What's a fella gotta do?

I was pretty excited about finally getting to Tom Phat. This cafe has had mixed reviews amongst the breakfasterati but for some reason I'd never made it down to check it out myself.

They do a kind of cafe/Thai/Viet thang with the usual eggs, corn fritters, muesli and then some kind of pan-Asian stuff - a breakfast that comes with a pork chop and rice, eggs with roti etc. The lunch and dinner menus look more Thai influenced with pad thai, curries and soups.

I deliberated a lot - of course it's my first time there and I want to try everything. I went for the Eggs Fried Viet-style which were listed as fried with soy and chilli. There was definitely a lot of soy and a lot of fried. Some good coriander action and some slices of a big chilli were visible. I enjoyed the crazy oily nature of it all.

The only sad bit was when I asked for some extra chilli and was told they only had sweet chilli. I hate sweet chilli but what made it worse was I could see jars of one of my favourite chillis (Crunchy Grandma brand) on the shelves! For display only, I was told! Oh, what do I have to do to get some chilli action in a place trading on its hip Asian credentials.

Well the coffee was Coffee Supreme which means organic, fair trade and good. I guess you don't get that at Huy Huy.

i am so ready for this jelly

Remember how I love the teahouse known as Ten Ren Tea Time?

Well now I have finally tried their tea jelly I really really loved Ten Ren. On Sunday they outdid themselves. I was feeling pretty wack after all the flying nuns, creepy impersonators and dead sheep of Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely. And I was finding it hard to deal with the complete contempt that the waiter showed for any notion of serving us. But the fake fish was extra good in smaller crispier pieces and
oh
my
god
the
TEA
JELLY!!!!

We had the green tea version and it comes with something like honey drizzled on top in a balloon glass and it is so so so good. The tea flavour is pretty subtle, the texture is nice and solid, definitely agar agar. It was so good that afterwards we went straight to the Great Eastern Grocery to buy agar agar so that tonight I can try and make my own. Yum.

Dainty Sichuan

Well you folks were so unhelpful with finding somewhere for me and penpal Steve to drink. So I took him to try Dainty Sichuan. I think I almost killed him. Damn that food is hot. We were sweating under our eyelids.

But you know how I’m a little obsessive? Well right now all I can think about is when I can get back to Dainty Sichuan and get some more of that Chilli Eggplant. I’ve only eaten there twice. Not enough. Want more.. True it’s kinda painful dealing with the chilli there but I’m in love and I know that means pain. I’m not even sad about dumplings closing down. I’m on a restaurant rebound and I’m just thinking how if I eat there often enough my chilli tolerance will build up and the pain will be less.

If you’re not down with Sichuan (or Szechuan) cuisine then basically what you need to know is chilli. And szechuan pepper, which gives you that great tongue tingling strangeness. Dainty Sichuan is not particularly dainty – I saw plates heaping with food mountains – but damn is it good. There’s a pretty good vegetarian range and the staff are sweet once you finally get their attention. I think really they just avoid taking orders from honkeys cos they know we don’t speak good Mandarin.

So far I have eaten and loved the chilli eggplant, red hot tofu threads (!), garlic cucumber and red hot radish threads. The cucumber is a good refreshing break. A favourite among our party was the green bean jelly noodles. When our waitress read our order back to us she said “one jelly bean”. We loved that. They are thicker than your average mung bean noodle so you really get to appreciate the jelly texture – firm to the bite, yet giving. What else? Well they’re cold and there’s spicy sauce on them. Go the jelly bean. Just don’t make the mistake me and Steve did of thinking that because we ordered noodles we didn’t need rice. You need rice. And cucumber. Now go.

(It's on Corporation Lane, off Little Bourke. Where David & Camy/Winston’s used to be.)

tea with sweet potato!

Yesterday I finally got to go to the Ten Ren Tea House for tea and snacks. I'd been hanging for a visit since I found out they did fake meat.

This stylish little place on Swanston St (146, btw Bourke and Collins) has such an extensive tea list it was making us feel like dumb honkies. What to choose? I resisted Kumquat, though I love the fanta-orange colour. Considered date and chrysanthenum for our health. But went for Sweet Potato Tea Milk tea with Pearl because I couldn't resist. Yes there were pieces of sweet potato in our tea! And in warm tea the sago pearls go delightfully gooey in just the slightest of ways. Good tea.

The food was crazy. And you know I love my crazy food but this was almost crazy in the wrong way. We had vegetarian green tea noodles and vegetarian lemon fish. The noodles were a lovely green colour but covered in a fairly disturbing sauce. It was kind of a vegetarian bolognaise - bits of fake mince and vegies. I think in a skip place I would have rejected it outright but somehow in this context it mostly just amused me. The fish was pretty good - two big chunks of tender fillet with a bit of sauce. This was served with rice and then three little side dishes. Oddly one of the sides was scrambled eggs with tomato.

Yeah, so I'm excited about the potential of tea house. I want to try the tea jellies and I want to try more of the different teas. You get complimentary green tea cookies with a pot of tea. So take me on a tea date?

Meanwhile on the interweb I discovered the lovely Emmy over at Fangrrrl . Lots of music writing. This post about the passing of Sleater-Kinney is amazing. It really made me feel the big hole they're leaving. I almost got teary at work. But then, in the context of today that's not that surprising.

at last, cherry dumplings

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time might remember how Sarah and I tried so many times to go and eat at Cafe Armenia, a restaurant we'd come across when eating Korean in Carnegie. As with all holy grail type quests, we had been rebuffed many times. This was a restaurant that seemed to think nothing of ignoring its own opening hours, or having private functions... anything to stop us getting in and trying all the morsels that tempted us on the menu: beans with walnuts and garlic, pickles, pancakes and of course, cherry dumplings.

But readers, you will be glad to know that your nights of the laminex table can rest now because on Thursday Cafe Armenia was open! I would like to state for the record, that this is the raddest restaurant in town. It was like eating in someone's lounge room. Picture a small shopfront cafe; folky paintings of Armenia (we guess) on the wall, some odd carved knicknacks, plastic tablecloths. The place looks like it's been there since the 60s, even though it's only been opened a year or two. Down one side there's a bench and shelves topped with plates, plates like your grandma might have had, with gold rims half worn off. A plasticy stereo. Up the back some old men and a woman rant at each other from separate tables. In the middle a family with one child eat some seriously meaty looking soup from a big tureen. And over all of this hangs a big black cloud smelling unmistakeably of barbecue. Yep, the perfect place for a hot date. Sarah and I almost wet ourselves with excitement that we were actually in there!

Before we ordered we were served a big plate of flat bread with a little jug of a salsa like red sauce. Very oniony and delicious. We ordered most of the vegetarian options, forgoing potato dumplings to leave room for cherry. I ordered a mineral water - they brought us a Coles brand 1.25l bottle. Food came really fast - a bowl of delicous red bean, walnut and garlic spread. Then a plate of mixed pickles - "hot" he warned us. "It's okay, we like hot." "Eat it", he urged. I nibbled an end and nodded my approval. He seemed satisfied that we were tough enough, and wandered off. Next came two pancakes - much like blintzes, they were rolled around a ricotta and sultana filling and crisply fried. Served with sour cream on top they were awesome. Then there was a big fat cabbage roll, full of rice and yummy things.

I worried we were getting full. But the unobtrusive (absent) service gave us plenty of time to digest. And finally we had enough room to order cherry dumplings. In Poland these would be described as pierogi, or in Russia, as pelmeni - basically they were little half moons of a pasta-like dough wrapped around a great cherry filling. There was bite, there was real cherry lumps, and flavour. Served with sour cream they were about as heavenly an end to this holy quest as we could have hoped for.

So viva the Armenians. I didn't know much about them - somewhere between the Middle East and Eastern Europe? Turns out it's kinda in the middle of Turkey, Iran, Georgia and Azerbijan. Prone to invasion like my poor Poland, but I guess there are culinary benefits to having all those armies passing through. You can tell at Cafe Armenia, that it must be a land where they've taken the best from all around them. Meat eaters would be very happy too - lots of crazy stews and swords of bbq meat. But we were rapt too. I think maybe divey is my favourite restaurant aesthetic and it only made me happier when Sarah went out the back to the toilet and reported that the kitchen was like a family one, complete with piles of boiled potatoes everywhere and an old lady with bright red lipstick and a ciggy hanging out of her mouth.

and a bit more eating

Last night marked 2 years of me and Sarah (a fact I feel slightly embarassed to mention here). It seemed only right that we celebrate by doing what we have done so well - being hot and eating a lot. So we started in the spa and steam room at the St Kilda Sea Baths and moved on to Cicciolina for a damn fine dinner.

Cicciolina doesn't take bookings (too cool?) but they do have a great back bar to wait in, complete with big mafia style booths and snazzy barmen.

It's probably good they didn't have a table for us, or we would have missed out on the arancini, from the bar menu. These little golden crumbed rice balls were the best I've had. Crunchy on the outside, soft and flavourful in the middle and served with a great aioli. The cocktails weren't too rotten either - I had a great one involving raspberry puree, chambord and tequila while Sarah had a "seedy pash" (typical!) full of passionfruit, cranberry, vodka and grand marnier.

So yes, we were a little drunk and quite a bit hungry by the time we got our table. The dinner food was just as great. We had:

* blue cheese and leek tart: very strong cheesy taste, lovely pastry

* fried kefi cheese: made totally excellent by a fennel crumb

* shitake, spinach and truffle oil risotto - oh yes, mushroomy goodness

* salad w goats cheese, croutons, pine nuts - okay, so maybe we didn't need to eat this much cheese. but damn i think this was the first time i've loved croutons in a salad.

* apple tart tatin - absolutely worth killing for. apple in big chunks that were sooo melty.

*fig and grappa ice cream - mmmm. what is grappa anyway? oh.

So yes, we were two very full puppies. But very very happy. I love how Cicciolina is posh in terms of food (and sadly, prices) and the service is very good but it feels casual and not snooty. The decor is just up my alley too; lots of nice wood, good chairs and quite cluttered so it feels more european than your average minimalist yuck fancy place. So if you have a bit of spare cash or a special occasion go - just go early or be prepared to wait. Next time we might try just going to the bar for drinks and arancini - and then seeing if we can make them give us some of that tart!

yum cha cha

Well folks, your intrepid correspondent has done the hard work for you. Yes, on Sunday I trekked out to Box Hill to investigate reports of Vegetarian Yum Cha. Luckily Sammy, Nell, Sarah and John came along to assist with the eating.

The venue - a place known only as Asian Vegetarian Restaurant (606 Station St). The menu is a short but delicious list of dumplings, buns, dim sum and other delicacies. You have to tick which ones you would like and they're delivered to your table.

The groups' favourites were the crystal spinach dumplings (great spinach flavour) and the fake BBQ Pork Buns (an intensely confusing mix of salty and sweet). I also loved the Radish Cake, Taro dumplings (fried lacy taro wrapped around a mix of vegies) and a strange spongy cake known as Steamed Egg Cake.

Oh how we feasted. It's not quite as fine an affair as the Purple Lotus (15 Goulburn St, Haymarket, Sydney), I missed the rice noodle rolls and the crispy tofu rolls. But definitely worth the trip to Box Hill - which is afterall, closer than Sydney.

ps - I have a new web stats tracker and it says that a lot of you folks are visiting this here humble blog. so please, leave a comment and make me as happy as if i was stuffing my face with Sammy's chestnut cake.

i'm back

okay, that's the only image of Korean rice cake I could find quickly. It's a book called 2005 Ewha Photo Diary: Tteok - Korean Rice Cake. How beautiful and crazy does it look?

Sorry folks. If anyone did miss me i kinda abandoned this blog because there are so many better food writers out there and i also think it's weird having a blog without pictures. That said, i'm back. I’ve decided to focus a bit more on hunting down fun places to eat and good foods but there should still be plenty of recipes.

This week’s big discovery is Box Hill. Okay, this eastern suburb of melbourne wasn't sitting around waiting to be discovered but it was a bit off my radar. Sarah decided we had to go on a date out there – a mystery date which had me on the Eastern freeway going “where are we going?” over and over like a kid.

Box Hill is like what I wish chinatown was - lots of cheap asian joints ranging from your traditional shanghai dumpling house to asian vegetarian places. And lots of Korean!

We decided to check out a place on Bank St, opposite the railway line. It was called Korean Deli and was oddly scattered with all sorts of schmonces. Weird stuff like little dolls made out corn husks and ceramic clowns. The menu has great photos of the food – macro close ups of omelettes and stuff. We settled on mung bean pancakes, rice cake in spicy sauce (dukboki) and the stone bowl rice.

The pancakes were little pikelet sized morsels and had good crunchy stuff inside. I had the feeling they weren't fried fresh though, which could have helped. The rice cake was just how I like it - big long tubes of rice dumpling, good and chewy and with a sauce that was, as our waiter said “just a little bit hot”. As usual “with vegetables” meant a bit of sliced onion and carrot, but somehow that didn’t matter. The stone bowl was also great – a big hot bowl of rice (so hot the rice is still crackling when it comes out) covered with little mounds of delicately grated vegies, seaweed and pickles. Topped with a fried egg of course. Our waiter was not impressed with my skills at stirring it so he asked if he could do it. Adding lots of sauce he then proceeded to chop up the egg with a spoon and thoroughly mix everything together. "You're heaps better at that" I said. "Yes, I'm Korean" he replied.

A great meal all in all – the only funny thing being that we didn’t automatically get served all my beloved side dishes. I don't think they were used to having honkeys in, and they seemed to think we wouldn't cope with all their weird food. It was only when I asked for some kimchi that they were brought out. The peppery fungus was particularly awesome as were the little potatoes. I don’t know how they make them so soft but still together but I love ‘em.

The whole meal, with roast corn tea came to $25.30. For dessert we went around the corner to the stupidly named crepelato. Of course I had to go for the crepes with peanut butter and condensed milk. Sarah insisted on chocolate gelato on top. Of course they were fantastic – choc-peanut butter is always such a winner of a combination.

And the best thing about the trip? We found a place that does vegetarian yum cha. So you know where I’m heading on my next free morning…

Taco's galore

One thing I love about the blog world is that there's always people more obsessive than me. It's reassuring and it's inspiring. Over at Becks & Posh (cockney for "nosh") there's a great photo spread of the The Halloween Mission Taco Crawl 2004 which reminds me of everything I love about being a touch crazy about food. People in great outfits running around eating lots of mexican - what's not to like?

Speaking of Mexican, I'm relieved to say that Melbourne finally has another place that actually makes real (soft) tacos and other proper Mexican food. Los Amates is at 34 Johnston St, Fitzroy - just opposite Casa Iberica, my favourite Latin foods store.

Shane, Sammy and I tried Los Amates a couple of weeks ago and were pretty impressed. There was a slight ordering mishap - when we discovered a bit of ham on our vegetarian platter - but the chef himself came to make it all okay. The food itself was great and reassuringly free of mounds of melted cheese. I'll need to go back again to really suss out the different options because the menu is pretty long and we were a bit too drunk to be discerning. I remember some great sopas - little flat tortillas with a topping of salsa verde. And good fresh red salsas too, although disappointingly mild.

The prices are Fitzroy-ish but you can't blame them when all the dodgy Mexican restaurants charge more. And the menu has a really cute note - "if you like it, tell all your friends because we really need to send some cash to our relatives in jail in Columbia." How can you resist that?

disappointments and condensed milk

well there have been some disappointments this week. Of course in the land of electoral stuff everything went to shit.

And in the food universe - Cafe Armenia was closed when we tried to go there on Saturday. We reached the end of a 4 hour op-shop trek well and truly ready for some cherry dumplings but it was not to be. Lucky I scored that great tuxedo and hot-pink cummerbund to cheer me up. So it was off to Grandma Kimchi again and some very satisfying lunching was done there. I think their cucumber kimchi is mindblowingly good - crunch, hotness and cooling perfectly matched.

Wednesday night me and Nell trooped off to Ong's food court (under the Mercure Hotel, Lt Bourke St btw Swanson and Eliz) to see if it could be the place to move our regular weekly dinners. Goldan Fork , which is a branch of the brilliant Bismi provided dinner. I love this place - you can watch them making roti and dosai on the big grill in front of you. Watching the chef turn a ball of dough into a giant crispy thin pancake or a sweet flaky soft roti is great.

We had Chickpea Masala Dosai. These are one of my favourite finds of this year. $5 gets you a footlong crisp dosai pancake (about 200gsm thick) wrapped around a moist chickpea and potato curry. Sambal, coconut chutney and chilli sauce round it out. So damn fine. And finally, who knows why, I had room to try the Roti Bom. The roti here are always awesome - you can get them stuffed with curry, or garlic, or tamarind... But the sweet ones have been disappointing so far, even the milo one was dry and had hardly any milo. Roti Bom is a winner though - wrapped around butter and sugar and drenched in condensed milk. Yes, it could stop fragile hearts.

We decided against moving Wed night dinners to Ong's. Although there's a lot of good food there the atmosphere at night is really lacking and it seems that with everyone ordering their own food from the different outlets and jumping up to get it when it's ready we'll lose what's nice about all sitting down together and sharing a regular meal.

Last night I remembered how good spring is and how wonderful risotto is. While Sammy and Shane drank beer and entertained me I stirred. A plain risotto made with Massel's fake chicken stock and just a few asparagus, a bit of zucchini and broccoli thrown in towards the end. So velvety and perfect. The key I think is to have good stock (even if it's powdered) and throw in lots of butter and parmesan to melt in before serving. Won a few fans in the loungeroom with that.

suburban paradise

Oh boy am I excited. Marion gave me a tip-off that KimChi Grandma had been reviewed in the age. Had a read and I was tempted - good Korean, not too flashy - only catch was it's in Carnegie. Luckily I somehow convinced Sarah to go on a pilgrimage - we had a walk on the beach on the way and suburbia wasn't too bad at all - lots of promising looking op-shops.

KimChi Grandma It was just what I've been craving - packed out (on a Tuesday) with Koreans and skips, speedy service, masses of side dishes... not too wallet busting either ($30 for 2).

As usual the side dishes were the highlight - and there were 7 complimentary ones! Great cucumber kimchi, asparagus with chilli, lovely radish slices, eggplant, some wacky honeyed potatoes, beansprouts with seaweed and regular cabbage kimchi! To wash them down we had a tofu dish very much like Agedashi Tofu, potato noodles (!) and a stew based on kimchi with vegies and a bit of rice cake. Everything was simple but with very good flavour. Mixed up with the sharp and chilli tastes of the sides, rice and that awesome corn tea - such a bloody feast.

Oh how I wish that KimChi Grandma was around the corner from my house. They even have ice cream mochi - the little dumpling cakes filled with red bean ice cream that I used to get in Footscray. So if you happen to be in the south-east cruise down to 125 Koornang Rd, Carnegie for a feast. Apparently there's one in Box Hill too. Oh shit - a Whitepages search just revealed one in the city - 145 Bourke St... maybe I should have done my research better. Don't tell Sarah.

Well, there is a reason we had to trek to Carnegie - the other thing that's got me totally stoked is Cafe Armenia which we stumbled across - across the road from KimChi Grandma. Sarah and I had to admit we didn't even know where Armenia is - I said Middle East, she said Baltic. We were both kinda on the right track - between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Anyway the place is only a year old but looks like a relic from the 50s - handpainted Armenian (I guess) landscapes and old plates with gold rims like my grandma had. And on the menu, besides the endless meaty stews and bbq platters - cherry dumplings, pancakes with potato, walnut and bean spread!!!! So saturday will be an op-shop crawl and Armenian lunch. I am truly overexcited... Will let you know what it's like.

too high from chocolate overload

bindy and me have long talked about doing a chocolate crawl. today was the warm-up.

koko black (royal arcade, city).
this is my new favourite treat place. it's totally snobby which just adds its appeal. as bindy said - they make you feel like you're not worthy of their chocolate. great staff uniforms. any place that calls itself a "belgian chocolate lounge" better have the goods to go with the attitude and they do.

the hand made individual chocolates are awesome - better than a whole block of lindt. the dark choc earl grey praline and the cinnamon and gingerbread are both damn fine. you can watch them being made by their belgian "chief chocolatier" in the front window. bindy was especially taken by the sliding tray that comes out of the display cabinet with all the little chocs on it - kind of like a jewellers. we were there for the hot chocolate though and it didn't disappoint. thick but not gluggy. made with chocolate not cocoa powder. very smooth and very chocolatey. if you go when it's not too busy you can sit in big fancy armchairs upstairs and look down over everyone in the arcade.

max 'the stoopid bald man' brenner
we thought we might do some reconaissance for our full tour so we headed over to QV to check out max brenner's. this place is like the starbucks of chocolate - telling you all about their special blends while being totally fast foody and full of merchandise. the lines were out the door and the service took forever. so we were ill disposed already and the hot chocolates didn't cheer us up. watery and over sweet. nice crockery can't save you max. especially when bindy described the 'hug' cup i was drinking from as a chamberpot. it did have a very vaginal shape. bindy had a suckao - where you mix chocolate buds and milk together over a tea light burner. nice gimmick but it tasted waxy to me. the burner kept blowing out and bindy got very bored - making your own is way overrated.

if max brenner is "creating a new chocolate culture in the world" then i'm worried for the world. oh, that's right - i already am worried for the world. they were playing "feelingssss" for god sake. the best bit was when bindy got chocolate on her nose and looked really cute. she wants to go back to check out their souffle and the danish toffee chocolate that the girl next to us was having (she said it was very rich and chocolatey) but i'm not sure i want to visit max again anytime soon.

other exciting news - dropped into the city library and checked out their cookbook range - heaps of good stuff. copied out flo bjielke petersen's pumpkin scone recipe. we used to make them all the time when i was little until the tea towel with the recipe printed on it went missing. i'll post the recipe once i've had a chance to test it.

honey cake

so i surrender to the urge to start a blog.

the impetus - a small chocolate covered piece of honey cake.

yup, i'm thinking the central theme of this place will be food - my major obsession. i wanted to call it "stuffed" so i could change the theme to taxidermy when i got bored but it seemed too obvious. also, i'm not sure i'll ever get bored of food.

so, the cake. a small cube of moist, gingery honey cake the colour of a dark rye bread. covered in thick dark chocolate. only two bites in it. too damn perfect. made me wonder why in all the year's of going to glick's i've never eaten any sweets. sure, their eggplant dip rates as my favourite spread ever, and their bagels always satisfy... but still... the cake was so good that after eating the piece i initially bought, sarah had to run back in and buy a dozen more.

and while i'm talking about all things jewish (food being my major link to my cultural heritage - as if being jewish is just a privileged position from which to judge bagels) joe's piece Israel's Liberal Apologists has some excellent data on anti-Palestinian media bias taken from a book called Bad News from Israel. Makes me think again how necessary some information about colonial history really is. crucial. scary that people think the Palestinians are "occupiers" but not surprising I suppose. been thinking hard lately about where some of the horrible frustrated energy i feel around palestine/israel can be usefully put. suggestions welcome. lately i'm leaning towards a poster series. tried to re-join 'jews for a just peace' but they don't seem to exist in melbourne anymore.

oh, and thanks to lou for the impetus to finally try the cakes at glick's