Cafe Next, Rozelle

While I love experimenting with new restaurants for lunch and dinner, I am always a little more cautious when it comes to breakfast venues. If I have a disappointing breakfast I feel like I've started my day on the wrong note. As we were picking up an overseas friend who was staying in Leichhardt I decided to go outside my comfort zone and try somewhere new. My first step was to call our Leichhardt dwelling friends who I would trust implicitly for restaurant recommendations. Without pausing for breath they recommended Cafe Next in Rozelle. I looked on Eatability and the reviews and rating seemed to confirm their enthusiasm so the venue was decided.

We ordered coffees immediately, closely followed by the food. I went for the Mediterranean Eggs - scrambled with pesto, tomato and feta. The food all arrived at about the same time but I wish the same could be said for the coffees which arrived in three separate deliveries - you'd think they needed to re-use the cups as we'd finished the first batch before any others arrived! We also ordered a babycino to entertain the monkey (yes - she's so Eastern Suburbs....) but we had to ask three times before we received it.

Mediterranean Eggs $13

My meal was slightly disappointing - the portion was ample but not massive and the eggs were pretty bland considering all the components -the feta was pretty rubbery when I expected a more crumbly cheese. Our overseas friend ordered the buttermilk pancakes with banana which were fantastic and all other food ordered was good.

Buttermilk Pancakes with Banana

While the food was pretty good the service really let this place down for us. The coffee situation was pretty average plus on arrival we asked if they had a high chair for the monkey, the slightly sullen waitress said she would go and see. As a frequent cafe diner, the monkey knows the score when she's in a high chair - she sits quite happily for as long as there is food to be eaten. Without a high chair she is more like a caged animal as she's too small for an adult seat and being on our laps isn't ideal for anyone. As we never heard back we assumed there was no high chair so were disgusted to see one being brought out as we were leaving. As the waitress would have seen the struggling monkey throughout the meal, I can't belive she'd forgotten our request. Despite the decent food I don't think we'll be returning....

Does service make or break cafes/restaurants for you?

Mercredi Passion – Orient & Epices , Anse Vata, New Caledonia

Giant tagine

The first Wednesday of each month, the tourist board here organises a street fair down by the beach in Anse Vata. This month the theme was “Orient & Epices” roughly translated as “The East and Spices”. It was a lovely evening so we went for a walk along the promenade to build up an appetite first.

There were a variety of stalls selling local and “eastern” items including some big bags of vanilla pods at a bargain price l but I don’t think I’d get them through Aussie customs. Now onto the fabulous food stalls. We first hit a French Caribbean themed stall (not sure how that relates to the Orient?) – they were selling a wide range of sweet and savoury pasties. We went for a couple of meat ones (250 francs/approx $3.50 each) – they were tasty with slightly spiced ground meat inside but they would have been better if they were hotter.

We then homed in on the Indian stall which apart from anything else was the most crowded and I’m all for following the crowd in this type of situation. They had a huge range of little appetizer sized items all for only 50 francs each (about 70c). We made a start on the savoury side with chicken and fish mini samosas and little patties made from semolina and mild chillis – we went back for more as soon as we’d finished our trial batch. We held ourselves back a little as there were also plenty of sweet options. My favourite of these were little banana dumplings which were somewhere between banana bread and a doughnut – very banany without being too sweet.
We’d made the schoolboy error of eating too much too soon but managed to squeeze in a bag of Achas de Poisson (fish fritters - I've never seen the word Achas anywhere before?) from another Indian stall (500 francs ($A7) for a dozen although I got the last portion of the batch so I ended up with about 18! Again these were excellent but it would’ve been nice to have some sort of dipping sauce. I had grand plans to head back to the apartment and mix some onion into some yoghurt for a quick dip but needless to say our little bag of Achas didn’t last that long.....

Achas de Poisson

Lastly we couldn’t resist a portion of Moroccan tagine and couscous to takeaway (900 francs ($A12.50). There was plenty for the two of us when heated it for lunch the next day and while we’d thought it was just chicken and vegetable, Mr Jen in particular was glad to find a couple of spicy merguez style sausages in there too.

The monkey was fading fast so we had to head home before the entertainment began but there was a troop of Indian dancers all ready to go as we were leaving so I think the party was only just starting....

New Caledonia and French Supermarkets

We were long overdue a relaxing holiday as Mr Jen and I figured out that we’ve never actually managed to take a holiday together that didn’t end up involving visiting friends/family and a hectic schedule. I wanted to head east so that the time difference would work in our favour in terms of the Monkey’s wake up time. I did my dissertation at uni on the French Pacific so I’d always been interested in visiting New Caledonia. I had heard that it was pretty expensive but when I realised I could get the flights on frequent flyers I couldn't resist.

New Caledonia is a “territorial collective with special status” of France – I won’t go into details but I suppose its kind of like a colony. As confirmed Francophiles, Mr Jen and I were excited about it being a little piece of France without a 24 hour flight! The native people in New Caledonia are Melanesian plus there has been a significant influence from Polynesian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and of course French migrants which have all got to lead to some exciting food options.

I must start by admitting that I have what can only be described as a fetish for foreign supermarkets so the prospect of French supermarkets was potentially one of the things I was most looking forward to on this holiday. Eating out is expensive here (although but no means as expensive as I had been expecting), but this gave me the excuse to head straight to the supermarket on the morning after we arrived to stock up our apartment.

I was pleased to find that most prices were either the same or slightly more that my local supermarket in Sydney. The best thing was to stick to local produce and French imports – if you wanted Australian imports you’d be paying a significant premium but that certainly wasn’t what I was here for. We stocked up on a variety of cheese, saucisson sec (salami type thing), salad veggies and some kitchen staples - including French butter of course which I would eat by the spoonful if I could! Despite all the fabulous French imports, Mr Jen was most excited by the big jars of Dry Roasted Peanuts which he can never get hold of in Australia.....

I don’t know what it is about French supermarkets in particular, the quality of the in store butchers and cheese counter is always great but I’m also a sucker for a bit of exotic packaging – I think I’ll be bringing the table salt back to Sydney purely for that!

We’ll no doubt be making another supermarket trip and I can’t wait – is it wrong to look forward to that more than the beach?

Daring Bakers September Challenge: Vols-Au-Vents

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

I was distinctly underwhelmed when I saw this month's challenge. While I love puff pastry, the idea of making it myself never appealled to me as I felt confident that my time would be better spent on fillings etc than on the actually pastry making process. Also, while I'm always up for some retro cooking, vols-au-vents just seemed a step too far into seventies dinner party territory for my liking.

We were pointed to a fantastic video online which includes the recipe and technique if you're interested and if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million as I have no idea how I would have managed without it: http://video.pbs.org/video/1174110297/search/Pastry
FYI I halved the quantities and still had a huge amount of pastry at the end.

You initially pop the flour and water in the food processer and blitz until you have a ball of pastry - i found I needed considerably more water than the recipe prescribed. Then you refrigerate the pastry for 5 mins before you start rolling with the butter. I won't go into details on how to roll and fold the pastry as its all the video. As I started rolling out I thought the butter was just too hard and looked like it was going to break though so I found just pounding with my rolling pin to soften things up worked well at the start. At this point I was expecting a complete disaster but with two "turns" completed I decided to go for two more before I refrigerated the pastry again. They went ok but I could see the butter breaking up a little. After an hour in the fridge I completed the final two turns with no difficulty and popped it back in the fridge for another few hours and went off to walk the dog around Queens Park with the Monkey and Mr Jen. We stopped off for pizza at Queens Park Pizza - definitely the best in the area although I still miss Love Supreme from Paddington - if only they delivered here...... It was the Monkey's first pizza and I thought she would love it being a cheese and bread fan just like me. Unfortunately she didn't seem to like it - all she ate was the olives from the salad and the pizza - very strange.

After I'd put the Monkey to bed I constructed my vols-au-vents. I decided to only make two and save the rest of the pastry for my favourite puff dish (Nigel Slater's Onion and Cheese Tart: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/533882). A halfway check while they were baking proved tricky as so much butter comes out that they were slipping all over the baking tray so they got a bit squashed and didn't rise any more after that but looked ok as they came out of the oven (should've taken a photo then). While they were cooling they slumped a bit but I was glad it was over and hungry for dessert!

As we're still trying to be vaguely healthy in an attempt to look half decent in our swimmers when we hit the beaches of New Caledonia next week, I decided to fill our vols-au-vents with yoghurt and blueberries. The combination turned out to be a good one as the slight sourness of the yoghurt and the berries countered the rich butteryness (how do you spell that? did I just invent a word?) of the pastry. The pastry was amazing - so different from the frozen stuff and definitely worth the calories!

Overall the process of making the pastry was a bit of an effort but it tasted at least twenty times better than anything I've ever bought and considering you can make a big batch and freeze it, I'm surprised to say that I would make it again. I don't think I'd bother with vols-au-vents though as there are far more delicious uses for puff pastry in my opinion.

Rambutan

Firstly, to clarify, I'm talking about Rambutan the restaurant not the fruit, although the fruit did feature in a few of the dishes. Our house guests generously decided to take Mr Jen and I out for dinner and asked a chef friend of ours (known as "Chef") what his meal of the year so far had been and he immediately picked a fish dish at Rambutan. We were able to book a 7.30pm table for that night which was refreshing as I hate the "two sitting" times that lots of restaurants seem to use these days. 7pm is too early as the Monkey only goes down at that time and while we can get the babysitter to do it, its much easier if we know she's settled before we leave. 9pm is just too late for me as you never end up eating before 9.30pm and I'm starving by that point. Anyway, as we knew nothing about the restaurant we asked what style the food was and they told us it was "thai with a southern feel" which sounded interesting....


We arrived hungry so immediately ordered our starters and picked some pre-dinner cocktails - there is a cocktail bar downstairs which would be nice for a drink if you arrived early. With advice from the friendly waiter, we ordered betel leaves with tea smoked trout, a chicken dish described by our waiter as a thai san choy bow and some salt and pepper squid. I think they took note of our hunger and the food arrived really quickly. The betel leaves were nice but the other dishes were far better - the chicken was fresh and zingy with coriander and chilli and the salt and pepper squid was perfectly cooked and had a real peppery hit. I wasn't so keen on the lemon dipping sauce with the squid so after my first dip I just left it plain but my dining companions stuck with it and said it grew on them.


We relied on our waiter to help with the mains as we couldn't remember which dish Chef had recommended, there were two fish dishes - a hot, sweet and sour whole crispy fish or a salty fish with crispy pork, lemongrass, thai herbs and hot sweet fish sauce. I can never resist a pork addition to a dish and the waiter recommended it so we went for the salty fish (pictured above). We also ordered a king prawn yellow curry, a dry red curry with pork belly and the crispy duck with sweet rambutan, eschallot, garlic and tamarind sauce. The prawn curry arrived first which was right up my street and I had to use all my willpower not to pile my plate high with rice and covered it with the sauce. I held back and just had a small delicious portion. I was glad of my restraint when the other mains arrived. The salty fish was more of a salad with crunchy pork and a great constrast to the other dishes. The pork belly was also excellent and my dining companions all voted it as their favourite immediately. Then the duck arrived. Now to put this in context, I never order duck in restaurants anymore as its so often a disappointment. I also don't like fruit with meat so the rambutan sauce didn't appeal either. I tried it first and can say without a doubt that this was the best duck I have ever tasted. The meat/fat/crispy skin ratio was perfect and the sweet but sour sauce was an ideal accompaniment.

We were too full for dessert but decided that we could fit in two portions of the ice cream/sorbet selection between the four of us. The ice creams and sorbets are all made in the restaurant and each platter consisted of: sesame ice cream with tamarind syrup, passionfruit ice cream with red chilli syrup and a rambutan and kaffir lime sorbet. I love sesame ice cream but I couldn't pick a favourite out of the free as they were all so good .


While the food was amazing, the great service with personality really made the meal. We found out later that night that Chef's favourite dish was actually the hot, sweet and sour whole crispy fish - what a fantastic excuse to go back again! But why didn’t he tell us about this place sooner??


Rambutan
96 Oxford Street
Darlinghurst
NSW 2010
02 9360 7772

02 9360 7772

Cookbook Addiction - Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook Review

Today is a very special day in my house as a parcel arrived containing the new Nigel Slater cookbook - Tender: v1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. I can't comment on this book yet as I am saving it for a quiet moment when I have the house to myself and I can spend some serious alone time with Nigel. To say that I love him would be an understatement. I have all bar one of his cookbooks (I'm missing the 30 Minute Cook - Christmas present alert for Mr Jen!!). As I begin to fill the third bookshelf with cookbooks I thought I should do a quick count and found I was up to 67. I then remembered the 3 sitting by my bed for nighttime reading so I have hit the big 7-0 - I'm so glad that Nigel saw it in with me! Anyway, I thought it might be worth reviewing a few on my blog. As I baked some cookies for my always hungry pregnant friend the other day, I thought I'd start with the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

The Hummingbird Bakery itself is in London and was opened by Tarek Malouf (the book's author) to bring some American style cakes -in particular cupcakes - to the UK. I was drawn to the book as I'm becoming a keen baker and slightly lacking in baking books (Christmas present alert No.2) and have been relying on my "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson for most of my baking needs. The Hummingbird book comes with an endorsement from Gwyneth Paltrow on the front which seemed a little strange as no matter how many trips around Spain she takes for TV, I'll never believe that skinny Gwyneth is a real cake lover. The book contains 16 cupcake recipes plus other recipes for cakes, pies, brownies, muffins and cookies including American classics like Key Lime Pie and Pumpkin Pie. Overall there is a good mix and some interesting ideas that I'm looking forward to trying, especially the Green Tea cupcakes and the peanut butter cookies.

I decided to test some staple recipes first - the vanilla cupcakes, the brownies and an oat and raisin cookies. I found the cupcakes a bit on the sweet side, like many of the recipes in the book, they are very heavy on sugar. I would recommend Nigella's fairy cake recipe instead which gives a far more buttery result which I prefer. http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=13670. I found the same problem with the brownies - far too sweet. Again, Nigella's recipe which is higher in butter and eggs and lower in sugar is much more to my taste.

I have baked the Oat and Raisin Cookies (pictured above) three times now. The first time I followed the recipe to the word and found them far too sweet with not enough oats and far too many raisins. I've adapted the recipe a couple of times (doubling the oats and reducing the raisins and sugar quantities) and when I made them for my pregnant friend I used spelt flour as she can't eat wheat. I also make them into thicker cookies than prescribed in the original recipe as I feel that the egg content makes them kind of "cakey" anyway. Given that everything I've tried so far has been too sweet for me, I don't think this has been my most succcessful purchase but as I always tend to adapt recipes to suit my taste I'm sure I'll end up trying a good few more of the recipes so I'll report back....

Oat and Raisin Spelt Cookies (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf)

Ingredients - makes about 20 cookies

270g Butter at room temperatire

200g Dark Brown Sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

350g Spelt Flour (you can just use plain wheat flour instead)

1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Cinnamon

200g Rolled Oats

150g Raisins

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

1: Mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (I used my electric hand blender - it would take longer by hand)

2: Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla

3: Mix the flour, salt, bicarb, cinnamon and oats in a separate bowl and then add to the butter mixture and stir in the raisins

4: Arrange the cookie dough in equal amounts on baking trays that have been lined with greaseproof paper

5: Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and firm. Turn onto a wire rack to cool

Bringing in some order....

After throwing away a scary amount of food from my fridge on my return from holiday I have decided to become more organised and start planning meals.

I’ve always taken a bit of a slapdash approach to supermarket shopping with only a meal or two in mind and so I usually end up making several repeat trips during the week plus a night or two of “Ready Steady Cook” style invention to try to use up the random food items that caught my eye whilst shopping. No matter how inventive I am, I always end up with veggies that have to be thrown away which I hate.

After a diet consisting mainly of cake and cups of tea for the last fortnight, Mr Jen and I are determined to get healthy and have the added incentive of our nutritionist friend coming to stay which should inspire us to stick to the plan.

In terms of main meals I generally try to rotate on a Meat-Fish-Vegetarian cycle so we end up with at least two of each every week. I also aim for things that I can cook most of when the Monkey is on her lunchtime nap with only last minute preparation before dinner. Plus Mr Jen usually takes his lunch into work so leftover-friendly meals are also good.

A whole week in advance seems quite daunting so I first broke it down to type/cuisine – so 7 main meals can include: Curry, Pasta/Italian, Mexican, Asian, Slow cooked stew, 2 Main course salads (as its going to be warm on the weekend!)

Now to add the actual dishes:
Curry – Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry with Brown Rice and Green Salad
Pasta/Italian – Broccoli Pesto with Pasta
Mexican – Chicken Fajitas with Corn Tortillas
Asian – Green Thai Fish Curry (yes I snuck an extra curry in!) with Brown Basmati
Slow cooked – Morroccan Spiced Lamb Shoulder with Red Lentils
Salad – Grilled Trout with Guacamole and mixed salad
Salad 2 – Beef Thai Salad

Realistically we’re going to end up eating out and/or getting takeaway at some point so the seven meals can work for some weekend lunches too. For the spicier meals, I just take out a monkey-sized portion before I add the chilli element. All I need to do now is to write the shopping list. Will I manage to stick to it.....