Freebie Friday: Win a spice hamper with African red drinking chocolate

Welcome to the first Freebie Friday for 2010!

Are you on a health kick as part of a New Year's resolution? Determined to eat better, cook more or save money by eating in? Then you'll love our first prize for the year which comes from the good folk at Le' Spice.

One lucky reader will win a spice hamper containing three spice mixes: peri peri, Mughlai korma and almond dukka - perfect for that weeknight fast and easy dinner. The spices are hand picked, roasted, grinded, blended and then packed into tins so pretty, you'll be happy to leave them sitting on the kitchen benchtop.

The prize hamper also contains Chai and a tea infuser ball, but what I'm most excited about is the tin of African Red Drinking Chocolate. This unusual product is made predominantly from African Forastero cocoa beans and a small amount of Trinitario cocoa beans.

"It makes a velvety cocoa drink with a great texture on the tongue," says Khurram from Le' Spice. "There are hints of a fruity fragrance - it is nothing like what you get from the store. You can really taste the cocoa because it has undergone only very minimal processing to preserve its high antioxidant content."



THE PRIZE:
One prize hamper containing:

• Le' Spice Peri Peri Spice Mix
• Le' Spice Mughlai Korma Spice Mix
• Le' Spice Almond Dukkah Spice Mix
• Le' Spice African Red Drinking Chocolate
• Le' Spice Tea - Chai
• Le' Spice Tea Infuser Ball

Total prize value: $53.55

Please note: This competition is open to Australian residents only.


HOW TO ENTER:
All you have to do is fulfil the requirements below:

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell us what is your favourite or secret spice trick? These are some of mine: cinnamon and honey in yoghurt, cinnamon on banana toast, sumac on tomato salad, and my personal favourite - lemon pepper on cheese toast under the grill. Share yours in a comment...
   
   
2. And then send an email to grabyourforkfreebiefriday@yahoo.com.au with the subject heading "Spice" and include your full name and a copy of your published comment from this post.
   
   

The winning entry will be decided on honesty or entertainment value. Don't be shy! You gotta be in it to win it! Readers may submit one entry per day as long as each answer is different.

The Spice competition closes on Monday 01 March 2010 at 5.30pm AEST. The winner will be announced on Grab Your Fork on Wednesday 03 March 2010.

EDIT: Congratulations to the winner of the Le' Spice hamper announced here.


>> Don't forget to also enter the competition to win a case of Jed Sauvignon Blanc with $264. Entries close on Friday 05 March 2010 at 5.30pm. Enter now

New Best Australian Food Blog Award and Golden Century, Haymarket

Food bloggers. Always ready to dig in.

It's hard to believe that Grab Your Fork will be approaching its sixth anniversary in April 2010. The growth of food blogs since 2004 has been phenomenal - in 2009 alone, 56 new Sydney-based food blogs published their first post. I remember when I first started, I would say that I had a 'food website' because, back then, few people knew what a 'food blog' was, or why I felt compelled to photograph and publish every meal.

An unbridled commitment to share, to comment and to espouse the joys of food are the main reasons why many of us blog. Media interest, social media influence and the power of Google rankings have also been factors in the gradual streamlining of food blogs into the public consciousness.

The most exciting step to date? The creation of a new category, Best Australian Food Blog, for the biennial Australian Food Media Awards. The awards, run by the Australian Association of Food Professionals (formerly Food Media Club Australia), are "the industry's highest accolades, honouring outstanding communicators whose work can be credited for increasing the Australian public’s awareness and love of fine food."

As AAFP president, Stewart White, said at the category launch last week, most food bloggers (myself included) have full-time jobs that are unrelated to media or food. Blogs are genuine works of passion pursued after work hours, written by people who have no deadlines, who have no editorial policy, who have free will to write when and if they please. And yet we continue to do so with bewildering intensity, because we are driven by a sense of community, of an eagerness to share, and an unabated love and appreciation of food.

This latest development, the critical recognition of food blogs, is inspiring to say the least. It would not have been possible without Stewart's open support of food blogs in pushing for this new category, as well as Australian Pork for coming on board as the category sponsor. More details on the self-nomination process for this award - open to food blogs around Australia - will be available soon.

The category award launch was held at La Mint in Darlinghurst last Thursday, and attended by some 48 food bloggers. Despite the canapes, there was a post-event meal of course. We car-pooled our way back to the city, nine of us clustered around a huge table at Golden Century for a late 9.00pm dinner.


Mud crab with ginger and shallots $102
with e-fu noodles $8

We start with mud crab, the unlucky victim plucked fresh from the tank and presented to us live for inspection before its final dispatch to the kitchen. The crab is sweet and juicy, cooked in my favourite sauce of ginger and shallots, both of which seem to enhance the natural sweetness o the crab.



It's a messy dish but I must confess that it's the noodles I love most, slippery soft e-fu noodles that are coated with a thick sauce flavoured by the juice from the crab.


Fried rice Fujuan style $23.00

Fujiuan fried rice looks like a dish of saucy seafood at first, although a dig with the spoon reveals a bed of fried rice beneath.



This is a comfort food dish, a combination of tender fish fillets, carrots, straw mushrooms and shallots swaddled in a thick gelatinous gravy over golden omelette studded fried rice.


Crispy skin chicken with ginger and shallot $17.80

Crispy skin chicken is always a winner, the skin brittle and burnished to a dark toffee brown. The chicken is tender, and a light sauce of soy and a generous tumble of ginger and shallots provide a refreshing finish.


Chinese broccoli with garlic $15.80

Our vegetable component is provided by Chinese broccoli, the vibrant green stalks are crunchy, the leaves soft and tender. The gai lan Chinese brocoli is served with a healthy amount of garlic, although it's not overpowering nor 'hot', but more of a subdued sweetness.


Salt and pepper squid $20.00

Is it possible to resist an order of salt and pepper squid? The squid, a tangle of tentacles and bodies, comes with only the lightest coat of batter, giving less of a crunch but allowing the tenderness of the squid to come through.



Complimentary sweet water chestnut soup

We'd missed out on the complimentary soup at the start of our meal (too late an arrival we are told) but receive a complimentary dessert soup instead. The sweet water chestnut soup looks like a chicken and sweetcorn soup with its floating tendrils of egg, but it tastes nothing like it. The consistency, one person says, is somewhat like Clag glue. A heavy hand with cornflour makes this soup almost gelatinous in texture, flavourless but for a generosity of sugar. I find this soup strangely addictive though, and have a second bowl, primarily for the occasional encounters with the crunchy slivers of water chestnut.


Complimentary walnut biscuits
with fried dough balls and fresh watermelon

A plate of Chinese pastries is much more of a hit with the table - fried dough balls coated with sesame seeds and crisp lard-based biscuits topped with walnuts. Thin slices of sweet watermelon are a welcome palate cleanser.


Watermelon


Sweet water chestnut soup

We spend much of the evening laughing and chatting, patiently pausing for photos and then resuming our eating and banter once again. This is what food blogs are all about - good food and great friends. Long may they prosper.


PS. Speaking of food blogs, Grab Your Fork has been included in the Top 100 Culinary Blogs list by the US-based online Guide to Culinary Schools. The excerpt on Grab Your Fork can be found at #23 under the sub-cateogry Ethnic/International Food Blogs. It's actually quite an interesting and comprehensive international listing - check it out and you might find a few more food blogs to add to your daily reads.




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Golden Century Seafood Restaurant
393 Sussex St, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9212 3901

Opening hours:
Open 7 days 12pm-4am


Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Golden Century (Oct 07), (Nov 06), (Oct 05) and (Jul 04)

Haymarket Hot Pot Restaurant, Sydney

"Normal? Are you sure you want normal?"

Our waitress looks at us with scepticism as she takes our order. "It's very hot. Do you like chilli?"

We're ordering our soup base at the newly opened Haymarket Hot Pot Restaurant. The available options seem arbitary - normal or extra hot (presumably for the locals), or mild and ultra mild (presumably for the faint of heart). In other words, you're either a chilli fanatic or you're a spectacular wimp.

"Yes, yes, we'll have normal," we say, almost pleading for us to believe us.

She nods reluctantly, as though still unconvinced about our chilli tolerance.


Hot plate

By a happy coincedence, we've timed our visit to Haymarket Hot Pot with a sudden cold snap in Sydney. The restaurant, on the former Saigon Pho site, has been furnished with heavy-set chairs and tables set with inbuilt hotplates. Unfortunately the tables seem to be designed for patrons who are either short or thin - I'm neither, which means I have to sit back from the table lest I knee the metal support frame.

The menu is a DIY tick-list. First you choose your hot pot soup base: spice or chicken or half-and-half. Then you choose what you wish to cook in it. Choices are listed under meat, meatball, seafood, vegetables, tofu and noodles. Some of the more intriguing options include pork brains, duck tongue and blood jelly, but there are plenty of less adventurous dishes like wontons, prawns and slices of beef and lamb.


Half spice and half chicken soup $15

Our half-and-half soup arrives in a pot with a yin-and-yang shaped divider in the middle. The chicken soup comes with a mass of carrots, bean sprouts, shallots, Chinese red dates and goji berries. Our attention is more focussed on the spice soup which is an ominous crimson red, marked by floating dried chillies. The soups are placed on the burner and brought to a steady boil. The spice soup froths and bubbles until it is opaque.


Trolley delivery

By the time the soup has boiled, a metal trolley is noisily wheeled to our table. On it are our chosen dishes, each plated separately so we can cook them in whatever order we prefer.


Beef slices $8

We start immediately with the beef slices, scrolls of thinly sliced beef that are ribboned with layers of fat.


Cooked beef

We dip the beef into the chilli broth. The soup is spicy but clings only briefly to the swirls of meat we place inside. The heat builds slowly on the tongue until our lips tingle. There are a few sips of tea here and there, but we battle on. The heat can be tempered by dipping the spicy meat into optional bowls of sauce. We ordered the sesame seed paste (nutty and rich), sesame oil with garlic, shacha Taiwanese sauce and satay (the chilli soy bean version, not the peanut sauce) which cost $2 per bowl.


Scallops $8

It's up to you which side you want to cook your food in. We cook the subtler ingredients on the chicken soup side, but the joy of DIY cooking is you can do as you please.


Fish tofu $6 and beef slices $8

Frozen scallops don't have a whole lot of flavour, but the fish tofu is sweet and the lamb is decadently fatty.


Fish egg ball $8 and lamb slices $8


Inside the fish egg balls

My favourite dish is probably the fish egg balls, fish paste filled with a gooey paste of sweet and salty fish eggs - always a highlight.


Lamb slices $8


White radish $3, luncheon meat $7, fish tofu $6 and potato $2

Luncheon meat is pretty much like Spam, soft and fatty with the marks from the tin can from which they came, still clearly visible. I quite enjoy the juicy sweetness of the radish which act to cleanse the palate. The potato absorbs the flavours of the soup, and I'm told if you leave it in long enough, it will become super soft and creamy.


Luncheon meat $7


Quail eggs $5

Quail eggs seem innocuous, but once heated in the soup, the yolks almost liquify, contrasting against the firmness of the slippery egg whites.


Kelp $3

It's my first time eating kelp in hotpot and I find them quite addictive. The kelp seaweed has been cut into thick and long slices - they almost resemble belts. Some pieces are thin, others are thick. I love their slippery texture, especially appreciating their blistered and bubbled surface, presumably generated when the seaweed is deep-fried. Later when we drink the chicken soup, we find there's quite a pronounced seaweed flavour which is quite pleasant.


Tong ho choy $4

Tong ho is my other hot-pot staple. These pretty leaves of garland chrysanthemum have a slightly medicinal and bitter flavour. They cook quickly, wilting in the soup to a vibrant green, and seem to help offset the richness of the meal.


Fried red bean crepe $6

We share the fried red bean crepe for dessert. The pastry is hot and crunchy, filled with an oozing paste of sweetened red bean. It's quite rich and one serve is more than enough for the three of us.

We ended up paying $30 per head and we managed to eat "normal" without tongue paralysis. We'd like to think the chilli scale needs an edit or two because "normal" surely qualifies as "legendary". Perhaps "extra hot" should be renamed "Are you out of your mind".




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Haymarket Hot Pot Restaurant
1/93-105 Quay Street, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 0105

Opening hours:
Open 7 days
Monday to Thursday 12pm-11pm
Friday to Sunday 12pm-12am

Flying Fajita Sistas, Glebe

"Real Mexican..." says Suze, as we peruse the menu outside Flying Fajita Sistas. "Will there be cheese?"


Table setting

We are a group of eight tonight, waiting with the rest of Sydney, it seems, for the second sitting of 8.30pm on a Tuesday night. The reason for the strict turnover is simple - Tuesday offers $3 tacos and $3 tequila shots. No wonder everyone looks so happy to wait.


Wine glasses and water tumblers

We troop upstairs to a room that is steadily filling with diners, a Mexican flag proudly pinned to one wall, trinkets, posters and statues dotting the others. Staff dart about in brightly coloured and traditional-looking embroidered smocks. The wooden floor, wooden tables and wooden chairs do little to absorb the increasing chatter of the assembled crowd.


Strawberry and white wine sangria $19.50 (1 litre)
Brandy-soaked strawberries, white wine,
pineapple juice and dry ginger ale

Despite the lure of $3 tequila shots, we succumb to a jug of strawberry and white wine sangria instead, a lighter version than the usual red wine combination. It's sweet and fruity, although not particularly boozy, and the pineapple juice and dry ginger ale adds a tropical flavour.


Sangria time!


Taco Tuesday platter menu

Groups of four are more do well with the Taco Tuesday platter, offering four tacos for $12 with free sides of guacamole, salsa and sour cream.


Trio of pepian, queso fundido and frijoles $14.90
with blue, white and yellow corn totopas

We start with dips and chips. Pepian is a Mexican version of pesto, a nutty green paste made from pumpkins and fresh green chile. Frijoles is a dense bean dip made from pulverised pinto beans and spices. The crowd favourite is the queso fundido, a molten mass of oozing cheese on a roasted tomato and ancho chile salsa that is sweet and smoky.


Dipping into the queso fundido

There's plenty of crunch action from the accompanying totopas, thick tortilla chips that are bubbled and blistered on the surface. Suze just smiles and helps herself to more chips and melted cheese.


Tacos with sweet chipotle chicken

The tacos arrive with a different filling on each plate. Sweet chipotle chicken is quite chunky in texture, although some taste a little dry in parts. Some saucing action from our complementary sides of guacamole, sour cream and salsa works wonders, although the salsa is so runny the entire ramekin needs to be picked up and poured over the intended taco.


Salsa, guacamole and sour cream


Frijoles tacos

Frijoles tacos are probably my least favourite of the evening, the bean puree having a mealy texture. I find it's helped by including the garnish of salad, a fresh combination of mixed lettuce and matchstick-sized batons of crunchy radish.


Ropa vieja tacos

The beef tacos hold shreds of flank steak, a Cuban dish known as ropa vieja. The beef is tender and well-flavoured.


Achiote pulled pork tacos

Silken strands of Achiote pulled pork tacos are melt-in-the-mouth good. The fine shreds of soft pork are probably the best match for the soft flour tacos, with no excessive chewing required.


Totopas

We scoop up the rest of our dips with an extra serve of totopas, the curls proving perfect receptacles, and the thickness of the tortilla chips meaning they resist sogginess.


The Wall of Pain

Mexican food doesn't have to involve chilli but those in search of an endorphin range are well catered for. The Wall of Pain is a series of three spice racks filled with a mind-boggling collection of chilli sauces. The top shelf comes with a warning to "please seek advice from staff" before selecting.


Rectum Ripper, Devil's B!tch and Salsa Chipotle

I bring three bottles of hot sauce back upstairs - the Devil is the thinnest in consistency but hottest of the three. Salsa chipotle is smoky with a surpising afterkick. The Rectum Ripper didn't live up to its name, although thankfully so.


Mexican movie poster: El Fanfarron (1943)


Mexican statue



With a large group of sweet-toothed food bloggers in tow, we take great delight in telling our waitress "we'll have one of everything on the dessert menu".


Chocolate mousse cake $12.90
Chocolate genoise brushed with Kahlua, topped with a rich
Mexican mousse, finished with espresso anglaise and creme

Chocolate mousse cake is light and fluffy, a marshmallow-like cloud on a sponge base doused with Kahlua. It's the kind of dessert I savour slowly with a spoon, and incredibly addictive.


Platano frito $11.90
Fried banana finished with fresh coconut creme,
toasted coconut and white chocolate

Not so addictive is the banana fritter. The plantain banana is a curious beast, starchy and mealy and almost bland to our unaccustomed palates. The batter is thin and crunchy although a little oily in aftertaste. Even after eight of us have sampled it, there's still two-thirds left behind.


Banana and chocolate chimichanga $13.90
A flour tortilla wrapped around banana and chocolate then lightly fried.
Served with cinnamon anglaise, caramel sauce and a coconut creme

Am I the only person who sees the word chimichanga and pictures it dancing across the page? The chimichanga is a tightly folded package of slightly chewy flour tortilla. Sweet ripe banana slices are inside along with a puddle of melted chocolate.


Mexican bread pudding $13.90
Brioche, spiced pecans and chunks of Mexican chocolate
baked in a rich custard, finished with a cinnamon anglaise

Mexican bread pudding is quite firm in texture, almost like a dense cake. The spiced pecans don't offer the aromatics I'd expected, and whilst the chocolate offers some richness, I'm left wishing the bread pudding was eggier, with a softer consistency.


Orange, coffee and caramel brulee $12.90
Rich orange and coffee custard with caramelised sugar

Orange, coffee and caramel brulee is a combination that works surprisingly well. The fine granules of coffee suspended in the custard offset the sweetness of the dessert, and the flavour of orange and coffee somehow pair off with understated elegance. It's my favourite dessert of the evening.

We end up paying $30 a head for an evening of sangria, tacos and dessert. Do you need more convincing about the joy of Taco Tuesdays? Nah, Sistas are doing it for themselves.




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Flying Fajita Sistas
65 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9552 6522

Opening hours:
Open 7 days 6pm - late

Bookings for Taco Tuesdays strongly recommended.

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Mexican - Guzman y Gomez, Newtown
Cooking class - Modern Mexican