Sydney, Australia - the Good, the Fat and the Uhhh... (Part 2)

Following on from Part 1...

The Uhhh...

Cafe Ish, Surry Hills

I'm going to have to choose my words carefully here. Cafe Ish is one of those places that has been hyped up by so so so so so so so so so so so so many food blogs, but at the same time causing a minor foodblog controversy regarding taking photos and such. I don't really want to weigh in about this issue, but I do want to talk about the food!
At the risk of triggering major anger here, I have to say the food was... confounding? Let me explain...

I've seen all the pictures of the wattleseed cappucino and it does look fantastic. Also the breakfasts do look awesome. But we were there for dinner, after finding some internet offer thingy which was for a $30/pp degustation.

Top: Cabbage with wattleseed miso mayo ; Bottom Left: Cucumber salad with chilli, soy, garlic ; Bottom Right: Edamame with Murray river pink salt

Surprise is an understatement for what we thought when the first plate came out - a large pile of raw chopped cabbage with a pot of mayo. Unconventional? I was plenty skeptical until I had snacked my way through most of it without realising. The cabbage was fresh, crunchy and sweet, and this perhaps was my favourite dish of the evening.
The cucumber salad was a little reminiscent of chinese-style pickle, whilst we weren't able to finish the veritable mountain of edamame on offer.

Left: Two types of sake ; Top Right:  Miso soup ; Bottom Right: Potato and feta mochi with Davidson plum sauce

The potato mochi were a great idea, kind of like a cross between regular mochi and tater tots with a cheesy centre except a little classier.

I couldn't really pin down what it was about the miso soup - it was rather light in flavour and had a different taste to usual. Only after coming back home and looking at the menu, it seems to be that the stock is made from mushroom (+ konbu) rather than bonito.

Skewer plate (foreground to background): Crocodile tail panko crumbed with Japanese curry sauce ; Tofu, shittake mushrooms & spring onions with wattleseed teriyaki ; Grass fed “Mirragong” waygu with wasabi and soy

Up next were three different kinds of skewers. The crocodile tail tasted pretty much like chicken (everything tastes like chicken right?), so to me the whole thing was basically like chicken katsu curry on a stick! I have to say the wagyu was pretty tough and there were no clues as to the wagyuness of it all. Didn't really make sense with soy and wasabi either. I have to say I just don't get all the wagyu stuff you find these days - I never see a single bit of marbled fat?

 Left: Okonomiyaki with pumpkin, spinach, wasabi mayo and melted cheese ; Right: Karaage crab and avocado omelette with garlic, chilli, soy, ginger dressing

It was at this stage that the knockout blow was delivered. To our stomach capacity. Having already dealt with surprisingly large portion sizes (the photos show the serving size for two people), the super-rich mayo + cheese + gooeyness of okonomiyaki absolutely sank the ship. I do like melted cheese though.

By this stage, we used up our napkins, finished out drinks, packed our things ready to leave, but alas we were mistaken! One more dish swiftly arrived on our table - the oft-raved about soft shell crab omelette. It was seriously massive, bulging full of super-generous chunks of crab and avocado, garnished with a fantastic almost sambal-like sauce. The photo simply does not show how huge it was. Stomach pains ensued.

Verdict? Let me get this straight. I have plenty of respect for the boldness in combining native Australian ingredients with Japanese influences. Also some of the flavours were great, if not particularly refined. Part of me says "Hey, this is a cafe, so for cafe food it's pretty different and awesome, plus seriously good value". But at the same time, I must say I left slightly dissatisfied with the experience. It just felt as though whilst each dish was interesting on its own, the flow of the degustation was kinda wrong.

Perhaps if I haven't offended too many people, I ought to go again for breakfast and coffee instead?

Shady Pines Saloon, Darlinghurst

Left: Trumer Pils ; Right: Lord Nelson Brewery 'Three Sheets' Pale Ale

Looks are deceiving. From the outside, the unremarkable lane on which this bar is situated appears little more than the back alley of some dodgy rundown student apartments. No signs, no posters, nothing... except a line growing outside an unmarked door.
Inside is what I'm told is currently one of Surry Hills' trendy spots - a Western themed bar which tonight (a regular weeknight) is full to capacity. They do a range of interesting beers, as well as wine and a bunch of cocktails. Pretty nice spot, although I'm not entirely convinced by the decor...

Agave, Surry Hills

Clockwise from Top Left: Frijoles refritos ($13) ; Queso fundido ($15) ; Croquetas de pollo ($16) ; Enpanadas ($14) ; Pulpos al ajillo ($16) ; Flautas de pollo ($14)

When you're out with some mates from uni and you need a place for 20 people at short notice, you'll take whatever you get. Luckily we managed to find Agave, a Mexican restaurant on the popular eat street Crown St.
We ordered a bunch of tapas (do they even do tapas in Mexico?), all of which were very visually appealing, taste satisfying but nothing special, and a little steep given the small size... but remember we're in Surry Hills here.

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So ends my Sydney food rant. Actually there were plenty of other places I went but didn't bring my camera to. Of particular interest was the food level in the flashy new Westfield Town Hall, where they've brought together some pretty happening restaurants and let them set up shop in the food court. Exciting! Although $9 or something along those lines for a cheese and ham croissant, Becasse or not, is highway robbery.

Anywho, next stop Hong Kong!

Sydney, Australia - the Good, the Fat and the Uhhh... (Part 1)

There are plenty of fantastic places to eat and drink in Sydney. And thankfully there are plenty of fantastic posts by Sydney food bloggers to tell us where to find them!

This blog post is not one of them.

Ok that was a little self-deprecating, but what I really meant was that during my recent all-too-short trip back to Sydney, I kinda got lazy and didn't really do my usual foodie thing. That is, I didn't trawl through all the food blogs to hunt down the latest funky cafes and trendy restaurants, nor did I find my way into any of the one, two or three-hatted institutions littered throughout the CBD.

The result? Judge for yourself!

The Good

A Little on the Side, Darlington

Left: Mushroom, feta, kumara and dukka open omlette with sourdough toast ($12.50) ; Right: A proper cappucino ($3)

I would never have known about this cafe if it weren't for my good friend the Wangka who seems to be utterly devoted to this place. And for very good reason. Dukka goes great on omelette... gotta try to do this myself sometime.
And after getting off a plane at 6 am, nothing really beats a good cup of Campos coffee. Hooray for real coffee! Oh plus they have free wi-fi too.

(An aside: There are so many good cafes near Sydney Uni... let's see... Cafe Ella, Tripod, The Shortlist all in Redfern, then there's Badde Manors and Clipper Cafe in Glebe. For coffee, there's Toby's Estate on City Rd, but the best is the original Campos on Missinden Rd in Newtown.)

The Red Door @ Foveaux, Surry Hills

Red: 'Foveaux Cosmo' vodka, gewurtztraminer, hibiscus syrup, lime ($17) ; Orange: 'Old Cuban' rum, lime, sugar, mint, bitters, champagne ($16)

Whilst I'd heard of Foveaux (one of the increasing number of fancy degustation restaurants in Sydney), I didn't know they also operated a cosy little underground bar next door. Really nice place. Thanks YY!

The Fat

Kentucky Fried Chicken, Town Hall

The Double: Two Zinger chicken fillets, two slices of cheese, bacon, SUPERCHARGED sauce ($7.95).

"OH NOES!" I hear you say. I would too, but at midnight on a end-of-week-night, that 'oh noes' becomes a 'hell yeah'.

Caution: May cause salivation, hallucinations, bowel irritations and/or death.

I still do not know what "supercharged" tastes like.

JJ's @ the Mouth of the Hawkesbury, Brooklyn, Central Coast

Family Pack Thingy: 2 x Fish, Calamari, Prawns, Potato Scallops, Chips

Greasy. Heart-stopping. But what would you do if you weren't able to catch a single fish after half a day on the Hawkesbury river?

Central Coast humour.

Landsdowne Hotel, Broadway

Steak and chips with pepper sauce ($7)

Student hangout. (In)Famous for their $5 $6 $7 meal deals. The steak was much better than I expected/remembered. And actually medium rare! I suspect I got lucky with the cut of meat, as everyone seemed to have a rather different looking piece... no complaints from me!

The Uhhh...

Cafe Ish, Surry Hills

Hmm, I sense this next bit might be long. So you'll find out the rest... after this commercial break.
I'll post the rest tomorrow as Part 2! Muhahaha...

SMBC #4: Pseudo Pancakes Part 2 - Kaiserschmarrn

A loooong time ago we promised here that there would be a second post to explain the phenomenon that random people would stop at our kitchen window to try our food creation. Well, it finally digitalised…

The dish in question is called “Kaiserschmarrn”, a simple but delicious Austrian dish made with pancake batter and combined with the subtle sweet-sour taste of home-made cranberry jam. Even though this popular dish is sweet, it is often eaten as a main course for dinner. Its name is a bizarre combination of the German word for emperor, “Kaiser”, and the word “Schmarrn”, which means nonsense or rubbish in the Viennese dialect. While it is confirmed that Schmarrn is a simple poor-mans-dish, first mentioned in a document in the 16^th century, there are many different legends on the origins of its noble sibling, the Kaiserschmarrn.

The Kaiserschmarrn was most probably invented at the court of the Austrian emperor Franz Josef I (1830–1916). According to one legend, this delicious dish was created in 1854 for the emperor's wife, duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie of Bavaria, commonly known as Sissi. Obsessed with maintaining a thin waistline, Sissi directed the royal chef to prepare only light desserts for her, much to the consternation and annoyance of her husband who loved pastry. Upon being presented with the chef’s confection, she found it too rich and refused to eat it. With a smile Franz Josef tried to safe the situation and replied, “Now let me see what "Schmarrn" our chef has cooked up”. It apparently met his approval as he finished his and even his wife's serving. Thereafter, the dessert was called Kaiserschmarrn across the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Lets now come to the preparation of the Kaiserschmarrn. On the internet one can find many complicated procedures involving baking in an oven and subsequent glazing with caramelised sugar, but this recipe is really simple. For four portions you will need:

• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 4 eggs
• 4 tablespoons of sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 120 g of flour
• about ¼ litre of milk
• raisins at pleasure
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• some good cranberry (or plum) jam
• icing sugar

Destroy it! The pancake is torn into bite-sized pieces.

And here is the preparation:

1. Separate the yolks from the egg white. Whisk the yolks with the milk, the salt, the sugar and the packet of vanilla sugar. Add the flour and give it a good mix to obtain a smooth batter. Finally add the raisins. 
2. Whip the egg white till it is nice and firm. Carefully stir it in the prepared batter. Don’t overdo it, too much stirring lets all the small air bubbles escape from the batter.
3. Melt a little butter is a non-sticky pan and pour in some batter. The Kaiserschmarrn has to be quite thick, about double the thickness of a pancake. Bake the Schmarrn on small heat till it is golden brown on the bottom, then turn and bake till the other side is ready. The finished pancake is brown and crisp on the outside and still relatively soft inside.
4. At the end comes the fun part: use your pancake turner to tear the pancake to bite-size pieces, giving the Kaiserschmarrn its characteristic shape. Finally melt a small piece of butter to the pan and toss the pieces of Kaiserschmarrn in it.  
5. Serve the Kaiserschmarrn on a large flat plate, strewn with icing sugar and a few spoon-full of cranberry jam to the side. Traditionally this dish is served with a glass of cold milk. 
   

PS: Don’t worry if the Kaiserschmarrn doesn’t turn out perfect the first time. Some say even good cooks struggle with the preparation of this seemingly simple dish, they don’t know how to make it good and fluffy. Kaiserschmarrn is a dish that is often served in alpine huts, a typical mountain food. And up in the mountains they really know how to make a good Kaiserschmarrn! 

Reality Check: Stir-fried Chicken and Beans with Sichuan Pepper

It's all well and good to spend several hours on a weekend shopping for, preparing, and making photogenic a dish to put up on a blog. But what about the rest of the week?

For those that might have an unnaturally keen interest in this blog, you might have noticed that we haven't had an SMBC for a while. We could probably blame it on The Shok who is currently back home in Malaysia, however, the truth is that we're all actually getting ridiculously busy with work (long weekends in the lab and such).

One still does need to eat though. PC's go-to food seems to be risotto and pasta. Mine is plain rice cooked in a pot with something stir-fried in a pan... because a) rice cookers are banned in college, and b) I only own one pot and one pan!

So to put up some 'normal' food as a reality check for this blog, I've decided to write up what I made a couple of days ago (and will be eating for the next few days).

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I've been craving the taste of ma-la (麻辣) for a while. Ma-la comes from the Sichuan province in China, ma being the tingly tongue-numbing sensation from Sichuan peppercorns,and la being the heat of chilli. Top it off with an excessive amount of chilli oil and you have the basis for many a Sichuan dish.

I recently bought some Sichuan peppercorns at Sainsbury of all places, plus a bottle of Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) chilli sauce at one of the asian shops on Mill Rd. I shall not explain the awesomeness that is Lao Gan Ma, but instead direct you to their website for you to appreciate their amazing Engrish. I particularly like the part about an ″aircraft carrier″ of chili processing industry. Old granny's gonna call some airstrikes if you don't finish every grain of rice in your bowl...

Everybody loves granny sauce. She must be filthy rich, so the question is, why does she look so angry?

Ingredients:
12 deboned chicken thighs 400 g green beans 2 cloves garlic Lao Gan Ma sauce (the black bean type) Dried chilli flakes	2 tbsp light soy sauce 1 tbsp dark soy sauce 1 tsp sesame oil handful of Sichuan peppercorns

First, cut the chicken into bite sized cubes and marinate with the soy, sesame oil, a couple of good dollops of Lao Gan Ma, and some crushed up Sichuan peppercorns.
Whilst marinating, chop the green beans into 3cm-ish lengths. Mince garlic into small pieces.

***Stir-fry tips when on a college hob***
Make sure the pan is really hot (this may take 5 minutes...). Cook the meat in small batches, otherwise all the heat will be sapped away, leading to watery steam-'fry' and tough meat.
I used a bit of canola oil for the first batch, but after that, there was plenty of oil in the marinade (thanks to Lao Gan Ma) so there was no need to add any more.

After frying the chicken and putting it aside, fry the minced garlic, more Lao Gan Ma, Sichuan peppercorns and chilli flakes (I had no fresh chilli) briefly, then add the beans. After a while, put a lid over the top to help cook it through. Add a dash of light soy if not salty enough.

Finally add back the chicken and heat through. All done! Best served with plain rice!

Om nom nom nom.

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I'm heading back to Sydney in a week's time! Going to knock down some serious food cravings, plus fill up on some home cooking =) 
Oh yeah, and stock up on Tim Tams.