Travel – Page 4 – Abstract Gourmet

Europe Bound

London skyline
Photo used courtesy of Vemma

The adventures of Matt & Sharon continue. This time internationally.

So my lovely eldest sister recently announced that she was getting married. She’s been living in the UK for the past 6 years now, and despite the fact that she’s developed a terrible generic Southern pommy accent, we still love her dearly and were very excited when the news came through.

What that means of course, is that it necessitates us flying over there. Something that has long been on the agenda, but has perhaps needed a kick up the bum like this to initiate. I am of course, the king of procrastination.

So the date is set for the 20th of September. We’ll be flying over a little beforehand and are going to dip our toes in the cultural sea that is Europe (specifically France and a little of my ancestral homeland Ireland), before livin it large in London for as long as our money holds out (not long).

I’m also charged with the job of being the wedding photographer on the day, and helping to coordinate the reception dinner menu (and I’m thinking of taking a marriage celebrants short course in case I need to step in for the priest on the day).

This henceforth is the post for anyone with knowledge of London, Paris, Dublin, and the greater European / British land mass, to share and inform me of the absolutely must go to places, restaurants, markets, pubs, bistros, schlocky tourist spots, and ridiculously overpriced celebrity filled cocktail bars.

Also if anyone on the other side of planet can give me an idea of what is fresh and seasonal in the UK in September, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Melbourne: Liar Liar – Hawthorn

I really didn’t get very far with these Melbourne posts did I ? Well now that things are settling down a little I’ll at least try and catch up with the photos I’ve already uploaded.

Liar, Liar in Hawthorn in the latest venture of former Perth coffee dignitary and 2007 WA barista champion Nolan Hirte. Nolan and his partners have set up an excellent space in Hawthorn, funky, relaxed, but focused on quality and totally befitting of the owners.

I can’t say I know Hawthorn very well as an area, but I’m led to believe it’s vaguely similar to Claremont in terms of style and clientele. An old and well established area with a fair amount of old money around the place, but not completely wrapped up in the establishment to realise the value of people trying to do something fresh and different.

Fresh and different would sum up Liar, Liar pretty well. From the decks on the bar where Nolan spins tunes when he isn’t pulling shots, to the very chic Clover Coffee brewing machine, and seriously tasty breakfast choices. It’s quite the compelling package.

We stopped by for breakfast on day 2 of the trip and a caught up with Nolan while talking coffee. This was first introduction to the Clover, which takes an innovative approach to single serve brewed coffee. From the Clover website:

After dosing it and grinding it to your specifications, you will add the coffee to the Clover brew chamber. You will choose the cup size and the steep time on the user interface, and then press the brew button. Clover delivers the exact dose of water at the temperature you’ve chosen. Stir and wait while the coffee steeps. At the end of the set time, Clover’s piston rises, creating a vacuum that draws the coffee through the grounds. The piston will then descend and deliver the coffee into your customer’s cup.

The flavours are very clean and there mouthfeel is entirely different to regular french press style coffee, which still retains a lot of sediment. We tried an Ethiopian and a Guatemalan through the clover and were pleasantly surprised by the delicate flavours and finish.

The regular coffee was of course fantastic. Nolan takes his espresso seriously even managed to swap records in amongst pulling some fantastic shots.

The food was on song too. My poached eggs (the test of any cafe) were perfectly presented, and Sharon’s coconut bread with fresh berries and yoghurt was more art piece than breakfast.

If I had to live in Melbourne, I think a trip out to Liar, Liar would be a weekly necessity.

Liar, Liar
90 Kinkora Road, Hawthorn
Phone (03) 9818 8864

Vue de Monde

How do you describe the indescribable without sounded like an idiot ? How do you condense 4 hours of dining into a relatively concise and relevant review ? How do you justify the expensive of spending more than the airline tickets it cost you to get to Melbourne on one nights dinner ?

The answer to those questions and more is… you don’t. You simply say, it was a nice and lovely experience that we won’t be doing again in a hurry.

We arrived at Vue de Monde for our 8:30pm reservation only to be seated directly in front of the hot pass. Looking up into a flurry of activity we saw chefs busy plating, brushing, stirring, and tasting. Essentially carrying on like they didn’t have an audience right in front of them. In the middle of them all was Shannon Bennett. The dilettante responsible for the organised chaos going on around us. He was there briefly and then vanished, back into the shadows from whence he came.

Our attention focused back onto the pass, a mirror hanging above it making it feel vaguely like a cheap motel room in Vegas… looking up at what you’ve always wanted to see happening, but never wanted to admit. It’s dinner and a show and the Rat Pack are crooning.

The food begins. “I’ll have everything you’ve got”, I say stupidly. The service all night is impeccable, the wine is unique and well matched to the food on the non-existent menu by sommelier Raul. The mood however, is far from the restrained intimacy I was under the impression was to be found here. It’s more like a boisterous gathered of the over endowed and out to impress, along with those scraping it all together to get a taste of something elusive. There’s an air of expectation on every table I peruse.

The dishes rolled out over the course of the night, each more elaborate than the next. The steady flow of wines making sure we never got too ahead of ourselves. Not all of the dishes worked for me personally. I can’t honestly say it was the greatest meal I’ve ever had, nor something I would necessarily recommend to anyone unless they had more than a passing interest in high end cuisine.

The only dish I will attempt to describe is the truffle risotto. If I had eaten only one dish this night, it would be this one. Unlike so many risottos I’ve tried this one was cooked perfectly. The soft bite to the rice was texturally sublime, and the combination of porcini mushrooms and truffle classical but right. Perhaps it says something that this was the most traditionally made dish of the entire evening, without a scoop of foam or a whiff of dry ice about it. I guess I’m just an old fashioned kind of guy.

For those inclined, here’s a list of everything we had, kindly supplied by Vue de Monde afterwards, as I had no clue what we were eating most of the night.

AMUSE BOUCHE
Pea and jamon soup with a jamon tartare served with a confit quail yolk on a lettuce raft
~
SAUMON AUX EPICES
Salmon jerky with toasted brioche, smoked salmon vale, Sterling caviar and a fish emulsion
2006 Cantele Fiano Alticcelli Puglia, Italy
~
RISOTTO AUX TRUFFES
Classically inspired truffle risotto
Barbeito Sercial 10 years old Madeira Madeira Island, Portugal
~
BOUILLABAISSE ‘EN CINQ MINUTES’ ET TARTARE D’ECREVISSE
5 minute bouillabaisse, tartare of crayfish, buffalo milk skin, finished with aromatic herbs,
and a touch of theatre
2006 Emmerich Knoll Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Loibner Wachau, Austria
~
PAIN PERDU ACCOMPAGNE DE SON FOIE GRAS
French toast, green apple purée and foie gras flavoured with eight spice and jamon Serrano Gran Reserva
2005 René Muré Riesling Clos St Landelin Alsace, France
~
BOUDIN D’ÉCREVISSE GRILLÉ
Grilled boudin of crayfish, glazed with beurre Café du Paris, sauce Américaine and blood orange
2006 Bindi Chardonnay Composition Macedon, Victoria
~
CONSOMMÉ FROID À LA TOMATE
Delicate tomato consommé with gazpacho jelly
~
TATAKI DE BŒUF WAGYU
Tataki of Wagyu beef with soja yuzu noodle and sweet corn purée
2005 Château Pierre Bise Anjou Villages Sur Spilite Loire Valley, France
~
AGNEAU ‘SATAY’
White Rocks lamb (WA), served four ways, spiced with a satay peanut butter with a honey and bay leaf jelly
NV Sanchez Romate ‘La Sacristia’ Oloroso Jerez, Spain
~
FROMAGE
Salad of Roquefort ravioli with hazelnut dressing
1997 Château Doisy-Daene 1er Grand Cru Classé Barsac, France
~
SALADE DE FRUITS
Fruit salad
~
‘CHEESECAKE’ AUX FRUITS DE LA PASSION
Passionfruit cream with frangipane sand and passionfruit soufflé
2007 Santa Rita Moscatel Late Harvest Valle del Limarí, Chile
~
BOULE DE CARAMEL FOURRÉE À LA MOUSSE DE COING
Quince foam set into a caramel sphere with white chocolate cage and frozen white chocolate soil
2002 Klein Constantia Vin de Constance Constantia, South Africa

*Updated to fix my erroneous spelling of the name*

Melbourne : The City

That’s right Melbourne. Stay Amazed. Naysayers might try to convince you that the toilet doors of squalid public bathrooms are not the place to get valuable life messages from, but they just haven’t seen the light of grimey self discovery that waits on the other side of cubicle door.

So this post is a little update while the other updates prepare themselves. The morning we arrived in Melbourne, we picked up the car kindly borrowed from Sharon’s friend Michelle and proceeded to drive it into oncoming traffic. Of course I didn’t think I was driving into oncoming traffic, but the inner road that runs down the middle of St Kilda road is confusing. We pulled up alongside a tram facing the wrong direction, and then made a quick u-turn to get the hell out of there. Melbourne roads (1) – Matt (0).

We eventually made it to St Ali without further injury, and then when we were sufficiently sated there, ventured our way into the city. Of course driving into the city is not the best or most efficient way to get there. Unless of course paying $45 for a couple of hours parking is your idea of efficient. At the time though I figured that wasn’t much to pay for the convenience of being able to get where we wanted to go quickly… albeit risking being killed by a horde of screaming taxi drivers.

So we park on Flinders Lane, and begin to wander up and down streets and laneways. Sharon stopping at more clothes shops than I can name, while I trundled slowly from cafe to cafe, stopping to check out the ones that looked interesting, and pondering how many coffees would constitute too many.

Now I just realised I said this would be a short post, so I’ll wrap up with a few impressions of the places I did stop at.

Journal
253 Flinders La, Melbourne

Great looking place, very cool concrete bar and dark lighting, even in the day time. I ordered an espresso and a portugese tart. The espresso was not so hot, the tart was cold but tasty. I’d go back for drinks sometime, or food upstairs at the Journal Canteen, which looks good.

San Churro at QV building
Shop LTL 255, QV Centre, Swanston St

Why do people rave about San Churro ? I guess the same people also rave about Max Brenner or Koko Black. I’m perhaps one of those few people who does not turn into a raving lunatic when describing or thinking about chocolate. I wasn’t in the mood for a mountain of deep fried stuff, so I ordered the kids meal… which was surprisingly rewarding if only for the look on the girls face. It came with two churros and a bowl of dark chocolate and hundred and thousands. The churros were quite hard and dry, and the chocolate didn’t transport me to a mystical place, the sprinkled made me feel like I was 5 years old at a birthday party… which was nice :)

The rest of the city is hard to describe, and a little overwhelming at times. So many lane way and alleys to go down, so many places holding so much potential. If we had another few weeks I’m sure I’d be able to cover most of it, but a few days will not do it justice.

On the way out I did manage to perform not one, but two (!) successful hook turns, and not get hit by a taxi or a tram. Melbourne roads (1) – Matt (2) !!

St Ali : Welcome to Melbourne

Thank you to Tiger Airways for getting us to Melbourne in perhaps the most cramped and undignified manner possible. At times I felt like I should have brought my own seatbelt along, as it probably would have helped make me feel moderately comfortable about traveling in an over sized chicken coop.

What I was grateful for however, is the lovely and handsome Ben Bicknell of 5 Senses, picking us up at the airport and whisking us back to the place we were staying in South Yarra for some much needed sleep (which was nigh on impossible on the plane) and a chance to make ourselves respectable, before beginning the onslaught that was to be our time in Melbourne. First stop… St Ali.

If you haven’t heard of St Ali and you live in Melbourne, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Mark Dundon’s cafe and roasting operation has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and is consistently named in the top places to visit, and from what I can gather, rightly so.

It’s located in a quiet street in South Melbourne, seemingly away from the hustle and bustle of the city and it’s many laneways. There’s no sign out the front, but it’s completely packed. I have no idea where the people are all from but there are suits galore (and not of your Man to Man / Ed Harry / Insert cheapo guys clothes store name here, variety), happily mingling with hipsters and hippies of all persuasions. It’s a Thursday morning (I think), ok maybe lunch time.

We grab a table by the bar, unlucky not to get a seat at the big communal table, but it does make surreptitious photography more difficult.

Orders are done at the table and so I grab a couple of double flat whites to begin, with a fried egg stack and chorizo for Sharon (damn i knew i should have got that), and some house made white beans with proscuitto for me). The flat whites were superb. Cutting through the milk nicely and balanced sweetness with that chocolately body that’s so inviting for a cold Melbourne morning. The food arrived and was equally great. Though I perhaps felt a bit left out when a group of 4 businessmen all ordered the same dish of Lamb Kofta balls… decadently soaked in a tomato sauce.

Still what we had was great. The beans hearty and the proscuitto salty and delicious. I tried not to eye Sharons chorizo, but it soon got the better of me and I caved… it was great too.

Next up another round of coffees, espresso for me, short macchiato for Sharon. While waiting the barista strolled over and surprised me by saying

“Sorry, this is for you, it’s a really nice looking ristretto but too short for an espresso, so I figured I’d give it to you for free rather than waste it”.

How lovely. It was a great ristretto, syrupy and dense with a great smokiness running through it. I thought about asking about the single origin they have on each day, but I was loving the house espresso blend too much to care to be honest. The espresso which soon arrived was equally tasty. More balanced and less syrupy than the ristretto, but a well put together shot. I felt at home.

St Ali oozes so much cool there should be hazard signs out the front when you walk in. It’s just effortless. We thought to ourselves that if the rest of Melbourne was as good as this, we were in for a good time :)

St Ali
12-18 Yarra Place
South Melbourne
Telephone (03) 9686 2990

Melbourne – Prepare Thyself.

Slippery When Wet - by Mugley
Image used courtesy of Mugley

I know what you think… You Melburnians. You think that you live in a city blessed with the finest and best value restaurants in the world. With hidden bars so cool that no one knows about them, with liquor laws so relaxed that most bums on the street are running funky little wine bars out of their shopping trolleys. Your espresso flows with the flavours that only a rich Italian heritage can imbue, and celebrity chefs are lining up to fill your casinos with the fanciest dining experiences available.

But I’m not buying it.

My last trip to Melbourne was a disaster. I was young, naive… immature. I thought I could gayly prance my way about the city and run into good food, wine, and coffee at every turn of the corner. That every tram stop was just a hidden alleyway away from the best dining experience of my life, and that every cafe was just waiting for me to order a coffee that would be the best I’d ever tasted.

Ok, so I was clearly delusional. Still, I had somehow built up that idea in my head. Only to be presented with bland over priced food, terrible coffee, and “institutions” that should have been closed down years ago (Perugrinos, most of Lygon St).

This time around, I’m not leaving anything to chance. I’ll be coming over for the finals of the Australian Barista Competition, so the coffee issue should be well and truly sorted. Restaurants, and bars however, are entirely up for debate.

I’ve been hearing many things about many restaurants of late, and have been checking out plenty of blogs for inspiration, but what I’m hoping fellow food lovers and seekers of truth will be able to share with me are those little pearls of wisdom that never quite make it into the travel guides and search results for “best restaurant melbourne”.

I really want some great, unique dining experiences that showcase the best of what Melbourne has to offer, at all stages of the price spectrum.

So far on my tentative list are:

Bar Lourinha or Movida
St Judes Cellar and/or Panama Room
Bistro Guillaume
Lau’s family kitchen
The Commoner
Rumi
The Press Club
Giuseppe Arnaldo and Sons

This of course may not work out, because I’ll be there for roughly 6 nights, and there are clearly more than 6 restaurants on that list. A little whittling down to the absolute essentials may be in order.

So… those in know… please step up to the plate. Let me know where the real Melbourne is, and also how to tell the difference between the cool alleyways, and the ones I’m going to get mugged in.

What I did on my holiday

Remember when you came back to school after that long summer break, and the teacher would ask each of the kids to write a story about what they did on their holidays ? I’d sit there for ages trying to think of good things to say, and ways to impress my fellow 7 year olds with insightful remarks and meaningful events, when I had actually been sitting in my room for 2 months making lego men go to war in space.

These days I’m greatly relieved to discover that the essence of a good holiday is no longer eating as many hot dogs as possible before throwing up on a roller coaster. So our meanderings in the wonderful South West of Western Australia (Augusta and Margaret River to be precise), were just the ticket to ease our way into summer with a little wine, a lot of food, and as minimal exercise as possible.

So in bullet form, the major highlights of the holiday season were:

– Eating too much food on Christmas Day
– Drinking too much wine on Christmas Day
– Cutting half my thumbnail off while chopping vegetables after drinking too much on Christmas Day
– Settling into our new apartment in Northbridge
– Playing Wii !
– Having a low key NYE will Charles Melton Rose and blue cheese
– Going down to Augusta/Margaret River on New Years Day
– Visiting many wineries including Leeuwin Estate, Cape Mentelle, Cullen, Howard Park, Rockfield, Vasse Felix, Moss Wood, Voyager, Woody Nook, and a bunch of others I’m sure I’m forgetting
– Roaming through the caves along Caves Rd, specifically the self guiding Giants Cave
– Cooking coq au vin for 10 people
– Cooking backstrap of venison for 7 people
– Watching kangaroos fight in the paddock outside our holiday house
– Driving back to Perth the long way through Yallingup and Dunsborough
– Stopping for lunch at the ever delicious Lamonts
– Having a swim at Mellup Beach.
– Chilling out at “Summer Daze” and trying to forget that I had to go back to work on Monday.

I hope all of your holidays were great too :)