More Japan photos are up: Takayama morning markets

Photos from the Takayama morning markets, Japan are up!

Highlights: a breakfast of hoba miso plus market photos of fiddlehead ferns, fresh marshmallows and Japanese hacky sacks.

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Outback Steakhouse, North Strathfield

Grilled Prawns $13.95
Six prawns grilled on the barbie and
served with the Outback’s own Remoulade sauce

There are no blooming onions and I'm not happy at all.

The blooming onion is literally the name of the Outback Steakhouse's signature dish. It takes pride of place on the front cover of their menu and yet when we check with our server he regretfully tells us that they haven't been able to get onions large enough for this deep-fried delicacy that opens up like a flower. Hmph.

Our server is all congenial-like, full of American-style hospitality in this Australian-themed restaurant that was started up in, you-guessed-it, the U S of A. I was a little stunned when the doors magically opened when we had first arrived, each door held open by a smiling female waitress. Directly in front of stood a lectern manned by three more beaming staff, each dazzling us with bright-eyed toothy smiles.


Bushies $9.45
Button mushrooms, seasoned and deep fried
served with spicy ranch dressing

Since there are no blooming onions to be found, Miss Behave and I instead share the grilled prawns and a plate of bushies. Our drinks arrive promptly and the food arrives toted along with a fold-up canvas table. There's a dramatic flap as the side table is propped open, the dishes placed ceremoniously on top, then humbly transferred across to our settings.

Six grilled prawns arrive artfully arranged on a honey wheat loaf base, the baguette-like offering drenched with herb butter, the bread sweet and chewy much like the buns you get at le Golden Arches. The prawns are surprisingly spicy, char-grilled in a sticky sweet marinade.

Deep-fried button mushrooms are a generous serve, almost enough for one person to eat solely as a main. They're steaming hot inside, fresh from the fryer.


Drover's Platter $24.95
Generous portion of ribs and chicken breast off the barbie
with chips and cinnamon apples

We both order the drover's platter: a portion that is more filling than it looks with its half rack of ribs, chicken breast and handful of crunchy fried chips (super crunchy, just the way I like 'em). The ribs and chicken seem to have the same spicy barbecue marinade. The ribs are sweet and sticky, reasonably meaty without being too fatty. There's a pot of barbecue sauce and another of cinnamon apples, unfortunately cold especially as it looks and tastes just apple pie filling.



After the excess of our entrees, I'm defeated by the size of my main. Around me it's mainly young families or young couples, all happy to dig into Caesar salads the size of Texas, huge mountains of pasta and piles of chips happily drowning in cheese sauce and bacon.

And if you can't be bothered eating in, you can order takeaway and they'll carry your order out to your car. They call it "curbside takeaway". I wonder if that comes with a fold-up table too.


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Outback Steakhouse - North Strathfield
Level 1, 3 George Street, North Strathfield, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8756 5741

Monday to Thursday 5pm-10pm
Friday 5pm-11pm
Saturday 4pm-11pm
Sunday 12noon-10pm
Free undercover parking next door

Also at Parklea
Lot 4, 1190 Old Windsor Road, Parklea, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8824 5012
Free undercover parking next door

Related GrabYourFork posts:
American - Tony Roma's
North Strathfield - Bar Biscotti

The Rocks Aroma Festival

Sydneysiders love coffee.

They also love their tea and also their hot chocolate, if the unprecedented crowds at The Rocks Aroma Festival last Sunday provided any indcation.

By the time we got down there, many things has sold out including the special chocolate showbags from Adora, and the delectable treats from My Little Cupcake.

Thankfully we still found plenty of coffee. And that's more than enough to bring a smile to the face of this caffeine addict.


Latte art


Turkish coffee pots


Turkish tomurcuk Earl Grey tea


Chocolate fountain


Eager queues at the Adora chocolate stand


Can you say giant cupcake?

The ones around the edge were real, the one in the middle wasn't :)


Turkish coffee

This year's Aroma Festival was held on Sunday 22 July 2007 around The Rocks and Circular Quay. The Aroma Festival is held annually and this year included tea, hot chocolate and spice stands.

Kei's Kitchen Kaiseki Cooking Class

It's one thing to appreciate the delicious art of kaiseki.

It's another thing completely to get into the kitchen and help make it. Later, as you sit before the tray adorned with plates, dishes, bowls and saucers, you cannot help but slowly savour each mouthful with a new sense of enlightenment.


Ladling soup

So last weekend saw me aproned and ready in the kitchen of Kei Fukui, teacher of kaiseki-ryori for over 20 years. This elaborate multi-course meal originated as a small series of mouthfuls, served to monks after a traditional tea ceremony. Today it is more like a seasonal degustation, intricate in preparation, splendid in presentation.

Over the next two hours we watched, we chopped, we sliced, we garnished. We covered the basics, like making dashi, slicing sashimi and elements of Japanese plate presentation. Working as a team we each helped prepare elements of seven dishes that we would later feast on for lunch.


Sakizuke (the appetiser):
Dried fig deep-fried in white batter




Wanmono (the seasonal broth):
Crab meat ball, carrot flower and mizuna

The wanmono broth was clear and delightfully sweet, the crab meat ball was packed with generous shreds of crab flesh. The sprigs of mizuna added a wonderfully slightly bitter contrast.


Mukozuke (the cold dish/sashimi):
Hiramasa kingfish sashimi with shredded daikon,
shiso leaf, lime and wasabi

We each had to slice our own hiramsa kingfish sashimi, carefully draping these against a shiso leaf backdrop. A tumble of daikon shreds was teased into a modest tower, a smidge of wasabi placed to the side.


Yakimono (the grilled dish):
Bite-sized wagyu steak with grated daikon and yuzu pepper sauce
with watercress garnish

The soft melting mouthfuls of wagyu steak, decadently ribboned with buttery fat, was my favourite dish of all. The dressing, minced daikon with lemon juice, rice vinegar, yuzu pepper and soy, was light and refreshing with a zingy citrus tang.


Agemono (the fried dish):
Taro coated and stuffed with sweet chicken mince,
deep-fried in a coat of arare rice crackers

To prepare the agemono, cooked taro (baby taro the size of your palm) was pounded between sheets of clingfilm then shaped around a spoonful of cooked chicken mince. Rolled in arare rice crackers, the ball was deep-fried until golden then served with sweet broth of dashi, mirin and soy. It's a soft comforting dish even though I would have preferred my ball dry and crunchy.


Aemono (the vinegared dish/salad):
Vegetables in a tofu dressing

I was primarily involved with the preparation of the sesame dressing for the aemono salad, a process that involved slowly toasting the sesame seeds in a pot over the stove, then grinding it to a fine powder in the traditional grooved suribachi bowl. To this was added drained and sieved fresh tofu, then julienned slices of carrot, mushroom, konnyaku and seasonings. Cool but creamy, the smooth sesame paste had a wonderful nuttiness.


Gohan (the final rice):
Rice with five flavours

"No rice grains on the side of the bowl," lectured Keiko as it was scooped and patted into the ceramic vessel.

The rice, cooked in a dashi broth flavoured with burdock root, sake, mirin and soy, was almost sticky in texture. Mixed through with julienned vegetables and tofu it provided a hearty conclusion to the meal.


Kei's Kitchen runs hands-on kaiseki lessons on the second weekend of every month.

Classes are generally restricted to eight people.
Each class is $95 and generally runs 10am-2pm.

Menus change each month according to the seasons as follows:

August 11-12 (Early Spring Menu初春)

September 8-9 (Spring Menu春)

October 13-14 (Late Spring Menu 晩春)

November 10-11 (Early Summer Menu 初夏)

Further information here

Pardz at LMC Cafe, Chippendale

EDIT: LMC has closed

There's been a signage change at LMC, the cosy cafe tucked down a side street off Broadway. The old sign was a fluorescent lime green stamped with a lemon wedge and subtitled as Lemon Mint Crush. Now in its place is a plain CAFE sign, prefaced with Pardz @ LMC in small sans serifs, as if an afterthought.

Yet the funny thing is that as soon as we receive our meals I know the kitchen hasn't changed. Our dishes still arrive garnished with giant shreds of shallots, cut on an extreme angle and scattered liberally like nowhere else I've seen.


Bacon and egg pide with mustard aioli $6.50

Lox has the bacon and egg pide, except there's no pide left today so he has to make do with plain sandwich bread. It's not quite the same on sandwich slices and is wolfed down in seconds. Normally this would present a small situation, except Lox has already made plans for a sausage roll stop-off at Bourke Street Bakery (I had a bite of the harissa lamb sausage roll and it was sensational).


Smoked salmon and cream cheese wrap $10.00

R has the smoked salmon and cream cheese wrap, filled reasonably with slices of salmon, lettuce and red onion, and adorned with the traditional slivers of green.


Chicken quesadilla with guacamole and salsa $14.00

I've ordered the most expensive item on the blackboard menu, a chicken quesadilla. Two toasted tortillas hold together a hearty layer of diced chicken, kidney beans, fresh tomato salsa and melted cheese. A little mound of avocado is unadulterated creaminess.

It's surprisingly filling and I struggle to finish the last few forkfuls. But I eat it all. Especially the green bits.



Pardz at LMC Cafe (CLOSED)
21a Shepherd Street, Chippendale
Tel: +61 (02) 9281 5954


Open 7 days

Related GrabYourFork posts:
LMC Cafe, January 2005

High Tea at the Victoria Room, Darlinghurst

Sandwiches, sweets and scones

If there was one thing I kept hearing about High Tea the Victoria Room, it was about the darkness of the room.

How dark could it be I wondered?



I almost walk past the entrance to the Victoria Room, two dark wooden doors plain but for a pair of long brass handles. The doors are closed, and the two narrow panes of glass reveal nothing but reflections of the traffic behind me.

Pushing open the heavy doors, I am confronted with darkness. It's comparative darkness to the daylight outside, and as my eyes slowly adjust, I stumble your way blindly up the staircase, dimly illuminated by a trail of tealights.


Afternoon tea sandwiches: chicken and wild herbs, creme fraiche and dill;
smoked salmon with fresh rocket, lemon and capers;
and watercress, celery and goats curd

By the time I reach the top of the stairs, I am grateful for the wonderful lightbulbs above, shrouded though they are by layers of muslin. The dimly lit room is filled with an eclectic mix of Victorian style lounges and arm chairs. Some people sit at cosy tables for two, others perch delicately on lounges huddled around low tables. Potted palms and vintage fabric lamps dot the room. A jazz soundtrack hums in the background, a wailing saxophone searching our souls.

"Why, I feel like I could just sit here and be looking out at my plantation", drawls S with a laugh.


Scones served with triple berry conserve and chantilly cream

We find the service a little disjointed, our teas ordered but not arriving until five minutes after our high teas arrive. I'm also disappointed to discover that the high tea only includes one pot of tea - extra water is provided but I'd been looking forward to a whole banquet of different teas like I'd enjoyed at the Sofitel.

The sandwiches are served on soft and fluffy bread, the crusts trimmed, the fillings fresh if a little subdued. The scones are enormous. We split them in half and slather them generously with jam and heavy handed dollops of cream.



The dessert plate is a four-course journey of dainty little sweets. The sticky date puddings, moist little cupcakes topped with a coffee icing, have plenty of sighing fans, but I'm more impressed by the passionfruit yo-yo, two rich buttery crumbly shortbreads sandwiched with a thick layer of sweet and tangy passionfruit icing.


Sticky date puddings and passionfruit yo-yos

Mini florentines are high on the sugar factor, a cluster of cornflakes, almonds, peanuts, raisins and glace cherries spread with chocolate on one side.


Vanilla bean cupcakes topped with pink icing and confetti
with mini florentines

The girl-o-metre is off the scale with the vanilla bean cupcakes, frosted generously with a swirl of pink icing and dusted liberally with pink sugar crystals. The cupcake itself is light and fluffy with the subtle sweetness of real vanilla.

We sip and sup away a leisurely Sunday afternoon. We leave reluctantly. The jazz plays on.





View Larger Map
High Tea at the Victoria Room
Level 1, 235 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9357 4488

High tea served Saturday 2pm-4pm, Sunday 1pm-5pm
10% surcharge on Sundays and public holidays

Related GrabYourFork posts:
High tea at the Swissotel Crossroads Bar (Jan09) , (Nov06), (Jun06) and (Oct05)
High tea at the Observatory Hotel, Globe Bar
High tea at the Sofitel Wentworth (Sep08) and (Dec06)
High tea at the Victoria Room, Darlinghurst

Sydney Portugal Community Club, Marrickville

"I feel like I'm at my uncle's 60th birthday party."

It's not hard to see where Lox is coming from. Serviette roses spray forth from wine glasses, the function-centre-style chairs are a familiar peacock blue, and the tables are nestled close and set with white tablecloths, butchers paper, side plates and cutlery.

But just like Uncle Frank, this 70s time warp only lends itself to irresistible charm. This isn't fine dining. This is the Sydney Portugal Community Club.


Sangria

The club, open to all members of the public, is not the easiest to discover. Hidden within the depths of Marrickville's Fraser Park, we make a wrong turn and end up at the State Rail signals office. The staff there set us on the right track, and we backtrack to make our way across two soccer fields, nervously skirting past the ten-year-olds earnestly practising ball-handling drills under the golden glow of stadium lights.

Everyone else gets lost too. The neon sign off Marrickville Road is clear but once under the railway bridge there's little else to guide you towards the bacalhau. One friend asks a soccer mum and is told to "keep going until you see a building that looks like a toilet block".

Ahhh and how true it is.


Chourico Assado $7.00
Portuguese smoked sausage flambee

We are eleven people tonight; a good-sized group to try a variety of dishes. We are immediately served baskets of soft bread rolls with foiled pats of butter and a neverending supply of black Spanish olives. Sangria is a necessary lubricant, generously alcholic and filled with an unusual fruit salad that includes rockmelon and honeydew.


Queijo Fresco $5.00
Fresh cheese

The chorizo, sliced thickly on the diagonal, isn't as spicy as I expect but there's plenty of juicy fat within the seared pork sausages, embellished with bits of gardeneria and more of those Spanish olives.

I'd been curious to try the queijo fresco, or fresh cheese. It's a soft mild cheese much like ricotta. Two fat chunks of it rest on a lettuce leaf, a healthy-sized portion given it's priced at five dollars.


Camarao com Albo $9.00
Garlic prawns

There's plenty of delicious chilli in the garlic prawns, plump fresh prawns sizzling cheerfully in a terrocotta wading pool of aromatic oil. Though resplendent in chilli it's a little lacking in garlic. We mop up the lot though with torn bits of bread.


Bacalhau a Churrasqueira $19.00
BBQ cod fish with fried potatoes and onions

No Portuguese meal is complete without bacalhau, the salted preserved cod fish that is the pride of Portugal. We have ours tonight in the style of bacalhau a churrasqueira, the salted fish fillet hidden beneath a blanket of crispy fried potato slices and caramlised onion. The cod-- rehydrated and boiled to remove the excess salt--is plump, soft and satiny. It flakes easily with the caress of a fork, firm yet tender, and imbued with a subtle yet constant salty undertone.


Porco a Alentejana $18.00
Pan-fried pork pieces with vongole

There's plenty of salt in the Porco a Alentejana, a classic dish from the Alenteja region in Portugal's south. Cubes of pork and baby clams are simmered in a tomato and white wine sauce and served with cubes of crispy fried potato. I find the saltiness a little intense for my tongue, but for others it's their favourite dish of the evening.


Chanfana $18.00
Drunken lamb slowly cooked in baker's oven

The drunken lamb is strong in flavour, weak at the approach of a fork. Two huge slabs of lamb have baked for hours in a combination of wine, onions, garlic and paprika. It's a simple rustic dish that is appropriately adorned with whole boiled peeled potatoes.


Seleccao do Chefe $25.00 (min 2 persons)
Chef's seafood selection

A seafood platter rounds out our mains, a generous serving of prawns, fish, octopus and vongole. There's more than enough to feed the masses, although I'm a little disappointed the seafood isn't more charred in appearance and taste.


Mousse de Chocolate (chocolate mousse) $5.00
Background left to right: Arroz doce (rice pudding) $5.00 and
Pudim Flan (creme caramel) $5.00

There are five dishes available on the dessert menu, scrawled in Portuguese on the specials blackboard menu. Veruca and I scrutinise them all up close in the dessert cabinet, then ask for two of each. The waiter thinks we're joking until we repeat our request again with earnest.

The arroz doce rice pudding is quite firm, the grains of rice still distinct in their thick creamy coffin. Pudim flan creme caramel is also fairly solid, more a reluctant shudder than a tremulous wobble. Its level of cookedness does however mean a tasty find of extreme caramelisation at the bottom of one of our flans.

I'm not a huge fan of chocolate mousse but I quite like this one. Smooth and light, it's not overly chocolatey but that also means it's not overly rich. A good thing given the amount of food we've eaten.


Baba de Camelo (caramel mousse) $5.00

Baba de Camelo literally translates as as "camel's drool". I can't vouch for any comparisons in taste but we find it tastes remarkably like a liquidised Crunchie, a foamy pudding of honeycomb crumbled over with biscuit shards. In fact it's made with a tin of caramelised condensed milk and six eggs, the yolks beaten in first, stiff beaten egg whites folded in afterwards.


Pudim Molotof (egg pudding) $5.00

And the piece de resistance: the Pudim Molotof egg pudding. Made purely from egg whites, sugar and lemon juice, this soft fluffy meringue is just what dreams are made of.

I know what I'm dreaming about tonight.

NB. It won't include camels.

Been to any other great community clubs in Sydney with restaurants open to the public? Leave a comment and let me know.


Sydney Portugal Community Club
100 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville, Sydney
(inside Fraser Park - see directions below)
Tel: +61 (02) 9550 6344

Open 7 days (yes 7 days) for lunch and dinner
Bookings are recommended (essential for Fri and Sat nights)

Directions: Head east down Marrickville Road and take the third right after Victoria Road, marked with the neon sign above. Try not to miss this turn, as the left lane ends and you'll be forced to do a loop past Sydenham train station via Buckley Street.

Drive underneath the railway bridge and turn right. Drive past the graffitied walls, past the soccer fields on your left and keep going until the road ends and you reach the final car park. Look for the flat roofed building--affectionately called "the toilet block" by a local--and head into the door marked Restaurant. Turn left into the corridor and enter via the first door on your right.

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Portuguese restaurant - Costa do Sol, Petersham
Portuguese custard tarts - Sweet Belem, Petersham
Portuguese Festival, Petersham 2007
Portuguese Festival, Petersham 2006
Portuguese Festiva, Petersham 2005

Saap Thai, Sydney

BBQ Pork Neck $9.50

After feasting on all things Thai at I-San City last week, we return to the same stretch of Pitt Street strip for more.

In the spirit of research we head to Saap Thai instead, only a block up the road and also reputed to serve authentic tasting cuisine.


Iced Thai tea with milk $2.80

It's a newer brighter shinier room here, and we're pleased to encounter the aromatic smells of lemongrass, coriander and fish sauce when we arrive. There are plenty of young uni students downstairs, but we're scooted upstairs with white tables, wooden chairs and a banquette lounge along both walls.


Tod Mun Pla Fish Cake $3.00

The Som Tum menu selection is very impressive. Here there are nine different som tum salads on offer, the pounded salad that contains green pawpaw, carrot, tomato and green beans. All are dressed with chilli, garlic and fish sauce but:

Som Tum Thai ($7.50) has peanuts and shrimp
Som Tum Pu ($7.50) has salty crab
Som Tum Thai & Pu ($7.50) has peanut, shrimp and salty crab
Som Tum Pu Pla Ra ($7.50) has salty fish and salty crab
Som Tum Talay ($9.50) has prawn, calamari and mussels
Som Tum Gung ($9.50) has peanut and prawn
Som Tum Pu Ma ($9.50) has raw crab
Som Tum BBQ Pork ($9.50) has peanut, shrimp and yes, bbq pork
Som Tum with Salted Eggs ($9.50) has peanut, shrimp and preserved eggs.


Som Tum Pu Pla-Ra $7.50
Green pawpaw, carrot, tomato, green bean, lemon juice,
fish sauce dressing, chilli, garlic, salty fish and salty crab

We choose the Som Tum Pu Pla-Ra, a salty fishy jumble that whilst warming, doesn't quite pack the psychedelic heat of the I-San City version.


Cashew nut seafood stir fry $12.00
with chilli jam and vegetables

We find that most of the dishes aren't quite as salty or spicy as I-San City. Instead there's a slight sweetness to the dishes that perhaps makes them more palatable to a majority of palates.

A few dishes stand out. The deep fried morning glory salad is an intriguing combination of lightly battered water spinach topped with pork mince and fried onions. The vegetables aren't are crunchy as I had anticipated, but the textural effect of golden batter with green vegetables and a saucy pork mince is rather addictive.


Deep fried morning glory salad $9.00
with Thai dressing sauce topped with deep fried onion and minced pork


Tom Yum seafood soup $9.00

The Tom Yum Soup has a beguiling scent of lemongrass and the BBQ pork neck [top] is tender, offering a bit more fire when dunked generously into the accompanying chilli sauce.


Vegetable stir fry with oyster sauce $10.00


Bamboo salad $9.00
with lemon juice, red onion, mint, coriander, spring onion, chilli and herbs

The bamboo salad arrives draped on regulation chunks of raw cabbage leaves. The cooked bamboo strips go well with zingy slivers of red onion and generous sprigs of bright green mint.


Nam Tok Beef $10.000
cooked with dry chilli, lemon juice and Thai herbs

Nam Tok is also garnished with mint leaves. There's also coriander and a light scattering of crushed peanuts. The beef itelf is thinly sliced and meaty in flavour, piquant with the taste of lime juice, fish sauce and a hint of chilli.


Grass jelly $5.50

It's been a busy night so despite the list of dessert options on the blackboard, only the grass jelly is available. These cooling squares of jelly, wavy on all sides from a decorative knife, rest quietly in a bowl of sweetened syrup, a couple of ice cubs chilling everything to a refreshing temperature.

M is trying grass jelly for the first time tonight. It tastes a bit like coffee, he decides.

We roll our way out the door and into the night, a chilly Sydney evening, just perfect for a spicy Thai dinner.


Saap Thai Restaurant
378 Pitt Street, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9267 9604

Open 7 days 11am-10pm
BYO $1.50 per person

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Thai--I-San City
Thai--Satang Thai
Thai--Selina
Thai--Spice I Am
Thai--Thainatown (Mar07)
Thai--Thainatown (Jan07)
Thai--Uni Thai