbo patissier this afternoon, with such flavours as mango and jasmin; rose and lychee; yoghurt and chilli; pineapple and ginger; green apple; and sticky bun.

but i am getting ahead of myself. first: lunch.

we met deborah at circle cafe for continuing november birthday celebrations. the kid was evidently into her second month of birthday festivities, the evidence being an enormous brown paper bag of pink silicon baking paraphernalia. thanks, lady!

being forward-thinking girls, we had already planned dessert at zumbo cafe, and so… what to eat that will line the stomach and leave enough room for what i considered the main event?

a delicious toasted baguette topped with a mound of sauteed spinach and generous dollops of goat’s curd, is what. it tasted healthy yet unboring, though by halfway through my mouth was already experiencing that familiar post-spinach trauma (not so much green bits caught in my teeth, but the weird slippery-catchy feeling on my tongue and membranes). it must have actually been healthy too, because i was still hungry after i finished. on to round two!

adriano zumbo cafe chocolat was much more subdued than i’d anticipated for a saturday afternoon. perhaps the bizarre weather had kept everyone at home. we perched ourselves on the high stools at the wooden workbench, and made a half-hearted attempt to look as though we knew what we wanted. on the patient waitress’s third approach, i picked paris.

creamy rose brulee and fresh lychees topped with raspberry sorbet and a chopped-up rose macaron. accompanying this was a coconut and sago milkshake mingling in a beaker with an intense and tart strawberry puree. the waitress had said that it was quite a light dessert, and it’s true, i barely registered its presence in my gut. and in my head, what did i make of this ispahan-meets-bubble tea ensemble? all the components were quite delectable, and the pudding on its own was fine, and the milkshake unusual and clever, and it looked lovely coming towards us, all scattered with rose petals… which weren’t particularly fragrant — i don’t know if they were meant to be eaten or not; i chose not. and yet i found myself gazing fondly and longingly over at deborah’s not a hamburger. now that i’d come back for.

and then… yes, we walked over to the cake shop, and gaped in wonder at the new chocolate slabs, and pointy domes, and the great loaf of chocolate fondant festooned with shards of technicolor chocolate, and macaron halves, and glazed strawberries. and at some point i may have gasped out loud at the rice pudding eclair — wait ’til a certain rice-pudding-poopooing, eclair-purist frenchman hears about this –

but the one that came home with me was the pistachio and raspberry tart, with its tidy lid of pistachio praline, and its plump raspberry (and a hidden reservoir of raspberry coulis i’m told), and its peekaboo pistachio ganache peeping out of the pastry crust.

breakfast tomorrow sorted.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 22 November 2008 at 9:41 pm

permalink | filed under cake, lunch

aloha! bet you didn’t even know that i was gone… but i was! it was my birthday last week, and my father shouted us a trip to hawaii. funny, my mum brought with her three fat novels and just a couple of hundred US dollars, because she thought there’d be nothing to do but sit on the beach and feel bored.

me, i did my research beforehand, and noted that there was a gap close to the hotel. what did end up being a surprise was that our hotel was a stroll away from the rodeo drive of waikiki, and a brisk walk in the other direction took us straight to macy’s.

but of course, it was all about how much american junk food i could eat in a week. my first move was to take up the two-for-a-dollar offer on pop tarts at the enormous drugstore at the local mall.

i also got myself a slice of the famous ted’s bakery chocolate haupia pie. this one i actually procured from the deli section of a supermarket in the mall (yes, yes, i spent a lot of time at the mall, eight hours in one day if you must know, and my mother and i returned to the hotel to discover that my father had already tried to notify the police); there were two kinds available — one which was merely labelled, haupia chocolate pie, and the one i ended up with, ted’s pie chocolate haupia. i asked a store employee what the difference was, and he replied that the former was made instore, and that they were trying to copy ted. so i asked him which one he liked better, and he paused, and his eyes darted, and he said, “well. the ted’s one is pretty good.” so thank you, shop boy, it was pretty good, with a rich, dark layer of chocolate pudding below, and a light, fragrant layer of coconut pudding above, and a cloud of whipped cream above that.

the kid and i split it, and a blueberry pop tart for breakfast the next morning.

we also ate a lot of japanese food, natch, the highlight of which was probably a tuna and shiso leaf inside-out maki on our last night. and then unexpectedly, i ate quite a bit of mexican food. more, anyway, than you’d think, for hawaii.

behold: the tamale platter from the foodcourt (in the mall) on our second day there. two tamales from a choice of cheese, pork and chicken, and three sides from a choice of… plenty. already wilting from the lack of fresh vegetable accompaniments to american meals, i picked pineapple salsa, macerated oranges, and spicy black beans. and three kinds of salsa. and a flowery drink called, “jamaica”. the corn chips were complimentary. i did not get through it all.

i had not had tamales before, and now i know that they are like chinese zhongzi, except made from cornmeal, and thus possibly stodgier. the cheese one was pretty good until it cooled down and congealed, and the pork one was pretty good fullstop, but i would not necessarily have them again.

on my birthday, we were away from civilisation, walking on ancient volcanos on the big island, and sustenance came from the cafeteria dining hall at the lone, appropriately named hotel on the edge of the national park — volcano house. it was not hot and burny up the volcano, as you might imagine, but cold and drizzly, and tinged with sulfurous gasses. the one hot food option was a tub of chili and rice, so i had that, and because it was my birthday, i also picked a blueberry pie from the glass cabinet. the pie was flown in from spokane, WA… it was nice and all, but i kinda wish it had been trucked up from ted’s.

as i write this, i’m realising that i didn’t actually get around to that much american junk food after all. i must have finally realised my limits, or all those lectures from my good mother about trans fats finally found a receptor in my brain, because all those encyclopedic lists of ingredients on the packaging made every second thing look a little unappealing. only every second thing though, and only a little unappealing. and anyway, you can get peanut butter cups at the newsagents at broadway shoping center here in sydney.

what you probably can’t get are these amakara mochi, fat, sticky rice cakes in a beguiling bath made primarily of soy sauce and sugar. they were definitely intriguing, and somewhat moreish, but somehow i could not give them away. not that i really wanted to; they were not the worst things i ate in hawaii.

this was. the “market fresh” sante fe salad from arby’s, in a surprisingly upmarket stripmall surrounded by lava rocks on the big island. i don’t know if it was the icy cold chicken nuggets, or the leathery kernels of corn. perhaps it was the raspberry vinaigrette the consistency of a blood bank donation (perhaps i should have gone with the default ranch dressing, the consistency of an arterial blockage). i’d already come to terms with the standard, shredded iceberg lettuce served everywhere, so it couldn’t have been that. overall it was inedible, so i didn’t. the one saving grace of this miserable lunch was the curly fries. it was my fault, i suppose: who asked me to eat at a fast food chain outlet? it’s just, i didn’t think it was possible to do such vile things to a salad.

and the best things i ate in hawaii? just outside the hotel grounds was what i’ve since discovered is a local institution, wailana coffee house and cocktail lounge. truly the diner of my dreams, with its roster of waitstaff straight out of “ghost world” and its all-day, all-you-can-eat pancake special.

i did not get to eat the triple-layer cubes of rainbow jell-o from the all-you-can-eat salad bar, nor the giant belgian waffles i’d had my eye on from our first visit. i might’ve had a sandwich or something on that early, bleary night, but then i returned the morning after for the old fashioned french toast — each massive eggy, bready slice concealed a secret pocket of guava jam.

i knew it would be futile trying to squeeze a final breakfast in before our 7am departure to the airport on the last day, so i put in a request for lunch the day before. and this is what i had: the chuck wagon. a smoked pork chop with apple sauce, two eggs (i chose googy sunny side up), two macadamia hotcakes with whipped butter (so large they came on their own plate) and all the syrup i could eat. yes, three pitchers of maple, coconut and boysenberry syrups, jest fer me.

does it not make you weep with joy? the meat — a ham steak, really — was lean and tender, singed just right. the pancakes were soft and fluffy, with crunchy edges round the sides, and chopped macadamias all the way through. i’d already tried the trio of syrups on the french toast earlier in the week, and was happy to go with just an endless stream of maple. happy!

but i still had unfinished business. from my research i knew there was a cupcake shop in the vicinity, and so after lunch, while the kid went for a last hurrah in the swimming pool with her grandpa, i steered my mum’s afternoon coffee expedition in the direction of satura cakes. look — they really do come in cups!

i didn’t actually eat anything then… well, i couldn’t — this is my mum’s konamisu cupcake, a pretty convincing alcohol-free tiramisu with creamy, chocolatey mascarpone and light sponge and locally grown coffee.

because i hoped i might be able to eat again later, i came away with the store’s signature strawberry shortcake for the kid (a light as air confection of sponge cake and whipped cream), and the red velvet cupcake for me. the rich, moist, red cake was topped with a dreamy dollop of white chocolate and mascarpone. i only wish i could’ve been more awake as i scarfed it the next morning before the cab came to whisk us away.

but look. a week in hawaii is more than enough time to eat, even if it seems like you’re eating nonstop. aside from the chuck wagon, the highlight of the trip was probably walking through the 500-year-old lava tube in the middle of the lush rainforest on the edge of the kilauea volcano crater.

because you think hawaii and you think hula, and soft, sandy beaches, and swaying palm trees (and out-of-towners with leathery skin and far less (and more colourful) clothing than they probably should be wearing), but there we were, down from the volcano, on a beach of black sand created by centuries of broken down lava rocks, surrounded by… nothing.

coolness.

i was still eating at the end, of course. i considered revisiting the pumpkin spice cream frappucino i’d had at another airport starbucks a couple days earlier, but decided that the one not unpleasantly pumpkin-flavoured beverage topped with whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon was enough. instead, i cracked open my final container of pineapple slices. i’d probably already eaten three or four local pineapples cumulatively over the week, but i couldn’t get enough. they were so juicy you’d be sticky all down your chin, and sweet, like they’d come out of a tin. and so, there i was, in the lounge waiting for the boarding call, savouring my last three slices. they went all too quickly.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 November 2008 at 3:31 pm

permalink | filed under cake, dinner, lunch, snacks, trip

it was my mum’s last day in sydney, and i asked what she would like to do. “would you like to go into the city to buy shoes?” i asked. “no,” she replied, “it is my last day, and i will do anything you like.”

so we caught a bus and a train, and not too much later, arrived in auburn just in time for lunch. the kid, having had the presence of mind to assemble a backpack of train snacks — jellybeans, raisins and dried pineapple, a previously decapitated gingerbread man (thank you, biscuit tree!), a pink lady apple (my addition) — wasn’t too hungry, but was happy to play along.

we claimed a table at sofra, and spent too long by the rotisserie deciding which shish kebabs we wanted. minced lamb? or chunks? chicken?? the salads were much easier: clean and crunchy red cabbage, a pool of creamy hommos, and tumble of fried (and charred) potato, eggplant, cauliflower and broccoli. oh, it was a pleasing feast.

and left room — just barely, after a postprandial meander through the bargain emporiums for a bout of scumbag shopping — for a good few scoops of dondurma down the road at mado. we bought turkish delights and sweet sticky cakes, and just before catching the express train back to the city, my mum bought shoes.

- – -

this morning at the airport, my grandmother, my aunt and i collectively gasped in horror, when my mother unzipped her carry-on to reveal her newly purchased, still-in-its-box electric carving knife.

“why have you put that in that bag?” asked my grandmother. at 88, she is still pretty sharp.

“ma, my suitcase was too full,” replied my mum, who on a good day is still not quite as quick. she rummaged for a pen, or something.

they repeated the exchange a couple more times before we spelled it out for my mum: y.o.u. c.a.n.t. b.r.i.n.g. k.n.i.v.e.s. o.n. t.he. p.l.a.n.e. she glanced over at the check-in counter; her suitcase had trundled down the conveyor belt not five minutes before. insert: chortle chortle guffaw.

i left my mum at the the airport with the glinting blade in my backpack, and the emasculated motor packed snug in her case. they will be reunited one day, when we are.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 2 November 2008 at 10:46 pm

permalink | filed under around town, lunch

somehow, my mother being in town led to me immersed elbow deep in hot, soapy water on a hot, soupy morning, handwashing three days worth of dishes retrieved from my cockroach den of a dishwasher, covered in bits of eviscerated cockroaches. thanks, mum!

let us think back to happier times — last monday, say — when we sat in the shady courtyard of la renaissance patisserie at the rocks, eating a brie baguette and drinking perrier with peach syrup. afterwards i bought a handful of macaron to go:

one each of chocolate, chocolate-passionfruit, jasmin, and two of rose because i knew i wouldn’t want to share.

they were all five plonked unceremoniously into a paper bag, and after a sweltering afternoon walk through the botanic gardens, they were not quite the fine, plump specimens they had been, sitting pretty in their plastic display cases back at the cafe. the fresh cream filling of the rose ones had surely come within millimetres of turning into butter.

but look! even with the beating they’d taken, they are still plump, their shells still crisp. the biscuits are moist and chewy on the inside, and the fillings generous. the rose macaron, despite losing half its height in transit, was delicate and wonderful — i always prefer a cream filling rather than a flavoured white chocolate ganache — and heady with perfume.

the chocolate one was impossibly rich and dark. the chocolate-passionfruit one was tangy and intensely fruity up front, before relaxing into a smooth and comforting milk chocolatey finish.

the jasmin one was… somewhat disappointing. it had a familiar clean and airy taste, but i imagine it could’ve had THIS MUCH more jasmin flavour. engh. three out of four ain’t bad.

in fact, they were great!

- – -

we also battled the gale force coastal winds at sculpture by the sea.

- – -

and — thursday afternoon, with the kid safely ensconced in playschool — we dallied with hot chillis at spice i am. moving between the brutal som tum — you can’t see the chillis in this green papaya salad, but they are there, oh yes, alongside crunchy dried prawns and many roasted peanuts, and green beans, cherry tomatoes and a wedge of raw cabbage (unwashed, my mother pointed out) — and the unrelenting kaeng som pla, a watery curry of fried river fish and watercress, it was like dousing our tongues in fire water. hot, sour, fire, water.

sweet respite came only from a tall glass of iced tea which tasted of candy.

you would not think it, but this particular meal from this particular restaurant, is perhaps the one that i pine for most often, in those long months between finding a suitable dining companion on a day that the kid is otherwise occupied. sigh.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 October 2008 at 11:22 pm

permalink | filed under around town, art, cake, lunch

holy crap, but the kid turned four last saturday.

just look at her, eating cake like a pro. that very morning, as we were on our way to the supermarket to pick up picnic supplies, she volunteered from the back seat of the car, “i want a sponge cake, with strawberry cream, and chocolate, and sprinkles.”

“uh huh,” i said. at least she had given up on the chocolate cake covered in jelly snakes that her cousin had had last year.

we swung by bakers delight for a loaf of pane di casa (for the record, casa broadway is at least 73 times better than casa balmain) and a loaf of olive pane di casa — where big chunks of kalamata olives are worked through the dough, and pulverised olive puree must surely be part of the dough, because the bread, she is purple.

we did a lap around harris farm, picking out such treats as a bunch of radishes, a couple of red onions, a tub of coriander hommous and a tub of parsley pesto, a jar of cornichons, a block of fetta, two avocadoes, and a kilo of smoked salmon for the bargain price of $26.

and then with a little covert manouvering, i was able to collect the enormous pink cakebox and slide it onto my lap while she was being clipped into her seat. at some point, she asked, “what’s that pink thing?” but wasn’t actually interested in the answer.

in the minutes before the guests were due, i halved baby roma tomatoes, and sliced red onions, and dressed them in a basic vinaigrette; i cubed the fetta and anointed it in olive oil and crushed garlic; i sliced radishes. there: a salad platter to go. the kid’s dad drove it all to the park. the family arrived, bearing gifts and chips and bread and salami and a big tub of toum.

an unabashed display of eating ensued. the kid and her cousin downed the tops of four supermarket cupcakes before running off to the playground, but the rest of us made tartine after tartine. this one was my favourite i think:

white bread topped with a dollop of the pungent garlic dip and a smear of the parsley pesto and a couple slices of smoked salmon. mmm… stinky…

at the end, there wasn’t much of anything left. my cousin’s dog, peanut, discovered he really liked fetta.

we adjourned to the house for tea and cake, and the kid was not too disappointed with the pink, sprinkly hello kitty rainbow ice cream cake. there was even a layer of sponge at the bottom.

the best part about an ice cream cake — just under $40 from wendy’s. do it. you know you want to — is that even with two kids, and two aunts, and two cousins, and a gran, and a great gran, and a mum and a dad, there will still be enough for two post-birthday breakfasts for two girls who like ice cream, and cake.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 23 October 2008 at 10:25 pm

permalink | filed under cake, ice cream, kid, lunch

childfree days are precious ’round these parts, so errands are carefully scheduled and executed with military precision (that is, the precision of an army of flying monkeys).

for example: last friday morning, in the three hours after peeling the kid off my arm at playschool — “hold my hand,” she cried to me as miss sarah carried her off to the playground, “very tightly.” — i bought a package of large envelopes from kmart, then hustled over to my accountant in surry hills to deliver a year’s worth of receipts and bank statements stuffed into one of these envelopes; i just made the train to the blood bank, where i deposited 470ml of my finest red; afterwards, there was exactly enough time to try (and fail) to find a refill of shichimi togarashi at the japanese minimart on clarence street, before crossing the street to bécasse.

the last of which, i suppose, wasn’t really an errand at all. hurrah!

deborah and i were doing lunch as part of good food month, and there was a lot of lunching going on when we arrived. it was close to 2, but most tables were still occupied. we were led up the stairs at the back of the main dining room, to a table right at the very back corner of the mezzanine. it’s a very strange space, is becasse: a beige (gold, if you’re being kind) curtain runs the entire length of the restaurant, for acoustic reasons i guess; there is interesting feature lighting down front, but up where we were, it was recessed downlights and vents galore in the low, white ceiling; the wall alongside our table was white too, with a disconcertingly drippy sort of stain beneath the airconditioning vent; the carpet was beige. it all lent an air of function-room-in-an-office-building to the proceedings.

fortunately, instead of annoying paper salesmen, there were efficient waiters gliding across the floor, and it wasn’t long before one of them brought a small platter of amuse bouche to our table. small bites served in chinese soup spoons usually irk me, but the fleeting and delicious mouthful of shaved fennel and smoked trout more than made up for it.

we’d been presented with the special let’s do lunch menu, and it contained a number of extras with which to supplement the $35 main course price tag. we eschewed the two entrees (a scallop risotto and a wagyu beef salad), made a note of the dessert (a praline parfait for $15 — regular desserts are around $20), and boldly asked for a serve of bread. “one each?” asked the waiter.

alright then.

we were each served two adorable little rolls — poppyseed and sourdough — and a wonderful and aromatic rosemary… um, vine, with a block of olive oil emulsion. which was a cold mass that held its shape until it hit your tongue and liquified into a rich, fruity taste. pretty good for $5.

the main course of slow roast provencal lamb with spring vegetables, olive and herb vinaigrette arrived. oh! so pink and tender! so casually adorned with broad beans. so buttery and herbalicious the quenelle of potato. and, most importantly, so appropriate a size as to allow ample room for dessert.

the room had mostly emptied by the time we’d finished eating our meat, and our waiter had grown ever more personable. we hesitated only the briefest moment when he asked about dessert, and he read the situation correctly, and offered to bring us the regular dessert menu because it was “more exciting”.

and this is how we ended up with a surprise pre-dessert course: a tiny, delicate panna cotta with wine-poached pears, wearing a fine, tasty biscuit at a jaunty angle.

pre-dessert!

oh yes, we did chortle at our good fortune, and were somehow still overcome with wonder when dessert proper was brought to the table.

my chocolate and caramel cadeau was just as the waiter had described — a dome of chocolate mousse with a caramel heart, encased in chocolate, and then more chocolate “to make it shiny” — only better. just look how it shines! the mousse was icy cold and dense, almost solid really, and a burst of intense chocolatiness. the milk sorbet was perfect respite.

deb’s strawberry trifle with cinnamon donuts was an impossibly pretty dish. all the key ingredients were there: sponge cake at the very bottom, vanilla-flecked custard, a pure and genius layer of strawberry jelly over the lot that served as a bright canvas for the donut artistry. they were chewy delight, still hot from the fryer, with the cinnamon flavour echoed in the cinnamon ice cream.

by the time we were done, our $35 booking had just about doubled. my wallet was empty, but my heart and stomach were joyously full.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 October 2008 at 11:30 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, lunch

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